Narrative by Kallol Lahiri: Translation from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy
What if someone were to ask me, where is your desh[1]? Quite naturally, I would reply, “Why? It’s India, isn’t it?” If I were to ask my snack-vendor, Ramesh, “Where is your desh, Ramesh?” As he weighs out fifty grams of hot peanuts to mix with roasted chira[2], he’ll say, “It’s Samstipur, Dada.” Isn’t India your country then? Ramesh would give me an exasperated look as he stirs the chira.
There was more of a crowd at his shop at this time in the evening. The train coming from Howrah drops people returning from work at the station. Many of them then walk home chewing peanuts, gram and muri[3] on the way. Ramesh’s hands work like a machine then. Handing the paper packet to me hurriedly, he says, “Arrey, all of us belong to India. Does one have to say that separately? My village is in Samstipur. Our house is there. I feel happy when I go there, Dada[4]. Does everyone have a desh like that?” That’s correct, not everyone has a desh, or a village. The desh which actually does not refer to the state called India – a place which does not shackle you with law and order, for which one does not have to prove one’s patriotism at every step. The desh which actually becomes sujala suphala shasya shyamala, abundantly watered, fertile and lush green with crops, and makes your heart wistful. Which beckons you to return home. That desh and the state are not the same. And so, while Ramesh refers to his village as desh out of an attachment, I cannot find any place with which I am similarly attached. Because I do not have a village like his. I only have a concrete, solid state.
There are many places to go on a holiday to, scattered all over. Arbeliya, Noyagram, Shibhati. But my own village? Which is one’s desh, in Ramesh’s language? As soon as I feel wistful, the bank of a pond, an earthen veranda, Orion in the night sky. The village beneath whose soil the ribs and bones of fourteen generations lie hidden, with which there is an umbilical tie? I cannot find one even after a lot of thought. The April sky feels heavy and stifling atop the attic in my Uttarpara. One can no longer see even a sprinkling of stars. It is only the lights of the teeming apartments that sparkle far and near.
Although Dada or I do not have a desh, or village, like Ramesh does, my Baba’s elder sister, Boro Moni, had a desh, a village from where she had to come away — almost all of a sudden, without any real preparation. But from time-to-time, Moni used to go off to a desh all by herself — especially when the first raw mangoes of summer arrived from the market; some special vegetables — banana flowers, banana stems, figs, spinach of taro. Observing those, and assessing their quality, she was not very satisfied. Even though she did not say anything, she seemed to be lost somewhere. She was not easily available then. She was going around, wandering, right in front of us, and talking and yet it was as if she was somewhere else. She had to be called twice for her to respond. She forgot to add salt to the cooking. She sat fixedly for a long time in a meditating posture as if she had nothing to do with this bank or the other bank, with any shore. She seemed to have left the boat of her body and become immersed in the ocean of attainment. But it was also true that even though all of us were around her, Moni did not really have anyone.
Moni was the solitary resident of a piece of desh where others other than those she led by hand were forbidden entry. You would not be able to enter the main door of that house even if you tried a hundred times. Ordinarily, Moni was busy all day attending to work. She did this and did that. If there was no work at hand, or if it was all done, she turned over the clothes put out to dry in the sun. She washed the baskets, floor-seats, and utensils with water, and left them face-down. After water had drained out of those, she put them back in place. When all these tasks were completed, if there was time, she broke coal into dust. She smeared lumps of coal dust with rice starch and made briquettes. If it had turned dark by then, Moni lit the evening lamp. And then it was time to cook dinner.
Who did Moni do all this work for? For a family — the family, which was actually not hers, but her brother’s. This never occurred to her. And even if it did, there was nothing to be done. The ambit of the narrative knew a bit about all these unspoken, unpronounced things. The characters around her knew. Family existed for this person and yet did not exist — living in a home and yet not having a home. The agony of not having a desh although she had a country – it was named Moni. That was why Moni worked without a word. She chatted with us. She used to talk to no one in particular. She filled up her spare time in her own ways.
