On both sides of the small lane that leads off the main road are several beautiful
two- and three-storeyed houses. About three of the houses have large iron gates on
which are signs warning against dogs. In front of each are well-tended gardens with
varieties of indigenous and seasonal flowers.
The first house belongs to the retired Deputy Superintendent of Police, Nilratan
Majumdar. It is almost ten years since his wife had passed away. The daughter had
been married off. Now his three sons are at home. The south-facing rooms of the house
which has been conveniently built to accommodate the three sons, do not look out on a
vista of natural beauty. What is seen, instead, is another small locality.
Actually, if the view from the south-facing windows of these tall beautiful houses had
been an expanse of open greenery extending to the horizon, that would really have gone
well with the houses. But what is seen is a mismatch. The locality that can be seen is
no different from the bustees that are nowadays seen in any town or city in India. The
same stink, dirty drains, a place where ill-fed undernourished people survive, bathing,
eating and attending to all their natural needs in narrow confined places. Like other such
places, here too people querral and wrangle with each other when they come to collect
water from the one and only tap; dirty children roam around here and there the whole
day; and the men and women go to work and return to their santies in the evening. The
area becomes only as bright as whatever little light is given out by the lamps and the
candles as long as they last. The people had no time to spare during the day, so in the
night they spend a part of their waking hours squabbling and bickering among
themselves.
The second house belongs to Paresh Hazarika, an engineer in the Flood Control
Department. He worries constantly that there might be no floods, for that would mean a
great loss to him. But even more than him, it is his beloved wife who is afraid of this
prospect. On the top floor of their elegant three-storeyed house, in the spacious
bedroom next to the puja room, his better half reclines in one corner of the large double
bed, often contemplating the sky through the window. Anyone seeing this corpulent
lady thus would have no doubts at all of her poetic prowess. But in reality one might
say, she has no idea at all of the great significance of the clouds on the first day of the
month of Ashaar. The point is that she wants rain, torrential rain, turbulent swollen
canals and rivers, and ravaging, devastating floods. Rains mean floods, and floods mean
an uncontrollable flow of funds. And money means happiness, comfort, liberty and
distinction. Paresh Hazarika’s gluttonous, flabby appearance makes it seem as though
there’s no space at all between his neck and his chin. He has a harsh, guttural voice.
He likes to enjoy himself and have a little fun. Between the husband and wife there are
often fights which sometimes cross all limits of decency and are heard by one or two of
the neighbouring households. After such fights the neighbours gossip about them in
hushed tones for a couple of days. The news spreads that Paresh Hazarika’s beloved
wife has suspicions about her husband’s morals. And of course the hint is at that
woman who lives nearby, Kamini...
The third sky-grazing house belongs to Dr Bishnu Kumar Bordoloi. Like many other
government doctors he too has an expensive and well-known nursing home in the town.
Of his two sons, it is said that the elder one had, early in life, fallen into bad company
and is now a drug addict. And the younger son, when he goes to the local college on
his motor-bike, is a spectacular sight. He, meanwhile, is carrying on simultaneous affair
with two girls in the same college without one knowing of the other, and the neighbours
knowing all. Rumours flow thick and fast, and it is widely believed that he was the main
culprit in the rape incident that took place at the other end of town some time ago. His
father having money and influence, he narrowly managed to avoid falling into the hands
of the police. He has also been seen going to Kamini’s house.
But then, who doesn’t go to Kamini’s house? At one time all the sons of DSP
Mazumder were her regular clientes. Even the father went occasionally. One day it so
happened that the elder son came face to face with his father there. From that day
something strange happened to the son. He had himself initiated into some baba’s
movement and renounced all worldly interests. He hasn’t married either. It was his
younger brother who got married recently. It is said that nowadays the elder son doesn’t
go anywhere or talk to anyone, but keps to his room, busy with puja and bhajans.
Kamini, of course, is really beautiful. She is one of those women who never seem to
grow old, for they manage to stand still at one unchanging point of their lifetime.
The lane which runs through this locality goes straight and ends at the main road. By
the side of the main road is a hotel, Ma Kamakhya, and from there she sometimes, no,
you might say almost everyday, carries home some meat or fish curry is a tiffin-carrier.
Whenever she goes to the hotel, she is sure to buy, from the paan-shop nearby, a
meethapaan with 320 zarda. With the paan in her mouth, she buys, along with her other
necessaries, a bunch of flowers from the flower-seller’s shop and then comes home.
Sometimes she buys the flowers first and goes to the Marwari Radha-Krishna temple a
short distance away. In the evening, with her hair in a bun and the flowers in her hair
and wearing a red sari, she stands by the window, her lips red from chewing the Zarda
paan. And then it seems as though the fragrance of the flowers might call out to some
passerby to stop for a while. At that time the red of her sari merges with the colour of
her lips, and the evening appears to be bathed in this redish tint. As she walks down
the road without speaking to anyone, or looking at anything, then even the elderly
gentleman sitting on the Verandah lifts his eyes from the newspaper that he is reading.
At the other end of the locality lives one who works in an office by day and writes poetry
by night. It is said that all his poems somehow turn upon Kamini.
Are the men alone mad about Kamini’s looks? Why, even the women, albeit
disapprovingly, say, "She is beautiful. You have to admit that." When she goes to the
temple after her bath, she lets her wet hair hang loose, covering it with the
aanchal of
her pink sari. The women ask each other why she always wears the pink sari and not
the red one when she goes to the temple. But nobody seems to know the answer.
However, it is for sure that such times her rosy complexion and the pink of her sari
create a certain distinctive aura about her.
The Flood Control Department engineer’s flabby wife sometimes thinks, "Ah well, why
will not men go to Kamini?" Perhaps she is jealous, for people say that her husband
himself finds it distasteful to come close to her. And so, when she goes out in the car
visiting or for attending weddings and other social occasions, it is but natural that any
onlooker will have doubts about who or what weighs more, the woman or the gold
ornaments that she wears?
It is rumoured that the girl who runs the beauty parlour, the one who has cropped her
hair so short and so often that it’s almost non-existent, with her acne-scarred face,
dressed in churidaar-kameez and who is only just over twenty-five years of age, met
Kamini on the road one day, and asked her with all the gravity of a thirty-five-year-old
woman, what she used on her face, which shampoo she washed her hair with, whether
she ate salads or not and other such questions. But it is not known how Kamini
answered her.
The young man, who works in the office dur ing the day and writes poetry at night,
lives in the room at the back. In a room in the front of the same house, lives Ratan, the
truck-driver. Actually nobody seem quite sure whether his name is Ratan, Rahmat or
Robin. There never seems to be any occasion to talk about the truck-driver. During the
week he is out of town for six days. And on the day that he spends in his small room,
he has tea and his meals at Ma Kamakhya Hotel. He sleeps the whole day. At night he
lies in bed singing songs from Hindi films, the sound just audible to the people living
next door. In the morning he would leave, not to be seen again for the next five or six
days. Sometimes he greets the gentleman sitting on the verandah with his newspaper;
"Relaxing, Sir?" The gentleman, who had been an able teacher, was well known. If the
teacher’s wife happened to come outside for some reason and Ratan caught her eye, he
would ask "Baidew, how are you?" Other than this, he did not speak to anyone at all.
As a matter of fact he hardly exchanged any words with the poet sharing the same
house either. Sometimes as he strides down the road in the evening, his eyes alight on
Kamini standing by her window and their eyes meet. This is the time when Kamini’s
body is enveloped in the fragrance of the flowers in her hair. It is the time when the
colour of her paan-stained lips and her sari resemble the tempting red of an apple,
begging to be devoured. It is the time when the bewitching smile in her eyes can
intoxicate without glass after glass of wine being drunk. His footsteps falter near her
window. And though he walks past, his mind lags behind and lingers at Kamini’s
window. He is like a nomad, here today, there tomorrow. And his trip someday might
just be his last. He has been to many places, but doesn’t remember ever seeing a
woman like Kamini, so graceful and so alluring, so like a dream, a poem. He often
thinks of her as he lies in bed. He longs intensely to go to her. But the next day, when
he comes face to face with her in Ma Kamakhya Hotel or on the road as she comes
back from the temple, he is afraid of looking into her eyes.
Kamini uses her body as her capital, to stay alive. It is heard from different sources
that like a woman destined to be a devoted wife that follows the rules of the world, she
too had come to this locality with a tall, dark, moustachioed man and had rented this
house. That man was, people said, her husband. In time there was a baby too, but it
lived for about six months only. Another six months later, the man too left, for no one
knew where. But she didn’t leave the house, and turned it into her establishment, with
her boy for sale.
"Ah! what would it have been like," he wondered. Although he did not write poetry, the
truck-driver had a mind that lusuriated in poetic fancies. As he lay in bed humming the
old raag based Hindi film songs, he sometimes felt like penning a few lines of poetry.
The just-washed shine of the long hair that cascades past her waist! The aanchal of the
pale-pink sari covering the wet hair! The pink of the sari ripples and plays over her
smooth body like some skilful magician showing off his art! Her baby is at her breast !
Oh! how that woman is as happy as a bird and as soft as that shade of pink! It is she
who was once a devoted wife, a loving mother, and is now this woman-Kamini, who is
the desired and beloved of many!
