Lajja (24 page)

Suronjon stayed in his room all day—lying in bed. He did not feel like going out anywhere. He did not even feel like talking to pass the time of day. Should he go and look under the bridge for Maya’s rotting, bloated body? No, he was not going anywhere today.

In the late afternoon, Suronjon paced up and down the courtyard. He walked alone, pensively. Then he went to his room and brought all his books out to the courtyard. Kironmoyee thought that he was putting his books out in the sun because they were being attacked by pests.
Das Kapital
, the works of Lenin,
Essays
by Marx and Engels, Morgan, Gorki, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Jean Paul Sartre, Pavlov, Rabindranath, Manik Bandopadhyay, Nehru,
Azad . . . he took all the thick volumes on sociology, economics, politics and history and tore out their pages and scattered them all over, then gathered them together and dropped a lit matchstick on them. The papers burst into flames exactly in the same way that militant Muslim fundamentalists get inflamed every time they see a Hindu. The courtyard was filled with black smoke. Kironmoyee came running because she smelt something burning.

‘Want to sit by the fire? Come,’ said Suronjon, smiling.

‘Have you gone mad?’ said Kironmoyee, faintly.

‘Yes, Ma. I was a good man for a long time. Now I am going mad. One can’t find peace unless one goes mad.’

Kironmoyee stood by the door and watched the conflagration started by Suronjon. She was too stunned to even think that she could bring a bucket of water and throw it on the flames to douse them. Suronjon was hidden by the black smoke and Kironmoyee thought that it was not books that Suronjon was burning but himself.

Sudhamoy pondered that the lively, intelligent young man, who often helped other people get rid of their troubles, was now in deep trouble himself. It was as if he had swallowed poison and was turning blue as the poison spread itself in his body. Suronjon had taken to lying wordlessly in bed most hours of the day, shouting and screaming with his friends, bringing women into his room at night and being abusive about Muslims; and now he was burning his books—Sudhamoy realized that Suronjon was deeply hurt and bewildered. His disappointment with his family, society and the state had created a blinding sense of inferiority and he was burning himself in those flames.

Suronjon was happy looking at the fire. All over the country the homes of Hindus had burnt in such fires. Such raging flames. Was it only houses and temples that had been burnt? Were people’s minds not burning as well? Suronjon was no longer going to live by his father’s ideals. Sudhamoy had believed in the principles of left politics and Suronjon too had grown up with the same values. He no longer believed in those values. Many leftists had abused him as a ‘bastard infidel’. He had been subjected to that since school. During arguments with friends in school, they would swiftly taunt him as the ‘child of an infidel’. Suronjon’s eyes were smarting and he could feel tears pooling in them. He was not sure whether the tears were from pain or from the smoke of his burning ideals. Suronjon breathed easy when the burning was over. Whenever he had been lying in bed during the past few days and his eyes had flitted across those volumes, he’d felt that the ideals propounded in those books were eating away at his very core. He no longer believed in ideals and stuff. He wished that he could kick out the beliefs he had held so dear all his life. Why should he bear the burden of these principles when all most people do is only touch their lips to the cup of wisdom but not take it into their hearts and minds? Why should he bother with being the only believer?

Suronjon wanted to sleep long and deep after his ritual of fire. But he could not sleep! He remembered Rotna. He had not seen her for a while now. He wondered how she was. He could read Rotna’s deep, black eyes—there was no need to talk. She was probably waiting for Suronjon to knock on her door. They could sit with cups of tea, exchange the stories of their lives and talk the night away. Suronjon decided that he would visit Rotna that evening.

‘So, is visiting only my responsibility?’ he planned to ask her. ‘Don’t you ever feel like visiting me?’

Suronjon had this feeling that suddenly, on a pensive afternoon, Rotna would arrive at his house. She would be there to stay, saying, ‘I feel empty inside, Suronjon.’ It had been so long since anyone had kissed him. Parveen used to kiss him. She would wrap her arms around him and say, ‘You’re mine, mine, mine alone. I’m going to kiss you a hundred times today.’ They would move apart if Kironmoyee suddenly entered the room. But Parveen had chosen to marry a Muslim and lead a trouble-free life. Rotna would not have the same problem of community. He would put his battered life in her hands. As Suronjon was making plans to cleanse his body of all the grime and dust that it had gathered, wear a clean shirt and go see Rotna that evening, someone knocked on his door. He opened the door and found Rotna standing outside. She was all dressed up and looked good. She wore a bright sari and bangles that tinkled on her arms. She was smiling sweetly and her smile both surprised and overwhelmed Suronjon.

