Free Calcutta by Amit Chaudhuri Page A

their mid-fifties and beyond; and there was a lot of sipping of cocktails and mocktails, donning of paper hats, a mild, unselfconscious, bravura indulgence in silliness. The club was once designed to keep natives at bay—“Dogs and Indians not allowed”—but now, I’d say hesitantly, it’s old-fashioned, yet lacking in hauteur. We were here en famille; with my wife, my daughter, who, with a friend, ate separately from us in the Oriental Room, my parents, parents-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband, Kabir (who live in aremote London suburb). Kabir had retrieved a pale khaki linen suit for the afternoon.
    After occasions like this, we generally scatter. My father is no longer clear about what his intentions are, and seems ready to be led almost anywhere; my mother isn’t certain why my father has changed in the last two years into this indeterminate human being. My daughter is easily bored; barely eleven years old, she had, that day, some tantalising rendezvous to keep at home—it made her restless. My parents-in-law are excessively polite, as almost all Bengali in-laws are if they’re in the disadvantageous position of being of the daughter’s family: they convinced me (as they do each year) of the exceptionally good time they’d had. Kabir looked as if he’d had enough of wearing his khaki-coloured linen suit.
    And so they dispersed, one by one, from Russell Street, which opens at this end on to Park Street. And, as on our wedding night, my wife and I were eventually left alone with each other—but on the compound of the Bengal Club. I didn’t want to leave the neighbourhood; I’d half-succumbed to the same wishful enchantment that I do when I’m here. Besides, I’d eaten too much; the residue of the piece of Christmas pudding saturated in brandy cream not only didn’t fit in with my experience of Christmas Day—it felt out of place in my stomach. My arteries were, predictably, asking for caffeine.
    “Let’s go to Flurys,” I said, knowing fully we’d have to wait to get in. In my mind was the undeniable realisation, “Christmas comes once a year,” uttered by the angel floating ministeringly at one shoulder, with the devil at the other shoulder adding, “And you’re half a minute away from Park Street.” Perhaps they were both angels? And in which part of the world could you have such a Christmas afternoon, with its special aimless anticipation—exceptin Calcutta, and here? People were at large. They looked unaware of various things, of the complex history that killed Christmas on this street and now for whatever reason had resurrected it. There’s something almost miraculous about the continual return of Christmas to Park Street; it’s a miracle that (despite the fact that all miracles are apocryphal) I didn’t want to miss. As with all festive occasions these days in this city, what had once started probably in the nineteenth century as part of a secular metamorphosis (the emergence of a new, busy, pleasure-loving middle class; a fresh air of celebration) is now woven into a cheery provincialism, of a city no longer emblematic but ordinary, yet uncannily lit by its past. The strollers on Park Street seemed as unmindful of yesterday as they were of history: Christmas Eve didn’t survive even as memory. They were on their way somewhere, for no good reason, as we were, to Flurys; the hawkers were selling the little clay Santas with the mildly nodding heads and parsimonious beards, as if Christmas Eve were still a few days away. It didn’t occur to them, or to the passers-by, that you mightn’t want anything to do with Santa—clay or otherwise—once Christmas Eve was over. I had once bought one for my daughter, a few years ago, and she didn’t want anything to do with it then; it stood on a shelf for two weeks, its head vibrating every time you struck it with your finger, and then its one colour began to fade, the already faint red ebbing into something like an impressionist’s wash.