Moni used to do various other things. If someone in the neighbourhood got a stiff neck, or got hurt on his leg, or had a bad dream just before dawn, or if a strapping boy wet his bed in his sleep, Moni performed faith healing with ritually consecrated water and oil. She used to recite mantras in whispers into ears. Blow on the head. She used to massage a stiff neck and undo the crick. She used to run her hand over an ear and soothe a piercing earache.
Dada used to say that Moni knew magic — the magic with which Moni floated oil in water and blew, muttered to herself in darkness. It wasn’t just that, so many familiar people as well as strangers came and poured out their heart’s woes. Moni listened. She chanted while counting on a finger. Blew on the head. She had no ishta devata[5], performed no pujas, had no excessive restraint when it came to conduct or judgement.
“What do you say as you blow, Moni?” I had once asked her. Widening her eyes, she had said, “All that is not for your ears.”
Why not? What if I did hear? As she waved the palmyra-leaf hand-fan over my head, she had said, “A sonless man will have no sons. The destitute will not gain wealth. The homeless will not have a home. He has to become completely alone. All his life.” Had Moni become alone after learning the mantras? Why did she learn such mantras then? Who taught her? Moni scrambled up hurriedly. The power is back. Baba’s students too had left a long while back. The newly purchased wall-clock chimed ten o’clock. A shotoronchi[6] would now be spread lengthwise on the long veranda. The radio would be on.
Everyone would listen as they ate. They would talk. After that, each one would go off to sleep as they chose. Like every day, another day would come to an end. But would it really end? If one woke up in the dead of night, wouldn’t Moni be audible? Either sitting in the veranda, or while asleep, she would be blabbering. With whom? Apparently, Moni used to have a lot of people. They were not visible. They were like shadows. Who used to crowd around Moni? Were they the memories of old days left behind? Or were they from the present? Those for whose stories Moni had to sit late at night with her legs stretched out on the small veranda beneath the patch of sky? Hearing all this gave many people the creeps. But I was not the least bit frightened of Moni. Tell me, who would pat you affectionately on the back in the way she did? Who would fan you with the hand-fan when there was a power cut, recite mantras and blow on the hand before an exam so that an entire essay on a cow could flow out of the pen?
After the mistress of the Bhattacharjee household next door took ritually consecrated water for her grandson and gave five rupees, who would immediately order milk from the Haringhata milk supply? The milk with which rabri[7] would be prepared according to Thamma[8]’s recipe. The entire household would wait in front of the stove for the thick crust to form over the milk set to boil on a low flame.
Moni never had any possessions. You could say she didn’t want any. So did Moni have no wants, no dreams? Except for the pinch of tobacco on the tip of her finger which she put into her mouth? I don’t know. I only know the pull of the house which people returned to. They worked extremely hard all day long. With the money from that hard work, they sat together at the end of the day to eat, chat, and the joys and sorrows of domestic life fell gently around the people, like drops of dew. Although all that kept Moni enclosed, Moni was very far away from this world of illusion. We knew, yes, even at that very young age, we knew, that actually Moni had no one. No home, no husband, no children, no family, and for that matter, no desh either.
Even after much searching, I could not find a picture of Boro Moni by herself. The pictures I had were all group photos. With everyone. No solo pictures. Perhaps such a picture of Bijonbala was not even supposed to be there. And so, I had to cut and crop and take out Moni from the group of people. Did Baba’s Yashica camera never find his elder sister Bijon alone then? Or had he and yet never felt the urge to put her in a frame? Or was it that after having begun my archaeological excavation so many years later, I was unable to find Boro Moni? After all, I could not print all the negatives. Some had got lost. Many more had been destroyed. Yet, Thamma, Handa are all there in whatever there is, so why is there no photo of Moni by herself? She sometimes found a place, like an extra, within the frame, in a corner, amidst a tangled, jostling group of people. Why had Thamma and Dadu [9] given such a name to their first-born? After all, “Bijon” meant alone. Devoid of people around her. How did a person’s name match her life?
