Priya captures Somnath’s bishop with her knight and waves it about in delight. “You did not see that coming, Kaku, did you?” He bends over the board muttering, secretly pleased. He taught her to play ten years ago when she was eight; her victories are his, too.
Somnath in his cotton kurta-pajama, a glint of gold buttons at his neck. One would not guess that he owns most of the fields in Ranipur and a shipping business and fancy mansion in Calcutta. His village home remains his favorite residence. Priya claims it is because he does not have a worthy chess opponent in the big city.
Priya in the loom-woven sari most village girls wear, her laughing face framed by curly hair escaped from her braid. One would not guess she holds close to her heart a forbidden dream.
The servants arrange the food on marble tables. Lime sharbat in silver glasses, three kinds of milk-sweets, steaming pumpkin-flower pakoras, pistachios, fruitcakes sent up from Calcutta. Guilt twinges in Priya. At home, her mother and two sisters would be eating puffed rice and jaggery, peasant fare. Money is always short in the Ganguly household. Nabakumar, a fine doctor with practices in Ranipur and Calcutta, is hobbled by a bad habit: he cannot turn away patients who are unable to pay. People take advantage of you, Priya’s mother, Bina, complains. What would they have done if Bina had not been a talented quiltmaker, much in demand for her wedding kanthas? Bina is correct; still, Nabakumar is Priya’s hero.
Up the stairs comes Manorama, Somnath’s sister, manager of his household ever since his wife died giving birth to their only son, Amit. Manorama wears the white sari prescribed for widows, but hers is of the finest cotton. Jewelry is forbidden, but at her waist hangs a massive silver key ring proudly holding every key except the one to Somnath’s safe. All in this household must petition Manorama for their needs.
The pakoras are getting cold, Manorama observes.
“Take it all away!” Somnath snaps. He descends into irritation when the game grows tense. “A hundred times I have said, do not disturb me when I am playing. If I lose to this chit of a girl, it will be your fault.”
Manorama, undaunted: “If you lose it will be because Priya is a better player. At least let her eat!”
Priya bites into a pakora. “Thank you, Pishi. Unlike certain people, I can eat and think at the same time.”
Manorama laughs. In her dry way, she is fond of Priya. Once she told Priya that though her oldest sister, Deepa, was the beauty of the village—fair skin, rose-petal lips, soulful eyes, hair like a waterfall—Priya was more admirable. She did not lie or think too highly of herself or deal in pettiness. Priya had thanked Manorama, but inwardly she shrugged. Life was too short to waste on trivialities when one had a goal.
* * *
A commotion in the compound below. A gate bangs shut, footsteps crunch unevenly along the long gravel driveway, Priya suppresses a sigh. It is her middle sister, strident-voiced Jamini, calling her by her full and proper name.
“Bishnupriya! Ma wants you home!”
Jamini was born thirteen months before Priya, but she seems older. Perhaps it is the way she dresses: decorous long-sleeved blouses, stiff-starched saris so that people will take her seriously. Hair pulled into a severe bun that makes her look haggard. Priya can see this. But Jamini dislikes advice from her sisters, so Priya has opted wisely for silence.
Jamini likes to order Priya around; mostly Priya allows it. Jamini’s left leg is a trifle shorter, she walks with a lurch although Nabakumar took her to a Calcutta surgeon when she was a child. The village women whisper that no one will marry her. This saddens Priya. She herself does not consider marriage crucial, she has larger plans, but she suspects that wifehood means much to Jamini.
Still, she will not let Jamini cut short her game. “I will go home once I am done.”
“Should not take long,” Somnath announces. “About to beat her.”
With a vixen grin, Priya inserts a bishop between her king and Somnath’s queen.
“You might as well come upstairs and have some sweets while you wait,” Manorama says. She is not fond of Jamini, Priya has overheard her say that Jamini is too virtuous, but the Chowdhurys are gracious to guests, even uninvited ones.
