Kajori (Kolkata Memoirs) (2 page)

             
Shekhar locked the sixteen feet high frosted glass door of their bedroom.

As he turned around, a playful smile crept to his face.

Kajori too was smiling shyly, but refused to meet his eye. Instead, she watched the swaying ends of Shekhar’s elegantly crafted
knochano
dhuti
.

             
He walked over to his piano, started playing a song from Tagore.

             
Kajori listened from the bed.

             
“Sing it,” she said, softly, watching the lines of his shoulder. 

“
You are a cloud in my empty twilight sky, my long cherished dream…”

As he stopped, turned, she dropped her eyes again, smiling.

He walked over to her, cupped her face in his hand, raised it, forcing her to look at him. He smiled, watching the
kajol
in her eyes. “So what do you want to do all night?”

             
Kajori laughed, looked away, then looked at him again, his mouth.

At dawn, in his arms, her head on his chest. He hummed the song again, watching the vermillion and sandalwood mess on her forehead.

“What did you try to tell me in Puri last summer?” Kajori asked.

              “Ma was asking me to get married. But I was in love with you.”

             
Kajori arched her head to look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

             
“I wasn’t sure if you loved me.” Shekhar

             
“How could you not know that I loved you?”

             
“You could have loved me like a brother.” Shekhar teased her girlish surprise.

             
“I did.”

             
“Liar.” Shekhar laughed.

             
“Why?” Kajori sat up. “We were always close like brother-sister …”

             
“Well then we just committed incest.” He looked at her breast not far from his mouth. “And enjoyed it.”

             
“I thought this was an arranged marriage,” she muttered against him. “Did DebDadu know? Is that why he asked Dadu?”

             
Shekhar rolled her over and took a good look at her.

             
“I don’t think so. Dadu was in love with you independently,” he finally said mischievously.

             
“I am happy he asked.” She said, looking away, blushing.

             
KAJORI STARTED AT Presidency College. Shekhar resumed looking after his grandfather’s textile business. The Pathuriaghata house pulsed with women, children, servants sliding in and out of rooms, colliding, laughing.

Durga Pujo
. On
Bijoya Dashami
, Kajori woke early to shower. She came out of the bathroom wearing a white sari with a dark red border, wet curly black hair loose, reaching down her back to her knees. Shekhar watched her from the bed.

She sat at her dressing table. Her head bent to the left, her arms reaching up and over. The water from her hair dripped on the floor. She put vermilion in her parting, as married women did, to keep evil away from their husbands.

Shekhar came from behind, tilted her head back to kiss her, but she arched away from him.

“I have to go,” Kajori laughed. “
Ma wants me downstairs in the
Thakur Dalan
.”

Shekhar buried his face in her breast, didn’t let her go.

“I have to …” she said gently, trying to untangle herself.

Shekhar started kissing her neck, but Kajori tore herself away.

At the door, she turned to look at him, where he watched her from the floor. He saw the lust in her eyes, but the sound of Radharani’s conch outside announced the auspicious hour. Kajori fled the room, leaving the doorway empty.

Downstairs, the idol of the goddess was hoisted in the
Thakur Dalan,
a household temple. Victorious over the demon
Mahishashur
who had the head of a bull, the goddess drove a trident into his chest. The goddess with ten arms, each carrying a weapon. She rode a lion.

Sounds of
dhak
drums filled the fresh morning air. Women in their red bordered white saris, hair partings bright with vermilion, performed the
Dashami
rituals. Seven women, each carrying an offering, took seven rounds around the goddess. Annapurna carried water in a brass pitcher. Meera a conch. Maya carried betel leaves. Radharani and Sudha, the elders, guided Kajori, the new bride, who carried fire. Smoke blended with scents of oil, incense, camphor in her nostrils. Her ears pounded with the bellowing of conches.

They hugged the goddess, whispered adieus in her ear, smearing vermilion on her forehead. The moist vermilion on banana leaves traveled from hand to hand, and in the courtyard in front of the
Thakur Dalan
, they smeared each other’s foreheads in red. Maya chased Kajori, who chased Meera; the three together chased the plump Annapurna. The whites of their saris were marked with vermilion, the courtyard ground red, red air hung over the morning.

Shekhar watched from the upstairs balcony, smiling.

Kajori exchanged a glance with him that made her blush from head to toe, before Meera came from behind and smeared a fresh round of vermilion, dragging her back into the fray.

SHEKHAR’S ANGLO INDIAN friend, Joseph Braganza, whose father owned the Piano shop on Free School Street, was in Shekhar’s music room with his trumpet. The two experimented wildly, the sound ricocheting through the
Pathuriaghata house.

The house was architecturally much older than its counterpart in
Bhowanipur. It also differed in customs. The family lived in the inner wing, where outsiders were not allowed. When Mashtarmoshai came, he had to wait outside in a small study, while Kajori was summoned by a servant.

Kajori was working on Calculus with Mashtarmoshai, the sound of Joseph’s jazz careening through the hallways. Mashtarmoshai, irritated, covered his ears with his hands and shook his head.

College exams were near. When Shekhar burst into the room, she looked up, alarmed.

“Mashtarmoshai,
Baba wants to see Kajori within five minutes.”

“This is no way to learn Calculus,” complained Mashtarmoshai.

“Sorry, Mashtarmoshai … you know how it is. If Baba calls, she has to go.”

