{"id":958,"date":"2012-01-30T13:25:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T13:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/?page_id=958"},"modified":"2012-05-14T00:33:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T00:33:57","slug":"prosenjit-dey-chaudhury","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/writings\/creative-non-fiction\/prosenjit-dey-chaudhury","title":{"rendered":"Prosenjit Dey Chaudhury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Childhood Reminiscences of a House with a Little Room in an Indian Town<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Prosenjit Dey Chaudhury<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

We spent late evenings in a little room that held a table covered with a hard sheet of transparent plastic made usually for plain tables much used. There was another layer below that had floral designs on a somewhat incongruous blue background. The frames of the two windows on the opposite wall were partly open to keep the air flowing. It was not really hot though it could get a little incommodious inside if something was not kept open. You could glimpse the dark shapes of trees and bunched leaves outside. These companions of the day had retreated into their mysterious world and were not to be approached until the break of the next morning.<\/p>\n

The town had lapsed into silence. Even the sound of vehicles on the road was deadened by the presence of the big house, from which the little room was removed by a few yards that one traversed across open ground. The blue stars in the sky always gave an idea of chill that was invariably replaced by a sense of the forbidding dark. The nearest wall of the next house permitted chinks of light to escape from inside.<\/p>\n

Our house had solid walls from which only the plaster might peel off or sometimes a crush of mortar might tumble without the least warning. In the compound stood another house with a sloping roof of thatch and walls of cane and bamboo. Everything was in repose and we were the only stirring creatures of the night. Inside the little room, with the door closed but still allowing entry of the air outside, there was a mood of expectancy not only about the repast that was in store, but also concerning the stories of the day that could pour forth unexpectedly from a mouth that had till then chosen to remain as impassive as the lips of a mottled stone statue. There was no trace of boredom but there was often prolonged silence. It was as if all had been said and only something startling could now open the ears of the occupants.<\/p>\n

We remained seated on the wooden chairs and listened to the silence outside, wondering where the raucous crows of the day had gone. Sometimes we heard the distant hum of an aeroplane. Sometimes voices came across from somewhere. Sometimes we needed reassurance in the comforting sound of words from someone wise in the interpretation of the dark. Everything was just as it should be and yet we were all waiting for a stone to fall in the water and create ripples of pleasant anxiety. There was no one who did not have something to say for oneself. Yet there was no one who did not wait for someone else to begin. We had all contributed our share to the universal noise of the day. We leaped, we frolicked, and we frisked. We shouted, we heard shouting and we wanted to shout. We had seen the sun go down beyond the tall fading yellow buildings. We had listened to the imperative of the commencing night and retreated to our chambers for a few hours of stately silence. The present room was the site of the final rendezvous before the house lights would go out and the shadows of the bicycles on the road would pass across the aged walls of the house.<\/p>\n

During the day the bicycles, rickshaws, buses, scooters and flat automobiles would hurry up and down the road. We would either speed along on our feet or wait for the speeds on the road to slacken. The day was often clear; indeed it is difficult to remember a time when it was raining strongly. The fans on the ceiling would turn timidly in their duty. The sun beat down on the smooth, polished floor of the gallery at the back of the big house, pricking every ear of grain that spread in a graceful heap upon curving boards of criss-crossing bark. Suddenly a voice would speak of an invitation to a ceremony two days thence at another large house. A long glistening length of hair would be combed back smoothly and the merits of the invitation discussed. The maids would scurry along the gallery and to the terrace, carrying utensils and tubs of clothes. They were not young maids, having seen their children grow up to marriage and beget children in turn. Countless were the stories of betrayal, sacrifice, penury and despondency those lips poured forth; but they still followed the same rhythm. It was a time when the rest of the world was moving along at a pace you could keep up with. The tolling of the brass bell from the prayer room was an affirmation of the endless cycle of being. We ran from one corner of the house to another and the next corner was endlessly a new corner.<\/p>\n

When the sun went down, it shed its primness and set pond waters swaying in colours of gild and rose that weaved among the dangling reflections of tall yellow buildings. At the furthest fringe a vessel was immersed in the water and ripples set forth to cover the lake but they somehow died in the passage. The pond lay across a thin road and as the light slowly went out of the sky, the bushy trees began to nestle against the darkness and conceive unreal beings. Those trees that were so friendly in the day now forbade us to come close. The leaves that made up the great canopy of the old tree next to the thin road came together in harmony to shield the discourses of unknown tongues and the deliberations of strange councils. The irksome chattering crows were gone goodness knows where. You wished for their company and their hopping presence among the branches and leaves.<\/p>\n

Suddenly a bird would dart forth in the twilight and you would wonder what strange apparition it had seen. The twisted and wrinkled trunk of the old tree made a contrast with its fecundity in springing a thick canopy. The stars would begin to pop in the sky and the distant market near the horizon would throw a halo into the air. The house stood firm on its foundation and regarded its dependent habitations with an air of pensiveness. There was a guava tree that masked the entrance to one of the next grounds in which stood a pleasant cottage. A palm tree stood proud in its conquest of the high electric wires. Behind the little room there were myriad little trees bearing merry little flowers. At their foot you could set up an awning and go around serving the guests who came in the daytime when a wedding was taking place. The soil became quite boggy further, where shrubs grew with taut little berries.<\/p>\n

The boundary wall at one side of the front lawn of the house \u00e2\u20ac\u201c where the wide street flowed with its cars \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was made of cane and fibre; it ended where yet another ground began, and this time, instead of an arching guava tree to cover the wall, creepers straggling and strong made ivy for it. A lone tree stood facing the wide street. It did not bear any grand name. It was one of those common kinds that pale before lofty masters which reach into the blue of the sky. It had been shed of its branches and leaves, giving a sorry hangdog appearance. Yet it occupied its place day after day, sometimes sprouting healthy green leaves in bunches upon its scraped boughs. No one thought of removing this tree and giving the street freedom from its observing scrutiny. The grass on the ground was lush in summer and sparse in winter. It was the winter that was the high time for the excitement of noise and silence.<\/p>\n

The sun went on its course and the moon became prominent when we went out of the house or sallied to the little room in the evenings. The streams beside the roads would flow slowly day after day until the time when they became so dark that you could not see their flow. Cascades of light would rain down from the tapering leaves of the implanted trees on the further bank. The bridges would arch and creak while the water struck a rag clinging to an angular stick and eddied away to strike something else. The dust was thick, powdery and everywhere present. If you went in slippers, crossed the street and remained outside long, you had to stand a full five minutes in viscous soap water to return to your original state.<\/p>\n

The peddler in the rickshaw went crying his nostrum through his attached magnifying spout. The rickshaw man pressed down his pedal with one foot and moved up the other half of his body, keeping his eyes on the tarmac below his feet without really noticing it. For common ailments the doctor sat in his shed across one of the bridges; for inoculations the compounder came to the house. You sat on one of the stools that supported you with a network of canes that seemed to vanish in the middle before opening out to make a fine circle for a base. The tea would be tempered according to the age of the sipper. The biscuits would carry royal designs and names though ever so routinely vapid they might be. The medicines would bear the look of reliability as they clustered on the table beside the bed.<\/p>\n

When the man with the garments came, everybody was called to inspect his wares. The soft fabrics would make a lively motion and spring out of the basket while the eye wondered at the particular shade of blue or red. The dresses lay more sober with their prominent embroidery for the chest. Clothes were a matter of attention though they changed not radically from one point in time to another. The application of creams and lotions was dictated to a certain extent by the black and white photographs in the readable magazines. The old bulb with its yellow light was more reassuring than the harsh presence of the white neon in the next room. On the bed the pliable box containing needles and threads was an object of curiosity, more because of the fair but eroded face on its cover than because of its contents. Little figures were a delight to touch. You took them out from one of the old cupboards and moved your fingers over them ceaselessly as if you heard them purr.<\/p>\n

The radio sometimes took time to warm up. But that was becoming a thing of the past. The light behind the panel threw into limelight the streaks, numerals and letters that served as a guide for the positioning of the red vertical bar through the rotating, scalloped knob that countless anticipating fingers had twisted. The furniture of the house was invariably of wood. Trusted makers delivered the product to the house and installed it in its unique spot. The blades of the fans on the ceilings would be silent in the evenings but the mosquitoes would be active.<\/p>\n

A horn would sound from the street and the cyclists would move to the dust shoulders. An unduly elongated car would skim past and offer a sight of two heads in different rows. The partial snowy curtains on the house windows let us see who was going by. The world\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe distant world of which you were aware only because it made geographical sense\u00e2\u20ac\u201darrived through the media of the newspaper, the radio and the live raconteur. The announcement concerning the batsman at the crease in the international cricket test match was the epiphany of the planet and the answer to the longings at breakfast time for news of an exciting nature.<\/p>\n

Somewhere the world was moving but the little room of the late evenings saw no movement save in the occasional new story. The rulers ruled from the horizon; the subjects were content. There was fresh meat and fish when you went to the market. The crunchy fried rice tasted delectable when it was fried even further and hardened to a puff. Floods did sweep the land but that was just another normal event on the horizon. No one could deny to us, the young ones, the thrill of the news from the cricket batting crease; the older ones built affinities with the stars who were projected on the white screen of the movie theatre and followed their lives closely. While these stars smiled and leaped on the screen, the rulers frowned to themselves and kept the support stable. The cricketers sported themselves in immaculate white across the yellowing pages of the eagerly grasped, storyful magazine. Their eyes, lips, cheeks and hair were scrutinised to check the correspondence between the sound of the name on the radio and the pictures now en face<\/em>. The great saga of voyage and discovery of that age was to be practised upon a little irregular piece of ground late in the afternoon, when a polished cricket bat with a daunting insignia would go out to strike innings in front of three quite dissimilar wickets, remembering the feats of the giants whose names were pronounced with bated breath.<\/p>\n

The adults would sometimes converse on intrigues of authority; those topics were a little difficult to understand for little minds, and even if they should be understood, they were not really serious enough to cause worry. The worry was in the more difficult lessons, hence the more difficult homework\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand hence the more exasperating meddler in the distracting fun of games\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhen the next class in school came around. The worry was also in the difficulty of emulating the innings of the giant in the late afternoon.<\/p>\n

