Just Like That (Translated from "Okaron", (1937) by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay)

I was feeling rather out of sorts. It happens sometimes.

You don’t like to read anything, you don’t like to think about anything, you don’t even like to talk to anybody. You feel as if your mind’s wheel has run out of lubricant, and unless you “oil” it, the wheel won’t go on, and by and by, it’ll rust. And then one day it’ll stop, just like that.

I visited an old card joint in Jelepara Lane. All those old friends were gathered there, but I did not enjoy the game of cards. On a different day. I would be so excited and eager about the idea of winning at cards. Today, I thought, “Even if I win, so what?” I did not like their chatter. Pointless-pointless- this low ceilinged drawing room, cracked walls, all those inexpensive  boring oleograph pictures – mythological representations of Kaliyadaman, Annapurna giving alms, and a meaningless landscape-monotonous conversations, which it seemed  I had been hearing for ages- suddenly, my mind turned against all of this-all silly, all meaningless, I asked someone beside me “ Are you enjoying all of this? Are you feeling-“

He looked at me in surprise. “Why, don’t you like it? But, why?-“

I felt even more irritated. I made some excuse about pending work, and left the place. It was four in the afternoon. The hawkers were calling out inside the alley- the boys were returning from school with their books and stationery-you could hear the sound of water running from the taps- at the street corners, people had already settled down to their afternoon chat sessions.

A very narrow and dark alley, and a municipal bathing place, right next to it. I often pass through this alleyway- there is a makeshift room right next to it- this room and its inhabitants hold immense fascination for me. About seven feet long, similar in width, that’s the room. A family lives in this space, husband, wife and two infants. If one hasn’t seen it, it’s difficult to believe how so many beings can live together in this tiny room- with all their belongings. Most unbelievably, even their kitchen is located in one corner of this seven square feet room. When I pass this place, I notice that quite often–something or the other is cooking on the clay stove. The wife, little boy in her arms, is either cooking something, or stirring the milk. You cannot make out her age by looking at her. She may be twenty three, she may be thirty- or even forty. She wears a partly soiled saree, slightly torn at its upper edge. Red bangles on her wrists.  Her face and eyes are lacklustre, covered by a layer of dullness. Her husband  probably works as a labourer in a factory, a couple of times, while returning at dusk, I have seen the man, covered in soot, entering the bathing place next to their room, with a small bucket.

I saw them today as well. The woman was sitting by the door, with her son in her arms, and was cuddling the infant. She glanced at me stupidly once. A room like a pigeon hole, mud covered makeshift walls, with old newspapers pasted on top, the papers have faded and yellowed over time- dirty clothes hanging from the rope brackets.

I felt even more disheartened. How do they get joy from this? How can they live like this? What a meaningless existence! Why are they here? Now, what will this boy become when he grows up? He will also be a labourer like this; living in a similar makeshift room with his own wife and child; expending through his life, similarly dull, dark, meaningless days that are devoid of any beauty; and advancing towards an even more poor and mean death. But the mother is clasping and caressing her son so eagerly, perhaps she has so many hopes and pleasant dreams around him- but even here, a suspicion grew in my mind. Does the woman even have enough intelligence to dream? Does she have imagination? Can she think of herself in a situation that does not exist in the present, but that she can believe to be possible in the future? Can she articulate her secret hopes and dreams in her own mind? Can she lose her narrow, beauty-less present in the thoughts of a bright, illuminated future?

I browsed through the books in the bookstalls at the corner of the main street. Heaps of old books, magazines. Mostly useless. Products of lazy, underdeveloped minds. Foreign potboilers with glossy covers - lacking substance; cine magazines etc.  Usually, I search through these piles, hoping to spot something good. Today, I did not even have the patience to search. My mind’s horizon had taken on the hue of a worn coin; it had neither the beauty of an azure sky- nor even the grandeur of a cloudy monsoon day; - just the shade of a dull, worn, coin.

Should I go and watch a movie? Should I go for a stroll by the promenade at Outram Ghat? Should I sit somewhere, and drink very hot tea? Should I venture towards the Lakes?

There was a crowd gathered at a place in front of the Dharmtola Church. A man in western attire was sprawled, unconscious, on the pavement, his head and body creating such an unnatural angle, that it seemed that he was dead. Two police sergeants arrived. Some people said that the man had been found lying in this condition inside a bathroom, in the ground floor of a nearby house. At this point, the gateman of the house hauled his senseless immobile body onto a taxi, and went off somewhere.

I felt sorry for the man. I felt a stirring of sympathy towards this senseless drunk that I had not felt towards that brainless woman. The poor man had ventured out in search of happiness, had even picked some path, perhaps it was the wrong path, perhaps it was the  true path…the genuineness of the joy he derived, would be the yardstick for measuring- who can say what was his experience and what was its value? Only he knows. But he is senseless!

I walked towards Curzon Park. There were a number of attendants and ayahs, who had gathered under the portico, with their wards – small English children- sheltering from the rain. With the rain gradually growing more persistent, I stood there as well. A little boy- with bushy golden hair and blue eyes – one and a half, to two years old- was lifting his attendant’s cap from the ground, toddling up to him, trying hard to reach up to the attendant’s head, and place the cap over the head. And as soon as he could do this, he would wave his hands and head, smile all over his toothless face, and dissolve in laughter. But he wasn’t being able to place the cap too firmly, and in a little while, the cap would roll off the attendant’s head again, the little boy would again painstakingly place the cap over the head…. again that laughter, that waving of tiny hands and feet, that little jig!.....No one was paying him any attention, he wasn’t even waiting for anybody’s attention, his attendant was deep in conversation with the ayah sitting beside him, and totally oblivious as to what the child was doing, the other children nearby were also no more than babies- the little boy was engrossed in his own game with the cap.

I looked on, as if mesmerised. What a beautiful rhythm and expression of soft and babyish hands and feet- what liveliness in the gestures, what innocent cheer, what extraordinary beauty!.....

In an excess of joy, the little boy was bending forwards, smiling broadly, raising and lowering his tiny fists…..what a  clear, distinctive, wordless , wonderful expression of the animated joy of the toddler’s mind!...........

I could not tear my gaze away. It was as if I had suddenly been confronted with unexpected beauty, never seen before. I stood there for a long time.  Suddenly the attendant realized what the little boy was doing- he stopped chatting with the ayah, snatched away the cap from the little boy’s hand, and put it away inside a perambulator beside him. The child’s face fell. He toddled over to the perambulator, but it was too high- his little arms could not reach it. He looked helplessly around him once, and then sat down with a plonk. The attendant was still engrossed in chatting with the ayah.

I went and sat on a bench in Curzon Park. The sun was setting. The sky over the Ganga had taken on a crimson hue.

I realized that the meaningless joy of the little boy’s mind, had unknowingly been transmitted to my own mind, just like that. The girl in the makeshift room did not seem dull any more.

Translated from "Okaron", (1937)  by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay