He (Shey)

  ‘“Now, who might you be, son? There’s no room for you in here.”

  ‘By then, I had seized his voice. “It’s you there isn’t any room for,” I retorted. “Out you go!”

  'He gasped, "I'm on my way; there's just a little bit of me left inside. Push."

  'I gave him a hefty shove, and he disappeared with a whoosh.

  'Meanwhile, Patu's missus had arrived on the scene. "There you are, you old good-far-nothing!"

  ‘Her scolding was music to my ears. “Do say that once more,” I pleaded. “I never thought I’d hear such a yell again.”

  ‘The old dame thought I was playing the fool; she disappeared into the house in search of a broom. The fear of losing my newly gleaned body gripped me. I thought it best to go home. When I looked in the mirror, a shudder passed through me. I felt like paring the skin from my face with a carpenter’s plane.

  ‘The bodyless had found a body all right, but his original appearance was still sunk seven fathoms deep in the lake; how could it be recovered?

  ‘Just at this point, after a painful separation, I was reunited with my appetite. My hunger returned in a rush. It gnawed at every fibre of my stomach. I could hardly see from emptiness. It was one of those cases of “first encountered, first eaten”. What bliss!

  ‘I remembered I was invited to a meal at Pupu-didi’s. I didn’t have the money for the train fare, so I set out on foot. The very effort of walking was such an unimaginable comfort. My ecstasy soon had me drenched in perspiration. I took one step after another, and chanted to myself, “I’m not stopping, I’m not stopping, I’m going on and on.” I’ve never walked with such verve in my life. Dada, you’ve got an entire body ensconced in that armchair of yours—you don’t know the happiness of tiring yourself out. The ache in your bones tells you you’re alive, and with a vengeance—beyond all doubt or question.’

  ‘I see, I see, but do tell me what you want to do now.’

  ‘The duty of doing something rests entirely with you, Dada. You’re the host, it won’t do if you forget to feed your guest.’

  ‘Neither will it do if you forget that it’s three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Then I’m off to visit Pupu-didi!’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘Dada, it’s no use threatening me any more, you’ve done your worst. I’m off!’

  ‘On no account.’

  ‘I shall go,’ he insisted.

  To which I replied, ‘I’d like to see you do it!’

  He began chanting, ‘I shall, I shall, I shall!’

  He climbed onto my table and began to dance up and down on it. ‘I shall go, I shall go!’

  In the end, he struck up a song to the tune of a panchali:49 ‘I shall, I shall, I shall!’

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. I grabbed the end of his long hair-tuft and tugged hard. Without a word of warning, his body slithered off him like a loose sock and fell to the ground with a thump.

  What a disaster! How was I to communicate with the spirit of this ganja-fuddled dodderer? I screeched into the night, ‘Hey, listen, come back, get into this body of yours and take it away!’

  Not a sound in reply. I’m thinking of putting out an advertisement in the Anandabazar Patrika.50

  ‘Is all this true, Dadamashai?’ asked Pupu-didi, round-eyed.

  ‘It’s much more than the truth, Didi,’ I replied. ‘It’s a story.’

  * * *

  48 Bidagdhamukhamandan: Ornament of the Learned Countenance, a twelfth-century Buddhist text by Dharmadas.The jokes lies in an alternative meaning of bidagdhamukha, ‘burnt face’.

  49panchali: a kind of traditional song.

  50 Anandabazar Patrika: a Bengali newspaper, in wide circulation to this day.

  8

  I WAS PREPARING SOME NOTES ON THE AREOPAGITICA51 FOR AN MA CLASS. For this I needed to consult a book—The International Mellifluous Abracadabra and also had to slit open the pages of Three Hundred Years of Indo-Indetermination, to look things up in its Appendix. I had asked the library to get me a copy of The Onomatopoeia of Tintinnabulation. All of a sudden, He burst headlong into the room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I inquired. ‘Has your wife hanged herself?’

  He answered, ‘She certainly would have, had she existed. What a to-do you’ve made!’

  ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Till now, you’ve made up scores of absurd stories about me. Thank heavens you haven’t referred to me by name, otherwise I’d have found it hard to hold up my head in polite society. But I knew they amused Pupu-didi, so I suffered them in silence. But now, it’s just the opposite!’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s really happened?’

  ‘Then listen. Yesterday, Pupu-didi had gone to the cinema. She was about to get into the car, when I came up from behind her and said, “Pupu-didi, take me with you in your car.” And after that—I can’t describe to you, Dada, the panic that ensued. Sheer hysteria.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Pupu-didi covered her eyes with her hands and screamed, “Go away, you can’t get into my car after stealing a body from that ganja-addict!” People came running from all directions; the police almost marched me off to jail. I’ve been faced with many insults, Dada, but never one as original as this. Stealing the body of a ganja-addict! Not even my best friend has ever slandered me so infamously. I went home and heard the whole story. It must be your doing.’

  ‘Of course it’s my doing. What else could I have done? How long can I go on making up these tales about you? I’m not getting any younger; my pen seems to have developed a touch of rheumatism. It’s lost that happy lightness needed to concoct impossible tales about you that might appeal to Pupu-didi’s tastes. So I thought to finish you off once and for all in that last story.’

  ‘But I’m not ready to be finished off, Dada. I beg of you, do ease Pupu-didi’s fears. Tell her it was only a story.’

  ‘I did try, but it isn’t easy to pacify her. The fear has twisted itself around her nerves. I went to the extent of bringing that old ganja-smoker Patu before her, but it had exactly the opposite effect of what I’d hoped for. She took it as clear evidence that you were wandering about in Patu’s skin.’

  ‘In that case, Dada, I suggest you turn the story around. Let Patu die of tetanus, and cremate his body at Nimtala Ghat.52 We’ll stage an elaborate funeral and invite Pupu-didi to it. I’ll pay whatever it costs from my own pocket. I’m the juggler, the shape-shifter in Pupu-didi’s stories—it’ll kill me to be ousted from a position of such importance.’

  ‘All right, we’ll turn the procession of chariots around and take you back to Pupu-didi’s home.’

  He came the next evening, and I began the story.

  ‘Patu’s wife has filed a lawsuit against you, to establish her claims on her husband,’ I said.

  He interrupted before I could get any further. ‘That won’t do at all, Dada,’ he protested. ‘You’ve never met Patu’s missus. If that lady happens to win the case, the defendant will have to take to opium and kill himself.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Whether she wins or loses, I promise I’ll have you last your course.’

  ‘Very well, go on.’

  ‘You joined your palms in supplication and pleaded, “My lord, defender of the law, I swear by seven generations of my ancestors, I’m not her husband.”

  ‘The prosecutor glared at you. “What do you mean by saying you’re not her husband?” he demanded.

  ‘“I just mean that to this date I have not married her. Try as I might, I can’t immediately think of any second meaning.”

  ‘Ramsaday, the prosecutor, scolded you roundly. “Of course you’re her husband. Don’t you lie to us!”

  ‘You turned to the judge. “I’ve told plenty of lies in my life, but to lie that I married this old harridan of my own accord, while of sound mind and body, would take more nerve than I possess. The mere idea makes my heart quake.”

  ‘Then they interrog
ated thirty-five ganja-fuddled witnesses. One by one, they ran their fingers, blackened with packing the ganja into the bowls of their pipes, over your face and said, “It looks exactly like Patu, down to the lump on the forehead. But—”

  '''But what?" demanded the prosecutor angrily.

  "'It's Patu to the life, but how can we swear it actually is Patu? We knew his wife; our friend suffered not a little at her hands. The number of brooms smashed to bits over his luckless shoulders! Ifwe could have saved the price ofthose, we wouldn't have had to scrimp and pinch when it came to ganja.You see, sir, that’s why we can’t take an oath in court that would bring disaster upon a gentleman.”