Jamini, primly: “Many thanks, but not today, Pishi. I am helping Ma cook for Baba—”
“Baba is home?” Priya rises, jolting the chessboard in excitement. “Why did you not say so?”
Somnath frowns. “Nabakumar is back early from Calcutta. I wonder why. He does not like changing his routine.”
Jamini loves being the one who knows. “Something occurred at the clinic. He will tell you tomorrow. I must leave now. I do not want to miss Baba’s Calcutta stories. Priya dear, take your time, finish up the game. I am sure Baba will not mind.”
Priya is too used to Jamini’s taunts to react. She sends Somnath an apologetic look as he nods his understanding, casts a regretful eye on her plate of uneaten snacks, bids goodbye to Manorama.
But here are hoofbeats. The durwans swing open the great lion-crested gates, a black stallion gallops in, carrying Amit. Two years older than Priya, her best friend, recently returned from studies in Calcutta. In imported jodhpur pants and a fine muslin shirt, he is overly elegant for the village. Priya teases him for this. He is an excellent horseman, tall and sturdy, strong enough to control the wildest horse. But this she does not say; already he thinks too much of himself.
He halts the stallion with a flick of his wrist, swings down, calls her by the name he gave her in childhood.
“Pia. You cannot leave so soon. I timed my ride so I would get back just as you finish your boring game. I still have so much to tell you about my Calcutta stay—”
Jamini interrupts. “Priya must go home. Now.”
Priya wonders at her tone. Jamini is courteous with everyone except her sisters, but since Amit’s return, she has been thorny toward him.
“When did you become Pia’s guardian?” Amit retorts. Jamini faces him, eager for altercation.
Priya puts an apologetic hand on Amit’s arm. He has a formidable temper; she does not want it to flare now. “Baba has come home unexpectedly. He has been gone two weeks—”
Amit’s face clears; Priya can always appease him. “You want to see him, of course. I will come with you. I love hearing Nabakumar Kaku’s news. Let me hand Sultan to the groom—”
Jamini cuts in. “Today is not a good day for visits. Father wants a quiet family dinner.”
Priya, bristling: “Amit is family, too!”
This time it is Amit who touches her arm. “I will see him another time.”
Only the thought of her waiting father keeps Priya from argument. “He will come tomorrow to talk to Somnath Kaku. I will accompany him. We can chat then”—she throws Jamini a searing glance—“without interruption.”
* * *
On the way home, Jamini stops at the shrine of Pir Moyinuddin, a Muslim saint beloved of all in the village. Priya is annoyed.
“You said we were in a hurry. You would not let me talk to Amit.”
It is bad luck, Jamini says, to pass a holy place without praying. As for Amit, Priya is too friendly with him. “You are not a child anymore. You need to behave appropriately, or you will bring shame on our family. Do you not see how shallow Amit has grown? He cares only about fine clothes and expensive horses and his rich Calcutta friends, every one of them idle and wasteful. I heard that he failed his exams . . .”
Priya prefers not to argue with Jamini, who is adept at twisting words, but today she is too furious for prudence. “You should be ashamed to repeat malicious gossip like that. I know Amit. He is a good human being. Also, he is right; you are not my guardian. Unless Baba tells me otherwise, I will be as friendly with Amit as I please.”
She walks faster so Jamini will not be able to keep up, she kicks at the stones in her path. Fields of golden mustard flowers, silver-white egrets feeding in the rushes, things she loves. She passes them unseeing. She is good at shrugging off Jamini’s jibes. How, then, did her sister get so deep under her skin today?
* * *
Dinnertime. On the floor of their two-room cottage, the three sisters have gathered around Nabakumar. They are similar in build but otherwise so different that a stranger would not think they belong to the same family: Deepa scintillates in her confident beauty; Jamini is pale with virtue and suppressed longing; Priya glows, passionate with purpose. Their mother, Bina, ordinarily stern or worried, is radiant today because her husband is home. She has cooked ilish in mustard sauce, an expensive treat for which she made a special trip to the fish market. She must have taken the money from her lockbox, Priya thinks, money she is saving with difficulty for her daughters’ dowries.
Dowries—or the lack thereof—is a constant cause of tension in their household. Though Nabakumar is not eager to send his girls off to the homes of in-laws, Bina feels they must marry soon. She turns accusing eyes on her husband, pointing out that most village girls their age are already betrothed, if not wed. Bina has ambitions for her daughters; she would like to marry them into affluent and respectable families. But without sufficient dowries, what chance do they have of attracting such matches? Her voice grows sharp as she reminds her husband that as they get older, their options are shrinking.
Priya has no wish to get married. Even still, the notion of dowries infuriates her. Is a woman not valuable enough in herself? she asks. When a man brings home his bride, isn’t the family gaining a housemaid they will never have to pay? But it is a losing battle. Even her idealistic father concedes that the custom is too strong to fight.
But today Bina is in a good mood and smiles shyly when Nabakumar compliments her cooking. Jamini jumps up to serve everyone, though he has told her they can help themselves. Priya sits closest to Nabakumar, asking about new cases in his Calcutta clinic until Bina says, “Must we hear about blood and pus and fever-vomiting at dinnertime? Let Baba eat in peace.”
Nabakumar winks at Priya when Bina is not looking. Later, he mouths. Their little secret.
Nabakumar loves opportunities to expand his daughters’ horizons. A talented singer, he has taught them many Tagore songs. Deepa and Jamini learned quickly, they have discerning ears, but Priya—in this she is like her mother—cannot sing at all. She knows all the words, though, and loves to hear him sing, especially the patriotic songs that are his favorite. For some reason, Bina cannot stand these; when she is around, Priya has noticed, Nabakumar switches to innocuous melodies praising nature’s beauty.
Nabakumar would have kept the girls in the village pathshala until they completed their final year, but Bina said, Enough, which man wants a wife who knows more than him. Still, he brought home textbooks and notes, encouraged the girls to take their examinations from home. The others declined, but Priya studied on her own and matriculated with high marks. Perhaps that is why he loves her most; he sees himself mirrored in her hunger to know the world.
Now he launches into politics, his other passion. In youth he was a freedom fighter; he insists that his family should know what is happening in their country. This exciting, difficult time: bitter-cold arguments between Viceroy Wavell and Nehru and Jinnah, Gandhi sidelined, opposing factions raising hydra heads. No one can agree about the shape that independent India should take, he ends sadly. Who knows how rocky the transition of power will be.
Priya longs to know more, but Bina interrupts. “Could we talk about something peaceful and happy?”
Into the awkward silence slides Deepa with a charming pout that no man can resist, not even a father. “Baba, when will you take me to Calcutta? You promised last year that we would go shopping in New Market.”
The girls have not been to Calcutta in years. Priya’s only memory of the city is of screeching peacocks in a zoo they visited while she was a child. Partly this is because, though it is not particularly far, getting to Calcutta is an enterprise. Ranipur does not have its own station. Travelers must walk for two hours or take a buffalo cart, which is not much faster, to Baduria and wait there for a train. But this is the real reason: Bina does not like the big city, does not trust it.
Now Nabakumar, shamefaced, admits he owes Deepa a trip. He frowns, calculating. “I can take you in two weeks.”
Priya begs to join them. She wants to see his clinic and Calcutta Medical College, where he studied. Jamini, too, looks up with requesting eyes.
Bina responds with a decisive no; then she relents a little. “It is too expensive to take us all. Let Deepa go with you. I will send one of my kanthas with her, to show to shopkeepers in New Market. Perhaps someone will agree to stock my work.”
Deepa. The prettiest eldest favorite to whom Bina gives the biggest sweet, the best sari at Durga Puja time, who sleeps beside her when Baba goes to Calcutta. Deepa says, “I will surely find a buyer for your beautiful quilts, Ma. Pack me the bridal-party kantha. It has the best needlework.”
