Page 2

"What was that?" Motro Moshai had yelled. "Rascal!" he’d shouted, pointing with a trembling finger. "Look, he eej showing me red red eyes."

"You are," Haru the Boor had groped for an adequate term of abuse and finally found one, "...an eccentric. You should be in a lunatic asylum."

"You..." Mitro Moshai had paused dramatically and then delivered the Ultimate Insult. "You nonsense!"

"Ar shala parchchi na," Haru the Boor had declared. "I’m fed up with this." He’d stormed out, and had never come to Mitro Moshai’s adda again, even though his leaving meant there were only five of them left and without Haru the Boor’s colourful tales there was little enough to talk about anyway.

No, Jogodish Babu couldn’t mention TV. Hell, as far as Mitro Moshai was concerned, it was bad enough that he wore trousers instead of a dhoti. But this evening, the old man had been in an excellent mood for some reason, and had even fetched out his ancient harmonium for Jogodish Babu to play. The harmonium was old and dusty and the accordion flap was cracked and leaking air, but it was still a harmonium, and Jogodish Babu’s wife had long since forbidden the house to one. So Jogodish Babu had happily flapped the accordion with one hand while pressing the keys with another and yelling out Robindro Shongeets as the top of his voice, until he could no more and the time had come to go on home.

"I’ll see you on Saturday," he’d said, polishing his spectacles on his kurta hem.

"Bee careful," Mitro Moshai had told him. "Saambody waas saying saamthing about riots aarlier. Today eej market day, and these bhillage people like to cause trouble."

Jogodish Babu nodded. "I also haard this talk," he lied, in case anyone might think he wasn’t in the know. Picking up his umbrella, he nodded at Mitro Moshai and began walking home. The evening was fairly advanced and the lane totally dark because there were no street lights, and Jogodish Babu, conscious of the open ditch along the opposite side, kept to the centre of the street, and stepped carefully over the potholes. He was very happy at the thought of the oily, mustard-laden hilsa curry his wife would have ready by now. Nobody cooked hilsa oilier or with more eye-watering amounts of mustard than she did. He licked his lips in anticipation.

As he was negotiating a particularly broken patch of street, he saw a figure up ahead, lurching from one side to another and waving its hands distractedly around. "Drunkaard," Jogodish Babu diagnosed, and having no desire to get too close to the alcohol-addled one, he stepped behind the tall palm tree which grew outside Old Uncle Horshobordhon’s house. The silhouette, still lurching from side to side, passed, muttering to itself in a language Jogodish Babu didn’t know – and he was an intellectual, amazingly multi-lingual. After all, he could speak not just Bunglee but also English, and even a smattering of Hindi. Why, just last month a Bihari cobbler had been amazed at his Hindi. The man had even said he was amazed. Jogodish Babu had proudly told everyone the story for days.

Strange, Jogodish Babu thought. But it was probably a foreigner from South India or Punjab or somewhere like that, where people were shameless enough to drink – not like nice Bunglee boys who would never touch a drop. Jogodish Babu shuddered at the thought of what his wife would do to him if wine – all alcohol was "wine" to him – ever touched his lips.

Be that as it may, the foreign drunkard had moved on, so Jogodish Babu came out from behind the tree and turned into the stretch of main road which lay between Mitro Moshai’s lane and his, wondering if there might be other drunkards around. But everything seemed as usual. The shop where he usually bought groceries was about to close, but the owner’s son was in charge for the week, and the boy was lazy. Well, Jogodish Babu thought, he was only a baby. He would learn in time.

He was somewhat surprised when he entered his own lane. At this hour, it was normally dark and lonely, but a knot of people were gathered not far from the entrance to his house, craning to look at something. Jogodish Babu was far from immune to the lure of curiosity, so he joined the group and went up on his toes to try and see over the nearest shoulder.

[ Continue to page 3 ]