Title: Those Boyhood Years
Author: Shibram Chakraborty
Translated from Bengali by Niladri R. Chatterjee
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
For a little while Deben stood watching the commotion of the passengers, the snatch-and-grab of the servitors, the officiousness of the railway staff. Noticing someone in the distance he made an unusual gesture with his hand and drawn by that signal, a man approached him.
‘Sudhir, why so late?’
‘I was looking for you in the crowd. Who knew that you are standing here?’
‘What to do? I am without a ticket. If I go out the main exit, do you think those barbarians would let me go?’
‘No, I wouldn’t think so. Then come, let’s go this way, in the darkness, by stepping over the tracks.’
After crossing a few tracks, when they stopped for a moment, an empty engine, like a python with its eyes blazing in the dark, sped past them, almost grazing their ears.
‘Sudhir, I have been sprinkled with warm water.’
‘You have been saved by a whisker! Thank the Almighty!’
‘For sure, but do we believe in God?’
By then they had reached a barbed wire fence which they jumped high to cross. Sudhir’s clothes suffered a tear, caught in the fence.
‘See, Sudhir? It isn’t just me. Everyone loves you. Even this useless barbed wire fence wants to hold you.’
‘Quite right, Deben. Love is an unnecessary obstacle in our path.’
Deben suppressed a sigh and continued walking with him, in silence.
They stopped by some wild growth. A driverless vehicle awaited them. When Sudhir pulled at the gear stick a few times, the car started to loudly protest, breaking the silence of early dawn. Seating Deben beside him, Sudhir started the vehicle.
The car was moving. Both the men were quiet. It was getting light outside, revealing the peaks, high and low, of distant hills, as the journey to Madhupur continued by a secret route.
Deben broke the silence with, ‘See, Sudhir, how beautiful is the sight of those hills against the sky!’
Not responding to the remark, Sudhir clutched at the steering wheel and expressed a mild concern to himself, ‘I hope there’s enough petrol.’
‘Do you now live in Madhupur? Don’t you ever go to Vaidyanath?’
Turning off the headlight, Sudhir said, ‘Sometimes.’
‘I quite like Vaidyanath. I remember when I was a child, finding the Lion’s Gate of the temple was a really difficult task.’
Turning the car left, Sudhir responded, ‘Hmmm.’
‘Why aren’t you saying anything? What’s eating you?’
‘Where? Nothing. Oh yes, how many did you “convert” to our cause this time?’
‘Not many. About twenty-two or -three. But I have chosen boys who have pulling power. They have recruited some more. I will send you the list of names.’
‘Don’t post it. Send in by hand, coded. Understood?’
‘Sure.’
‘I will take you to a place in the evening. Know where? To our secret hideout. There you will be initiated in the presence of our leaders. And you will be made a special member.’
‘The leaders? Will I have the good fortune of meeting them?’
‘Somewhat, yes. You may be entrusted with jobs of responsibility. But before that, they test you accordingly.’
‘I have already said I am not going to bump people off. I am weak there. Haven’t you told them that?’
‘I have, which is why I hope they will give you recruiting jobs. I know you can chat up boys easily. And amassing boys is what we need to do most now—money and men.’
‘Why? Do you suppose something big is about to start?’
‘That would be my guess. Just as birdwatchers have spread all across the country, one cannot trust even near ones, similarly, in schools and colleges in cities and villages, we are recruiting. We are recruiting four times the number they are interning, although most of them are too green and will probably not survive the first step.’
Sudhir turned the car right.
‘Truly, the work seems to be very widely spread this time. Whenever I try to “convert” any boy from the city or the village, he appears to have been “converted” already. This has happened quite a few times. Everyone is getting a sense that something’s going on.’
‘Secrecy has a mysterious attraction, the power of which isn’t negligible. Which is why hordes of boys are leaning this way.’
Just then, a punctured front tyre brought the car to a stop. ‘Now what calamity is this!’ Sudhir got down and set about replacing the flat tyre with a good one, and within ten minutes the vehicle was on the road again.
The tops of the hills were glittering in the early morning sun. When Sudhir slowed the car down, Deben asked, ‘What now? Out of fuel?’
Pressing down on the foot brake, Sudhir stopped the car and said, ‘Not exactly. Just that I have a cuppa in the morning and I benevolently offer one to my companion too. I will arrange for that now.’
Out of one corner of the car emerged a stove, a kettle, a cup, a tin of Lipton, and imported condensed milk, and soon enough tea, of a colour of the distant hills, was ready—satisfaction in liquor, flavour, aroma, and sharing!
Sipping the tea, Sudhir said, ‘The date has been set for the start, on the same day, of a massive revolution across northern India. The date for the announcement has been fixed too. All this is preparation for that.’
Deben jumped up enthusiastically. ‘You know, you really know?’
‘I also know that the bloodied wheels of revolution will crush us first, running over our breasts. Be ready for that.’
(Excerpted from Those Boyhood Years by Shibram Chakraborty, translated by Niladri R. Chatterjee. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2026)
ABOUT THE BOOK
Shibram Chakraborty was one of Bengal’s most prolific and beloved humourists and novelists. However, his debut novel, Chhele Boyoshe, a tender exploration of love between two boys, has been almost forgotten. Now, it appears for the first time in English.
Ashanto and Mohun, two teenaged boys, meet in Kolkata and are immediately attracted to one another. Circumstances bring them to the same hostel in the town of Malda, where they grow even closer. Their young love, untainted by the gaze of adults, finally puts them at risk, and soon they need to learn to protect it. Alongside, there is the story of Deben and Sudhir, older, and, deeply embroiled in the underground armed resistance against the British. Yet even in this world of intrigue and danger, they too continue to love each other. Sometimes diverging, and at times intertwining, the threads take the reader into the world of boys’ hostels, the nationalist movement, peasant resistance, often combining love stories with the thrill of chases and shadowy conspiracies.
Chakraborty writes with astonishing openness of the hugs, caresses and kisses shared by the boys, and their bold proclamations of love, even as he reflects on the horrors of rape and violence. What emerges is a story that is unusual in its frank and sweet depiction of same-sex love, while attempting to also bow to the prevailing sensibilities of the times.
For its rare portrayal of gay romance and the milieu of pre-Independence Bengal, and for the manner in which it combines sensitive storytelling with philosophical reflection, Those Boyhood Years is a pioneering work of modern Indian literature.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shibram Chakraborty was a writer, poet and humourist who authored more than 150 books in his sixty-year career. The creator of the iconic duo Harshabardhan and Gobardhan, he initially wrote for magazines and newspapers before moving onto stories and novels, where his humorous voice earned him the moniker ‘King of Laughter’.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Niladri R. Chatterjee is Professor, Dept. of English, University of Kalyani. He has co-edited The Muffled Heart: Stories of the Disempowered Male, and Naribhav: Androgyny and Female Impersonation in India. He has authored a novel, The Scholar, and his book of translation, Entering the Maze: Queer Fiction of Krishnagopal Mallick, was shortlisted at the Kalinga Literature Festival awards, and won the Rainbow Lit Fest Award for Fiction in 2023.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
