Jab We Met 

                             by Sunrit Mullick

 

“Why don’t you get yourself a job instead of idling away your life?” said Pintu with a shade of irritation.

 

“Yes, that’s true,” replied Montu, nodding his head.

 

“What do you mean ‘that’s true’?” said Pintu, gathering his eyebrows together.

 

Montu looked away from his brother at the ceiling and said, “Is there any tea?”

 

“Don’t change the subject,” said Pintu. “It’s high time you did something useful.”

 

“Quite true,” replied Montu, “I’ll think about it.”

 

“Don’t just think,” said Pintu, “get out and do something.”

 

“Leave him alone,” said Sarbani, bringing a tray with two cups of tea and some biscuits.

 

Montu made a lunge for a teacup and a biscuit. He sipped the tea and said, “Ahh…….”

 

Mrs. Biswas picked up her teacup and a biscuit, took a sip and went back to the book she was reading.

 

The children were busy with their studies at the dining table. They had paused briefly to look at the exchange between their father and their uncle.

 

Whenever Mrs. Biswas visited her older son’s house, it was generally like this. Pintu would start prodding his brother to get a job, Mrs. Biswas would avoid saying anything and bury herself studiously in a book or a newspaper, Sarbani would get the tea and biscuits ready and then disappear into her room to continue watching her serial, and the children would pause in their studies to listen to the conversation between their father and their uncle.

 

It was funny with Montu. He couldn’t keep a job. Some twenty years ago, when he was in his twenties, Pintu spoke to his friend Avijit and got him a job in a courier company. Montu would leave home in the morning and return in the evening like a normal office-goer. But after a few weeks, Montu announced, “I’m not going tomorrow.” The three-week reprieve in the Biswas home got broken with Mr. Biswas glaring at his younger son who barely passed school and gave up after that. Returning home from work to find Montu sprawled on his bed staring at the ceiling filled him with a sense of anger and once he slapped him, which Montu took calmly. Mrs. Biswas came running from the kitchen and led her husband away.

 

“What happened?” she asked Montu.

 

“Nothing,” replied Montu.

 

“It can’t be nothing,” said Mrs. Biswas.

 

“Why, does it always have to be something?”

 

It was this unerring logic in Montu’s words that caused his mother, father and brother to react furiously.

 

Later, Pintu spoke to Avijit over the phone. “Well, I got the news from Agarwal. It seems Montu would absent himself from his desk frequently and go down to the gate and smoke and chat with the durwans and drivers of the building. Agarwal had enough and fired him.”

 

A difference of five years separated the two brothers. When Montu was struggling to pass his high school exams, Pintu was already working. He got Avijit to coach Montu in his commerce subjects. After a few weeks, Avijit reported that Montu had a mental block where it came to Maths. Somehow he pushed and prodded Montu, who eventually passed with a third division. What to do after that? The family realised that academics was out of the question. He needed to study something in the vocational line.

 

So Montu enrolled in a course in a hotel management institute. Not hotel management, mind you; that would be well beyond his capacity; but a short course in bakery. However, he ran into a block again with Maths, even in this course. He had serious difficulty converting ounces into grams, grams into kilograms, and kilograms into rupees. He just didn’t have the aptitude to figure out weights and volumes, and their conversion into prices for the purpose of purchase and stores.

 

Then there was a foreign language to be learned. Emulating his older brother who had taken French in college, Montu opted for French also. That’s when his fixation began. He couldn’t get past the tenses, and just stayed with, “oui” and “parlez vous Francais?” Twenty years down the road, when he would visit Pintu with his mother in tow, he would make fun with the kids, saying, “Parlez vous Francais?” and Bunty would say, “Oh, Kaku, say something else in French.” But Montu remained fixated with “Oui, oui, oui, oui, parlez vous Francais?” If he lapsed into French, he would continue with these words until Mrs. Biswas would say sternly, “That’s enough.”

In the meantime, Pintu married Sarbani, a girl whom he had known in college. He did well in the computer company he worked for, got a few foreign assignments, saved up quite a bit of money and bought a flat in the Gariahat area. Debu was born a year after they moved into the flat, and Bunty five years later. Mr. Biswas retired, and every week, they visited their son, and generally stayed on for dinner. However, a year after his retrial, Mr. Biswas developed a cardiac problem, and ceased to move out of the house.

 

One day, when Mrs. Biswas and Montu were visiting, Pintu brought up the subject again. He said, “Why don’t you get into sales?”

 

“I’ll have to think about it,” said Montu in his familiar tone.

 

“Pintu,” remonstrated Sarbani, “why the same thing again?”

 

“Really,” agreed Mrs. Biswas, “he just won’t let him alone.”

 

“I’m just trying to help,” said Pintu. “He needs to be occupied, and earning some money.”

 

“That’s true,” said Montu, nodding his head.

 

“I’ve got an idea,” said Pintu. “Why don’t you sell pens? You can start by stationing yourself at a bus-stop, because there’s lots of people there. People waiting for a bus, and people getting out of it. I’ll finance you the starting capital. You can purchase a variety of pens—you know, of various colours, and the ink can be red, blue, black and green. Start by stocking about twenty pens, and as you sell, you can grow into larger stocks. How about it?”