  ‘The prosecutor scowled furiously. “Then who is this man? Not even God Almighty could summon the nerve to build another Patu!”

  ‘The chief of the ganja-addicts countered, “You’re right, son. Such a creation could have evolved only once, by accident. After that first time, God rubbed his nose in contrition and vowed never to make such a mistake again. But it’s obvious that some devil wanted to get back at him. It’s a masterly fake— the work of an expert. As Patu’s body shrivelled, his nose grew hooked and pinched. You’d think it was that very crescent moon of a nose that had been grafted on to this face. A thousand little bats must have sacrificed their wings to craft the skin on his hands.”

  ‘You saw the trial heading for disaster and hastened to seek out the judge. “Give me a week’s time, and I’ll have the mythical Patu before you in the flesh.”

  ‘You rushed back to Telenipara Ghat. Luckily, your own body bobbed to the surface just in that instant. You stretched Patu’s body carefully out on the ground and reoccupied your own. Heaving an immense sigh of relief, you turned your face up to the heavens and shouted, “Hey, Patu!”

  ‘His cast-off form got to its feet. Patu said, “Brother, I was with you all this time. The ganja made me light-headed and restless. I wanted to finish myself off, but you stood in my way. When I was alive, I had a decided taste for life. As soon as I’d died, the misery of never being able to die again overwhelmed me. I wasn’t even fit to put a rope round my neck.”

  ‘“Well, we’ve done what we had to do,” you said. “Now come along to court with me. I’ll have the judge arrange for an allowance of ganja to be doled out to you.”

  ‘The two of you went back to court. The judge scolded Patu, “Is this old woman your wife or not?”

  ‘Patu answered, “Sir, my instincts bid me deny it. But I’m a gentleman; why should I commit the sin of lying? I know she’ll catch up with me sooner or later—like the rest of my sins. She is, I own, my first partner in matrimony.”

  ‘“Are there others?” inquired the judge.

  ‘Patu replied, ‘I have to have a few more, for the sake of appearances. I’m a kulin53 by birth. Pure kulin blood!”

  Pupu-didi read the story on Sunday. She asked, ‘Dadamashai, you’ve said you were writing some college text, and looking at lots and lots of English books. But you don’t have a college! Besides, I’ve never seen you open one of those books you talked about. All you write are rhymes!’

  I avoided giving her a direct answer. Instead, I smiled a little smile.

  ‘Dadamashai, do you know Sanskrit?’

  ‘Now look here, Pupu-didi, such questions are very indelicate. You should never ask them to one’s face.’

  * * *

  51 Areopagitica: a famous prose treatise by Milton on the freedom of writing and publication.

  52Nimtala Ghat: a cremation ground in Calcutta.

  53kulin: a Brahmin of pure, unsullied caste.They exploited this status to indulge in polygamy.

  9

  PUPU-DIDI APPEARED SOMEWHAT PERTURBED IN THE MORNING. ‘Dadamashai, have you run out of stories about He?’

  Dadamashai abandoned his newspaper and pushed his glasses up his forehead. ‘It’s not the stories’ but the storyteller’s days that are numbered.’

  ‘He got his body back, didn’t he? Do tell me what’s going to happen now.’

  ‘Well, he’ll have to go back to earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. Often, he’ll have to come forward and shoulder lots of responsibilities. At other times, he’ll shrug them off. Sometimes he’ll take his work very seriously and puzzle his head over it. At other times, he’ll put his feet up on the desk. Perhaps people will be annoyed by his laziness and say he doesn’t set his mind to anything. His head will swim on occasion, and his stomach churn. His limbs will be overcome by languor and refuse to get out of bed. His body will feel slow and heavy at times— at others, shudders will run up and down his spine. Sometimes he’ll look upon the world with a benevolent eye, and sometimes it’ll make his blood rise. Some people will say things that make his ears tingle, others things to calm his fraught nerves. His hands will grow clammy at some of the things his friends talk about. Such a lot of complications—all rooted in some part or other of that body of his.’

