Romeo Must Die

This was my first encounter of sleeping on a cold floor in a prison cell in the Holy City of Benaras. I had come to visit the famous temples and see the much famed Ganga Aarti when my world changed forever. My ever concerned wife asked me to show my palm to a roadside astrologer, someone in whom I had no faith yet put forth my palm diligently and asked him to read my future. But the idiot of a soothsayer started from the past and after muttering about my birth and growing up days suddenly stopped reading…he put his lens in front of my face and with big round eyes looked at me and said….mmmm Romeo thay aap? Before I could protest and walk out, the tilakdhaari pandit pulled out a whistle from his jhola and blew it loud. In no time I was surrounded by four sturdy men in khakhi. 

I was walked to the closest police thana, not walked but escorted to the place like a petty criminal and then made to stand with men younger to me by a few decades, some of whom were chewing paan, some had cheap shades on their eyes and others with handkerchiefs on their collars. And here I was a man in his mid-fifties, being made to stand in the queue with these roadside guys, as the policemen took one of us at a time inside what possibly would be the Dark Hole. I couldn’t understand the language being uttered inside clearly but some Guruji there was definitely not reciting the Upanishads to his Shishya who was crying out loudly and shouting….chhod do mujhe…ab kabhi nahin karoonga…After a while the battered specimen would tumble out, barely being able to walk in his torn and tattered clothes as the next fellow was pushed for the cleansing or shudhi-karan ceremony.

Finally, my turn came and despite my protests and pleadings, the policeman caught me by my collar and pushed me to a room which was dimly lit. There were wooden sticks, a bucket of water, electric wires and many other contraptions the possible use of which were not difficult for me to understand. There also sat on a wooden chair a man with a handle-bar moustache and he welcomed me by repeating the Gabbar’s immortal dialogue…Aaao Thakur, Aaao…Bangali Babu you look like a bhadralok and yet you do things like this? Bahut yaranna lagta hai….

What have I done?

You’ve made a mistake, a mortal mistake. Ab goli khao…

No. I have not done anything wrong. I was with my wife…my legally wedded one and only wife on a pilgrimage when your people picked me up. It’s a mistake, Sahab.

Ha Ha Ha Ha….The jailor started laughing just like Gabbar before he pulled the trigger on Kalia and his other two cronies. After laughing for a good ten minutes, he signalled to his junior to call in someone and in walked the astrologer- cum- palmist.

“Tell him Pandit, why this baldy Bangali is here and why we will make sure that Romeo must die in our land of Ganga- Jamuna Sanskriti.”

 It was then when the skeletons tumbled out of my closet as the Pundit ji put the crystal ball on the table and as the scene went back in time…thirty five years ago.

Durga Puja for us Bengalis is the most revered time of our annual calendar. It is that time of the year when Ma Durga comes to her parental home for five days and the frenzy of the Bongs is to be seen to be believed. The fervour is never about the puja, listening to devotional songs or fasting but it is about non-stop eating the oily egg-chicken rolls and kosha mangsho with luchi and for young boys and girls this is the best time to romance, falling in love at every turn, at seeing every girl you meet. We used to roam around in hordes of six or seven. We just waited, watched and admired every Bengali beauty who walked into the puja pandal. Often these encounters were no more than a meeting of the eyes but sometimes they went beyond to embarrassing moments and even disasters.  Rarely did they go on to taking wows of life and death.

She walked in wearing a pink salwar kameez. She was not the typical Bong Beauty, the round faced big eyed one but slim, tall and very elegant….never saw her eyes in the first few meetings for she always had a dark shade. The moment I saw her, music started playing inside me. She’s the one for me, it was love at first sight as it had always been. She came to the pandal with a friend of hers. But as in any love story there are bound to be problems galore and so it was with ours. Another tall handsome and fair man in our group was Partha and he had quite a reputation with girls. He was the first to announce to us friends that he had fallen for the new chick in town and this puja he will devote all his energies and, of course, charm to make the girl his. I kept my feelings to myself but couldn’t stop admiring the girl. So the next few days of puja were very purposeful.

Partha, openly, and me, silently, would follow the girl everywhere, watching every step of hers and trying to get close to her while taking the bhog prasaad, standing at the morning aarti or watching the evening cultural programmes. But the best part was that both of us never had the courage to ever utter a single word to the lass but our love for sure was as deep as the ocean’s depth, or so we believed. The handsome Partha took a march over me as he was a champion dhunuchi dancer and he had even perfected the art of dancing with one dhunichi held between his teeth as he balanced two in his out stretched arms. He was dancing in perfect rhythm of the dhak beat as she watched him not missing even a single step. I had my eyes both on her and saw her smile in admiration for Partha’s dancing ability. I felt like picking up a couple of dhunuchis myself but then, fortunately, stopped which saved me from any further embarrassment as my dancing was limited to a few bhangra steps and the famous nagin dance which would surely have been most inappropriate here. I was losing out to my friend so sought for divine intervention as I closed my eyes, folded my hands in full devotion to Ma Durga….Help me O Mother. I don’t want anything but this girl…please make her mine. I don’t think Mother Goddess heard my honest and loving prayer in the din of dhak and dhol playing out loud for neither did Partha’s dhunuchi fall out of his hands nor did he step on the falling amber sparks to get off balance as I watched the girl’s smile go wider with every step he took. My faith in the Goddess was in shambles.

