Along Came Bonny Meghali Barua
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Have you ever driven by the City Girls College? Yes, I am talking about the old, a rather ancient college still standing tall and proud since the British Raj days, just like an ol’ man who’s unsure of his place in the new, strange world. I am sure, if you pay close attention to the one-way street running next to the College, you’ll come across him, just by the corner where the mangled street forks and passes by the Court House, another time-worn figure, still looking as formidable and brazen as in the yesteryears. A rather lost figure, slightly bent at the back, exposing years of toil and sweat, standing by a brightly decorated, glass-covered food stall. Every day, come hail, come rain, without a care for the turn of the seasons, without any digression, he stands patiently handing out platefuls of savory edibles to tightly packed crowd of happy, smiling clientele. Students, smitten lovers, despotic professors, worn-out-to-the-bone rickshaw pullers; all cluster before his tiny stall, waiting for him to rustle up their ordered fare. A clamoring posse is always huddled before him; the amusing part was that nobody minds waiting for their turn, they all crave for a taste of his ‘gourmet’ dishes.
Krishna Bhaiya – they all call him, not really out of love but out of their sheer necessity to address him. Nobody can whip up chaats as he did, they, however, earnestly proclaim. Bhaiya! Krishna loves being called that, he feels youthful and more virile, he thinks. His fast-graying hair, however, reminds him that his youth has already deserted him, a perfidious aficionado that it is.
Every day without a fail, he turns up in front of the tall, stately gates of the City College and quietly sets up his stall by the corner, under the shade of the colossal, aged banyan tree. This, he has been doing for a decade now, maybe more than that. Time doesn’t have any singular consequence to him; the roll of a new, virgin year practically means nothing to him. Each day he has the same, identical routine, for years now. He wakes up even before the fat, raucous roosters of his crowded chawl has had the chance to crow, to announce to the still snugly sleeping world the birth of a reborn day, a new dawn.
He begins his rather uninteresting days with an ice cold bath at the community well, shivering like a leaf desperately clinging to a branch in a breeze, and invoking the name of his favorite god a hundred times, the Elephant God. Ganesha, the God of all auspicious beginnings, is his favorite for reasons hidden to him. He rarely utters the name of his namesake, he thinks that the cowherd God is too playful, if truth be told, to really understand his angst. Anyway, he firmly believes that Ganesha has always brought him good fortune, and with this unwavering certainty, Krishna would enlighten anyone who would care to lend a polite ear to him. No point in venerating the other when one has given him so much, he would rationalize to his somewhat bored and indifferent listeners.
After his diurnal ritualistic bath is done with, the next move is to prepare the grub he would sell at his stall. This meant putting together the special ingredients and painstakingly conjuring up the day’s plat du jour of his stall with as much love and affection as a new mother would have for her newborn. By the time the people in his chawl stir up from their warm cots, his stall would be washed and all of his food arranged in neat little stacks. For no particular reason, Krishna has misgivings about his nosy neighbors’ motives; he feels that they’ll try to steal his inherited recipes if given the opportunity. He guards his recipes as if his life depends on them, maybe it did…after all, these are family secrets passed to him by his father and the father before his.
However, this is a sore point for his short-tempered, short-in-height wife, Radha. “Do you think you’re going to carry your recipes to your grave?” she would hiss, her dark-kohl’d eyes giving away her deep-seated anger. A mumbled appeasement would come from Krishna as he scurried off to work, praying for her unfounded rage to subside before he comes back home, later in the day.
Pooja! The only worthy outcome of his tempestuous conjugal life…the mere thought of her brings a wide, toothy smile on his pockmarked face. You see, she is the pride and joy in his miserable life. His rather shy, twelve-year-old daughter is his only child and though he’s a mere chatwala, he is dogged in his efforts to give her a better life, just like any parent on the face of the earth.
Years back, Krishna and his wife wanted to have a second child, a son, if their luck favored. But Ganesha probably had other designs for them. Krishna’s wife couldn’t breed him another child, her womb was too weak. A miasma of despair deadened his faculties when the grave-looking doctor at the ramshackle, but bustling-at-the-seams Civil Hospital broke them the overwhelming news. His callous relatives made matters even worse. But when Pooja, then a year-old baby, wiggled her fingers as she lay in his lap, comfortable and happy, he had a sudden realization that he was already a father. He didn’t need another baby to attest to that. Krishna, at that moment, with whatever cranial capacity he had, resolved to become the best father he can be. He would make sure all of her starry fantasies come true, he promised her as he cradled the cooing baby by the glow of the flickering oil lamp in their weather-beaten hut. That night, as he gave his word to his oblivious baby, he didn’t feel the icy wind beating down through the cracks of the thin mud-caked walls of the hut, such was the potency of the happiness reverberating in the father’s heart. But this promise was made years ago, and now Pooja, a gawky teen, goes to a typical run-of-the-mill government school, working hard trying to make her warring parents proud.
