Chronicles of a small town. Chapter Two. A Pair Of Trousers

Durga puja was the main event of our life in the little town; everything people mentioned was relative to the puja, either before or after. I often wondered why this was so, but given the plain life we lived, all of us waited for some spectacle to surprise us. But the town was too peaceful for any scandal to erupt or any ghastly murder to take place as it was inhabited by mild-mannered people all of whom worked in the same railway office. On the whole, nothing sensational happened that could offer respite from the humdrum, allow people to gossip like they did in the big cities. It was only during Durga puja when the routine was allowed to be broken; so it was understandable why the puja held such an important place in our life. Even now, forty years after I had left the place for good with no trace of my life there, if I was asked which place I would like to revisit, with eyes closed I would say it would be my home town, especially during Durga puja.

That year, when our gang was reduced to three from four, with Nilu remaining in exile in some hospital in Howrah, we collectively decided to demand a pair of trousers for each of us during durga puja. We used to get new clothes twice a year, first being the Nababarsho that was the first day of Bengali New Year and the second being the Durga puja. In between, we never asked for anything, nor we felt the need. The reason to place our demand simultaneously to our parents was the fact that our fathers had passion for playing cards together. It was my observation that the old men discussed everything under the sun while they played cards at railway institute. The audacity of the demand seemed relatively minor when all of us demanded the same thing or so our parents liked to believe. We were more hopeful to get things going our way this time because we had only a couple of months left to get promoted to class nine and even our school prescribed navy blue trousers for boys of class nine onwards while the girls were asked to wear white sarees with navy blue border.

When Gautam proposed we would wear full pants now onwards, I said I already had two trousers, altered though, courtesy my dad`s old PT dress that he wore when he was a trainee at Secunderabad railway training institute. But both of them objected because my trousers couldn’t be branded as new and hence didn’t qualify here. But they said, however this could be used as an example to support the claim by boys of our age, thirteen to be precise, who required full pants not only to cover their modesty but also to protect their legs from cold during winter. Khokan being the eldest among his siblings had to face the toughest hurdle to convince his parents but Gautam had two elder brothers; so I knew he could always manage a discarded trouser of his elder siblings even if he was not sanctioned a new one. But it was me who got the toughest resistance.

 “Why do you need another full pant?” my mother wanted to know.

 “Don`t you have two trousers already?” 

“Those are not new, but altered from dad`s old pants.” I objected.

 “But they look like new and fit you well.” Mother said. Though both were altered two years ago, my mother was clever enough to keep the legs longer and the waist a couple of inches bigger so that I would not outgrow them so easily. Two years ago, when I hardly had guts to revolt, she had made few extra holes in my father`s discarded belt too so that using the discarded belt I could wear the discarded trousers. At my meek protest she always said that no one was going to look at my waist lifting up my sweater.

 “Even the school requires us to wear full pants from next year.” I said at my last attempt. 

“We will see to it, but before that you have to pass the final examination, my boy!” My mother said. As if she knew I wouldn’t pass the examination and therefore the question of getting a new full pant wouldn’t arise. 

But the reason why Gautam proposed we should put on trousers now onwards became clear later. On the evening of Saptami, when three of us were supposed to hang around together at our own puja pandal, we found Gautam missing. I sat with Khokan, in the music room, which was a tent at the side of the main pandal where a bruised HMV turntable sat on a battered wooden table belting out Hindi film songs. Throughout the day a couple of loudspeakers tied at the top of a bamboo pole forced the entire neighbourhood to listen to songs according to playing list of the older boys who smoked cigarettes and chased weed to celebrate the liberating month that begins with Mahalaya and ends in Diwali. In the evening when they went away for romantic outing with girls of another locality, we were asked to man the coveted spot. I loved the job because like Amin Sayani of Binaka Geetmala, whose voice we simply adored, I spoke in between the songs to let people know that there was somebody in charge now who had a refined taste and therefore listeners could expect a better stuff.

 I was going to change the disc when Gautam hissed from behind. He was wearing his new black trouser with a maroon full sleeved shirt tucked in. As I was going to ask about his sudden disappearance, he silenced me putting his finger against his closed lips. 

“Go out and watch the girl in blue saree standing below the chandelier.”

 “Who is she?” I demanded.

 “First you have a look then I`ll tell you.” I went out reluctantly handing over the charge to Khokan, who hardly had an ear to tell between Kishore kumar and Md Rafi. 

Three girls in their mother`s sarees and blouses, looking clumsy and gauche stood close to each other tittering about something looking at the idol of Ma Durga and her full family. There was hardly anything so entertaining in my opinion except the Mahishashur who had outrageously sculpted muscles despite being such a looser and the bright red penis of the lion standing out of a dark triangle with two grey balls hanging shamelessly. I often thought girls overlooked those things what we, the boys, always saw and enjoyed; especially when the scene had an amorous overtone. But in this case, it seemed that it was the dagger-like penis that had induced the laughter. 