“Yes, go … go.”

Kajori looked at him apologetically. “Can I go?”

“I told you … Go.”

“Come on, Kajori, hurry,” Shekhar prodded from the door.

As soon as they reached the Billiard room, Shekhar grabbed her hand, dragged her in. He pinned her against the table, his thigh between her legs. “We’re going to Joseph’s house. He’ll take us to a Jazz concert.”

“Not right away?”

“Right away. Get dressed.”

Kajori let him kiss her, but protested, “He’ll be very upset.”

“Joseph and I will be very upset,” said Shekhar, as he slid his fingers under her sari and ran them over her breasts. Kajori’s breath quickened.

She went back to the study. Head down, as she entered, Mashtarmoshai burst out. “I knew it. The moment that husband of yours walked in. He and Joseph are spoilt brats. Never worked for anything.”

Kajori waited. The lazy harassing trumpet call in the music room embarrassed her.

“I’ll finish all fifty problems for Saturday.”

“You do what you like,
Ma. Who am I to tell you what is right, what is wrong? You are old enough.” He packed his books, got up to leave.

“Promise, Mashtarmoshai.”

At the club, the air was thick with smoke. Joseph invited Kajori to dance. At first, Kajori was uncomfortable, missing the rhythm, faltering on the steps. But Joseph’s hands guided her patiently through her awkwardness. Soon, she caught on to the beat. The rhythm pulsed in her head and magically, her feet followed along. The two bodies moved in synch, their harmony filling both up with liquid joy.

Joseph dipped her, twirled her. She felt at once dizzy and giddy with exhilaration at her first dance ever.

Shekhar watched her laughing in the arms of his friend, her full breasts against his chest, swaying with the music. He tried to focus on the music. The floor was full of bad dancers, Joseph being the lone star who knew what he was doing. But the crowd kept on swaying, unapologetically.

They danced three songs in a row, before he walked Kajori back to Shekhar. “Your wife’s a great dancer!”

“I noticed.”

“Dance with her.” Braganza gestured with his hands towards the floor.

“Come, let’s dance,” Kajori, obviously enjoying herself, tugged at him.

“I don’t know how. These idiots are making fools of themselves.”

“Oh, they’re just having fun,” Joseph winked at Kajori.

She looked around. Indeed, the Bengali men were terrible dancers. She preferred dancing with Joseph.

“Of course she doesn’t do housework … she goes to college!” said Meera, lying on her side, holding her cards up.

The two sisters-in-law were playing cards on the bed in Maya’s room. Meera and Maya were both pregnant. Kajori, at the door, listened.

“I wish I was going to college as well!” said Maya, adjusting the bolster pillow supporting her arm. “My mother-in-law would throw me out if I didn’t do the kitchen duties.”

Meera slapped a card on the bed. “You’re not Surjo Shankar Ray’s grand daughter!”

“Last night, they came home at 1:00.” Maya slapped another card. “Went to listen to American music.”

“I wish I could go for American music with my husband.”

“Oh, but you don’t speak English like she does!” They both laughed out aloud.

             
Kajori entered the room startling both women.

             
“Can I join your game?”

             
“You?” said Meera, “Play cards?”

Kajori smiled, joined them on the bed. Maya’s maid Hori’r Ma served tea. She brought a bowl of puffed rice mixed with onions, green chilies, peanuts, and mustard oil. As she left the room, she commented, “The sun rose on the west this morning,
hna go boudira?
”

Maya dealt a round of cards. As Kajori picked up her hand, she asked Meera, “Is the baby kicking?”

“Mine is,” Maya said, touching her belly.

“Not mine,” sighed Meera. “I am just becoming fatter and fatter.”

Kajori had done everything possible not to get pregnant. “Do you feel sick?”

“Oh no, that was early on.” Meera rolled over. “Now I’m eating all the time, don’t you see?”

Maya added knowingly, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

AS SHEKHAR CAME back from work, showered, changed into his milk white
Pajama-Punjabi
, and Kajori finished her session with Mashtarmoshai, they found themselves alone in their room.

Shekhar started playing a song that Tagore had interpreted in Bengali from an English original. As he played, he sang both the English and the Bengali versions, merging the two. He sang playfully, hoping Kajori would join him, emphasizing lines that begged her to come. She didn’t. She sat on the bed, lost in thought.

The floor-to-ceiling mirror reflected a portrait of Shekhar’s great grandmother, as a nine-year old bride, standing next to her twenty-one year old husband.

“What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing …”

“C’mon. Kajori’s not in this room.”

She smiled absently. “Mashtarmoshai was talking about Energy.”

Kajori and Mashtarmoshai had recently started exploring connections between Physics and Metaphysics. The questions haunted her.

“What about energy?” He narrowed his eyes to fake interest, but the smile he tried to hide lingered.

“He says all energy fields are connected. If I am far away from you, and want to connect with you, I can.”

“You can use the telephone,” he shrugged.

“No, no. Connect with energy.”

“Telepathy?” Shekhar was mildly interested.

“Something like that. Meditation.”

Shekhar rolled his eyes.

“How’s it possible without violating laws of Physics?”

Shekhar looked blank.

“A young man in Vienna – Fritjof Capra – wrote an article.” Kajori got down from the bed. “Anyway, it’s not interesting for you,” she added.

“Unfortunately not! Can we switch to Tagore? Come, sing with me.”