Read Online The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Raj Kamal Jha
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must have had horse-drawn carriages, she called her friends, wrote a Word on a slip of paper, folded it, put it on the table, and asked them to close their eyes.
They all closed their eyes at the same time and when they wanted to open them again, they couldn’t. It was as if the eyelids were stuck with glue, they arched their eyebrows, grimaced, blinked and blinked. But nothing. They could not open their eyes until she said the Word.
It must have been a strange sight. There was no electricity then, it must have been in the glare of gaslight or flickering hurricane lamps that she sat in the middle with her subjects all around her, in a semi-circle, all with their eyes closed, their shadows falling on the wall. And outside, the last of the horse carriages going clippety-clop, clippety-clop.
Only when she spoke that Word could they open their eyes.
Then she would ask them to raise their arms and they kept them raised, rigid; they could not bring them down until she said that Word. Sometimes she went even further. Their legs would lose all sensation, they would pinch each other, hit each other on the knees. but feel nothing.
Some of them would even roll off their chairs and fall on to the floor, some in pain, their legs gone to sleep, but Miss Parker never moved, she sat there, in the centre, looking at them until they were convinced that she had the mesmeric power.
Then she would speak that Word and everything would be normal once again. The sensation would return, her friends would look at her in admiration and fright, at each other with shame and guilt. There would be some nervousness in the air, some tension but all that would disappear in a moment as Miss Parker would laugh and call out for the drinks and the dinner.
‘Calcutta is opening its eyes,’ The Statesman said that time, ‘and in a hot climate like this, the power to mentally order people and oblige them to do our will is not to be despised.’
But Miss Parker is dead.
She was followed by a gentleman from Paris. He called himself a thought reader and he performed at the Dalhousie Institute, a man called Dr Chapagnon.
He’s dead, too.
And where Miss Parker once lived, where her house once was, there is today a vegetable market. Janbazar, behind Elite Cinema.
On nights when I return home late and there is no public transport, I go to Janbazar to take a taxi. I stand near the mound of dead vegetable peels, some green but most beginning to rot, and I can hear the noises of the night show in Elite, the shuffle of feet during the interval, the sound of the ice-cream boys shouting at tired customers, the crinkle of potato chips being eaten in the night.
If Miss Parker were alive tonight, I promise I would have gone to get her. The writing would have waited. I would have got a taxi, paid the driver extra since it s so late, asked him to take me to the Mesmeric Institute at 7, Chowringhee.
I would have woken her up and if she or her servant had refused to open the door. I would have stood on the street and shouted. ‘Miss Parker, Miss Parker, wake up, wake up.’ I would have asked her. begged her, gone down on my knees, on the street, so what if the tar tore the fabric of my trousers. I would have forced her to come with me, to step into the waiting taxi, I would have brought her to your room and asked her to write the Word, make you sleep, make you stop crying so that you wake up only when she says the Word in the morning.
But that’s not to be.
So I go back to my pages, I begin to finish the story about the night snow fell in our neighbourhood, how Mother reached out and drew us close, under her shawl, we could smell the mothballs as she told us the story of how she got up that night and heard the snow, like a piece of cotton wool sliding down a mirror, I can hear you crying.
But I write, word after word, and as each sentence comes to life, grows up and dies, your crying gets softer and softer, it seems someone is taking you away from me, walking
They all closed their eyes at the same time and when they wanted to open them again, they couldn’t. It was as if the eyelids were stuck with glue, they arched their eyebrows, grimaced, blinked and blinked. But nothing. They could not open their eyes until she said the Word.
It must have been a strange sight. There was no electricity then, it must have been in the glare of gaslight or flickering hurricane lamps that she sat in the middle with her subjects all around her, in a semi-circle, all with their eyes closed, their shadows falling on the wall. And outside, the last of the horse carriages going clippety-clop, clippety-clop.
Only when she spoke that Word could they open their eyes.
Then she would ask them to raise their arms and they kept them raised, rigid; they could not bring them down until she said that Word. Sometimes she went even further. Their legs would lose all sensation, they would pinch each other, hit each other on the knees. but feel nothing.
Some of them would even roll off their chairs and fall on to the floor, some in pain, their legs gone to sleep, but Miss Parker never moved, she sat there, in the centre, looking at them until they were convinced that she had the mesmeric power.
Then she would speak that Word and everything would be normal once again. The sensation would return, her friends would look at her in admiration and fright, at each other with shame and guilt. There would be some nervousness in the air, some tension but all that would disappear in a moment as Miss Parker would laugh and call out for the drinks and the dinner.
‘Calcutta is opening its eyes,’ The Statesman said that time, ‘and in a hot climate like this, the power to mentally order people and oblige them to do our will is not to be despised.’
But Miss Parker is dead.
She was followed by a gentleman from Paris. He called himself a thought reader and he performed at the Dalhousie Institute, a man called Dr Chapagnon.
He’s dead, too.
And where Miss Parker once lived, where her house once was, there is today a vegetable market. Janbazar, behind Elite Cinema.
On nights when I return home late and there is no public transport, I go to Janbazar to take a taxi. I stand near the mound of dead vegetable peels, some green but most beginning to rot, and I can hear the noises of the night show in Elite, the shuffle of feet during the interval, the sound of the ice-cream boys shouting at tired customers, the crinkle of potato chips being eaten in the night.
If Miss Parker were alive tonight, I promise I would have gone to get her. The writing would have waited. I would have got a taxi, paid the driver extra since it s so late, asked him to take me to the Mesmeric Institute at 7, Chowringhee.
I would have woken her up and if she or her servant had refused to open the door. I would have stood on the street and shouted. ‘Miss Parker, Miss Parker, wake up, wake up.’ I would have asked her. begged her, gone down on my knees, on the street, so what if the tar tore the fabric of my trousers. I would have forced her to come with me, to step into the waiting taxi, I would have brought her to your room and asked her to write the Word, make you sleep, make you stop crying so that you wake up only when she says the Word in the morning.
But that’s not to be.
So I go back to my pages, I begin to finish the story about the night snow fell in our neighbourhood, how Mother reached out and drew us close, under her shawl, we could smell the mothballs as she told us the story of how she got up that night and heard the snow, like a piece of cotton wool sliding down a mirror, I can hear you crying.
But I write, word after word, and as each sentence comes to life, grows up and dies, your crying gets softer and softer, it seems someone is taking you away from me, walking
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