Rajmahal (13 page)

“I concede,” said Proshanto Mojumdar despondently to Ali Mallik, after the birdcage had been evicted.

“Sorry old chap,” muttered Ali, wincing as he contemplated the long years of toiling up the stairs with gammy knee joints.

But with Shudhangshu's continuing support, Proshanto defiantly installed a dumb waiter from his first floor veranda to the lobby floor, his last major, coherent act, a cogent one. Junior Mallik trembled with rage and helplessness at the desecration of his lobby, but stopped from taking out a court injunction when the other tenants showed such a sickening solidarity in the matter. Though it shuddered to the cornerstone of its conservative structure, the Rajmahal, remembering the bird cage, was excited again by this belated introduction of technology. It felt in its bricks that soon, surely, the real sleek thing, of which Proshanto Mojumdar had many brochures, would be installed. The dumb waiter was announced by Proshanto Mojumdar as a warning. Either this aberration or the real thing. Proshanto's victory filled him with indulgence toward his ally, his younger brother.

Now the latter could say, tongue in cheek, “Has Rudro talked to you yet? Wait. Let me call him.”

Rudrangshu, who was combing his hair in front of the mirror in his bedroom, came in reluctantly, saying privately to his father. “It's embarrassing Father. Why can't you leave the old bozo alone?”

“Shshsh,” cautioned Shudhangshu. “Try and behave yourself. A lot depends on your uncle.”

Rudrangshu was a youthful forty with beautiful hair that bounced healthily and swept his brow. The slight raising around his eyes, an acknowledgement of his father and uncles' bulging eyes, gave him a look
of innocence. His generally pleasing aspect was reduced by a lazy-looking plumpness in the stomach region. Rudrangshu was too intelligent to imagine he could beat his laziness, and had long ago decided to spend time traveling without purpose, a pursuit for which he had a real bug, fed by two sea voyages with Proshanto and Mohini, the high points of his life so far. He spent time fantasizing about these voyages while constantly combing his superb hair and trying to work out the problem of finance. Even so, he was too guileless and too fond of his uncle to covet any inheritance from him. He resented his father's desperate tactics to take control of his life, convinced he was depraved if not downright wicked. He had his own theory that the emanation of Shudhangshu's characteristic body odor was the devil's sulphur.

After his mother's desertion of him in the same package as the smelly Shudhangshu, Rudrangshu gladly accepted Mohini as her replacement, his
mami
or “Aunty,” and began calling her Mini-ma, after her nickname “Mini” and sometimes “Little Mother.” When his father summoned him in that significant way to talk to his uncle, therefore, he called on his late aunt for help.

“Mini-ma,” he called, feeling the psychic emanations which sometimes overtook him, “Mini-ma. What am I to do with this father of mine?”

The house guarded its tenants zealously, keeping the ghosts from getting hyperactive. It knew that, contrary to the vague belief among mortals, ghosts couldn't be omnipresent, omnipotent or omniscient since that would make them gods, which they surely were not. It was more likely they were prescient rather than omniscient. So, Mohini's ghost, which was in a state of suspended prescience at this moment, had to be prodded by the house, and she gladly responded to Rudrangshu's mental summons.

“
Dada
,” Shudhangshu was saying, “It's time Rudrangshu set up something on his own. What do you think?”

“Eh? Excellent, excellent!” said Proshanto. “But he is such a clever lad, he will always make excellent progress!” And he looked beamingly at his nephew with the innocent eyes and cute mop of hair.

Rudrangshu, seeing what his father was up to, said, “Certainly Uncle! I have your blood after all!”

“What about
my
blood?” said Shudhangshu, obviously hurt, and triggered to aggression he added sharply, “It's the capital! Rudro needs the capital to set up . . . ”

“Credit me with some intelligence Father . . . ” butted in Rudrangshu.
“Look Uncle . . . I've made my own arrangements. I've already told father I don't need capital,” and he looked triumphantly at his poor odor-emanating father who would find it difficult to come to the point again.

“No need to doubt the boy, Shudo. Let him stand on his own two feet. Are you sure it is not you who are in need of cash, eh?”

