The Book

It takes all kinds to make this world. Which is a polite way of saying that oddballs too have a place in the scheme of things. However, reactions to them differ. Society hostesses would do anything in their power to keep them firmly out of their gu ~st lists. But if such oddballs happen to be blessed with a gift for painting, or writing, a grudging exception is made. That is how the eminently eccentric Maqbool Fida Hussain gets invitations to the most happening parties in town. In fact, everyone goes fida over his bare feet.

But most people who are anxious to be respectable, are deeply suspicipus of anyone who stands out in dress, mannerisms or behaviour. There is a sense of quivering outrage and all eye contact with that creature is avoided, lest the contagion spreads. And then again, the raconteur of all stories would not survive without this exotic, disreputable species, for he spins endless yarns, each more outlandish and incredible than the other, about the characters he has known. So the oddball lives on, somewhere outside the periphery of polite society, eliciting amusement, pity or outrage and finally vanishing into the grey anonymity of old age and death.

She was one of them. No one knew her name. The called her "the hag", "the madcap" or simply, "the gatecrasher". Some said she taught at a girl's school, others said she was a bureaucrat who had been sacked. There were as many conjectures as the strands of grey hair on her untidy bird's nest bun.

She was a plump, dark woman of medium height, with a sad, earnest face. The whites of her eyes were yellow and

her skin curiously dry and patchy. She had a sharp, aristocratic, almost imperious nose and tapering chin that jutted out stubbornly when she didn't have her way. She wore faded blouses with old fashioned embroidery on the sleeves and tight armpits where the stitches had burst. Her saris were old, limp, silks which looked like they had been washed and dried in the sun for many days at a stretch. Tartar had blackened her teeth and on her wrists was a cheap wrist watch that had stopped ticking long ago. She always .carried a large leather bag which was quite heavy, for she tilted a little when it; hung on her shoulder. There was something deeply disturbing about her, something dark and brooding and malevolent, like Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities, knitting away impassively, ploting a revolution.

But her aspirations were comparatively humbler, and so less dangerous. All she did was gastecrash meetings. It could be just about anything, a meeting on Vaishnavite influences in Assamese drama, the role of self-help groups n economic self-suficiency, challenges of higher education, a poetry reading, a book launch, a medical seminar ..... moments after the meeting was under way, she would appear on one of the side doors, an apologetic half-smile on her face, her faintly bulging yellow eyes darting around for an empty seat. She would sidle past the people, clumsily knocking against their knees and leaving a musty, unwashed smell in her wake. For the first few minutes she would be silent, her head cocked, absorbing what was being said. Then there would be the noisy creak of her chair being pushed back, and the sound of her clearing her throat.

It happened in exactly the same way the evening a famous author of Indo Anglian fiction held forth on deconstruction and post modernism and magic realism before an awe-struck audience. Few had read his books but his boyish face adorned the Saturday pull-outs of newspapers with such unfailing regularity that he was instantly recognised. So when the adorable Uday Bhatia was holding forth, from the far end of the darkened auditorium, a high reedy piping voice broke, "But surely young man, with all that excess literary baggage around, a writer gets more inhibited and confused about writing?"

There was an audible gasp from the audience. Some insignificant upstart had actually ventured to spark off a cerebral duel with a celebrity, a thing upheard of till that moment.

Uday Bhatia was taken aback. He stroked his well­trimmed beard and peered myopically ahead. "An interesting observation, madam," he murmured vaguely.

"I hope you don't mind", went on the reedy voice inexorably. "But it is this reliance on literary theorising that's the problem with you. The last hundred pages of your last book were complete gibberish .... "

Uday Bhatia blanched. Fortunately, the president of the literary body that had paid through its nose to bring Bhatia to this obscure part of the country, smoothly broke in, saying it was time for lunch and that the audience was free to attend a book signing ceremony later on.

The woman's interference did not extend merely to literature. It extended to numismatics, theology, pisciculture, pranic healing, trade collaboration and even AIDS in the new millennium. And the questions she put forth were so shot through with perspicacity that members who sat on the dais visible paled and squirmed in their seats when she made her quiet, dark presence felt in the meeting hall. She never left without provoking some distinguished speaker and pricking his pomposity till he was apoplectic with rage and confusion.

Organisers of some meetings made it a point to ask people to carry their invitation cards when they came to attend a meeting but she managed to circumvent that by arriving at the hall hours before the event and sitting unobtrusively in some dim corner like a spider spinning a web for her prey.

As the years passed, she was a fixture at every meet, until people felt something was incomplete if she didn't come, which was n't too often. Some astute observers of this oddball came to the conclusion that she came to the meetings not only for intellectual stimulation and verbal fireworks but was also very eager to partake of the refreshment that came as a pleasant epilogue. She was always the first to reach the

refreshment table, piling her plate with a frenzy that bespokje of a long period of fasting, and attacking the food with single­minded devotion. She was aware of no one when she was eating and as she sat masticating her food, there was a beatific expression on her face.

Then there was this most important meeting that was the talk of the town for weeks. Bhabananda Chaliha was almost a mythical name in Assam, a larger than life figure whose life had been the stuff of legends. Scholar, tea-planter, philantl}ropist and freedom fighter, he dominated the socio­political arena of post independent Assam by the sheer force of his personality. Chaliha had been dead for nearly quarter of a century.

On 15th October there was to be a meeting at the Town Hall, to be graced by the Chief Minister himself. A high powered fifteen member committee had been set up to ensure everything r~ smoothly. A top rung artist, who had spent years at Santiniketan was commissioned to paint a life size portraitJ of Bhabananda Chaliha and it was to be unveiled by the president of the Asom Sahitya Sabha.

Gilt-edged invitation cards were sent to people who mattered, the hall was given a fresh coat of paint and it was indeed an event looked forward to keenly by all.

On the day eventfull, the hall was ablaze with lights, marigolds and rajnigandha were strung artistically over the dais. A technician checked the speakers, Chaliha's portrait hung covered by a velvet screen.

Wailing sirens heralded the arrival of the chief guest.

The President of the Sahitya Sabha, the Chief Minister, the head of the special committee and the Secretary of the Bhabananda Chaliha Trust took their places on the dais. The ceremonial lamps were lit. The portrait was unveiled with a flourish. Applause reverberated in the hall.

At that moment she arrived. She stood transfixed by the side door, her bulging eyes widening, at the sight of the magnificent man in the portrait-square jaw, the noble brow, the piercing gaze, the erect shoulders, the stateliness· of his posture. There was great tenderness in her gaze and her lips trembled.

The Chief Minister began his speech. It was a long, tedious account of the great man's life. Every little detail was mentiond.

"And in the year 1936, Sri Chaliha went to Cambridge to study economics ..... ".

"No", her voice was like the crack of a whip. "It wasn't' Cambridge and it wasn't Economics. He went to Oxford to study Literature ... can't you get your facts right?"

A bright flush crept up the CM's neck and suffused his cheeks. The audience gasped and craned their heads. Someone was asking for trouble.

"Get her!" yelled one of the volunteers.

In a trice, six policemen sprang to the back of the hall.

She struggled, cursing and clawing. As they dragged her out, she screamed"

"Father! Father! Look what they are doing to me!" They jostled her out of the hall and into the street. In the sickly glow of the halogen lamps, she looked ghastly, her sari dishevelled, her bun askew, her cheeks streaked with tears.

"Listen to me, you fools!" She cried. "I'm Bhabananda Chaliha's daughter!"

The_policemen laughed and winked at her.

"Of course, sister", one leered. "And we are Chaliha's sons.

Now off you go, sister, before we throw you into the gutter".

She had made her last appearance. Nobody saw her after that. All meetings went smoothly. You miss a person only when you love him or her. Her existence was never acknowledged, so nobody even remembered to miss her. That had- been her greatest fear-the fear that she did not exist. People looked through her, as if she was spun out of air. Those few moments when she interrupted a meeting were the only moments she felt she was alive, for it was only then that they listened to her, were aware of her presence.

That winter a woman lay drying in a seedy nursing home. A young intern sat by her, waiting for the end. Moments before her last breath, she pulled out an envelope from under her pillow. It was her will. She handed- it to him.

Within an hour, as darkness setped over the city, she gave a soft sigh and it was all over.

In a quiet lane on the west side of the city was an old house. It had venetian blinds, rounded pillars, high ceilings and a fine wooden floor. It was one of the Bhabananda Chaliha's houses, occupied till recently by his sole surviving daughter Meera Chaliha. In her will, she expressed her wish that the house be henceforward used for meetings. There was only one condition. No one was to be barred from attending any meeting held in the premises. Meera Chaliha had the last word after all ....