  ‘Dadamashai, when he was roaming about in someone else’s body, which of them suffered all these problems? When his head buzzed and his insides churned, did he feel it, or did Patu?’

  ‘That’s a very difficult question you’ve asked. I don’t know, and if you ask him, I’m sure it’ll make the poor fellow’s head swim.’

  ‘Dadamashai, I never thought one’s body could cause one so many problems.’

  ‘It’s by stringing all those problems together that you make a story. Why, the story sits astride the body, like a hunter on his horse, and goes racing in all directions, as far as the eye can see. Some bodies serve for stories as asses do, others as the royal elephant in an imperial procession.’

  ‘What’s your body like, Dadamashai?’

  ‘I won’t tell you. The scriptures condemn vanity.’

  ‘Dadamashai, why did you stop telling me stories about He?’

  ‘Let me explain. Idleness is the highest state of heavenly bliss. The Indra54 who reigns above, luxuriously sipping nectar, with his thousand eyelids drooping, is the God of Storytelling. I used to worship him once, but now I find myself unable even to enter his courts. I’ve stopped receiving my share of the holy food of fiction.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I once forgot the way.’

  ‘How?’

  The heavenly river Suradhuni that flows through the celestial city of Amaravati cradles the abode of the gods. But its ebb tide reveals another heaven. Dense black smoke from factory chimneys billows like a flag in the sky. That’s the Paradise of Labour. Lord Vishwakarma presides there, resplendent in workers’ shorts. One autumn morning, I was walking along the street carrying a plate of sheuli flowers for morning worship, when a priest’s agent descended upon me on a bicycle. His satchel was bulging with notebooks, and I could see two fountain pens—one with red ink in it, the other with black—sticking out of his pocket. Bundles of newspaper clippings sprouted from the pockets of his China-coat. The watch on his right wrist was set to Standard Time, the one on his left to Calcutta Time. His bag was stuffed with railway timetables, for the EIR and EBR, ABR and NWR, BNR, BBR and SIR.55 In his breast pocket was a notebook-cum-diary.

  ‘What hell-pit are you off to today, with your face turned up to the heavens?’ he demanded of me.

  ‘Don’t be angry, Panda-ji,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m going to offer prayers in the temple, but I can’t find the way.’

  ‘I suppose you’re one of that head-in-the-air, can’t-find-theway crew?’ he scolded. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the way.’

  He dragged me off to the temple of Lord Vishwakarma. I was given no chance to protest. Before I could open my mouth, he commanded, ‘Put down that plate of flowers here and fork out your offering. Five quarter-rupees.’

  I performed the puja like an idiot. He immediately copied down the accounts in his notebook. Then he glanced at one of his wristwatches and declared, ‘All right, your work’s done. I don’t have much time now. Scoot!’

  From the very next day, I began to notice the fruit of my devotions. It was half past four in t
he morning. I woke up with a start, thinking robbers had broken in. But it was only the Society for the Protection of Orphans. The members had rounded up twenty-five boys, all between the ages of twelve and thirteen, who were standing at the door, singing loudly:

  Your stomachs you stuff

  With more than enough,

  In your pockets you stash

  Your bundles of cash,

  But add up the due,

  You’ll find that it’s true

  That of your reserve,

  The orphans deserve

  The larger share,

  And love and fond care.

  So arise and awake

  For the orphans’ sake.

  O, give to the poor; help lessen their pain—

  O, give to the poor and give once again!

  Yelling this refrain, they gave the khol56 a number of tremendous whacks. The more I tried to reckon in my head how much money I had left, the more fiercely the beat assaulted my ears. Someone picked up the rhythm with a pair of castanets, and the boys struck up a jig. The din grew unbearable. I unlocked the safe and took out my money-bag. Their leader, sporting a week-old stubble, eagerly stretched out a sheet down below. On being shaken, the bag yielded exactly one rupee, nine annas and three paise. The month was all but over, and I had only just managed to save this money to pay the tailor’s bill.