 

Montu was looking at Pintu with a faraway look in his eyes, as though he were paying attention to what Pintu was saying, and yet not. He said, “It’s true, I need to earn an income.”

 

“Don’t just keep repeating that line,” said Pintu irritably. “How about starting to sell pens?”

 

Between the brothers, there was a relationship of indifference. His brother’s fate and future would cross Pintu’s mind often, but he would give up thinking since it was of no use. Without an education, one couldn’t get a job; but the problem with Montu was that he couldn’t keep a job. There was little one could do to help him, if he didn’t want to help himself.

 

Between Montu and Pintu’s children, there was a relation of affection. In most family relationships, there is a sternness in the relationship between parents and children; but affection in that between grandparents and grandchildren, and uncles and aunts and their nephews and nieces. So it was between Montu, and Debu and Bunty. The children were fully aware that their uncle had no accomplishments like their father, and precisely for that reason, they were fond of their uncle. When Montu visited them with his parents, he smiled at Debu and Bunty, ruffled their hair, asked them how they were doing, but that was the extent of his contact with them.

 

Two years later, life changed for Pintu and his family. He was on assignment to a company in Australia and the company, being impressed with his work, gave him an offer of employment that was hard to resist. In Australia he would be making six times as much as he was making in India. Pintu and Sarbani agonised over the decision they had to take, and in the end, decided to move. Bunty was eight and Debu was thirteen, so it was no major disruption in their education. Mr. and Mrs. Biswas were sad to see them go, but Montu was indifferent.  It didn’t matter to him who went where, as long as his daily doses of tea and cigarettes kept coming.

 

Nineteen years went by. Pintu returned to India twice in the interim; once to attend the cremation of his father, and four years later, that of his mother. Between the two events, Mrs. Biswas told him over the phone that Montu would disappear for days on end with no announcement to her at all. It seemed as though with his father gone, and no older brother to be scared of, Montu had been released from all restrictions.  Mrs. Biswas worried that he had fallen in bad company.

 

“Is he taking drugs?” asked Pintu.

 

“It doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs Biswas. “He doesn’t have any abnormal mannerisms. He eats and sleeps as usual.

 

Once in a while he says ‘Wonder how Debu and Bunty look now’ and smiles at the recollection.”

 

“Is he shaving and changing his clothes?”

 

“Not too often,” said Mrs. Biswas, “and I don’t have the energy any more to be after him.”

 

 

That was it, thought Pintu. As before, there wasn’t much he could about it.

 

When Pintu returned for the last rites of his mother, Montu had disappeared. The few relatives they had, reported that Montu had disappeared around four months before Mrs. Biswas died, and they had no clue where he was. One uncle had thought of putting an ad in the papers, but didn’t, finally. He didn’t want to take responsibility for the aftermath, thought Pintu.

 

He was in a fix. What about the rented flat? Should he continue to keep it so that Montu would have a place to return to? But there was no knowing when he would return. Suddenly, the thought of his own flat flashed through his mind, and reassured him. Montu would have a place to return to. He would inform his relatives to let him know when Montu returned and he could let himself in with the key. But what would he do in an empty flat? How would he live? What would he eat? As always, thinking about Montu’s fate and future, Pintu gave up. He couldn’t think beyond the immediate. But at least there was a solution. Montu wouldn’t be on the streets; he’d have a place to go to.

 

On the plane and back in Australia, Pintu’s mind was disturbed. In the intervening eleven years, he would often wake up in the nights, or come back with a jolt during the days, whenever he thought of Montu. There was absolutely no news of Montu; he had disappeared without a trace.

 

Debu was now thirty two and Bunty was twenty seven. Debu was fond of history, so he completed a PhD in medieval Indian history and joined the University of Sydney as an assistant professor. Bunty completed a law degree and went to work for a law firm. Bunty lived with her parents in Brisbane, and Debu would come home during holidays. They spoke Bengali at home and Sarbani cooked Bengali food, but the children’s accent had become Australian. They watched Bengali and Hindi movies on CD, and Pintu and Sarbani reminisced about their old life. Then an occasion came that returned the family to their roots for a brief while.

 

Bunty met a young Bengali man, Somesh Deb, whom she met during a case at the high court. Somesh was arguing on the opposite side, and perhaps it was their common roots that drew them together. Somesh had two older sisters and his parents who all lived in Kolkata. They lived in their own flat in Kolkata, and also owned a country house in Bandel where they would often go on weekends and vacations. Pintu and Sarbani invited Somesh over to their home and discussed things with his parents over internet telephony. They liked Bunty’s future in-laws and set a February date for the wedding when the weather would be cool and comfortable.

There was excitement in the Biswas family at the thought of returning to Kolkata and doing the wedding preparations. Pintu and Sarbani decided to return earlier than Debu and Bunty to set things in motion. There was such a lot do. The flat would have to be cleaned, a suitable wedding hall would have to be rented, discussions with the priest would have to be done, catering, gifts, …… But the thought of Montu suddenly cast a dark shadow over Pintu’s face.

