1/7 Bondel Road: An Endearing Short Story Collection

© Gautam Benegal, 2011

First published 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author and the publisher.

This is a work of fiction, and all the characters, places and events of the stories are the product of imagination, and any resemblance to any living or dead person or events or places will be entirely co-incidental.

ISBN 978-81-8328-259-8

Published by

Wisdom Tree,

4779/23, Ansari Road,

Darya Ganj, New Delhi-2

Ph.: 23247966/67/68

wisdomtreebooks@gmail.com

Printed in India at Print Perfect

CONTENT

1. Introduction

2. The Baul

3. Bhultu’s Dad

4. The Errand

5. The Bread Hunters

6. One Man Show

7. Pip-Pip! Toodle-oo!

8. Play-Acting

9. The Cyclist

10. TV

11. The Witch’s Library

INTRODUCTION

There is always a first time. A first time when you see rain and wonder at the drops of water falling from the sky, and the smell of the wet earth as it rises to your nostrils. A first time when you see a film at a theatre, the sound and the pictures filling your senses in the darkness, as you clutch your mother’s hand and forget to breathe. A first time when you meet another like you and he has a ball and says, ‘Will you play with me?’

And there is always a last time. A last ball bowled in the cricket game not knowing that it is the last. The Enid Blyton read for the final time and kept away. A last goodbye to a friend when you say, ‘See you tomorrow,’ not knowing that you will never meet him again. There are many last times at childhood’s end, and not the least of which, the certainty of a perfect world. But somewhere in the penumbra that we call ‘growing up’—that shadow land where the sounds of frolic have not quite faded away and one senses the rumbling of approaching worldly cares—there are certain impelling moments. Perhaps, these are the moments that decide the course the rivers of our souls will take.

THE BAUL

‘G olemaley goleeeeymaleeey pirit koiro na,’ (Don’t get befuddled and fall in love) the little man sang as he danced round and round, his one anklet tinkling. We watched from a distance. If we went closer, we were morally bound to pay him. It was a rule. And we had our own cut off distance. When the Baul sang in front of the Gods of Cool who frequented Thakur’s thek , the world went still. Thakur’s thek was a chai shop near the corner of the street which was made with a plank of wood placed over two stones under a tree—and a cozier nook you wouldn’t find in that area. During the performance, you couldn’t intrude; you couldn’t break the ‘mood’ with your noise. The wrath of the Gods would be on your head.

The Gods of Cool were the students of Presidency and St Xavier’s College who lived in our area and who had grown up together, and who were the most intellectual and the most knowledgeable people on this big, fat earth. We wanted to be like them. We yearned to be like them. And we kept our distance so that the ‘mood’ would not be broken.

Sometimes after a particularly enthusiastic performance the Baul would be rewarded with a cup of tea. ‘Oh Thakur, give the man a bhand of chai,’ Tuklu-da would say one day, and the Baul would simper in gratitude as Thakur would hand him the small earthen cup of tea. Or sometimes one of the dadas in a particularly perverse mood would ask him to sing a film song.

This was a very bad idea. We would watch as the Baul would shake his head and humbly say that bauls didn’t go in for that sort of thing. Then Tuklu-da or my brother would flare up and start an argument with the Baul about contemporary culture and how it percolated down into traditional art forms. They would give examples of Patua art where they had drawn the British in the form of Ravan, and so on and so forth. We could just about get the gist of it, but the Baul would listen earnestly to all this, head cocked to one side like an earnest chicken, and then humbly state that he was an ignorant fool, and what did he know of culture? Then Raja-da would tell him to buck up and sing. And as the Baul began his film song, everyone would nudge each other and smirk, for it was considered a great intellectual feat to convince someone by sophistry and make him do something that you wanted. And when the Baul went away, sometimes his reward being only that one bhand of chai, they would nudge each other and say, ‘Saw how I convinced that fellow to sing?’ Another would say, ‘He isn’t a real baul, you know. His surname is Sharma, not Das. And besides, a real baul would die before he would sing a film song.’

‘But you said that contemporary culture per…per…perforated down—’ I plucked up enough courage to ask my brother about this one day at the dinner table. He looked uncomfortable. ‘Shut up!’ He told me glancing around uneasily. My dad looked up interestedly. He was always interested in my brother’s theories. He thought my brother was brilliant. ‘Why, go on, go on,’ said my dad, ‘That sounds interesting.’ And I saw my chance and pounced. ‘You made him sing it. And then you said that he wasn’t a real baul,’ I accused. My brother looked acutely uncomfortable. ‘Oh, we were just having a bit of fun,’ he mumbled, burying himself into his Communist Manifesto or whatever he happened to be reading that day.

‘Ami tomar begun chacchari…ami tomar daaler bori,’ (I am your eggplant curry…I am your lentil dumpling) sang the Baul to us that evening as we crowded around and watched. I had earned five rupees that day displaying rare business acumen by selling old newspapers, and we had all decided on a ‘cultural’ evening a la the Lords of Thakur’s Thek, (checking first to make sure none of them were around that day.) We sat and swung our legs and watched grandly as the man sang and danced his funny song for us like zamindars of yore extending their patronage. And after it was all over, I handed him the money with courtly flourish. He took the note and bowed his head low at me and touched the note to his forehead. His eyes were full of gratitude. Suddenly I felt uncomfortable. He reminded me of the madari with his monkey who would come periodically to our lane to show its tricks. The wizened nut brown face of the Baul was quite like that monkey. And his eyes shone with the same gratitude as the monkey’s when it was not beaten.

I suddenly asked him, ‘Have you always been a baul?’

‘Being a baul is a state of mind, babu,’ said the man to me gently. ‘Either you are, or you aren’t.’

Every year in winter, the Milan Sangha club would organise ‘cultural evenings’ in front of the Sitala Mandir right across our house. There would be a kirtan evening of religious songs, an evening when a play would be staged, like ‘Chaitanya’ or ‘Karl Marx’ or ‘Lenin’ and an evening of baul songs. The last was the brainchild of the secretary of the club, Haru¬da, who was particularly fond of Gurudev Rabindranath’s Shantiniketan, and the culture of that place. Now, this evening of baul songs would see these wandering singers coming from faraway places like Birbhum and Bankura. They electrified the simple wooden stage with their graceful movements while playing on the ektara or dotara, their simple lyrics spoke the language of love and harmony through homespun wisdom that went straight to your heart. It didn’t matter how illiterate or how educated you are or where you were born. Anyone with a living breathing human soul understands what a baul has to say.

But before they arrived, before the stars of the