Free Freedom Song by Amit Chaudhuri Page A

now that her husband was in it. But lately Shib had said, sombre in his sleeveless slip-over, ‘I don’t know why they’ve taken me.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘The government isn’t interested in putting money into the company. I don’t know if they expect me to perform some miracle and put it on the right course again.’ He was unlikely to make any miracles happen, presiding over in his active old age this company he’d known since childhood. ‘I’ve heard that there are somepeople who resent that money’s being diverted from a loss-making firm to pay my salary—so it’s best not have any expectations.’
    Here, at the entrance of the lane, was a sprawling rubbish-heap of an unimaginable colour—but the two women in the car wouldn’t notice it. Mini was wearing a white tangail sari with a slender green border, and a dark cardigan; bent forward slightly, she was a mixture of light and dark this afternoon. Many times Khuku had persuaded her to wear brighter colours, but she had always refused; not saying why, but on the unspoken grounds of her age, and being single; it was just a preference and a belief she had.
    Through traffic jams, bursts of exhaust fumes, a mad chorus of car horns, they’d come, passing the ‘boulevard’ in Gariahat, with its tinsel and Christmas caps hanging from the stalls, and its portraits of Ramakrishna and imitation Rembrandts, empty exercise books and jars of spices and generators; then the roundabout at Gol Park. Through all this they’d come.
    The nursing home rose before them like a mirage. All the doctors attending to Mini had come to know both of them well—and addressed them as ‘mashima’. There was Dr Sarkar and Dr Majumdar, both of them young enough to be Khuku’s sons; both most courteous, and attentive to Mini, saying, ‘Mashima, sit here,’ and, ‘Tell me, how is theproblem now?’ Khuku remembered her son when she saw these two young doctors, and then she told them about him; and they seemed interested and always had five minutes to spare to have a relaxed chat with her. They’d got to know how Bablu was in America, doing a doctorate in economics, and how her husband was still working in a company. ‘That’s good,’ Dr Sarkar had said. ‘Men age quickly if they don’t work.’ Khuku had been pleased with this; she’d thought, Then it doesn’t matter that it’s not a good company, at least he’s doing a job. When they examined Mini, Khuku either sat in one of the chairs in the hall, or stood in the corridor outside which received weak sunshine from the frosted window on the door at its end, the door that opened onto a dusty space at the back where the cars were parked. She thought how strange life was, that she was here and Bablu was in America and her husband in the office, and that there was a clean nursing home in Calcutta with good doctors; she was full of wonder at how one person ended up in one place and someone else in quite another.
    When they’d finished they headed back the same way, but going down the by-lane Khuku was always tempted to visit the house, in one of the lanes nearby in Jodhpur Park, her elder sister had lived in. Of course, her elder sister was dead; but her daughter, Puti—Khuku’s niece—and Manas, her son, were still there, living in different flats in the same house; as were her grandchildren, Khuku’sgrand-nephews, Puti’s son, Mohit, and Manas’s, Sameer. Both were fond of Khuku, their ‘Didimoni’, but of the two it was the younger, Sameer, less hard-working and mindful of his studies than Mohit, who was the more openly demonstrative of his affection towards his grand-aunt, ready to melt in her arms, and who always had a kiss for her. Puti, too, after the death of her mother, had begun to see Khuku, her only aunt, in another light (although both sisters had been different in every way, including appearance, Puti’s mother fair skinned with fine thinning hair, and ten years older than her sister, almost