and whose name she muttered whenever she was worried: ‘Hé bipad nashini, hé bipad nashini.’ This mysterious female divinity resided, it seemed, in Khuku’s heart, there she had her home in the world, and from there she sprang to life when her name was uttered in that worried, childlike way by Khuku.
Long before she either disbelieved or believed in things, Khuku had heard of the Muslims, or the Musholmaan, as a child. Her world was then populated by her mother, her brothers, and by a huge family of ghosts and spirits. It became dark soon, there was no electricity, and she could scarcely keep her eyes open; in the next room, her elder brothers and elder sister and mother kept on talking. In that world, her closest companions were her younger brother,Bhola, who was then no more than an idiot who had barely learnt to speak, and Pulu, who was older than her by a year. Pulu believed in the next life, and in other worlds, where daylight was a soft purple, and he was always getting cuffed on the head by his elder sister for asking so many questions and being such a nuisance. He was brilliant at arithmetic and a great crammer and knew all the tables by heart. Khuku loved him very much, and one of the first words she had ever spoken, ‘Dada,’ referred to him. It was he who first told her of the Hindoos, who were a fierce wandering tribe with swords who cut up everything in their path, as their very name, ‘Hin-doo’, suggested, and Musholmaans, he explained, were ghosts who haunted the dark and hilly regions of Sylhet.
I n the afternoon, Bhaskar reclined on the bed; his back had been troubling him again. He had not made the long journey to the factory because of it; instead, he had had a full meal, and now he sought the most appropriate position for his head on the pillow. In the morning, he had woken up with limbs quite frozen, and had had to ask his mother for help to get off the bed; he had hopped about like a huge injured bird. Now he lay back and sighed, with a book on yoga in one hand. The pages were light and wispy, and the paper was peppered and flecked with impurities; the Bengali print was faded. Almost each page had another page with a photograph facing it, smoky black and white photographs that were really blue-grey, with figures in them doing various asanas, the first two pages of photos being occupied by Surjomukhi Maharaj, who had written the text, a fat, fair, bearded holy man with small eyes anda smile on his face. The rest of the photos were of thin unnamed men in brief white jangias, immortalized in that blue and white world in dozens of strange postures, straining, as it were, to become something else, to fly, to be transmogrified. The text made unexpected revelations in a deadpan way:
‘Muktabayu-asana:
This is good for the digestion. Those who do this daily will not suffer from gas or stomach problems. First lie on your back and breathe in, then slowly raise both your knees . . .’ Bhaskar must have read the book more than twenty times, for he had bought it from the Dakkhinee bookshop when he was fifteen. He could only just remember the shopkeeper taking it out of the window, slapping the powdery dust off it, and handing it to him. Bhaskar had at that time been passing through a long phase of interest in yogis and Mr Universes, an interest he had passed on to Manik as well, and their hero and idea of perfection had then been Monohar Aich, the great Bengali body-builder, who had muscles swelling and hardening on every part of his body. Since he had acquired the book, Bhaskar had been much stirred by the importance of the names of the exercises—padmasana, virasana, muktasana—and had interred them as a kind of knowledge. In those days, his mother was always asking him, ‘Have you done your schoolwork?’ and a great lethargy and reluctance filled him as he dragged himself to his textbooks. But, whenever he could, he read the articles in
Sportsweek
and
Sportsworld
about Shyam Thapa or Pelé, or
Long before she either disbelieved or believed in things, Khuku had heard of the Muslims, or the Musholmaan, as a child. Her world was then populated by her mother, her brothers, and by a huge family of ghosts and spirits. It became dark soon, there was no electricity, and she could scarcely keep her eyes open; in the next room, her elder brothers and elder sister and mother kept on talking. In that world, her closest companions were her younger brother,Bhola, who was then no more than an idiot who had barely learnt to speak, and Pulu, who was older than her by a year. Pulu believed in the next life, and in other worlds, where daylight was a soft purple, and he was always getting cuffed on the head by his elder sister for asking so many questions and being such a nuisance. He was brilliant at arithmetic and a great crammer and knew all the tables by heart. Khuku loved him very much, and one of the first words she had ever spoken, ‘Dada,’ referred to him. It was he who first told her of the Hindoos, who were a fierce wandering tribe with swords who cut up everything in their path, as their very name, ‘Hin-doo’, suggested, and Musholmaans, he explained, were ghosts who haunted the dark and hilly regions of Sylhet.
I n the afternoon, Bhaskar reclined on the bed; his back had been troubling him again. He had not made the long journey to the factory because of it; instead, he had had a full meal, and now he sought the most appropriate position for his head on the pillow. In the morning, he had woken up with limbs quite frozen, and had had to ask his mother for help to get off the bed; he had hopped about like a huge injured bird. Now he lay back and sighed, with a book on yoga in one hand. The pages were light and wispy, and the paper was peppered and flecked with impurities; the Bengali print was faded. Almost each page had another page with a photograph facing it, smoky black and white photographs that were really blue-grey, with figures in them doing various asanas, the first two pages of photos being occupied by Surjomukhi Maharaj, who had written the text, a fat, fair, bearded holy man with small eyes anda smile on his face. The rest of the photos were of thin unnamed men in brief white jangias, immortalized in that blue and white world in dozens of strange postures, straining, as it were, to become something else, to fly, to be transmogrified. The text made unexpected revelations in a deadpan way:
‘Muktabayu-asana:
This is good for the digestion. Those who do this daily will not suffer from gas or stomach problems. First lie on your back and breathe in, then slowly raise both your knees . . .’ Bhaskar must have read the book more than twenty times, for he had bought it from the Dakkhinee bookshop when he was fifteen. He could only just remember the shopkeeper taking it out of the window, slapping the powdery dust off it, and handing it to him. Bhaskar had at that time been passing through a long phase of interest in yogis and Mr Universes, an interest he had passed on to Manik as well, and their hero and idea of perfection had then been Monohar Aich, the great Bengali body-builder, who had muscles swelling and hardening on every part of his body. Since he had acquired the book, Bhaskar had been much stirred by the importance of the names of the exercises—padmasana, virasana, muktasana—and had interred them as a kind of knowledge. In those days, his mother was always asking him, ‘Have you done your schoolwork?’ and a great lethargy and reluctance filled him as he dragged himself to his textbooks. But, whenever he could, he read the articles in
Sportsweek
and
Sportsworld
about Shyam Thapa or Pelé, or
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