It is only natural that the truck-driver, like everybody else, should also think of Kamini
as merely a shopkeeper, selling her wares. He did; and was also aware that the window
on the other side of the narrow lane was hers, and on this side, his. On the one day of
the week that he spends at home, he understands only too well what amorous games
are played behind Kamini’s closed window. People come and people go, and he knows
what the coming and going is all about. He too had drunk at many shores and has
treasured lovers at many ports. He knows men and women for what they are when he
sees them. It’s not that he does not want to open his door and knock at Kamini’s
window just across the road.
He kept thinking he would go and knock, when one day something happened. Tossing
and turning in a fever, he must have at one time called out, "Ma, ma". He was drowsily
aware of the familiar footsteps of his mother as she came into his room, She gently
placed her slightly trembling hand on his forehead. His mother’s smell assailed his
nostrils; it was a milky smell. She sat by him changing the cold pack on his hot
forehead, and fanning his head. In spite of the fever, his mind, like a young calf with its
mouth at its mother’s udder, leapt with joy. He wanted to place his head on his mother’s
lap, when he heard her tender voice.
"Are you awake? Are you feeling a little better? Oh, you really scared me. Thank God I
was awake."
"Ma, when did you come?" It was only then he remembered that his mother had been
dead for a long time now. "Who?" he opened his eyes. "Oh, its you? When did you
come?"
"Yes, it’s me. You had been calling out in your sleep."
His fever was gone. and now when he remem bers how he had mistaken Kamini for
his mother, his mind is filled with joy, and the image that comes to his mind now when
he thinks of her is that of a woman holding a child in her arms.
That Kamini, of whom many were enamoured, and who was so graceful and
captivating, died today. No, she had actually died a couple of days ago. It’s only today
that people have come to know about it. On seeing her closed house, neighbours
thought that she had gone somewhere, as she was used to do, and would probably
return in a day or two. But when a nauseous stench came from the house, people,
fearing the worst, broke open the door and went inside. On entering, they held their
noses and rushed out. Even these people who were used to living unclean lives all
among could not bear the filthy, dreadful sight. The woman is still wearing the red sari
and the dried flowers are in her hair. The sari, untidily draped over her body, is soaked
with the fluid that has seeped out of fissures in her swollen body. Kamini’s uncovered
breasts, her stomach, both her feet and her distorted face with the spittle caked and
dried on it, can also be seen. On her body is a black swarm of flies. The once beautiful,
captivating and graceful Kamini is now lying in the filth and excrement of her own body.
There was at once a commotion. Someone went running to inform the police. Someone
else took the news to those respectable families, who, though living near and using the
same road coming and going, are many miles removed from them. Just as a stone
thrown up a still surface of water creates a disturbance, so too the locality’s Sunday
luxuries were disturbed by rippes of restless excitement.
From the south-facing windows of the tall houses this locality is clearly visible. At
one time there were two krishnasura and a bogori trees here, and the place was open
and breezy. And it was for this reason that several families had bought plots of land and
built houses here. As the town gradually expanded in this direction, the main road was
widened. In no time at all there sprang up a dhaba for truck-drivers, a cinema hall, a
petrol station and a couple of scooter and motor repairing workshops. A girl started a
beauty parlour. Soon both sides of the road were chock-a-block with shops, food-stalls
and workshops. The oil and grease spilled by the workshop destroyed the grass
growing by the roadside, and slowly even the grass in the green field at the back turned
black and began to die out. A pool of stagnant water collected around the bogori three
and the tree withered away. Moreover, close by the workshops was a Bihari man who
dealt in odds and ends of iron and steel, and empty liquor bottles. He began to throw
the broken, useless bottles around the tree. One of the krishnasuras died. The red
flowers on the other became sparse. Now only a couple of flowers seem to bloom
reluctantly on one or two branches. The other branches look like some impoverished,
homeless, beggar-women. Further, the dirty water from some of the food-stalls nearby
also flows into this place, and the earlier notion of the area being clean, open and
breezy is now given the lie. Taking advantage of these conditions, there came at first
some ill-clad, and squalid people who began working in the neighbouring houses and
scrounging around for discarded tins, bottles, books and newpapers, and these people
gradually put down their roots and settled in the area. Now, like a pimply scar standing
out on the face of a young beautiful girl, this locality was a blot on the other.
The people in the tall, handsome houses got the news almost at the same time.
Although nobody wanted to show that they know Kamini, they knew her only too well.
So, though they asked, feigning ignorance, "Kamini? who’s Kamini?" they all
understood that it was Kamini -- that Kamini!
The DSP came to know, so did his son. The engineer, his wife, and his son too got the
news. The wife and sons and the Doctor himself also heard. Yes, it is that Kamini who
is dead. The sound of bhajans being rendered in a more than usually soulful manner
came wafting from the room of the DSP’s son, the one who had renounced the world.