The last and concluding day of Durga Puja is the immersion when the Goddess and her four children are put in trucks and taken to Yamuna river front. The truck with Durga’s idol is the most important and the key organizers and VIPs alone get a place on this otherwise uncomfortable rickety truck. So next time if you notice the number of Durga Pujas mushrooming, the cause is often some Dada got miffed at not being allowed in the same truck in which Durga’s idol was kept on this important day and would end up in starting another Sarbojanin Durga Puja in the vicinity. The younger boys and girls would get to sit on the trucks following the main truck. And that is where I found Shilpi…by now we had come to know her name. What luck and it got even better to see Partha missing among the motley crowd in the truck. But as they say good things and good times in life don’t last long…there came Partha in his Yezdi bike with a red looking chunni tied as bandana on his head. Both Shilpi and Partha wore their dark shades over their eyes to beat the sun. She looked beautiful, he looked cool and handsome and me, a Hanuman.

Hanuman was a Super Man for who else will allow his tail to be put on flame and for what…someone else’s wife. Hanuman, for another reason, for during the immersion drive, Bongs display their dancing skills and no matter how lousy they are at this, they dance like monkeys as if they are in a state of trance and Ma Durga has given them her consort Shiva’s Tandava boon, even if it were for a day. So it was with me and I danced and danced hoping to get her attention knowing well it was an impossible to beat a macho Bong on a bike. Who cared? You could never guess anyway from behind the shades if she was at all looking at me or Partha. A Brave Bangali never gives up. Born Fighter!

The Durga Puja passed and then came a phase which was lull for she was not to be seen. Along with Buddha, my friend, we took out our bicycles and started roaming the streets searching for the elusive Juliet. After many a failed reconnaissance just when I was about to give up on her and look for another love on the roads, she appeared out of nowhere. While playing football in a ground one evening we saw her standing on Ghosh Kaku’s balcony overlooking the playground. She was a friend of Ghosh Kaku’s daughter. The moment I saw her, my game improved and I took it upon myself to keep the ball on my feet without passing to anyone and ensuring every goal scored was by me. Now every evening I would go to the playground at the same time hoping to find the girl standing there. And it did happen a couple of times and seeing her once in a while was enough incentive to be there waiting every day.

We lived in the times of Amitabh, although since then three decades have passed, the AB dominance never seems to fade away. Around this time, the movie Namak Halal was about to be released. We came to know that the God himself would be coming to the cinema hall nearby for the premiere. Having lived in the government colony for long and seen many a movie there, we had made friends with the men behind the ticket counter and more importantly the people selling the tickets in black were no other than friends who played with us in the evenings and shared the warm cup of chai that followed. So the first day, first show tickets were managed and so were tickets for the next show….we just could not take a chance if Bachchan Saab came late. After all AB would have other premieres to attend and what if he came for the second show? The movie was wonderful, songs were amazing and Bachchan added a few inches to his stature. Though God never came but we had no qualms as the movie made up for everything.

Buddha knew the Ghoshs well. A perfect plan was hatched. Buddha convinced the daughter Ghosh that Namak Halal was a great movie and that she and her friend must see immediately. He has contacts and can help them get the tickets easily despite the halls being full for every show. They fell for it and showed inclination to see the movie. We quickly arranged for their tickets, not two but four…two for the girls and one for Buddha and one for Romeo, that was me. Trimmed my slightly sprouting moustache, took out a fresh and ironed pair of trouser, a new shirt and with an extra Rs 10 in the hip pocket just in case we got a chance to treat the damsels during intermission. Every contingency was planned for to make this a big day. We reached the theatre an hour in advance and were delighted to see the girls come in…the look on their faces, however, revealed another story…unimpressed and unhappy seeing us and when we went into the hall inside and sat down one after another, got a feeling as if we were committing a most heinous crime. She sat on one extreme and me on another. While her eyes were on the screen, mine were on her all the time. When she for once looked my way, I realized it was time to make a hasty retreat. No sooner had the intermission bell rang than Buddha and I walked right out of the cinema hall, never to return again.

What happened to Shilpi thereafter is something I am not aware of but, today, watching history roll by the crystal ball, waiting for the ugly cane to strike me hard, I smiled at the policeman wielding the stick. The muchchad police was taken aback as I shouted aloud, “Romeo must not die. He lives in all of us. Romeo must live to make life and world an interesting place, he adds spark to the otherwise dull life. Rok sake toh rok ke dikha,” and walked out, free.

SS