When I came out of the music room and the girls noticed me emerging from the same dugout where Gautam had disappeared few seconds ago they quietened abruptly and looked away as if my impression counted a lot for them. 

All three girls were known faces. I tried to focus on the girl in blue saree and recognised she lived in another locality, close of our school. Her identification mark was one guava tree in their back yard that produced the best guava of the town but was guarded fiercely by few millions of ants who dug deep into the intruder`s flesh if one stayed longer in the vicinity. We always had known it and it was our strategy to hurl few missiles to shake the ripened guavas off the tree before collecting them like paratroopers and banishing immediately. But this was definitely not the reason why Gautam wanted me to judge the lass. But then by now she had acquired the status of a friend`s lover; and so I was expected not to look at places of a girl’s body where a boy of my age commonly stared. 

When I went back Gautam said, “How is she? Good?” Khokan, busy selecting the LPs missed the whole thing. But from our hushed conversation he sniffed something interesting going on and swivelled facing us. 

“Who, are you two discussing?”

 “A girl.” I said.

 “Your girlfriend?” 

“No, not my, somebody`s!” 

Gautam approved my presence of mind with a chortle and tried to shake him off.

 “Not your kind of girl, never mind man!” he said. 

But if you had known our friend Khokan or a boy of his clan, you knew how difficult it was to fend him away especially when the discussion was about a girl, the species we had just begun to fancy. 

“Where is she? “ Khokan jumped off his chair and almost ran to the pandal as if the girl in question was about to disappear.

 “Hey man! Don’t rush.” Gautam shouted. But by then Khokan had already landed in front of the girls like the lone chimpanzee of the local zoo which often resorted to funny theatrics when it saw young women in the gallery. We heard the girls breaking into another peal of laughter when we stepped out of the music room to check on our friend. Khokan looked offended; he took the laughter as a personal insult but having no idea how close the girls were to his friends, swallowed it like bitter gourd sherbet. We looked at each other in surprise, even the girls stopped laughing. I saw few uncles and aunties exchanging curt glances between themselves nodding their heads as if saying, what is going on? You can`t fool us!

 Perhaps due to the scornful gazes of the aunties who stopped their bitching and focussed all their energy judging the shameless girls who were eyeing to corrupt the innocent boys, Gautam`s girlfriend and her friends left. Three of us went back to the dugout.

 “You know her!” Gautam said. I knew he was referring about our last raid of the guava tree.

 “Her name is Lopa.” Gautam said with a smile waiting for me to ask him more about her. 

“Now I understand why you pushed us to ask for trousers!” I said. 

Gautam smiled sheepishly.

 “Where did you go with her?” I asked.

 “We went to Anabari.” 

“Anabari? What`s there to see?”

 “Nothing! No one knows us there. That`s why we went. If you have ever gone there you might know, one road from the T – junction goes straight to the port. We strolled down the road, a long walk actually and chatted for two hours.”

 “Oh God!” I said, impressed with Gautam`s maverick idea of romancing the girl who owned a guava tree in their backyard. But then it struck me what was it that they had spoken for two long hours?

 “What did you guys actually talk for two hours?” I asked credulously. 

“Oh, you are too naive! I can expect Khokan to ask question like this, not you man!” Gautam said.

 Though I was itching to know what the lovers actually talk when they were together, I, having been placed at a higher intellectual status than Khokan, fell silent. Well, by then I had read few novels in Bengali written by Samaresh Basu, that my mother borrowed from railway institute library and had some theoretical knowledge how lovelorn couples peck each other. But I was curious to know if all that I read were true, if the lovers really kissed each other when they sat close together cooped inside a cabin of a restaurant, and if the waiter could be bribed to stand as guard on the other side of the curtain.

Thinking this might be a smart question, I asked Gautam, “Did you go to a restaurant?”

 Gautam smiled, “I wanted to go, but I didn’t have enough cash in my pocket. How can you go in and not entertain your girlfriend?”

 I felt pity for the poor lover boy but at least he had a girlfriend. I had only a pen friend that too she wasn’t actually mine but donated by Nilu. Gautam said they had walked and spoken for two hours. I placed myself in Gautam`s shoes and imagined it was I who was walking with my lover, a girl, whose face I didn’t know yet because she didn`t have any real existence but only a form, that my thoughts had conjured her to be – a silhouette who smiled like an angel, sauntered like a fairy, had hair so black that it reminded you of the darkest night and her eyes, if I could translate Jibananda Das`s poem – a bird`s nest – an impossible metaphor for anybody to understand unless you read Bengali poetry.