BOHURUPI
December 5, 2009
She introduced herself as Madhumita. Tall, fair complexioned, probably in her mid thirties, her hair nourished in coconut oil was neatly tied in a bun - there were a few grey strands near the side parting. I noticed that like my mother, she too did not have any trace of vermillion in her hair. However, in contrast to my mother’s morose and emaciated features and sunken eyes buried deep in sockets, she appeared both cheerful and animated. She instantly appealed to the four year old, may be because he had been deprived of love and warmth at his own house for months at a stretch. My mother explained to her that under circumstances unavoidable, she could not leave me at home and had no other option but to bring me along with her. Madhumita appeared a little apprehensive in the beginning then suggested that she would take care of me till my mother’s session with the psychiatrist got over.
The clinic was on the ground floor of a tall mansion in north Calcutta. It was winter and a flight of pigeons circled the western patch of sky visible from the window next to which I was sitting. They returned to the bomm, erected on the edge of a terrace in the neighbourhood.
“Ma kokhon berobe?” (When will mother come out?) I enquired.
“Deri hote pare baba”, (She might take long, child) she replied as she signed a few log books and piled them up in one corner of her desk.
“Shesh. Tumi amar saathe ghurte jaabe?” (Finished. Would you mind going out with me?), she asked
I smiled and nodded approvingly.
A few buildings away, Madhumita and I discovered a small park, a patch of green squeezed in between the leaning balconies and facades of numerous claustrophobic buildings.
“Ei re… tomar naam ta toh jana holo na?” (I didn’t ask you your name.)
“Anirban”
“Anirban - the unvanquished?”
“Inextinguishable… that is what mother tells me”, I replied.
“Whom do you love more? Mom or Dad?”
“Neither of them. I love my friend Sarbojit’s parents – they don’t fight and are nice to me.”
I felt uncomfortable to have divulged my feelings to Madhumita who moments ago, was a complete stranger to me. I rose from my seat and walked up to the goal post.
“Don’t go too far, stay there. I’ll bring you some sweets.”
I did not turn. As she moved out of the gate, my eyes followed her through the grillwork till I saw her stop at a sweet shop on the other side of the street. Suddenly, I heard a rustle and clanking of metals from behind. I turned immediately and was stupefied to see a pair of huge eyes, each the size of a tennis ball embedded in a bright green face, with a gorgeous semi-circular headgear adorned with innumerable pieces of glass, plastic flowers and sparkling jewellery. Clad in bright yellow and blue dhoti, the figure was equipped with a bow and arrow. Horrified, I ran away from the figure. Madhumita had already returned. I ran and hugged her. She consoled me and then reprimanded the man for frightening a child.
“Ami bhoy dekhai ni. Babu shamne pore gechhilo.” (I didn’t wish to scare him. He just chanced to be on my way.)
“Don’t be afraid. He’s just a bohurupi (harlequin). Does it for money. He has dressed as Ram today.”
…
On our way back, mother started talking to me. She was more composed and looked a lot better. My birthday was approaching and she wanted to know as to what gift I’d like her to buy for me. I narrated every minute detail of my experience and wanted to know more about the harlequins.
That year a day before my birthday, all the local newspapers were flooded with the news of the demolition of a 16th century mosque in a place called Ayodhya. My father, his friends and our relatives everyone seemed to be talking about it. The army of soldiers dressed in saffron robes and ribbons had vandalized the site in order to construct a temple, as they felt it was the divine land where their God Ram was born. I instantly recalled the rendezvous with my Ram in the park where I was on the verge of breaking into tears, when Madhumita came to my rescue. We could not order cakes on my birthday as all the shops in our locality were shut. There was a curfew in our city, and our school was shut for a week or two. My mother recounted that Bengal was witnessing riots for the first time after the partition and that hundreds of people have been massacred all across the country. On several nights, I was haunted by the vision of Ram wearing horrifying green mask. The same dream would be repeated time and again, where I would see the harlequin chasing me with a bow and arrow – at times I saw Madhumita dying at the hands of Ram while attempting to protect me.
…
A month later, on Annual sports day our school organized a ‘Go as you like’ or a fancy dress competition. I expressed my desire to dress up as Ram and wear a gaudy outfit. Instead, my mother took charge and dressed me up in a chikan-kari kurta and a bright red jacket clubbed with a skull cap. She wrote with a brush on a placard these words:
“Mora ek-i brinte
Duti Kusum
Hindu-Musalman”
(We are two flowers on the same branch – Hindu and Muslim.)
She later told me that it was an excerpt from Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poetry.
Disillusioned and confused, dressed in an uncomfortable outfit, I ran back from the corner of the stage to the audience, to my mother. My mother asked me to go back and join the queue. My name was announced and one of the teachers asked me to go up on stage. She signaled me to hold the placard up so that people could read it and it didn’t cover my face. Photographs were being clicked and people were clapping. Behind me came my friends, some dressed as scare-crows, some as the Buddha.
Later in the changing room, our teachers whom we lovingly called Didimonis helped us take off our make-up and wear our regular school uniform. They were a bunch of plump, round and angelic women who shaped our early years in kindergarten. I wondered why Madhumita was still working at the psychiatrist’s clinic when she could do better in our school managing kids. Back in the audience’s seat next to my mother, gorging on the food packets distributed that evening we waited patiently for the results. Before the results were declared, we had to sit through some rigorous and then exhausting sessions of Rabindrasangeet sung by the lady teachers and school choir. Finally it was time for the results. Our headmistress came up on stage to do the emceeing. The first prize was given to the scare crow. I was blaming my mother in my mind to have not allowed me to dress up as Ram when suddenly the Headmistress announced a special prize – the Best Prize of the competition. She said that the winner was blessed with elders who had the ability to build connections between education and what was happening in society and that such insightful representation was enlightening.
I returned home with a certificate with my name written in calligraphy on it, a packet of sketch-pens, crayons, a sketch book and a copy of Thakumar Jhuli – a book on folktales of Bengal. In the autorickshaw, I asked my mother when she would visit the doctor again. She said that she was cured and it would not be necessary anymore.
That night Mother put off in me the little hope I had to see Madhumita again.
…


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