Graveyard in a Dark Room by Rajkamal Choudhary

Only two things are famous in Radhabagan colony - the chai tapri (tea stall) near the high school crossway in Basant Cabin, and close to it, the three-floor building and its owner, Shashibhusan Babu’s widowed daughter-in-law, Bhuvan. Basant Cabin, for the last twenty years or so, has been a den for the mohalla’s (neighbourhood's) young and the old who have nothing much to do in life. They never go elsewhere. While in the afternoon young ones smoke, play cards and sing out Lata Mangeshkar songs to girls during school recess; in the evening, old ones arrive to have tea, discuss the current news and stare at the posters of film actresses on the walls while complaining about their sons and grandsons.

Bhuvan often comes out of her house, either alone or with her father-in-law, Shashibhusan Babu, and, taking a glance at Basant Cabin, disappears at a distance.

“When will this old man die? His legs are dangling in the grave, and Sala fears to go inside,” says Santlal, son of late Basantlal - the founder of Basant Cabin. He doesn’t say much because everyone in this mohalla knows Shashibhusan Babu and Bhuvan. They know them from the time when Radhabagan was just a mohalla, and the corporation had not yet turned it into a colony.

It’s been three years since it became a colony. Things have changed. Dust-laden brick and mud roads have turned into concrete now. Dustbins are fixed in places. Daughters-in-law of the colony don’t throw garbage on the roads. The rickshaw returning from the ‘second show’ hardly hits any electric poles. Basant Cabin, however, remains the same. Same as the old days, Shashibhusan Babu and Bhuvan take the hand-rickshaw to go for the Ganga-snan (bathing in the Ganga river). On the way back, Bhuvan takes a fleeting look at Basant Cabin and climbs the stairs to go on the terrace. Lying on the concrete floor up there, she stares at the sky and the smoke that comes out of chimneys from buildings on both sides.

In the evening, a small stone from some dark and lonely corner of the road drops down at Bhuvan’s feet. ‘I love you…you are my life…why are you wasting yourself…will you meet me today at Deepti cinema at 8 o’clock?’ She never reads those letters wrapped in stones. She picks them up, and at around nine or eleven, when Shashi Babu returns, she hands them to him. “One has to bear all this, Bhuvan!” Shashibhusan Babu’s answer has neither disappointment nor hope. Thinking…one has to bear all this…Bhuvan starts cooking, tucking the mosquito net under the mattress and heating water for Shashibhusan Babu. She has to bear all this. All this means those young men at Basant Cabin, men living as tenants in the flats and the male members of the Administrative Committee of the Girls' School. All this means Shashibhusan Babu.

When Chandrabhushan had brought Bhuvan to their Radhabagan house for the first time, she was anxious to find a family of two in the five-room flat. No mother-in-law or sister-in-law. People who lived as neighbours also came from as far-off places as Punjab and Madras. Shashibhusan Babu used to get seven hundred as rent from the flats. There was a gatekeeper, a domestic worker, and an old munshi jee. In addition, they had a small and beautiful shop in the New Market. Sometimes Chandrabhushan would sit at the shop in the New Market and sell elephant trunks, toys made of ceramics, flower vases and sometimes he would go on collecting rent from the tenants. He had bought a new scooter and enjoyed riding it on the wide roads in King George Avenue with a nurse from the Medical College in the back seat. He was a pretty good model of a modern man: fair and handsome, with dreams in his eyes and many cheap habits in the body.

Chandrabhushan’s mother had died when he was just two to three years old. Shashibhusan Babu had no desire to marry again, not even in his dreams. He cared more for the money his wife spent than the happiness he got out of her. He had tried and used all the theories of economics in his life. Otherwise, how was it possible for a corporation clerk who would get seventy or seventy-five rupees as salary to build a house that could give seven-hundred in return?

But not marrying to save money, can it help satisfy the desires of the body? Perhaps not, and thinking the same, Chandrabhushan would tell Bhuvan, “See! When I am not home, keep some distance from Babuji! Who knows…?”

“He is fifty…he is your father, and he is like my father too. Why do you suspect him?” Bhuvan thought. But she did not utter a word. She lived with her old father-in-law and young husband. A month, two months, six months passed. A year passed. At the beginning of the second year, Bhuvan heard that Chandrabhushan had been drinking and courting a Bengali girl from a nearby flat in the front room. Bhuvan was not angry. She thought that if they had a son, things would get better. But it did not happen like that. It does not happen by desire. Not even if you try. Medical science is of no use. It’s a play!

Bhuvan locked the door from inside and stood in front of the mirror. Chandrabhushan had gone to the New Market, and Shashibhusan Babu was playing chess with Chatterjee Sahab in the front room. It was afternoon. The heat was unbearable. There was a switchboard, but there was no fan in the room. Shashibhusan Babu did not consider a fan a need, but a luxury. It was getting hot. There was no fan. Bhuvan was drenched in sweat. Her blouse stuck to her chest and back as if it were not her sweat but glue. She spilt some water on the floor, took off her clothes and lay naked on it. She felt cold all over with her back towards the ceiling. Her shadow fell on the mirror like Rembrandt’s famous Reclining Figure. She was lost in herself. To be alone and naked in a room locked from the inside feels so beautiful, so intimate!

