Chutki mashi

This was during those times when I stayed in my Mashibari (my maternal grandparents' house) in Kolkata. Many had made their temporary abode there, I had found, as my grandparents loved being in the company of people. There were distant relatives who had come for some purpose in Kolkata and desperately needed a place to put up at night, while there were some who simply poured in from nowhere. Besides my three aunts, Dadu-Dida (Grandfather-Grandmother) and myself there would always be three-four more people, all gracefully living in a two-roomed rented accommodation and the commotion would sometimes become unbearable.

Amongst the guests, the ones I met the most when I came to stay there was this friend of an aunt who had married against their parents' wishes and it was in this house that the rituals of her Bowbhat and Phulsojja was done. I remember her husband to have gifted me an animated book which popped-up princes, fairies and palaces when opened, as a token of appreciation for my coming second in Class three; which I had treasured for a long time. This man went a long way in helping me get the initial break in my career after passing out of college. He belonged to a bonedi (aristocratic) brahmin family, which had abandoned him for marrying a lower caste kayastha girl. The story of his growing up alone, since the age of twenty-two from a deplorable unemployed lad to becoming the general manager of a reputed construction company is an inspiration for many.

Suddenly one day a woman arrived at the house, all alone and since then a hush fell into the family. She was about twenty two to twenty-five years of age, dark-complexioned, with long hairs extending upto her knees, but the signature trait in her appearance, which I remember to this day was her plucked eyebrows above a pair of eyes which reflected compassion. I learnt she was the daughter of my Dida's childhood playmate in Bangladesh and hence another of my Mashi (mother's sister). Her name was Sandhya, but she being the youngest of my aunt's, I called her ChutkiMashi. She was very reticent in nature and when everyone would be jolly making, she'd sit secluded at a corner, ruminating. At that age, though most of the grown-up conversations would be held away from me lest I grow curious about them yet a few fleeting remarks like 'Arre o to or borer shathe thaktei parlo na ( She couldn't get along with her husband) .. 'Biyer por oirom ektu-adhtu shobaikei maniye nite hoy' ( Every girl has to make little sacrifices after marriage) about her wouldn't escape my ears.

Did I meet her husband ever ? I asked. 'O Yes .. you have ', my mejomashi ( middle aunt) would say . 'Manas jamaibabu had once visited our home with a big hilsa fish, have you forgotten so soon ? 'I immediately remembered the bearded man more for his fish and few odd habits than being the husband of my aunt . I had never seen anyone walking into the house clad in a dhoti-kurta before, dangling a fish in hand, a pot of sweets in another; the scene being amusing for no obvious reason. When he squatted for his lunch, I found him starting with the meat and fish items (these were actually main courses); mixing both the curries with dal and other subzees , smearing his hand badly in the process. Long after he had left, there would be discussions about his eating habits followed by wrinkling of noses. During the little time he stayed, he hardly spoke and while having lunch when Dida asked him how he was doing or about Sandhya, waving a handfan all the time with the electric fan spinning at full speed above; he answered only in monosyllables. At that age it was hardly possible for me to guage the issues between a husband and wife, let aside understand what marriage was (other than being a necessary custom for a grown-up man and woman to stay together in a house other than their parents' and bring home babies blessed by God in a year or two); but that she didn't accompany her husband and later he didn't come to drop her at her aunt's house, appeared strange.

Chutkimashi seldom went out of the house and when she did, she preferred to go alone. Where she went neither anybody knew nor had the courage to ask. But once out of sight the whisperings about her would return back. 'Teen bochor hoye gelo ekhono kol phanka'( already three years has passed since marriage and there's no good news yet) , I once heard my grandmother say about her, to which my mejomashi remarked, 'Odbhut meye ekta .. ei bhabe kotodin cholbe ? ( She's a peculiar girl .. how long does she think of carrying on like this ?) 'I'll have to talk with Samir .. God knows what happens to young girls, nowadays. In our times we too had issues, but we always had the greater picture of our families in our minds and trifles couldn't alter that picture' .. Dida retrospected. 'I tell you there's something wrong with that girl. If she didn't like Manas and had anyone else in her mind, she should've let us known before marriage. Now since I'm the matchmaker I'd be blamed' .