“No,
Dada
! Credit
me
with some concern for my son,” said Shudhangshu, fuming privately, “By Jove, that boy's sly!” And then his anger melted as he looked at his son's charming face, his only souvenir of his wife Ruby whom he so devastatingly loved and missed.

But with a strange cussedness, Proshanto Mojumdar simply couldn't get the point. “What is to become of Rudro's future? Who knows when
Dada
's going to kick the bucket? People live till they are ninety these days. Look at old Petrov, still going for long walks and so forth. Rudro will be destitute and dead before
Dada
! He's forty already. Rudro, forty! By Jove, he doesn't look it!” And smiling fondly, Shudhangshu got lost in thoughts of his darling son merging into the persona of his darling ex-wife.

Inevitably his frustration brought him on to the expensive whiskey with increased ardor, and his impatience reached frenetic levels. “A precipitation,” he soothed himself. “That's all it needs. Nudging on the inevitable. Why not? What a precious thought!”

“Swine!” the prescient ghost of Mohini swore, certain her husband's life was in danger. And then she urged her husband, “Oh, get on with it! Can't you win this race? Can't you either just give him what he wants, now, or die quickly and peacefully in your bed!”

And thus a terrible tussle took place, between Mohini the anxious, hovering, waiting ghost and her desperado brother-in-law, while the obtuse Proshanto Mojumdar chewed the cud. Rudrangshu was uncharacteristically busy trying to buffer his uncle from his father. “What happened to all that ‘Mini-ma' business?” wondered Mohini. But abandoning his laid-back attitude for the present had exhausted Rudrangshu too much for psychic games.

It was a measure of Shudhangshu's repulsiveness that no one and nothing, neither his son nor his brother, nor the prescient ghosts, nor the house, had an inkling of his true motives. For, to be fair to the malodorous father, he would only rest happy if his son, his ego's extension, was successful. And, like most of the world, he assumed success meant happiness.

But Shudhangshu possessed dithering desperation, not the required ruthlessness to achieve that end. This wasn't the opposite of, but obliquely
separate from self-centeredness. His assumptions about success were so uncomplicated that he couldn't imagine his son could be indifferent to money making. His machinations would precipitate Rudrangshu into uncharacteristic action.

Forced out of his inertia and compelled to protect his uncle, Rudrangshu's laid-back, lay-about life was disturbed, and he decided on drastic action. He activated his intelligence to focus and reached his version of a compromise formula. It was, in the end, uncompromising, because it involved abandoning his old uncle and cutting out his father's interference in his life. It was, within the parameters of his character, ruthless.

One fine day, Rudrangshu Mojumdar picked up his possessions and left the Rajmahal, ran away. Figuring out that the pursuit of happiness was the only worthwhile course, he applied to a luxury ocean liner company for a job and found himself employed. The ship was to set off from England, and he complacently approached his uncle to fund the journey. “Rudro my boy!” beamed the loving Proshanto. “I'm so glad you asked!”

“I'll return every penny of it to you, Uncle, I promise you!” Rudrangshu could feel the familiar frisson of Mohini's presence and smiled happily to himself. “Good-bye, Mini-ma, little Mother,” he said. “Knowing you are there, I won't grieve when Uncle goes. He goes to infinitely better company than he has here!” And he added, “You at least will understand and approve of what I am about to do.” Mohini Mojumdar's ghost whooped with joy. Shudo, she thought, having lost control of his son, would be distracted from murderous inclinations.

Rudrangshu's disappearance upset both father and uncle. Shudhangshu made weekly entreaties to his son through the personal columns. “Dear Rudro, Where are you? I anxiously await news. Remember I am on your side. Please come back, or failing that, please write. Your anxious Father.” Proshanto, on the other hand, felt his nephew's absence as a hollowness which couldn't be pinpointed. The hollowness was increased by the absence of the dog from his usual position by his side. These frustrations brought his forgetfulness into full spate, and smothered his kindliness. “Where is the dear boy? And where is Bonzo? Rudro, Rudro! Bonzo, Bonzo!” was his constant, maddening call, followed by the chained dog's baying response. Shudhangshu, inebriated and combative, was riled beyond forbearance and foamed and raved. The Mojumdar apartment became the noisiest in the Rajmahal, and the other tenants refrained from complaining only because they had grown old with Proshanto.

