22

The time came for the village’s communal Charak Puja. Baidyanath Majumdar of the village came from house to house collecting subscriptions, a ledger in his hand. Harihar said, ‘No, Khuro, it’s unfair to put me down for one rupee this year—do I have the means to give a rupee?’ Baidyanath replied, ‘No, no, you must. This year it’s Nilmoni Hazra’s troupe. No one in these parts has ever laid eyes on a troupe like this. This year, at the Palpara market, Mahesh Sekra’s boys’ kirtan group will be singing, and we simply must compete with them!’

Baidyanath made it sound as if the very life and death of Nischindipur’s inhabitants hung upon the success of this competition.

Apu came into the house dragging a thin bamboo switch. ‘A ripe switch, Baba, it’ll make a really good pen for you. It was lying in the bamboo grove by the pond, so I picked it up.’ Then, smiling, he held it up high to show him and said, ‘Won’t it make a good pen, Baba? It’s nice and ripe, isn’t it?’

It wasn’t long now until the Charak festival. The Gajan sannyasis had begun going from house to house, dancing. Durga and Apu, forgoing food and sleep, roamed from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, trailing behind the troupe of sannyasis. Other households gave old clothes, rice and paise, some even gave water pots—but since they could give nothing more than a handful of rice, the troupe never came to their house. After ten or twelve days of the sannyasis’ dancing, the Nil Puja arrived on the eve of Charak.

In the afternoon on the day of Nil Puja, the sannyasis perform the ‘thorn-breaking’ on a small date palm tree—but this year, Durga came with the news that the thorn-breaking would not be held at the usual tree; the sannyasis had already decided on another tree by the river. Durga and Apu banded together with the other neighbourhood children and flocked to the spot. After the thorn-breaking dance was over, everyone went for a stroll over to the Charak-tala. The Nil Puja mandap was enclosed with date palm fronds—the field at the Charak-tala had been cleared of its sheora thickets and other jungle growth. There they met the girls from Bhuban Mukhopadhyay’s house—Rani, Puti, and Tunu. They were under strict discipline at home and didn’t have permission to roam about hither and thither like Durga—they had come as far as the Charak-tala only after much pleading and persuasion.

Tunu said, ‘Tonight the sannyasis are going to hold a vigil at the cremation ground—’

Rani said, ‘Oh, as if I don’t know that! Someone will play the corpse. They’ll tie him up and take him to the chhatim tree at the cremation ground. Then they’ll bring him back to life, and then they’ll come back with a dead man’s skull—chanting rhymes as they come—they have mantras for all of it—’

Durga said, ‘I know their rhyme, want to hear it?’

From heaven a chariot came Descending to the fields below Twenty-four crore arrows rain With Lord Shiva they go— A corpse from the Satya Yug, and earth from the Aol Yug Chant Shiva, Shiva, O brother, and beat upon the dhak—

Then she laughed and said, ‘Hasn’t Nilu-da made some wonderful dolls for the Goshtabihar this year? … I just saw them at Dashu the potter’s house—haven’t you seen them, Ranu?’

Puti said, ‘A real dead man’s skull, Ranu-di?’

‘What else? If you come late at night, you’ll be able to see. Come on, you all, let’s go home—tonight is not a good night—Come on, Apu, come on, Dugga-di.’

‘Why isn’t it a good night, Ranu-di? What’s going to happen tonight?…’

Rani said, ‘You’re not supposed to talk about those things—just come home.’ Apu didn’t go, but Durga went off with their group. Then suddenly the sky clouded over, the evening’s darkness deepening with the clouds. Apu was walking home. There wasn’t a soul on the path, and after hearing stories of the cremation ground and dead men’s skulls all evening, he was feeling a little frightened. When he came near the bamboo grove at the bend in the road, he thought he could smell a pungent odour. He began to walk faster. A little farther on, he met Nera’s grandmother. Nera’s grandmother was on her way to the Charak-tala to make an offering for the Nil Puja, carrying the naivedya in her hands. Apu didn’t recognize her at first in the dark, but then he did and asked, ‘What’s that smell, Thakurma?’