A good choice, Priya must admit; Deepa has a keen eye. The kantha depicts a bride traveling to her husband’s home in a palanquin. Waving palm trees, rivers with leaping fish, the bridegroom and his friends triumphant on their horses, the bride peeping curiously from the palanquin. It took Bina an entire week to do just the understitching, even with Jamini’s help.
Nabakumar speaks decisively. “All five of us will go. We will make it a family holiday. I will ask Somnath if we can stay in his Calcutta house. It lies empty most of the time. Our only expense will be the train tickets. I can afford that.”
Bina frowns. “But will it be safe? In the bazaar, people are saying there will be a big rally.”
“Nothing to worry about. The politicians are always organizing hartals.” Nabakumar touches Bina’s cheek. “It will be a special treat. I have given you too few of those, dearest.”
A smile breaks over Bina’s face, years fall away. She lowers her head shyly. Priya glimpses the luminous young woman she had been, mesmerized by the dashing physician visiting her little village. They had fallen in love and married without family permission, unusual in that time.
Nabakumar turns to Jamini. He might love Priya the most, but he is fair to all his children. “What would you like to do in Calcutta, daughter?”
Dutiful Jamini startles them all. “I want to visit a cinema hall and see an English movie. Bela’s father took her to the Metro Cinema last year. It has red velvet chairs and—”
Bina asks Jamini if they own a huge rice go-down, like Bela’s father. She points out that Jamini barely knows English.
Jamini’s face flushes. She looks down at her thala and toys with a piece of fish. Priya wishes to defend Jamini, but it would only harm her case.
Nabakumar says, “We will go to an English movie, Jamini dear, if that is what you have set your heart on.”
Jamini offers him a tremulous, faraway smile. In her head, she is already at the Metro, seated in her velvet chair.
Nabakumar rises to wash his hands. Deepa says, “Looks like you are done eating, Jamini. Can I have your piece of ilish?”
Priya glances at Ma. Surely she will say no to this unreasonable request. But she does not speak, and Deepa leans over and takes the fish.
* * *
The house is quiet now, lanterns extinguished, the family settled for the night, parents in the bedroom, daughters on old quilts on the main floor. As revenge for the usurped fish, Jamini has claimed Deepa’s place by the window, where it is coolest. Deepa grumbles her way to the second-best spot at the other edge of the room. Priya lies between them. Such things matter little to her.
She wakes to a panicked banging, someone outside shouting, Daktar-babu, shouting, Emergency. Deepa groans and pulls her pillow over her ears, Jamini sits up in fright, Priya flings open the door. Their desperate night-visitor is a young fisherman. His wife has been in labor since morning, but the baby will not budge. The midwife says she can do nothing more.
Tousle-haired, in rumpled pajamas, Nabakumar goes to the bedroom to fetch his medical bag. Bina frowns. “It sounds challenging.”
His voice is somber, his words clipped. “It does. Do not wait up for me.”
Bina sighs. After traveling all day, Nabakumar needs his sleep. And the case will bring little, if any, money. Still, she climbs out of bed and puts a couple of clean old saris into a bag. After a moment she adds a baby quilt.
Priya has followed Nabakumar. “Please let me come with you! It might help to have an extra pair of hands.”
Bina is scandalized. “An unmarried girl cannot be at a birthing.”
Priya is afraid Nabakumar will agree. Not because it is unseemly—such thoughts do not occur to him—but because he does not like to cross Bina. Also, he might not think Priya would be of use. Until now she has assisted with only simple tasks at his Ranipur clinic, stitching up a cut, lancing a boil, prescribing malaria medication. But he nods. Bring lanterns. Two of them. Hurry. She realizes that he expects more trouble than he can handle on his own.