When Rudrangshu wrote finally, his letter was addressed to his uncle. Proshanto cut open the envelope and a check fell out. “When did Rudro leave? I do not remember extending a loan to him!” He automatically had the check dispatched to his bank and kept the letter aside, pleased his nephew had taken to a life at sea. “I knew that boy would come to good,” he mused happily. “I wonder what post he holds . . . Ahh. God is kind.”

His frustration receded but came up again when Shudhangshu appeared in the doorway and flopped into a chair. “You must go on a diet, Shudo,” he said. “What about your cardiac problems?”

“Ooof
Dada
. Do you have to say the same thing every time you see me, every day five hundred times?”

“But you are much too stout for your age! Look at me!”

“Yes, yes!” said Shudhangshu. “I've been looking at you for weeks. And listening to you too.” He stopped abruptly when he saw the envelope and recognized Rudrangshu's handwriting. “By Jove, he's written!” he shouted. “
Dada
, why didn't you tell me?” He pounced on the letter.

“Dear Uncle,” read the sweating and trembling Shudhangshu.

“I hope you are quite well. I for one am positively flourishing. You will be happy to hear that I have joined shipping and that I am aboard the Queen Elizabeth II at this very moment, about to dock outside New York! Surprised?

“I have enclosed a check for the amount you so very kindly and generously lent me. I have Mini-ma and your portraits with me. As you know, you are like parents to me.

“Speaking of which, is my parent still with you? If so, do give him my salutations and tell him I am very happy.

“With respect and affection, Rudro.”

Shudhangshu gnashed his teeth in extreme chagrin, that his son had addressed his uncle, not his own father. But the relief at knowing his whereabouts cancelled the chagrin.

“What should Rudro be, given his intelligence,
Dada
? Purser at least?” he asked proudly.

“What?” said Proshanto. “Could be, could be, yes. He has a strong head for accounts, has he not?”

Shudhangshu wondered where his brother had found this nugget. Rudro couldn't distinguish a crore from a lakh let alone add single units. But that was typical of
Dada
. He could reinvent life and events easily with his atrocious memory. Shudhangshu hummed, what luck, what luck for his
darling boy. By Jove, he could relax at last. At last. Shudhangshu gave vent to a huge sigh, his paunch subsiding dramatically as he stretched himself in a long planter's chair with his legs propped up on the extended arms.

“You are really much too stout, Shudo,” said Proshanto disapprovingly. “Kindly do something about it. Your cardiovascular system does not stand a chance in such a body.”

Shudhangshu stopped his irritable reply as a noisy covey of mini-buses rumbled by sending up strong effluents of diesel. They were sitting out on the veranda, once the Sardar Bahadur's conservatory, in spite of the deafening roar and noxious air. “A veranda is a veranda,” Proshanto always said. “It is a great crime not to use it.” In his mind the sea and wind and waves roared in an idyllic memory reservoir as he floated away on the Chowringhee traffic waves. Over the years, the features of this traffic had altered. There were the double-decker “London” buses, the electric trams, successors to the horse-drawn tram trains of the nineteenth century. When the electric trams were new they were shiny and sleek, “the best trams in the world, better than anywhere else, Paris, London, Rome!” Proshanto was given to boastfully proclaiming. But the trams deteriorated as time overtook the scope of scant resources. Public transport was instead swelled with the addition of rashly driven mini-buses, their raunchy conductors banging the buses' battered sides in some bus code and adding to the cacophony. Proshanto didn't mention the trams any more, his boasts being reserved for Calcutta's recent raging pride, the underground Metro, though he had only been on one ride and had no need for the Metro anyway.

While waiting for the noise to subside, Shudhangshu felt his irritation swelling like the traffic. “Wonderful Rajmahal!” he cursed. “All that splendor to be surrounded by this pollution of air and noise. We have to sit out here where we have to shout and scream at each other as if we were deaf! Ridiculous
Dada
with his reinvention of events, which in his mind should exist and therefore
do
exist! I wouldn't be surprised if his rotten memory isn't due to this din. How can anyone think straight here?”