In truth, she was alone all her life. Although she had her Baba, Ma, and siblings around her. Her husband’s home after she got married. And yet Bijon had to return to her mother. She did not get to live with her husband. Why not? Did her husband not like her? Had there been a quarrel? Had they driven her out? After all, much later, after coming to this side of the border, Moni had to wipe off her sindur[10], discard her conch-shell, iron and coral bangles. She had to wear a widow’s garb. Some people had apparently searched for the house and conveyed the news of Moni’s husband’s demise. How on earth did those who never kept in touch with a person come to dress her in window’s garb? Even after all these days, when I think about all this, I feel astonished.
I want to know about a lot of things. But not everything can be known. The youngsters at home were not supposed to know everything. With whatever is whispered, and more than that, with whatever one hears, they create an imaginary world. Even if there are smiles on the faces of the people in those worlds, those who roam around the house, it is understood that they are sorrowful for some unknown reason. Even if they never said anything, they went around hiding something in the depths of their hearts which they would never tell anyone. Like Indir Thakrun[11], sitting in the terrace of Sarbajaya’s kitchen, even if she asks in gasps for some water, she would never be able to convey her immense hunger.
Gazing at the plate of rice, her eyes would rain tears. And yet, she would drink a bit of water from the pot, sprinkle the rest on the saplings in the corner of the courtyard and go far away to the bamboo thicket, hoping to count the coins for the final crossing. If Sarbajaya had wanted, could she not have called Indir Thakrun that day? What would have happened if she had fed the old woman a couple of mouthfuls of her own share of rice? Sarbajaya did not perceive at that moment the contentment derived from feeding a starving person. As if it had all been masked by an all-devouring hunger. Was it really that? Or could Sarbajaya herself see that it was her own future sitting opposite near the steps of the terrace? A feverish body. The evening train too had gone by. She thought someone called out to her, “Ma,” from the door. After all, it had been a long time since she had heard being called “Ma”.
Was it Apu? Have you come, Apu? She rushed and opened the main door and saw there was no one anywhere. Infinite emptiness. Sarbajaya had to go away forever, all alone, from a desolate house in a completely unknown village. Indir Thakrun had at least been found lying in the bamboo grove by her small niece and nephew, Durga-Apu. None of Sarbajaya’s close kin found her. Apu had come and seen an empty homestead. His Ma was absent. The Ma he had learnt to manage by sending letters. Apu had not left behind any token of memory of his Ma in that house. There was nothing to speak of in Sarbajaya’s existence, except for a bundle, like with Indir Thakrun.
There was a huge crowd in the field beside the Ganga that day. A mobile cinema van had come from the Information and Culture Department of the Government of West Bengal to screen a film. They came from time to time. They screened this and that. The government wanted to make people aware by screening educational films. Before that, the dadas and didis [12]of the neighbourhood gathered together and sang, “Ora amader gaan gaite daey na … shilpi songrami Paul Robeson, They don’t let us sing … artist, fighter, Paul Robeson.” We too nodded our heads and kept the rhythm. Once the tarpaulin sheet was spread on the ground, I tried to find a good place in the first row.
Dada came and whispered in my ear, “You watch films from the rear, stupid. No one sees it from the front.” I raised my thumb and showed him a banana. Ghenchu. Nothing. He was jealous because I had found a good place. He went to the rear. Moni asked people on the two sides to move and sat down beside me. She covered my tiny feet with the shawl around her so that mosquitoes wouldn’t bite me. The field was full of people by then. Was a film screening a trivial thing? In the time I am talking about, except for one or two people, nobody in the neighbourhood possessed a television set. No telephone. There were power cuts all of a sudden. As soon as it went off, the elderly uncles of the neighbourhood sitting in the roak, the spot where they hung out, would laugh and say, “There goes Jyoti Babu.” That was why a generator set had been rented as a special arrangement.
Indir Thakrun was now on the white screen beside the Ganga. She was taking something furtively from Sarbajaya’s kitchen. Moni seemed to huddle up and stiffen herself all of a sudden. She had only recently begun to lose her health then. She brought her face close to my ear, and said, “Shall we go home? Come.” What was this! Why did Moni want to go back home? After all, I had seen so many plays with Moni before this. Seen jatras[13]. Seen Tarun Opera’s “Ami Subhas Bolchhi[14]”. When Shantigopal comes on stage in Subhas costume to the accompaniment of tumultuous orchestral music and lighting, and says, “Give me blood, and I shall give you independence”, I have seen a few thousand people break into explosive applause. Moni had folded her hands in pranam[15], and said, “Please come back. Join the two countries together.”
Moni believed that if Subhas had been there, the Partition would not have taken place. Moni would never have had to leave her village, leave her desh, and come away to this side of the border. Moni loved seeing jatra performances and plays so much, so why did the very same Moni not want to watch the film today? She had seen plenty of films before this — how, thanks to the boon of the king of ghosts, Goopy and Bag[16] had travelled to so many countries, eaten so many kinds of food, punished the wayward king. For that matter, finally they got married to princesses too. Indir Thakrun had just been caught red-handed on the screen in front by Sarbajaya. There was unease on her face. She was desperate to hide herself. And Moni’s eyes were streaming tears then. For whom? For herself? Or was it for those who stayed around like shadows out of compassion and fondness?
Moni felt like eating a lot of things in her final days — all that she had never eaten in her life. What a fierce hunger she had! How would a household that was itself hand-to-mouth obtain so much food? And yet Baba tried very hard. Towards the very end, she took a fancy to eating fish. How she loved to eat fish.
On the other hand, could a widow in a brahmin household eat fish? Nothing would remain of caste and religion! Harm would befall the family. Food then consisted of rice provided by the ration shop, a vegetable preparation, milk that was either available or not, and after lunch, it was the same at dinner, with ruti[17]. What would so many people eat in between? And where on earth would they get that from? In addition, there were, of course, the ekadashi and various other occasions for fasting. There was ambubachi [18] once a year. And of course, many people in the neighbourhood used to give out one or other kind of food in order to earn merit for themselves. Relatives too either sent money, or fruits and suchlike. But that did not benefit the widows in the household at all. However, there were no limits or bounds to the joy of kids. An abundance of fruits, sweetmeats, and chire, muri.
Moni complied with all the strictures. But in her final days, everything was turning topsy-turvy. Not only was she devoured by an all-devouring hunger, it also pushed her to greater ill health. It so happened that Moni began to eat fish furtively. After all, there was a count of the number of fish pieces on the table at home. Ma knew everything. She used to move aside her share of the fish in such a way that it seemed to be extra. Moni used to eat that bit of fish in secret. I had covertly espied one afternoon how contentedly she ate that. Even now, when a lot of fish is brought home, I remember Moni. A person sitting with her back turned around and cautiously eating fish, averting everyone’s gaze.
During tarpan[19], after making offerings of water to one’s deceased male ancestors, it is the turn to appease their wives with offerings of water. And after that come those whom the one offering the tarpan wishes to make offerings to. Dada made ritual water offerings to Moni every time. To Handa. He made offerings of water to all the people who had no one else to do that for them. Those who truly never received water when they were dying. I pour that water with black sesame seeds floating on it into a flowerpot.
The morning of Mahalaya turns into something different instantly. Standing in the middle of the sunny terrace of Dada’s flat, I like to think, what if Moni was around today? If Handa was? And Baba? Who would sit where with their back turned in this sunny terrace then? Who would put mangoes for the kashundi [20]out to dry, and where? Who would stock freshly made paper packets from the teashop and the damp copy of the last volume of the collected works of Rabindranath Tagore?
Following Moni’s return to her own mother a few years after her marriage, she never returned to her husband’s house. And so, when everyone was coming away after being uprooted from their desh, Moni’s Ma was unable to leave her own daughter behind. She had brought her along too with her. Or else how would we have got Boro Moni? Eaten her mango-mustard kashundi? Who would have taken Dada and me to a house in a village on the nights when the power went off after we had finished our studies, to an earthen courtyard, beneath a tulsi pedestal, to the round-the-clock devotional chanting of the name of Hari, the sacred offering there of rice in a clay bowl? Who would hold the hands of the two of us and walk along that dew-drenched path on the bank of the pond and stop beneath the falsa tree there?
