Bhupati had no compulsion to work. He had enough money, and, moreover, the land was hot. But the stars at his birth had made him an industrious man. Which was why he had to publish an English newspaper. After that he no longer had to grumble about time hanging heavy on his hands.
Since childhood he had had a penchant for writing and making speeches in English. Even when there was no need to, he used to write letters to English language newspapers, and even when he had nothing to say, he did not give up without saying a few words at public meetings.
Because of the copious encomiums heaped upon him by political leaders wooing him for his wealth, he had developed a considerably high opinion about his own ability to compose in the language.
Umapati, Bhupati’s brother-in-law and a lawyer— eventually abandoning his attempt to run his legal practice—told his sister’s husband, ‘Why don’t you publish an English newspaper, Bhupati. Considering your incredible…’ etcetera.
Bhupati was stirred. There was no glory in having letters to the editor of someone else’s newspaper published, in his own newspaper he would be able to wield his pen with complete freedom. Appointing his brother-in-law as his assistant, Bhupati ascended the editor’s throne at a rather early age.
The passion for journalism and the passion for politics are both powerful in youth. And there were plenty of people to ensure that Bhupati became besotted.
While he remained engrossed with his newspaper in this manner, his child bride Charulata gradually stepped into youth. The newspaper-editor did not grasp this important development properly. His attention was trained primarily on the fact that the frontier policy of the Indian government was expanding to the point of breaking through its barriers of restraint.
Living as she did in a wealthy household, Charulata had no work. The only task of her long, undemanding days and nights was to bloom despite complete redundancy, like that of the flower that does not turn into a fruit.
In such circumstances, if they can, wives go to great excesses over their husbands – the conjugal sport extends its borders from the predictable and conventional to include the unpredictable and conventional. Charulata did not have that opportunity. Piercing the armour of the newspaper to claim her husband proved to be a difficult task.
After a female relative rebuked him, drawing his attention to his young wife, Bhupati said in a burst of awareness, ‘That’s true, Charu needs a companion, the poor thing has nothing to do all day.’
He told his brother-in-law Umapati, ‘Why don’t you send for your wife to come and stay here, Charu has no one of her age to talk to, she must be very lonely.’
It was the absence of female company that was making Charu miserable, interpreted Mr editor, and he was relieved after settling his brother-in-law’s wife Mandakini in his home.
Neither of them noticed that the period in which husband and wife are renewed to each other in exquisite splendour by the first light of awakening love—that gold-tinged dawn of conjugal life— had slipped silently into the past. Even without a taste of the new, they became old, familiar and accustomed to each other.
Because she had a natural propensity for reading, the days did not prove unbearably heavy to Charulata. She had used her wiles to make her own arrangements for this. Bhupati’s cousin—his paternal aunt’s son—was a third-year college student;Charulata turned to him for help with reading. To extract this service she had to accede to many of Amal’s demands. She had to often finance his meals at restaurants and the purchase of English literary works. Amal would have his friends over for meals sometimes, Charulata used to shoulder the responsibility for the rituals by way of paying for her tuition. Bhupati may have made no demands of Charulata but, in return for some meagre help with her reading, there was no end to cousin Amal’s requirements. Charulata pretended rage over them now and then; but it had become indispensable for her to prove useful to someone and to bear the oppression of affection.
‘The son-in-law of the owners of our college comes to classes in velvet slippers specially made for him, bouthan,’ said Amal, ‘I simply cannot tolerate it anymore. I have to have a part of velvet slippers, or else my standing will suffer.’
Charu: But of course. I shall now slave away to make a pair of slippers for you! Here’s some money—go buy yourself a pair.
‘Not a chance,’ said Amal.
Charu neither knew how to embroider a pair of slippers, nor did she want to confess as much to Amal. But no one else wanted anything of her, only Amal did—and she could not keep herself from fulfilling the prayer of the only person in the world who sought anything from her. She began to secretly—and meticulously—learn the art of making velvet slippers during Amal’s college hours. When Amal himself had completely forgotten his need for slippers, Charu invited him one evening.
Since it was summer a seat had been prepared on the terrace for Amal’s meals. The food was covered with a brass lid, lest the dust get into it. Shedding his college garb, Amal smartened himself up after a wash and arrived.
Sitting down, he removed the lid to discover a newly-made pair of silk slippers on the plate. Charulata laughed loudly.
The shoes stoked Amal’s expectations. Now he wanted a high-necked coat, now a silk handkerchief with floral patters had to be made for him, now an embroidered cover was essential for oil-stained armchair in his sitting room.
Each time, Charulata refused, launching into a quarrel, and each time, she pandered to Amal’s whims tenderly. Sometimes Amal asked, ‘How far have you got, bouthan.’
‘Barely started,’ she fibbed. Sometimes she said, ‘I didn’t even remember.’
But Amal wouldn’t give up. He reminded her every day and kept up his demands. Charu displayed indifference, fomenting a conflict precisely in order to goad Amal into creating a furore — and then unexpectedly fulfilled his prayer, enjoying the outcome.
In this affluent household Charu did not have to do anything for anyone, barring Amal, who never let up without making her do something for him. These small labours of love kept her heart alive and fulfilled.
To dub the plot of land that lay behind Bhupati’s house a garden would be an exaggeration. The primary vegetation of this so-called garden was an English plum tree.
Charu and Amal had set up a committee for the development of this plot. Together they had conjured up a dream of a garden with diagrams and plans.
‘Bouthan, you must water the plants in our garden yourself like the princesses of yore,’ said Amal.