Samir was Dida's jamaibabu , being the husband of her country sister; a man whom everyone feared and avoided due to his reserved nature and short temper. Since the demise of his wife a year after giving birth to their youngest son 'Shankha', he had retracted more into his shell and if it wouldn't have been for my grandparents, his eldest daughter could never have been married off in the traditional way. But then again, it had been just three years and the marriage had reached rock-bottom. 'Sandhya had inherited her father's nature ..' Dida reflected. 'I know how difficult it has been to bring up a daughter in the absence of a mother, particularly during those times when she needed her the most'

But Chutkimashi always smiled and talked to me whenever I went up to her .. She would take my head in her lap and run her fingers through my hairs, telling me stories of the native place of her parents, the ones she had heard from her mother; much to the raising of eyebrows by others. Since she came to know about my fondness for rosogullas, she'd never stop fetching the sweets for me from the market through my mashis; while never failing to bring a potful home, the few times she went out to the market herself. I once gathered enough courage to ask her about Manas meshomoshai , though I had been warned by my other aunts. 'Why doesn't he come and stay with us for a couple of days ?' I thought she'd scold me, but she kissed my forehead instead and looked into my eyes. 'Your meshomoshai is not happy with me, babai. He finds fault with my family, my education, the colour of my skin .. there are many things you'll understand once you grow up .. don't bother yourself with these now .. do your studies well and be real educated .. ' As for me It was her duskiness I found to be most appealing .. the pair of affectionate eyes and plucked eyebrows complementing the colour of her skin; and I wondered how could Manas meshomoshai not find her to be beautiful.

The house was undergoing civil maintenance work and there would be empty pans scattered hither-thither in the corridor abutting the kitchen, washrooms and rooms of other tenants ; requests to the landlord to get them arranged by the contractor in a corner having gone to deaf ears. Besides me there were other children of my age who could get hurt, the corridor being the primary area for playing hide and seek games. Perched on the wall bordering the pump room, I was enjoying sliced green mangoes dipped in blacksalt along with a friend, watching the construction workers; as Chutkimashi kept on lathering her hairs with shampoo in the washroom, the thick stream of white soap coming out of the waste water pipe smelling of shampoo bottles I had looked into so many times out of curiosity .

For the first time I heard her humming a tune and I wondered whether it was from any hindi film I had watched at a neighbour's house. The TV was yet to make it's royal entry in the house and the radio blared news all the time, with my Dadu glued to it leaving us with no other option. Both of us started giggling watching the gamcha to have fallen off the head of a worker while mounting a pan of cement when suddenly I myself slipped down and fell. The next thing I remembered was a severe pain in my forehead and a stream of liquid flowing down my cheeks followed by a feeling of nausea. Then all of it happened within moments. A deafening shriek from my friend brought my aunt running from the washroom and taking me in her arms off she ran again unheeded of her wet sari and head wrapped in foam with my other aunts following suit.

The family physician raised his brows upon examining me and immediately referred me to the nearest hospital, stating the case to be beyond his capacity. I still remember the doctor at the hospital asking me to be brave when he was about to sew my skin. My forehead had hit the edge of an iron pan on the ground when I fell from the wall. I had twelve stitches on my left eyebrow and had been spared of my eye closely, I learnt later on. 'You have brought the child at the right time. If it had been late, there could have been complications due to excessive loss of blood,' the doctor had stated. During the time the doctor attended me I could never miss another face beside him amongst the other worried ones, the one with the most compassionate pair of eyes in the world, looking down at me.

Like a storm she had come, and so did she leave one day. When I came back for my summer holidays next time, Chutkimashi was gone. No matter how much I persisted in knowing her whereabouts, nobody would tell me. I started crying, appealing my aunts to take me to her for the last time, but they didn't know where she was staying presently. Later on when I grew up I learnt that she had eloped to Chennai with a man living near her parental house in Bongaon, who had a business there. Nobody kept track of her since then, including her own family. It was as if she didn't exist for them at all.

Now that I know all the probable causes that could've led to her walking out of a relationship solemnised before so many relatives, friends and neighbours; I get inclined to asking myself what if she had stayed put, drinking her tears her entire life to honour her father's prestige, to stop people calling her names behind her back, being the good girl society had always wanted her to be, like many others ? Others might rebuke her for trying something out of the box, but to me she had been a brave woman indeed. His father would never have accepted a lower caste Namashudra as his son-in-law. After all everyone has a right to live their lives the way they want with dignity and self-respect and why should somebody be held in bad light for trying to do just that, only because she is a woman ? As to the question of how easily she could shower her affection on a boy of ten years who wasn't even her distant kin was something beyond my comprehension and it is perhaps the mysteries shrouded around a woman which will always attract me and hold her in divinity.

Many would argue that taking a young boy to the hospital after an accident was a humanitarian act. But what they ignore is the fact that she was taking her bath when the incident occurred. At that moment her motherly instincts took precedence over the need to protect her modesty from the world and she didn't waste time in changing her clothes or wrap a towel around her head to prevent her embarrassment while walking down the road through a swarm of people.

Picture Courtesy: Bengali woman, Ganesh Pyne

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