Bhuvan was not beautiful. There were faint marks of chicken pox on her face. Her big eyes did not hold passion, but weakness. But her body…was not a body; it was like a huge figure made of black stone. Bhuvan still lay naked on the floor when Chandrabhushan returned. Shashibhusan Babu was pacing up and down, drenched in sweat. It was obvious. Shashibhusan Babu would peep at Bhuvan from a hole in the door. But Chandrabhushan understood it wrong. Father and son fought, and the husband beat her wife.

On the second or third day after the incident, Chandrabhushan’s scooter ran into a car. During his last moments, he was in a rage, “Stay away from this sinner! Bhuvan, he is not my father; he is my enemy.” Husband’s enemy is also wife’s enemy, but Bhuvan could never consider her father-in-law as an enemy. She could not consider him an enemy because Shashibhusan Babu was sad and remorseful at the sudden death of his son. She knew that he was not at fault and that she had no one except him. Her father was no more. And her mother used to live at her eldest sister's house. She had a brother who had run away to Delhi or Bombay with a lower-caste girl.

Bhuvan and Shashibhusan Babu would go to the market together. If Bhuvan went alone, the young men from the mohalla would not spare her, and then Shashibhusan Babu also didn’t know how to do household chores. Bhuvan never went to the cinema or theatre. Never went for a walk in a field or a park. Never even went out of the city. Waking up in the morning, they would go for Ganga-snan and then to buy things from the market in the evening. That’s it.

Except during dinner and lunch, they never even spoke to each other. People in the mohalla spread rumours that she was pregnant and had gone to a doctor for an abortion, and Shashibhusan Babu takes medicines to keep fit. But these were all rumours; there was no truth in them. The truth was that Bhuvan’s body was not growing weak. She was turning into a beautiful woman who could drive anyone mad. Shashibhusan Babu had started drinking. Chatterjee Sahab would play chess and drink. Chatterjee Sahab’s eldest daughter was a widow and, every six to seven months, would go to a lady doctor. Chatterjee Sahab used to drink because his daughter had to go to a lady doctor. She was working as a steno in the Secretariat, and every six-seven months her senior would get transferred, and every month she came back with two hundred and twenty-five rupees in her hand.

One day during lunch, Bhuvan said, “Babuji, it’s too hot! Should we buy an electric fan?” Shashibhusan Babu did not consider a fan a need, but a luxury. With downcast eyes, he said, “Why waste 150- 200 rupees for no reason!?” The heat rose. There was no respite even on the naked floor. At night, Bhuvan would go on the terrace. But the days were difficult to pass. Bhuvan said it again. Shashibhusan Babu heard her. When she persisted, Shashi Babu bought a second-hand fan and got it fixed to the ceiling. During the day, Shashibhusan Babu would stay out, and Bhuvan slept in the room. At night, Bhuvan stayed in her room, and Shashibhusan Babu enjoyed the fan. It was an old fan. It created noise as it moved. Sometimes it would go wrong. But somehow it served the purpose for which it was bought.

That night was searing. Chatterjee Sahab’s relatives had come, and they were sleeping on the terrace. Bhuvan could obviously not go to the terrace. Her room was burning with heat, and the bed was filled with moisture. The air had caught fire, and the humidity and sweat were making her body melt. Not only does she want to take her clothes off, but also the skin off her body, get rid of bones and venture naked on the road. The fan in Shashibhusan Babu’s room was creaking as it moved. Bhuvan was getting anxious in the other room. She came onto the verandah to take out water from the pot. It was empty. There was no water at all. The water tap stopped working at eleven, and now it was close to twelve. There was nothing but heat, moisture, sweat and thirst!

Bhuvan was going mad, walking back and forth from the verandah to her room. She took off her blouse, petticoat and even her saree. There was no sound except for the fan. Bhuvan stood in front of the mirror. She started wiping the sweat dripping down her body. Both her breasts were red, as if they were not her breasts but a volcano of fire. She pressed her breasts under her palms, but not a single streak of fire came out. The rage didn’t even die down. She sat on the floor. When she got up, she started circling the room like the blades of the fan. Her hair was drenched in sweat. She touched her back, chest and face. Bhuvan felt as if this body was not her body. This is not the body that has to be kept secure and hidden. Why were the blue veins near her thighs untouched?

She fell into a torpor. She came out of her room and straightaway went to Shashibhusan Babu’s room. Shashi Babu was snoring, and the fan was moving fast. Bhuvan sat at one edge of the bed. Then she lay on the bed beside him. The fan did not stop…it kept moving.

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