The DSP lowered his head. The Engineer was at home. His wife said, "Do you hear me,
Kamini’s dead." "Who’s Kamini?", he asked, and took a deep relieved breath. "Who’s
Kamini? So you don’t even know her! Don’t you pretend! As if I don’t know anything!
Why, am I less attractive than her?" Furiously she lunged towards him. Afraid of her
aggressive posture, the engineer went outside.
The elderly retired schoolteacher got the news. The young man writing poetry by night
and working by day, and the truck-driver came to know as well. Men and women from
the respectable locality all gathered in front of the teacher’s house. His wife came out
with tamul paan. They chatted, and there were many topics. The women started off by
referring to kamini’s red sari, the flowers in her bun and her long lustrous hair, and then
the torrent of words carried with it subjects as varied as knitting patterns and whether
small fish cooked with ginger, garlic and chilies tasted better than that cooked with a
dash of lime. The men discussed the probable cause of Kamini’s death. Nobody had
heard of any sort of illness. Even on the last day she had gone to Ma Kamakhya for
muttom curry. And in the evening she had stood by her window dressed in her red sari
with the flowers in her hair. Then?
Then? Something must have happened. After all, people need just one thing to be the
cause of death. The former teacher said, "And that too for a fallen woman like Kamini."
Used to speaking in decent language, he did not like to use the word for prostitute and
referred to her as patita, which means fallen or degraded. The engineer’s wife did not
hear the whole sentence, only the word patita. She, barely managing to scrape through
college, had been unable to secure a seat at the University, and had instead got herself
enrolled for her MA in the newly opened department of Assamese at a local College.
But she could not take the MA previous examination; she fell in love and got married.
Trying to make out the meanings of words was a habit she had acquired at that time.
Now she struck by the word used by the teacher. She saw the resemblance between
the word pati and patita and concluded that pati was the root word from which the other
probably derived. Not probably, but for sure, she thought. So it appeared plain to her
that since pati means husband, patita means a woman to whom the husbands go. Hah,
as if I don’t know all those who used to go to her! It’s not my husband alone. So if
anybody says, anything to me, I’ll let the cat out of the bag. But, oh, she has saved me
by dying! In a moment, the woman’s fat face brightened up..
Between discussions on knitting patterns and cookery skills, speculations on what
caused Kamini’s death continued among the women. Someone said it could have been
a fever. Nowadays even a fever caused by a common cold could not be taken lightly.
Since she was a woman of bad character, she may have had some ‘bad’ disease. Such
people have all kinds of diseases, and now there’s even one called AIDS. Perhaps she
died of that. Who knows?
What do you mean by "perhaps"? Of course, she had AIDS. That’s right, Kamini had
AIDS. Without any medical tests being conducted, it was firmly established that Kamini
had AIDS. There’s proof too. She had told some people that she had been unwell for
several days, That she had been feeling feverish. It is said she had even bought
medicines from the pharmacy for her fever. What was the need then for any other AIDS
test?
The moment it was confirmed that Kamini had AIDS, the gathering of women in front of
the teacher’s house scattered like grassshoppers and all went to their own homes. To
their own homes and then their own puja rooms.
"O God, Ma Kali, Satya Sai baba, save
-- save us -- save us. Will I catch it toooo? Will I too die like Kamini? He used to go to her
so often. You’ve died Kamini, but you’ve dealt me a death blow!"
The women prayed in fearful squaky voices. Their deep heavy breaths made the air of
the locality as warm and humid as it is before the rains come pouring down.
The police arrived. It was decided that a post-mortem would be conducted on Kamini’s
body. It was brought outside just as it was, along with the cot on which it lay. The
respectable stood at their respective windows, while the others crowded around
Kamini’s front door. Along with the corpse, a swarm of flies came buzzing out. The flies
fell on the hands and faces of those standing nearby. People living in the tall handsome
houses, and those living in the low shanties saw the horrible sight of a graceful
captivating Kamini turn into a ghastly spectre in death. A spectre smeared with her own
slimy filth and excrement. She, who had made the evenings enchanted by the fragrance
of the flowers in her hair, was now a sickening, nauseous corpse. And all of them saw
Kamini, a repulsive Kamini, going off all alone, first for the post-mortem, and then for her
little spot under the earth like a heap of foul garbage.
From his window the truck-driver too saw an intoxicating evening, a bunch of flowers in
a bun, a cascade of freshly washed hair; but a noble loving heart filled with dignity and
purity, was on its final journey. With the aanchal of her pink sari covering her wet hair,
his mother was about to leave. And strangely, like a son’s heart losing his mother, the
truck-driver’s hardened heart was beaten by a storm of grief.