‘And we’ll have a hut there in the western corner for a fawn,’ added Charu.
‘We’ll have a small pond too, with ducks in it,’ contributed Amal.
Excited by the proposition, Charu responded, ‘And I’ll have some blue lotuses in there, I’ve always wanted to see the blue lotus.’
‘We’ll have a little bridge over the pond,’ suggested Amal, ‘with a tiny boat at the bank.’
‘The bank will be paved with white marble, though,’ Charu told him.
Using paper and pencil, drawing lines and wielding a compass, Amal drew a map of the garden with great ceremony.
Together they drew up some two dozen maps, altering and modifying their imagination each day.
After the map was finalised they proceeded to estimate the likely expenses. Initially the plan was that Charu would use some money from her monthly stipend to build the garden gradually; Bhupati never spared a glance for anything going on at home; when the garden was ready they would invite him to a big surprise; he would imagine they had used Alladin’s lamp to transplant an entire garden from Japan.
But no matter how much they lowered the estimate, Charu could not afford it. Amal set himself to alter the map yet again. ‘Let’s drop the pond in that case, bouthan,’ he said.
‘No, we simply can’t, that’s where my blue lotus will be,’ Charu protested.
‘You could dispense with the tiled roof for your fawn’s hut, a thatched roof will do just as well,’ observed Amal.
‘Never mind, I don’t need the hut in that case,’ said Charu furiously.
The plan was to get seeds of cloves from Mauritius, of sandalwood from Karnat and of cinnamon from Ceylon, but when Amal proposed replacing them with seeds of everyday Indian and English plants, Charu looked glum. ‘Then I don’t want a garden,’ she said.
This was not the right way to lower the expense. It was impossible for Charu to curb her imagination along with the estimate, and no matter what he said, it wasn’t palatable to Amal either.
‘Then, bouthan, you’d better bring up the garden with dada— he’s certain to give the money.’
‘No, all the fun’s gone if I tell him. You and I will make the garden together. He might easily order an Eden Garden from some English gardener—where will our plan be then.’
Charu and Amal indulged their imagination over the impossibility of their scheme in the shade of the plum tree. Charu’s sister-in-law Manda called out from the first floor, ‘What are you two doing in the garden at this hour?’
‘Looking for ripe plums,’ answered Charu.
‘Bring me some too if you find any,’ said Manda greedily.
Charu smiled, Amal smiled too. The principal pleasure and glory of all their schemes was that it was limited to themselves. Whatever other qualities Manda might have, imagination wasn’t among them; how would she savour suggestions such as these? She was completely excluded from any committee that had these two as its members.
The estimate for the impossible garden didn’t shrink, nor did the imagination submit to giving even an inch. The committee continued its sessions under the plum tree. Amal marked the spots in the garden earmarked for the pond, for the hut for the fawn, for the marble platform.
Amal was using a small spade to mark out the area around the plum tree that would have to be paved in their garden of dreams when Charu remarked after settling herself in the shade of the tree, ‘How wonderful it would be if you were a writer, Amal.’
‘Why would it have been wonderful,’ asked Amal.
Charu: I’d have made you write a story with a description of this garden of ours. This pond, this fawn’s hut, this plum tree… they’d all be in it, but no one except us would understand, what fun. Why don’t you try to write, Amal, I’m sure you can.’
‘All right, what will you give me if I can write?’ asked Amal.
‘What do you want?’ enquired Charu.
‘I’m going to sketch the pattern of a vine on the roof of my mosquito-net, you’ll have to embroider it in silk.’
‘Must you overdo everything. Fancy having an embroidered mosquito-net!’
Amal spoke volumes against the practice of relegating the mosquito-net to being a graceless prison. This only proved, he argued, that ninety per cent of people in the world have no appreciation of beauty, and do not find ugliness in the least bit painful.
Charu accepted this argument at once, and was happy to conclude that ‘our secret two-member committee does not belong to that ninety per cent’.
‘All right, if you write, I’ll embroider your mosquito-net roof,’ she agreed.
‘You think I can’t?’ asked Amal mysteriously.
‘Then you must have written something already, show me,’ said Charu in excitement.
Amal: Not today, bouthan.
Charu: No, you must show me today – I beg of you, fetch it now.
It was his extreme eagerness to read what he had written to Charu that had prevented him all this time. What if Charu didn’t understand it, what if she didn’t like it —he had been unable to shed such apprehensions.
That day he drew up his notebook, blushed a little, cleared his throat, and then began to read. Leaning back against the trunk of the tree, her legs stretched out on the grass, Charu listened.
The subject of the essay was, ‘My Notebook.’ Amal had written, ‘O my alabaster notebook, my imagination is yet to leave its mark on thee. Thou art as pure, as unfathomable, as the brow of the newborn ere the messenger of fate doth enter the chamber of birth. Where now is that hour when I shall write the conclusion to the last verse and chapter on the last page? Thy tender infant ivory leaves cannot even dream this day of that ink-stained termination…’ and a great deal more.
Charu listened in silence in the shade of the tree. When Amal had finished reading, she said after a brief silence, ‘And you claim you cannot write!’
Amal sipped the heady brew of literature for the first time that day under the tree; the Saki was fresh, so was the taste, while the late afternoon light grew mysterious under long shadows.
‘We must pick a few plums for Manda, Amal,’ said Charu, ‘or else what can we tell her.’
Since they were not inclined to tell the foolish Manda about their reading and other discussions, they had to pick plums for her.
Extracted from Nashtraneer (The Broken Nest), translated by Arunava Sinha.