The old woman said, ‘They are all out and about today, aren’t they?… It’s their smell, what else.’

Apu asked, ‘Who, Thakurma?’

‘Who else—Shiva’s attendants. One mustn’t speak their names in the evening. Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram—’ A shiver ran down Apu’s spine. The dark evening all around, the black clouds in the sky, the bamboo grove, the smell of the cremation ground, Shiva’s ghostly retinue of bhuts and prets—the little boy’s mind filled with wonder, fear, mystery, and the feeling of the unknown. In a terrified voice, he said, ‘How will I get home, Thakuma!…’

The old woman scolded him. ‘Then why stay out so late, my dear boy, on a day like today?… Come with me. Let me go make my Nil Puja offering, and then I’ll see you part of the way home. The nerve of some people!’

On the communal grounds, the grass had been scraped away and a huge bamboo framework erected, over which an awning had been stretched. The jatra troupe was expected any moment—but they still hadn’t arrived. When evening passed, people said they would come on the morning train; when morning passed, they pinned their hopes on the afternoon. Apu was on the verge of giving up bathing and eating.… At night, he couldn’t sleep, such was the powerful, irrepressible flood of curiosity and joy, like the torrent of a bursting dam! He tossed and turned in his bed. The jatra is coming! The jatra is coming! The jatra is coming!

Her mother had forbidden such a grown-up girl from leaving the neighbourhood, so Durga would sneak out for a look and then come back to tell Rajlakshmi all about the arrangements for the stage and the novelty of the red and blue paper hangings on the bamboo poles. It seemed to Apu that for something as unprecedented and unreal as a jatra by Nilmoni Hazra’s troupe to take place today or tomorrow in that trivial, utterly familiar, ordinary spot where he played with cowrie shells twice a day—was such a thing even possible? He could scarcely believe it.

Suddenly, word went around that the troupe would be arriving that very afternoon. A rush of blood seemed to dance and splash its way up from his chest straight to his head.…

After standing with all the other boys at the corner of the potters’ lane since noon, he finally caught sight of a bullock cart in the distance. A cart loaded with costume boxes—one, two, three, four, five of them! Pantu counted them off on his fingers one by one and said joyfully, ‘Apu-da, let’s follow them to where they’re staying and have a look, want to go?’ Behind the costume carts walked the men of the troupe, all with their hair neatly parted, many carrying their shoes in their hands. Pantu pointed to a man with a beard and said, ‘He’s probably the one who plays the king, right, Apu-da?’

The very colour of the sky and the air seemed to change—Apu returned home in a state of high excitement to find his father sitting on the veranda, writing something and humming a song to himself. He thought that his father must have also heard about the jatra’s arrival, hence his good cheer. Waving his hands in excitement, he said, ‘Five whole carts of costumes, Baba! What a troupe!’

Harihar was writing out amulets on paper to distribute among his disciples; he looked up and asked in a tone of surprise, ‘What costumes, khoka?’ Apu was astonished. His father didn’t know about this momentous event! He considered his father an object of utter pity.

In the morning, Apu had to sit down to his studies. After a while, on the verge of tears, he said, ‘I want to go to the communal grounds, Baba. Everyone else is going, and I’m supposed to just sit here and study? What if the jatra starts right now?’

His father said, ‘Study, study, just sit and study for now. When the jatra starts, you’ll hear the sound of the dhols, won’t you? You can go then.’ A son of his middle age, and he himself was always away from home these days; having come back for a short while, he did not want to let the boy out of his sight. Apu’s eyes began to fill with tears of hurt and anger. In a choked voice, he resumed his Subhankari tables: ‘For so much monthly pay, for so many days, what is the daily rate?’

