He liked his books arranged in a particular order on his small shelf. So when he took out a book from its place, he placed a wooden cog in the vacant space to prevent the slipping books from gobbling up the gap. He did not take out the book to re-read it but to put on the last sheets of his letter pad, which had his name elegantly printed with the subscript declaring his credential as an MA. The room had a single bed with a chair and a table comprising the other furniture. The walls were plastered and whitewashed. Apart from the shelf, there hung on the wall a mirror, an electric bulb, and a tube light. On the table was a table-lamp. The room had two windows. One faced the slum below, for the room was on the first floor, whereas the other window faced across the lane another building – a newly constructed ghetto of apartments. The ceiling was of plywood and not painted. From a hole in the middle of the plywood ceiling there protruded the fan. Beside the table stood the steel cupboard. He had not yet finished writing the book review of Diamond Dust when he saw on the table clock that it was almost time for his tuitions.
As he came down the cemented staircase, which was wet because it was time for the people to fill in their buckets from the corporation tap, flooding in the courtyard, and carry into their rooms upstairs, he saw rain clouds gathering in the south. While going out of the building, he saw the landlord’s wife bathing under the tap with her petticoat hitched up to her neck. He went towards the street, called a rickshaw and was off to his calling.
Bunty was no child-genius. He was one in the brat pack of his class. But he never annoyed his tuition teacher in any way other than by not finishing his homework. It was more like Bunty taking dictation from his teacher rather than doing his work himself. Bunty’s homework was not yet finished when it was time for Mr. Sen’s next tuition. As usual he instructed his student how to go about the rest of the work, though he knew the futility of such instructions. When he reached Bela’s house it had already started drizzling. He was in no mood to teach and, after having his cup of tea, he just sat near the window watching the drizzle in the posh locality. Bela sat on the sofa with her legs stretched comfortably and engrossed in reading a book that she held in her hands so stiffly that the pages were on the verge of coming apart at the seam.
While watching the almost deserted street outside the window, he saw a cat scurrying past the window in the drizzle. The cat shook its body vigorously but the light drizzle suddenly changed to a heavy shower and, though the cat was standing under a tree, the tree started dripping so much that the cat could not help getting wet all over again. Mr. Sen called Bela. She came and looked out of the window at the wet cat and exclaimed, “We should rescue it from the rain.” Mr. Sen looked at Bela and said, “Can we?” They stared at each other and slowly creased their foreheads. Bela shut the window and nestled herself on a chair beside Mr. Sen. As the sound of the rain outside grew louder and noisier, both of them sat and brood over Keats’s “Lamia.” Every now and then Bela narrated an anecdote from her day in school. It was quite late when they could feel the silence outside for it had stopped raining.
On his way back home Mr. Sen met with a pool of water at Camac Street. All the vehicles were swishing at the middle of the road and it was impossible to hail a taxi from the distance at which he was standing. He tip-toed on bricks that peeped out of the cesspool till he reached a place where there were no more hibernating bricks with exposed backs. He thought of a stratagem. He held on to a nearby wrought-iron swinging gate and manoeuvred himself to the other end where he could place himself on a raised platform of a closed shop. But he was not yet out of the waterlogged street. So he waited for any vehicle to pass by at relative close quarters for him to ask for a lift. In no time he was joined on the platform by a couple of more people. It was not long before a police van came wading through the water slowly. He called out for a lift but it sped away instantly.
Mr. Sen put his sneakers in the water and started wading through the floating dirt until he came on to dry land. He could see some distance away another pool. He took a right turn and went on like that – wherever he encountered water-logging he took the nearest turn on the road. He had long forgotten about taking a cab. It was not until he had reached Rawdon Street, quite in the opposite direction of his home, that he found himself alone. The street lamps, where he was standing, were not working so it was also quite dark. But then he remembered that his friend Mukul’s house was nearby.
He went up the sixth floor apartment and luckily found that Mukul was having night shifts in his job at present because his department of the company was working for a US-based client. They sat on the balcony and started smoking cigarettes but soon they saw the statutory warning on the cigarette packet and butted cigarettes hurriedly in the ashtray. They smiled at each other conspiratorially, reminding each other of the debates they once had in Coffee House on the ban on smoking in public places. Mr. Sen picked up the cigarette packet and asked, “Throw it out, Mukul?” Mukul wrinkled his nose, so he put the packet back on the table. Mukul had to leave for his office. He offered to drop Mr. Sen on the way. Mr. Sen put his wet sneakers on and got into Mukul’s car. In the car Mukul informed Mr. Sen that there was an opening for a content developer in his company. He insisted that Mr. Sen should apply for the post. He told him that if Mr. Sen applies then the well-paying job will be his in no time and since the company mainly caters to US clients, he will more often than not get the days free for his artistic pursuits.
When Mr. Sen reached home he saw a postcard nestled in his letter box. He took it out to read it in the dim glow of the 60 watt staircase bulb as he climbed up to his room. It announced that his parents were arriving the next day from Deoghar. There were enough hints in the letter that their visit concerned persuading him to consent for marriage. Mr. Sen pocketed the letter as he unlocked his room’s door. He put on the light and opened the window towards the slum. But someone was shouting loudly in an inebriated state down below, so he closed the window again. He then went and opened the other window. Down below, across the narrow lane, a person was urinating in the puddle under a shut window when suddenly the window opened and the culprit was confronted by Mrs. Chatterjee. An altercation followed. Mr. Sen watched the whole scene until the man zipped his trousers and went away, and Mrs. Chatterjee again closed the window. Mr. Sen fell like spitting out of the window but his mouth was dry and very little spit came out.
He was back at his table staring at the unfinished review. He put off the tube light and put on the table lamp. He took out his ball-point pen and found that he could not write with it properly because the ink has dried in the refill. So, on a fresh sheet of his letter pad, he started to make spirals – from the periphery to the centre and back. The curved lines of the spirals being every now and then intercepted by blank spaces due to the dryness of the ink. Then he started making straight lines diagonally across the page in that pattern of lines and gaps – juxtaposed adjacently. The page was filled with spaces either lined or blank. And then he started all over again with the spirals but suddenly he found that the ink coming out of the pen was tracing smooth curves without being intercepted by blanks. He stopped. He read the unfinished review – not liking it much. He crumpled the paper and threw it in the dust bin under the table. He took out the book from under the inky-patterned sheaf of the letter pad and placed it in the space, on the shelf, reserved for it by the wooden cog.
Morning. He had packed two suitcases. One held his books and papers and the other his clothes. He came out of his room and closed the door. Inside the inky patterned sheet of the letter pad fluttered in the sudden draught but was held in its place on the table by the weight of the wooden cog placed over it. As he came down the steps he saw the wife of the landlord brushing her teeth near the tap with the folds of her sari tightly pressed between her legs. He went to her and answered he surprised eyes, seeing him with his luggage, by giving her the keys of his room. He told her that he was going to Deoghar. On his way out he took out the postcard from his pocket and put it back in the letter box. Mr. Sen went out to the street and hailed a cab.
