A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

He thinks we are fools and will never
know. “I’m sure this snooty fellow makes
us inhale something in our sleep. It
befuddles our minds and we start behaving
like fools.”
“I say, are you hearing it? The thuk,
thuk sound under the floor?’’
It’s again that machine at work. They
must be making more of those counterfeit
notes. Don’t I know? They want to tempt
us so that we fall into their trap and
are put behind the bars. You know it,
if they could have their way they would
even put us in the lunatic asylum.”
“Won’t they be punished for it, dear
Grace?”
“Of course, they will be punished. Did
you hear that hurtling noise last night?
The police had dumped these fellows in
a truck and carried them off to jail. But
no, a great change has come over the
police officers too. Can we ever forget
our cousin who was in the police? After
Independence when Lord Mountbatten
handed the rein of office to Jawaharlal
Nehru—oh, how can you forget it? we
saw the entire ceremony from beginning
to end in that documentary film. Oh, God,
our cousin looked so dashing!”
“Ruby, I fear Mountbatten is no more.
I had written him a letter explaining to
him that we were very unhappy here.
We were feeling homesick and wanted to
come back to England. But there was no
response from his side.”
Nurie is sitting there set against the
bamboo trellis undoing an old woollen
sweater. I come and sit down on the same
old iron bench and taking out a packet
of cigarettes from my pocket light a
cigarette. Nurie looks at my cigarette with
greedy eyes. I offer her one and she takes
it with alacrity. It is for the first time
that I see a small tattoo mark on her
chin. She must have been very vivacious
in her younger days. I search for that
young face through the rising cigarette
smoke.
While unwinding her sweater, she also
unwinds another story:
“So you have heard their life story,”
she proceeds. “I tell you, nobody ever
strays this side. Not even thieves and
their forefathers. As you know everyone
grows old at one time. They had a gay
time in their youth, dined on murgh-emusallam
(full baked hen), drank the
choicest wines, went places. They had a
whale of a time. But the little money that
is now left in the bank how long is it
going to last? And they are tormented
by fears, most of them imaginary. Fear
in their case takes two shapes. A man
by the name of Chakravarty and a blueeyed
prostitute. It is such a bizarre mixup.
They will meet you, sit with you,
chat with you. But the moment you are
out of their sight some fellow by the name
of Chakravarty immediately takes over
January-March 2012 :: 115