When people came to the big house they sat on the cushions of the sofas while the light of the room gave out a faint hum and some mosquitoes showed themselves on the white walls. One of the doors had a huge bolt that properly should have clanged as a drumstick against a large pitcher of the same colour of brass. The windows were set in a recess affording a sill on which you could rest your elbows. When the window frames in the guest room were brought together, the slats reminded you of strong guards with beetling brows outside royal chambers. The eye was often drawn to them in the hope that the story that had just been recounted and that had caused a kind of flutter in the emotions would emerge in a finale from their direction. The chatter of tongues created an easy bolster in which to nestle even if you could not follow what was being said.<\/p>\n

It was the little room that contained the essence of the world in that time. The world was fertile; it yielded our meals. The world was interesting; there was the test match to follow the next day. The world was frightening; there were ghosts in the darkness and demons in faraway lands. The world was a yoke; there was school at the end of the holidays. The world was divided into oceans and countries, and each country had a government. It was good to become an engineer, scientist or doctor. If people sometimes killed each other, their actions belonged to aberrations at the furthest margin. Boys and girls often fell in love but that was something to be contemplated and practised later, although the films initiated you at least into the idea. God was someone to be worshipped and loved.<\/p>\n

There was such a sense of comfort in everything that it had to be taken for granted. Of course there were rich families that could flaunt their possessions and gild the walls of their houses. But despite our lack of their ostentation we missed very little. The world lay open to discovery. It was not a hostile world. You belonged in the little room and you would belong in the world as you grew up. The machinery of the world was trustworthy. Your mission was to excel in one of the brain-taxing professions and benefit the rest of mankind. Everything would move smoothly towards the time you became an elder. Sometimes you were lost in the contemplation of justice and in the goodness of God. Sometimes a passage in a book spoke of closeness between two people and you were surprised to be drawn to the book for hours on end. There on the terrace you would sit on one of those round wicker stools and forget all passage of time as you identified yourself with Pip in his love for Estella. That is how you would fall in love and you would marry the object of your love. The home that you would make would distinguish itself from all other homes by its supreme nobility. The great stars above would be conquered by the meaning you bestowed on them as you linked arms with your beloved on silent evenings while a fire burnt the last of the wood and sank lower upon the bare open earth.<\/p>\n

The deportment of the elders always contained something of the marvellous. Every elder was a wonder; and because every elder participated in some function in the world, the world never ceased to be a wonder. Each person who came to the house brought a fragment of the glorious stage of the living world, and gaiety rather than melancholy informed the spectacle. The world protected you. The living anticipation of the imagination and the wonders and marvels of the story books would continue beyond the time of grey hair and shiny pates; this is how you would outdo the elders and excel over them. There was much to be learned in the remaining years in school and upon the further steps up the ladder of enlightenment. Everything was going to be smooth.<\/p>\n

A certain event might sometimes cause a shock but not such a shock as to jolt lives out of the circle of order and satisfaction. The quack across the bridge went on making money with the coloured emollients in his little jars and no one really bothered too much. The doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter expressed a preference for the boy she had met once at a shop rather than for the one sanctioned by her parents, and no really did bat an eyelid more than once.\u00c2\u00a0 The philosopher dwelled on the eternal soul in relation to the Immanent Reality, and everybody remembered to modify his or her prayer by a single sentence at the next ceremony of godly worship.<\/p>\n

Since all ordinary lives that lived in households seemed to move in circles that beat a very languid path forward, there appeared nothing much within those circles that had the makings of dreams, dilemmas, rebellions, tragedies, passions, triumphs and nostalgia. Suffering, bereavement and death did abound within but they apparently followed a familiar pattern and were before long expectedly overcome by at least a semblance of reassuring calm to the observer.<\/p>\n

But the calm on the surface and the reassurance it gives may be upset gravely not just by a thrown stone but also by turbulence quite under the surface. The disturbance may proceed from a gentleman who is unreasonably discontented with the calm and assurance of the world. His is the kind of unease that cannot be met singly but must be suppressed in the public contentment of talk and routine. Those who stand up to question the routine recall to others that a disquiet is present within the latter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own selves.\u00c2\u00a0 The doubters must be dismissed as not really belonging in the proper sphere of living, else why should they be discontented?<\/p>\n

As we would know years later, the questioners persist and a day comes when one of them may turn an entire town upside down.\u00c2\u00a0 It is another matter whether he succeeds in his aims or not.\u00c2\u00a0 The deeds of this pertinacious man set an indelible stamp on the people as they still follow their routine. In a Book maintained somewhere, the iconoclast\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feat is an indubitable achievement. To us, the world was once wonderful in a certain time in every which way. Was it all that wrong to think it wonderful with the fascination that our eyes saw?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Childhood Reminiscences of a House with a Little Room in an Indian Town Prosenjit Dey Chaudhury   We spent late evenings in a little room that held a table covered with a hard sheet of transparent plastic made usually for plain tables much used. There was another layer below that had floral designs on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":339,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-958","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1164,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958\/revisions\/1164"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}