The village floating in the early morning sunlight that we had never laid eyes on which Moni conjured up on the nights of power cuts, was Moni’s tiny piece of desh. The desh Moni left behind to never be joyful again. Was it because she was sorrowful that Moni told us stories like they were fairy tales? We used to fall asleep as we listened to those stories. A beautiful village stayed awake all night long right in front of our eyes. The village that did not belong to Ramesh, or to Dada or me, but only to Moni; the village from which, under the cover of nocturnal darkness, three women had crossed two rivers, countless villages and a vast expanse.
The place they arrived at, where they were eventually able to stand on their own feet, was then another country. A place that belonged to other people. And people became refugees in their own birthplace, their homeland, on their own soil, who, having been rendered surplus, made a fresh start in the hope of survival.
Many years later, when I was able to meet all those people, they had lost their health and reached the final stages of their lives. And yet, such élan vital. They had guarded and protected Dada and me with that infinite and inexhaustible vitality. Not just that – the narrative that had been enacted before us over a long time, even after crossing so many winters, summers, rainy seasons, autumns, late-autumns, has not faded; rather, like Baba’s Yashica, it remains hanging in the form of a photo-frame in the inner sanctum of one’s mind. And it is because it’s hanging that the residence in Bally seems to me, from time to time, like a fairy tale. And those days become Thakumar Jhuli, a grandmother’s bag of stories.
In the kitchen of the Bally residence, something special is being cooked. Ma is in the foreground. Moni is behind her. Half of the rolling pin and board for ruti in the middle is visible. Perhaps Ma had turned towards the door to do something in the middle of rolling out the rutis. One can’t make out what she is doing. Was she washing her atta-covered hands? Baba is on this side of the door. Looking through the lens of the Yashica, capturing very casually the door on the left and the wall on the right like a frame-within-frame.
Visible among the few items in the kitchen is the floor-seat. Moni seems to be in a hurry to remove something from the stove. Was someone supposed to come home that day? Or was it just like that, all of a sudden? Was something special really being cooked? Or was it merely ruti and soyabean curry? Ma is radiant with her smile even amidst all that. The moment comes to a standstill right there. But the stream of life flows ceaselessly past that. The day of that photograph and the present day seem to be separated by the vast distance of a nebula. Yet, was it not along that very path that an endless dialogue unfolded within the mind? The very dialogue whose echoes are woven into this piece of writing, all those unprinted negatives, piles of letters and the weight of memories of a long time ago.
Towards the end, Moni had become one with the bed. You could not distinguish Moni from the bed. She used to scream for food all the time — food which she could not digest at all. And so, the whole bed used to get soiled seven or eight times a day. There was shit smeared all over her body, like bedsores, Ma used to clean up all by herself, with her own hands.
Dada and I were very small then. We were in merely two rooms. So many people. Gradually, Ma too began to fall ill with that kind of terrible, inhuman toil. Right next to us was Doctor Kisku’s dispensary — our Doctor Kakima[21]. She visited us so frequently and was so fond of us that she had become like a member of the household. She attended to Moni with much care for a long time. It was because she was our family physician that she had everyone’s details at her fingertips. She warned Baba, “If this sick person remains at home like this, everyone will fall ill.” Where would this sick person be taken then? Would a public hospital take her? They tried very hard. No assurance of getting admitted there was forthcoming. Who would admit a sick person who was on the verge of death? In the end, Doctor Kakima found a way, which remained a permanent witness to a heart-rending incident in our family. It was Doctor Kakima who arranged everything. Moni was left at Mother Teresa’s “Nirmal Hriday”.
Mother Teresa had established her Nirmal Hriday for all those people who had no one, who lay on the street and waited for their final day. Nirmal Hriday provided shelter to these dying people. They spent their last few days peacefully in the land of slumber. But, after all, Moni was not lying on the street. She had everyone — brother, sister-in-law, nephews, niece and various other relatives. And yet she had had to become an unidentified person without any family and enter Mother Teresa’s Nirmal Hriday.