But the jatra did not begin in the morning; word came that it would start in the afternoon. In the afternoon, Apu went to his mother and, on the verge of tears, related from beginning to end the story of his father’s tyranny. Sarbajaya came and said, ‘Oh, just let the boy go, won’t you? It’s a special day, once a year. You’re not even home for months on end, and as if one day’s study is going to turn him into a Tarkalankar Thakur!’

Apu was granted his freedom. He spent the entire afternoon at the communal grounds. He came home in the late afternoon for a snack before the jatra began. His father was sitting on the edge of the veranda, writing his amulets. On other days, he would have to be sitting beside his father at this hour, reading from a book. Afraid the boy might get upset, his father would devise all sorts of amusing games to keep him happy. He would say, ‘Khoka, quickly write this on your slate: “Ooh, a ghost, good heavens!”’ Hearing such strange words, Apu would die laughing, and would quickly write it down and show his father. He’d say, ‘Baba, after this one, I’m going.’ And his father would say, ‘You can go in a bit, you can go in a bit, khoka—alright, quickly write this down,’ and he would say another absurd thing. Apu would burst out laughing again.

But today, Apu felt as if some tremendous force from outside had come and pulled him away from his father. His father was sitting alone writing in the quiet, shade-filled afternoon, in their house encircled by bamboo groves, but he no longer had the power to make Apu stay. If he were to say now—‘Khoka, come sit and study’—it would be as if a terrible clamour of protest would rise up from all around. As if everyone would cry—‘No, no, that won’t do! That won’t do! The jatra is about to begin!’… Some powerful force of jubilation seemed to have rendered his father utterly helpless, harmless, and weak. He no longer had it in him even to utter the word ‘study’. Apu’s heart ached for his father.

Durga said, ‘Apu, why don’t you ask Ma if I can come and watch too?’ Apu said, ‘Ma, why can’t Didi come with me? They’ve put up a bamboo screen, she can sit there.’ His mother said, ‘Let her be for now. I’ll go with the women from their house when they go, she can come with me then.’

As he was leaving for the communal grounds, Durga called to him from behind, ‘Listen, Apu!’ Then she came closer and, with a smile playing on her lips, said, ‘Hold out your hand!’ As soon as Apu held out his hand, Durga placed two paise in his palm, then took his hand in both of hers, closed it into a fist, and said, ‘Buy yourself some murki with these two paise, or if they’re selling lichis, buy some of those.’ About a week before, Apu had come and secretly asked his sister, ‘Do you have any paise in your doll box? Can you give me one?’ Durga had asked, ‘What will you do with a paisa?’ Apu had looked at his sister’s face, given a little smile and said, ‘I want to eat lichis—’ and finishing his sentence, he had smiled again, this time shyly. In a tone of explanation, he added, ‘They’ve put up a platform in the Baishnabs’ orchard, Didi, and they’ve picked so many lichis, two whole baskets full… six for a paisa, and they’re this big, as red as sindur. Satu bought some, Sadhan bought some—’ Then he paused and asked, ‘Do you have any, Didi?’ There had been nothing in Durga’s doll box that day; she hadn’t been able to give him anything. Seeing Apu walk away with a crestfallen face had pained her deeply that day, so the previous afternoon she had asked their father for two paise on the pretext of going to see the Charak festival. Her brother was like a little golden doll to her; when she couldn’t grant his simple requests, Durga’s heart would feel heavy.

After Apu had gone, his mother came back from the ghat and said, ‘Dugga, do something for me, will you? Go and find a few leaves of white gandhabhedali from Ranu’s family’s garden—Apu’s not feeling well, I’ll make him a light broth with it!’

At her mother’s words, she ran off to the garden of Ranu’s family. There, searching for gandhabhedali leaves amid a dense jungle of man-high weeds, she swayed her head in contentment and recited a rhyme she had learned in childhood from her Pishima—

In the yellow forest, on and on— My little nose-stud is lost and gone, And all the joy in my heart is done.