They walk through the sultry night to the fisher neighborhood. Narrower paths, shacks leaning drunkenly against one another. The man—his name is Hamid—leads them to the smallest one. Dim light of a smoky lamp, a pregnant woman panting on a mat. The frightened midwife tells them the baby’s heartbeat is very faint.
“The umbilical cord might be tangled,” Nabakumar says. He disinfects his hands, examines the patient. “I’ll have to cut her open. Chloroform.”
Priya pushes away fear and follows instructions. Press the chloroform rag against the patient’s face until she slackens, clean the belly with antiseptics, tell Hamid and the midwife to hold the lanterns steady. Hand Nabakumar the instruments he calls for, scalpel, scissors, clamp. Do not flinch when blood wells dark from the incision in the woman’s belly. The woman moans. Calm, calm. More chloroform, count out the drops with a steady hand, hold the weeping flesh apart. Nabakumar lifts out a baby boy. Cut the cord serpent-coiled around the infant’s neck. Hold his feet, slap his back, hand him to the midwife when he cries, no time for complacency, help to stitch up the woman, clean the blood, tear strips from Bina’s saris. Bandage the wound, administer a penicillin injection, tell the overwhelmed Hamid what he must do until the doctor’s next visit.
Then she remembers. She rummages in the bag and hands the baby quilt to Hamid.
The fisherman’s eyes well up, he runs reverent fingers over the soft cloth patterned with butterflies. It is one of Bina’s simplest, but Priya sees that he has never owned anything so fine. He accompanies them back in silence, but at their door he weeps again, trying to gather words for his gratitude, trying to hand Nabakumar a handful of coins.
Nabakumar waves them away, but he does not make Hamid feel small.
“Bring us some fish when the catch is good,” he says.
Hamid nods. He walks away, shoulders straighter, head high.
Priya thinks, How much I have to learn from Baba about doctoring. About human decency.
At the threshold of the sleeping house, she gathers courage. “When I took the baby from your hands, knowing that it might have died but for us—I have never experienced anything as exhilarating. Did I do well?”
“You did wonderfully. Calm and efficient—the perfect assistant.”
She is light-headed with tiredness, terrified with hope. “Will you let me attend the medical college in Calcutta, then? I want to be a doctor. It is my dream.”
Baba looks away. “I am too tired to discuss this right now.”
This is not the whole truth. He forestalls her each time she brings up the subject. But she is his daughter, inheritress of his stubborn genes. She will not give up.
* * *
On the balcony of Somnath’s mansion, Darjeeling tea and Britannia biscuits. The men discuss Calcutta.
“Crowded and expensive and dirtier each year,” Somnath says with a delicate shudder. “The firangi soldiers have ruined our city.”
Nabakumar disagrees. “Living in the village has made you soft and provincial. And fat. I will tell Manorama, no more rasagollahs for you. She will listen to me—I am your doctor, after all.”
“You are the devil, that is what you are,” retorts Somnath, who is fond of his desserts.
How they enjoy squabbling, these two who love each other like brothers. Priya sips her tea and thinks happily of Hamid’s wife, Fatima, whom they checked on earlier today, sitting up and breastfeeding the baby, who was wrapped in Bina’s quilt. Her shy smile, her stitches clean and uninfected.
The conversation moves to the Calcutta clinic, which Nabakumar runs along with his college friend, Dr. Abdullah Khan. Because the doctors do not insist on a fee, it has grown very popular among the indigent. Always long lines outside the building, the sick standing stoically, sun or storm. But last week a woman had collapsed as she waited, had almost died.
“We must add a waiting room to the clinic, and soon,” Nabakumar says. “So here I am at your doorstep once again, Somu, with my begging bowl.” His laughter is tinged with discomfort. He prefers to be on the giving end of favors.
“What is this nonsense about begging, Nabo? Tell me how much you need. I will send a message to Munshiji in Calcutta. He will have the money ready in two weeks. But I do not understand why that run-down clinic is so important to you. ...
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