Even today, it is as if I can clearly remember the day Moni left home. Ma bathed Moni and dressed her in a new sari. Moni’s favourite pulao and fish curry was cooked that day. Ma fed Moni. Dada and I were standing quietly beside her. Moni acted as if she was impatient to go to the hospital. For the last few days, she had driven everyone crazy saying she wanted to go to the hospital. She believed that she would get well as soon as she went there. And once she was well, she would go to her village. How would she go? Who would take her? That was not certain. Meanwhile, a yellow-coloured taxi had arrived in front of the house. Baba carried Moni in his arms and got into the taxi. Gora Kaka[22] as well.
Moni seemed to have shrunk somehow in Baba’s arms. She gaped wide-eyed. Dada and I were at the taxi window. Ma too came and stood behind. We were saying goodbye to Moni. The taxi engine started. We heard the sound of that. Did a stream of compassion finally flow from her eyes at that moment? Yes, Moni gaped at us in astonishment and wept. “Why are you crying, Moni?” Dada ran behind the taxi. I did too. The taxi was going along the G.T. Road, becoming more and more distant. Dada screamed out, “Why are you crying, Moni?”
No reply came wafting. Once the taxi went past the bend at Kablikutir, it was no longer visible. We too never saw Moni again after that. Within a week of being admitted to Nirmal Hriday, Moni had passed away. Where did she go? To that tiny piece of homeland? The village that she had dreamt of going to after returning from the hospital?
If ever I woke up in the dead of night, I used to keep my ears pricked – could I hear Moni’s voice? Talking to herself? No, I never heard anything. Once someone leaves, they don’t return. All of us seemed to become quiet somehow after that. Baba did not utter a single word to anyone for quite a few days. When we had to find a picture for the sradh[23] ceremony, it was taken from a group photograph and framed. When the purohit moshay [24]objected to fish being offered at a widow’s sradh, Ma had told him, “Isn’t the peace of the soul the law in that book of yours?”
He could not say anything. Dada and I carried that fish head in the ritual clay pot with the lump of rice and floated it in the Ganga and walked back without looking back even once. There was no longer anyone at home that day to return to for protection. Was there truly no one? After all these years, when I look back at that road, I realise there was. There was an earthen house, atulsi pedestal as well. There was a falsa tree at the bank of a pond. There was a village awash in the morning sunshine. And there was that tiny piece of homeland that belonged to Moni, which we never set eyes on, but only kept in our dreams, like Aladin’s amazing lamp.
(This is an excerpt from the ongoing translation of Baba’s Yashica Camera: A Photographic Memoir of a Refugee Family, by Kallol Lahiri. All the photographs have been provided by Kallol Lahiri.)
[1] Country
[2] Flattened rice
[3] Puffed rice
[4] Elder brother, a sign of respect here
[5] Particular God
[6] Floor rug
[7] Sweetened, thickened milk
[8] Grandma
[9] Grandfather
[10] Vermillion powder worn by married Hindu women. The conch-shell, iron and coral bangles are signs of being married among traditional Bengalis.
[11] Reference to Bibhuti Bhushon’s Pather Panchali ( Song of the Path,1929), later popularised with the film made by Satyajit Ray in 1955.
[12] Elder sisters
[13] Folktheare
[14] I am Subhash Speaking – refers to a play written by Sailesh Dey (1968), about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s (born: 1897-1945) life and times.
[15] Obeisance
[16] Reference to Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, 1969 Film by Satyajit Ray
[17] Flatbread or roti
[18] Ekadashi and ambubachi are fasts
[19] Prayers for the dead
[20] Mustard sauce often laced with raw mangoes
[21] Aunt
[22] uncle
[23] Funeral
[24] Priest
Kallol Lahiri teaches cinema, makes documentary films, writes screenplays for films, television and OTT series, and writes blogs of various flavours in between. He is the author of four novels, Gora Naxal (2017), Indubala Bhater Hotel (2020), 1990, A Love Story (2022) and Ghumiye Porar Aage (2024), and a memoir, Babar Yashica Camera (2021). He was awarded the Sadhana Sen Memorial prize in 2021 for the novels Gora Naxal and Indubala Bhater Hotel by the magazine Bhumodhyosagor.
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V. Ramaswamy is a literary and nonfiction translator of voices from the margins. His translation of the novel, The Struggle, by Showkat Ali, was published in 2025.
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