Read Online The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri - Free Book Online

had called him repeatedly. At fifteen and a half, he had a shadowy goatee under his chin. For more than a year, he’d shaved with pride, even when there was only the slightest evidence of facial hair; standing in front of the bathroom mirror, it was half daydream, in which he felt separate and aloof from his classmates. But now there was a sudden change, and he allowed the goatee to grow. He also allowed his hair to grow. He’d let it grow once before, when he was in school, and had been punished for it; there had been warnings in class, and then an order to stand outside the classroom, and finally a trek to the vice-principal’s office. He was disciplined, lectured, his parents notified; he’d had to have a haircut – his mother had forced him to have it cropped. Now he let it grow again; his exams were over; he felt answerable to nobody.
    He looked a bit unkempt when he came out to meet the music teacher. He wore a faded kurta with his jeans. But the sandals he wore were expensive, bought from the Taj.
    ‘This is Nirmalya, my son,’ said Mrs Sengupta, smiling. Shyamji looked at him critically. He tried to reconcile the boy with the flat, the furniture, the background of the Arabian Sea.
    ‘Baba, listen to this song!’ said Shyamji to Nirmalya in a friendly, direct way just as the boy was thinking of going out; it was his second tuition. Shyamji sat alone before the harmonium, pressing the keys, immune to hurry. Behind him, a crow sat on the wide concrete balustrade of the sunken balcony. Reluctantly, Nirmalya lowered himself on the sofa; Shyamji, in his distracted but effective way, had recruited him into his audience.
    And right from the beginning, he called Nirmalya ‘baba’, consigning him, albeit affectionately, to the ‘babalog’, the eternal children of the rich. ‘Listen to this song, didi! You will like it,’ he said to her with equal candour.
    It was the first song he taught her. It was plain but attractive; she’d never heard of the poet – not one of the great names. He began to sing: ‘Hai aankh wo jo Ram ka darshan kiya kare.’
    Those eyes are truly eyes that have seen the Lord.
     
    The song was an admonitory one; he sang it in a low voice.
    Futile are those mouths that remain busy in chatter.
    Those lips are truly lips that utter the name of Hari.
     
    Shyamji had set the words to a simple tune, a tune that, even for a beginner, would be easy to pick up. But there were embellishments in his singing that she carefully noted:
    Jewelled bangles do not lend grace to those hands.
    Those hands are truly hands that are joined in prayer to the Lord.
     
    The song was not meant ironically; the words were not a message directed by Shyamji towards the three gold bangles – three of many – that Mrs Sengupta presently wore round her wrist. The song belonged to the realm of ideal possibility, some other world in which such notions were not only desirable but possible. But the song was just a song; and that world was not this world. Nirmalya, sipping a glass of water and listening, didn’t even understand all the words.
    Mortal, that man wins immortal fame
    Who sacrifices his life to the love of the Lord.
     
    ‘Ma, what does balidaan mean?’ asked Nirmalya a couple of days later. He was skulking behind her as she, after her bath, was dabbing her face and putting the finishing touches to herself before the dressing-table mirror.
    She looked up absently.
    ‘Sacrifice,’ she said.
    Nirmalya heard her sing the song again; and, for some reason, he was interested in finding out what the words meant. One or two of the words had caught his ear; he pieced the song together.
    He wasn’t quite sure what to think of it. The tune was sugary; and its message so unequivocal that it couldn’t be taken quite seriously. And yet, although it was quite a crude song, its meaning startled him. It was as if – because it was only now that he’d put together what the words of the song meant – it was now that he