That hot, summer day, “Krishna Bhaiya! Please make me the usual,” an ingratiating voice cut in, jolting Krishna out of his reverie. Krishna flashed a smile and got down to the task of peeling the skin off the boiled potatoes. “How’s your daughter?” the voice asked, an obvious effort to make the usual unavoidable small talk. The regular patrons of his stall knew every little thing there’s to know about Krishna’s daughter. They have all heard anecdotes about the daughter, how Ganesha has blessed her with an extraordinary intellect, how he was trying to save up money to send her to a ‘dactory’ school. They indulge him by politely asking about her, they were shrewd enough to know that an elated Krishna meant discounts. That day as Krishna started prattling again about his daughter, Rama, the tea-seller, Krishna’s stall neighbor, shook his head nonchalantly…his face, a mask of knowing resignation. “Those crafty weasels!” he thought as Krishna’s patrons pushed for freebies and Krishna, like an indulgent parent, doled out on-the-house items. No wonder, a crowd was always assembled before the halfwit’s stall, Rama thought sardonically.
As the exacting hours of the day passed, the blazing sun languidly turned into a round, crimson orb, and Krishna, calling it a day, started to wrap up his stall. The friendly mongrels of the street gathered near the stall, like every day, in hope. Krishna always fed them the paltry scraps; he loved feeding the mangy, hungry mutts. They were the most uncomplaining clients; anything he would proffer, they would wolf down with great gusto showing their whole-hearted appreciation. His irate wife, however, hated this act of altruism of his; she would shout, “We can’t afford to waste food! I haven’t bought a new sari in years,” she would berate, a regular catchphrase of hers, her shrill voice cutting through the chawl, much to Krishna’s mortification. Not that she cared anyway. But he did love her, in his way. After all, she and his daughter were all he had to call of his own. His wife was not all that bad, a bit nagging, yes…but she was a good wife and unquestionably faithful. After all, wasn’t this all men lusted for…the asylum of a family in a big, busy, unforgiving world?
That evening, as Krishna trod down the narrow, muddy path homewards, he could spot his tiny hut hidden away inconspicuously at the bend. He could see that the drain was again choked up to the brim; in fact, filthy drain water was now seeping stealthily onto the fractured path. Just like an insignificant rivulet whose water has been sullied purging the lurid sins of man, Krishna thought, his good mood turning somber.
His adjacent neighbor, Ali, the butcher, was standing in front of his hut. As out of habit, Krishna waved at Ali, to show his neighborliness. To his surprise, Ali smiled a little uncertainly and without a word, scampered into his hut. ‘That was a little odd,’ Krishna thought.
As he opened the rickety bamboo door of his hut, it creaked noisily, protesting the sudden intrusion. “The damned woman has forgotten to oil the hinges again,” Krishna thought, his mood suddenly taking a darker shift. A fleeting glance across the tiny one-room hut revealed that a veneer of old dust, like a tiresome uninvited guest, had settled in every nook and cranny. His wife suddenly came out of the shadows. “What have you been doing all day?” he was annoyed now. She stood by the wall glaring at him.
Krishna looked at the ‘kitchen’, the small area cordoned off with an old torn sari. The pots stood empty.
“Where’s Pooja? Why she is not home yet?” he fumed. His wife stood sullenly, eyes hostile. Pooja must be playing with the neighborhood kids again, he sighed as a wave of exhaustion took over his body, benumb after standing the whole day. He didn’t know how much longer he can put up his wife’s conduct. It has only become worse over the years.
“Call Pooja! It’s time she should come home and start studying,” he barked, as he lit the wick of the oil lamp. In that derelict hovel, only a pallid stillness impregnated the air swallowing up the two estranged souls. Krishna sat down heavily by the gasoline stove in the tiny ‘kitchenette’. As he started to stoke the stubborn stove, he thought of cooking spicy potatoes for his daughter. As far back as he can remember, Pooja loved his piquant potatoes; he will serve the potatoes with hot, fluffy rotis tonight.
Next door, Ali’s wife was plating up the night’s supper. She suddenly stiffened. “Is he talking to himself again?” she asked, tone uneasy. Ali nodded; his eyes grave. It has been years now since Krishna’s wife had eloped with a man, her distant cousin, they say. The baby who was left behind died two days later, broken-hearted and crying desperately for her mother. As Krishna’s faint, muffled voice punctured the hushed silence of their hut, Ali’s heart broke a little for the wretched fool.