‘Come in, please,’ said Suronjon, welcoming her, and almost at once saw that there was a handsome man standing behind her.

Where could Rotna sit? The room was a mess! However, he offered her the broken chair.

‘Guess whom I’ve brought along?’ asked Rotna, beaming.

Suronjon had not met Rotna’s older brother and wondered whether it was he.

‘He’s Humayun, my husband,’ said Rotna with a laugh that sounded like tinkling bangles, without giving Suronjon much time to think.

Suronjon felt a raging storm inside and it was as if the last tree left for him to cling to during the storm had also been uprooted. He had lost a large part of his life carelessly and had begun thinking of spending the rest of his life building a home and family with Rotna. But she had thought it best to survive in this terror-ridden country by acquiring a Muslim husband. Suronjon’s face darkened with humiliation and anger. He was expected to sit in his poverty-ridden, messy room with Rotna and her handsome, possibly wealthy husband, talk with them in a friendly way, serve them tea, shake hands with him and invite them to come again whilst bidding them farewell. No, he was not going to do any of this. He did not feel up to such politeness.

‘I’m sorry but I have to leave just now for something important. I really can’t stop to talk,’ he said, much to the amazement of his visitors.

‘Sorry,’ murmured his guests and left swiftly, feeling greatly insulted.

Suronjon banged the doors shut and stood with his back to them. He stood like that for a long time and came back to the present only when he heard Kironmoyee asking him a question.

‘Have you returned the money that you borrowed?’ she asked.

The word ‘borrowed’ pierced Suronjon like a poisoned arrow. He stared at Kironmoyee’s anxious face but did not say anything.

Suronjon felt suffocated. It felt like his room was an iron case and he was unable to unlock it and get out. He paced up and down the veranda but after a while, like the monsoon rains, a pall of sadness descended on him. Kironmoyee came silently and put a cup of tea on the table. Suronjon noticed it but did not reach out for the cup. He lay down for a bit, got up again and wondered whether he should go to the bridge. Every time he remembered the bridge he felt shaken and thought that his decomposed, lifeless body too would be found floating in the drain. Their house was silent like a stagnant pond. It was as if the three people in the house were moving silently like water beetles do on water and no one could hear the footsteps of the others.

Kironmoyee suddenly broke the ghostly silence. Only a little while ago she had given Suronjon his tea and now without any visible cause she began to howl. The sharpness of her cries made Sudhamoy sit up, startled, and Suronjon went running to her. He found Kironmoyee crying with her head against the wall but did not dare to try and stop her. These tears were not likely to stop, they would flow, they had collected over many days and many nights and now the river of tears within her was brimming over and could not be dammed. Sudhamoy sat still with his head lowered. The despair that could be heard in Kironmoyee’s cries pierced Sudhamoy’s consciousness too. The cries did not stop. No one asked Kironmoyee why she was crying. It was as if both Sudhamoy and Suronjon knew why she was keening from the depths of her heart and did not need to ask.

Suronjon, who had been standing by the door, entered the room silently so that Kironmoyee was not interrupted by the sound of his footsteps and could carry on crying. His sense of home and hearth had come tumbling down, everything had shattered and burnt, and his cherished dreams had turned into ashes. Kironmoyee had suddenly broken the silence in their home and begun to cry and, similarly, Suronjon broke through those cries and shouted, ‘Baba!’

Sudhamoy looked at him, startled.

‘Baba, all through last night I’ve been thinking about something,’ said Suronjon, grasping his father’s hands. ‘I know you will not listen to me. But I’m still asking you to heed what I say. Do what I say, Baba. Let’s go away.’

‘Where?’ asked Sudhamoy.

‘India.’

‘India?’ Sudhamoy was shocked, as though he had heard something outlandish. He reacted like the name was an obscenity, a forbidden word, something that should not be said aloud.

Slowly Kironmoyee’s cries stopped. She fell face down on the floor and lay moaning.