 

“Montu, Bunty’s only uncle, won’t be there,” said Pintu.

 

“Yes, I know you’ve been thinking about him,” said Sarbani, caressing his hand.

 

Bunty said, “I still have memories of him. He used to ruffle my hair and say, ‘Bunty, Bunty, Bunty, Bunty’ ……. and I used to say, ‘What, Kaku, what?’”

 

“We can put an insertion in the papers about the wedding,” said Sarbani. “Maybe he’ll read it wherever he is and come back … for the wedding, at least.”

 

Pintu didn’t say anything, but his mood became pensive. Bunty’s wedding, and her only uncle absent? In the months leading to their departure for Kolkata, Pintu kept thinking increasingly of his brother, but as before, there was nothing he could do.

 

…………………………..

 

Montu made no appearance at the wedding.

 

After the wedding, they decided to visit the Bandel country house of the Deb’s. Pintu was eager to take Debu and Bunty on this trip, to acquaint them with the Bengal countryside. They planned to do the journey by local train, in the middle of the week, so that they would be travelling in the opposite direction of the office rush. So on a Wednesday morning, the Biswas and Deb families piled into two taxis and headed for Howrah Station.

 

Bunty, Debu and Somesh were wide-eyed at the images that comprised their roots. Unlike their Australian hometowns, Kolkata was a montage of colours, sights and smells bombarding them at every moment of their waking lives. There was no escape; like it or not, they were thrown against the images like ragdolls in a playroom.

 

Howrah Station was a chaos of taxis, cars, buses, handcarts, rickshaws and cycles. People, porters and beggars jostled against each other. Vendors sold vegetables, fruits, newspapers and tea squatting on the ground. Other vendors sat on makeshift platforms selling tea and biscuits.

 

The nine of them pushed their way through the crowd and approached the ticket counter. There were long lines at all the twenty counters.

 

“Population,” explained Pintu to the Australian immigrants. “Sarbani, you stand in the queue for ladies; we’ll get our tickets faster than the others.”

 

Sarbani stood behind some twelve ladies, which wasn’t bad at all, considering that the other lines had something like fifty people in each of them. Somesh had a faint shade of displeasure in his face, but Bunty looked amazed at the collage.

 

“There’s such a lot going on,” she said, “hardly like our Australian stations, where it’s a rather placid scene. There seems to be an urgency in our roots, as though people are running to catch the last train before it leaves.”

 

“And the whole backdrop is so brown,” observed Debu with a grin. “And so many noises,” he added.

 

Sarbani got their tickets and they made their way to the platform. A green-and-yellow electric train whose name-plate said “Bandel” was waiting there. It was quite empty. The group boarded and took their seats opposite one another. A few passengers got in, and that was all. All in all, there weren’t more than thirty passengers in the compartment. At nine-fifteen, the train blew its whistle and, with a gentle tug, slid smoothly out of the platform to the wider space outside. It picked up speed and soon, grimy brick buildings and dirty walls began to be left behind. Then came the refreshing sight of the Bengal countryside—rolling green fields, ponds, clumps of coconut trees. Farmers were tilling the soil with ploughs yoked to oxen, while women were hunched over the land plucking the produce of the earth.

 

Pintu’s eyes clouded over with emotion. He had a sudden feeling of closing his life in the sanitized environment of Australia and coming to spend its remainder in the soil to which he belonged. The passengers in the compartment, the farmers in the fields, the naked children running about on the passing platforms—these were his people, this was his land. He shook his head to clear his mind of these romantic thoughts, and came out of his reverie with the voice of someone saying in a peculiar voice, 

 

“Mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja ….” The owner of the voice, 

obviously a salesman, seemed to be at the far end of the compartment. The voice of the salesman was like that of other salesman, who announced their products in peculiar voices, so as to catch people’s attention; but unlike other salesmen, this one didn’t explain his product. He went on repeating “Mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja ….”

 

“Isn’t that the name of that Punjabi song in the ‘Jab We Met’ movie?” said Bunty.

“That’s right,” said Debu. “He seems to be fixated on just those words. Wonder what he’s selling, though.”

 

As if on cue, the salesman wound his way through the few standing passengers and approached their end of the compartment. He had a thick beard and a moustache that hid his face, and wore a pair of glasses with thick lens on them. “Mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja, mojjai mojja,” he repeated in his peculiar voice, dangling several pairs of socks of variegated colours in his hand.

 

“Ok, I think I’ve got it” said Pintu. “‘Moja’ is Bengali for ‘socks’, so he’s made a pun on the words of the song, meaning ‘what fun, socks’. He’s a socks salesman.” Exactly at that moment, Bunty, Debu, Pintu, Sarbani and the salesman looked at each other.

 

Through his thick glasses, it seemed that his eyes softened with memories of distant days. Bunty opened her mouth to say something, but looking at her in-laws, didn’t utter a word. The train came to a halt at Serampore, and before the others could say anything, the salesman hurried out of the train and disappeared in the crowd of alighting passengers.