Fiction
A meal at a Chinese restaurant
Nirmal-babu has been a problem ever since he has retired from the college and came to live in Dhaka. He lived in Boro-digha quite contently. The few occasions Krishna visited him were of dire necessity when she stayed in her paternal house nearby. Avita and Ovi stayed with him once and were looked after well by other residents of his quarter. They were students of the college who lived there free of board and lodging and had the common characteristics of being poor and meritorious distant relations. Kobita, Avita and Ovi saw more of him in the earlier part of their lives when he would come to Dhaka during the vacations. Then the visits became less frequent, Krishna got promoted and moved to a larger quarter. Ovi's hair and dress styles took turns that were increasingly and startlingly bizarre in Nirmal-babu's eyes and Avita permanently became Avita Chatterjee through registration in her Secondary School Certificate form. Only close few kept the secret that she was previously known as Sobita Chattopadhay. Only Nirmal-babu had no reason to believe otherwise that she was Sobita Chattopadhay.
Nirmal-babu senses that he is being perceived as a problem. He reckons that, 'the problem' that is personified in him has a historical perspective. Since the early part of the previous century, British rule in India gave rise to a kind of inanity that manifested in caste superciliousness, national pride and religious chauvinism among three major groups of people, distinguishable by religion or race. One took up the responsibility and executed, in unneeded flurry the curving of the map which the other two gratuitously accepted, because by then the hatred and intolerance between them were giving rise to mass violence and rioting.
Krishna's father, uncles and relatives who were multifariously positioned in the society until then, set aside all their objectives of life and made their utmost priority, a gracious exodus from the land that was transforming into something unfamiliar to them, too nippily. Properties got sold or exchanged, as one by one the daughters were married off and the males found something to do on the other side. When Krishna made to marriageable age, her elder brother and the 8 bedroom house with pond and garden and Krishna herself were all there to be transferred to safety.
The house and the brother in combination would make sense; but not with an un-bequeathed sister. The house was getting occupied by distant relations, and the portion that remained in family's occupation was being used to stock heirlooms, pictures and books; and as transit accommodation for family members, majority of who were illegal entrants when they came to their family home for unfinished business.
Nirmal Kumar by then got his master's with honours placing near the top of the second class, and joined a college in Narail. He was the first among the posterities of Bhobotosh and Ashutosh Chatujjes of Senhati to come up this far. He had not much to show for, to qualify as a worthy suitor, claimant of the damsel, not in any apparent distress, in question. There were his certificates, and an abstract notion that is incongruently called brain or merit, that promises of worldly profit that it would bestow to the person in whose cranium it is located, as well as to his spouse, offspring and in-laws And,of the residue, if any, to his paternities, if alive.
But there were not many earnest pretenders around for the exquisite hands, and the time was of simmering turmoil. Nirmal's elder brother and only living guardian Amal had come to Senhati to divide up the inheritance, and couldn't wait to re-join the glamorous job he found at Shwami Sree Sree Bromhonnada's Trans-continental Yoga and Meditation Centre in the coast of Kerala, where lessons of spirituality and meditation were being taught in the frill of three star hotel, for Shamiji's piety centred not around the spirit but also on the sensory joys of the body. The future of spirituality lay in the USA and Europe and Amal was catching up with his spoken English as much as he could, for a future posting in a branch somewhere there. Nirmal could also be helped to find a position if he ever wished to work in the US. This fact was also mentioned in the groom's credential, omitting Amal's position as Assistant Cook at the Ashram.
Krishna's family considered his education and pliability. Amal considered the connection and the time pressure he was under. He must be present at the next public darshan of Shamijiwhich took place on a full moon. Krishna considered his potential to live up to her standard and again, malleability. She also had measured up - the body she saw was firm and fair-complexioned the lower chamber of the fleshed skull where that invaluable brain was positioned. His hair was naturally unruly but his eyelids, lips and the moustache all had hints of droopiness which gave the impression that the man was hardened by the world. Even his thick glasses always slipped down on his nose, and one way of determining if he found something interesting was to observe him if he adjusted his glasses or gave someone full stare through the glasses and not above the upper sticks of the frame. A riffle of the smile was never in short supply when he talked, but only something extra-ordinarily interesting would turn it into full-fledged beam. Generally, he would wander around, like a child whose toys had been unjustly taken away from him and whose plea for restoration has been turned down or were not heard. As if, the shock had turned into grief. And the grief was then permanently pasted on the face. Broodiness, rancorousness or sarcasm was, however not known to have been his style or attitude contrary to his appearance which would have suggested.
Since nobody asked Nirmal's view, he quietly complied. (To be continued).
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