‘Is India your father’s home or your grandfather’s?’ asked Sudhamoy, frowning angrily. ‘Is anyone in your family from India? Why are you thinking of going there? Aren’t you ashamed to think of running away from your own country?’

‘Will my country let me live, Baba? What has your country given you? What is it giving me? What has your land given Maya? Why is Ma crying? Why do you groan at night? Why am I not able to sleep?’

‘There are riots in all countries. Aren’t there riots in India? Aren’t people dying there? Do you have any idea how many people are dying there?’

‘Riots are good, Baba. But here we don’t have riots. Here Muslims are killing Hindus.’

‘You’re calling yourself a Hindu?’ asked Sudhamoy excitedly. He wanted to jump out of bed.

‘We might be atheists and humanists,’ said Suronjon, restraining his father, ‘but people call us Hindus. They call us infidels. Never mind how much you love this country or how deeply you feel you belong—this country will push you away. Never mind how much we love our people, they will push us away. You can’t trust these people, Baba. You have treated so many Muslim families for free but in these times of trouble has anyone come to stand by you? Like Maya, the rest of us too will be found floating under the bridge. Baba, let’s go away.’

‘Maya will be back.’

‘Baba, Maya won’t be back. Maya won’t come back,’ said Suronjon, and he could feel pain rising in his throat.

‘Why should we go away if we couldn’t protect Maya? Whom are we going to protect now?’ muttered Sudhamoy as he lay down, listless.

‘We’ll protect ourselves. Shall we stay back to mourn what we have lost? In this terrible insecurity? It’s better to go away.’

‘What shall we do there?’

‘We’ll do what we can. What are we doing here? Are we very well here? Are we happy?’

‘A rootless life . . .’

‘What will we do with roots? If roots were worth anything then why do we have to sit with our doors and windows shut tight? All our lives we will have to live like frogs in the well. They have perfected the practice of attacking our homes and of slaughtering us on the slightest pretext. Baba, I feel ashamed to live like a mouse. I feel very angry. I can’t do anything. Can I burn a couple of their houses when I’m angry? Should we simply sit back and watch like fools as we get destroyed? Do I have the right to say anything, or slap a Muslim back when he slaps me? Let’s go away.’

‘Things are calming down now. Why are you thinking so much? You can’t make life-changing decisions based on emotions.’

‘Calming down? All that’s on the surface. There’s violence within. They are laying their traps and will soon show their terrible fangs and claws. Why did you have to give up your dhoti for pyjamas? Why aren’t you free to wear dhotis? Let’s go away.’

‘No. I won’t go,’ said Sudhamoy, grinding his teeth angrily. ‘You go if you want to.’

‘You won’t come along?’

‘No,’ said Sudhamoy, turning his face away in disgust.

‘Baba, please let’s go away,’ said Suronjon softly with his hand on his father’s shoulder. His voice was full with pain and tears.

‘No,’ said Sudhamoy with his earlier determination.

The refusal felt like a whiplash to Suronjon.

Suronjon had failed like he had known he would. A strong-willed person like Sudhamoy would cling to his land and his country, despite all the kicks and blows that came his way. The snakes and scorpions in the land would bite and sting him but he would dig deep into the soil and tumble face down in that same place.

Kironmoyee had stopped crying. She was bowing before a picture of Radha and Krishna. Suronjon had earlier seen an image of Ganesh in the room. It was likely that the Muslims had smashed it. Kironmoyee may have kept this picture of Radha and Krishna somewhere secret. She was now bowing before the picture and praying to Lord Krishna for protection, for an end to worries, for certainty and a life free of trouble.

Suronjon swam alone in a current of hopelessness. Night fell and deepened. He felt very alone. There was no one with him, no one to support him. He felt like an alien in his own country. He wanted to curl into himself with his logic, intelligence and conscience. His open, tolerant and logical mind was shrinking in this land of strikes, curfews and terror. He was being destroyed by a terrible loneliness. He could not find clean air to breathe in a room where the doors and windows were always shut. It felt like everyone was waiting for a terrible death. Now their hearts were no longer trembling with apprehension about Maya but about their own futures. They were all alone and when the people they knew, Muslim friends and neighbours, came to visit, the visitors did not say: ‘All of you will certainly be alive like us. Don’t be hesitant. Don’t retreat into yourselves. Walk bravely, work without trouble, laugh heartily and sleep peacefully.’