fiction – Tanusree Das

Cutting through the winter haze, the colours that rose into the afternoon —blue, green,
yellow, all mingled together,looked like a cluster of soap bubbles . Along both banks of
the quiet river stretched an endless yellow of mustard flowers. From the dusty road, the
slope leading down to the river was carpeted with green grass . In the distant orchard on
the far bank, the thickening shadow of dusk had already begun to darken the leaves,
which now looked strangely black.

Beyond the woods lay the railway line built by the British, abandoned now and
wonderfully quiet for walking. Crossing the tracks, passing beneath the pomelo trees,
leaving one courtyard after another behind, one came upon a little patch of field where
two or three goats were tethered. Their bleating rose above the afternoon birdsong, yet it
did not drown out the beckoning promise of crossing the river by the bamboo footbridge.

All this while the girl had been walking just behind, or at best alongside, her friend’s
uncle — careful that no one should notice the safety pin holding shut the torn zipper of
her pretty pink frock. But now, what was she to do? There was no way to walk two
abreast on the bridge. Her friend’s town uncle or her friend— who should go first? Or
would she herself have to go ahead of them? In an instant all the colour drained from her
face, and it went dry and pale.

Luckily! Uncle with the camera hanging from his shoulder, stepped onto the bridge first.
Her friend followed him, and the girl in the pink frock came behind. Her small hand
barely reached the bamboo railing, yet she crossed the bridge quite easily.

How was she managing it? Then she remembered: whenever she went to her uncle’s
house,mamabari, she had to cross a bridge like this. The memory of that familiar journey
made her heart jolt at the thought of her mother. She had been here without her mother
for three days. If she had to stay one more day, surely she would suffocate and die from
missing her mother. Her eyes misted until her longing for home dissolved into tears.

Not that staying here was any hardship in itself — the exam centre was close by too. She
studied together with her friend; and her friend’s aunt even fed her, cooking whatever
food she liked. And now, on top of it, her friend’s town uncle was taking them out to have
their picture taken.

Anyway, after crossing the bridge and reaching the other side, the breeze felt good. In the
afternoon, women and girls from the village came to take their cows and goats home.
Someone had come to pick tender pea shoots. Their little boys kept a sharp watch over
the young peas, lest anyone steal the tender green peas.

Ignoring all those eyes, the girl kept looking only toward the eye of the camera. And yet
she was terribly shy about having her photograph taken. Who knew what she looked like
through that lens?

Last year, an older boy,dada, from the neighbouring house had told her that he had
bought a feature phone with a camera. He had promised to take her picture. She had
dressed up specially in a sari for it, but afterwards the boy announced that the phone, in
fact, could not take pictures. No one else remembered the incident afterwards; she had
simply not yet reached an age where being humiliated like that, after swallowing her
shyness for it, was something anyone thought worth keeping in mind.

But all the while, the old embarrassment kept scratching at the back of her mind. What if
they laughed at her? The dress itself was beautiful: a pink georgette frock, gathered into a
full skirt, with puffed sleeves and embroidery across the chest. It belonged to her elder
sister—but then, wasn’t it always the younger sisters who had to rescue whatever their
elder sisters bought on a whim or forgot about?

Now she was angry with herself for having worn it at all. Though, in truth, , what other
dress did she own that was fit for having her picture taken?

They took photograph after photograph—sitting in the mustard field, with her arm around
her friend’s neck, trying pose after pose they had been taught. It seemed the safety pin
was not only holding shut the zipper of her dress — it seemed, too, to be holding shut
something in her mind, and her mouth along with it She longed badly to see how the
photographs had turned out, but her lips remained sealed.

How effortlessly her friend spoke! How freely she seemed with her uncle. And she
herself—if she could, she would have disappeared into the earth.It was this same uncle of
hers who brought her friend coloured pencils and beautiful frocks with wide skirts. And
her own uncle? Every time he came, he promised to bring her colours-and after so long
spent watching the road for him, she no longer even felt envy about it.Though only a few
days ago she had learned that this uncle was, in fact, not her mother’s real brother at all.
The girl let out a long sigh.

Buying colour pencils for her niece today, the woman’s mind suddenly ached, unbidden,
for those old photographs. To hold onto that stretch of time — living under the pressure
of exams, speaking little, playing the good child, wanting just a little affection, just a little
regard — she felt, for the first time in her life, she felt a deep desire to see the
photographs that had captured it.And yet, everything else around it had remained,
astonishingly, just as vivid in her memory, even now. Everything—except the photograph.

Short Story written by Tanusree Das

In Bengali, dalim is a fruit, round and glowing with a beautiful blush like the colour of a rose. But my Dalim Masi was nothing like those rosy-cheeked figures. Bengali fairy tales have their Prince Dalim but this Dalim was neither boy nor girl.

I wondered why she was dressed in a sharee. She could have worn a shirt and pant and become like Prince Dalim.Why, then, did she choose to wear sharee as a Princess? She had the chance to rise from third class to first class, and she went and blew it.

People say Hijra have no household of their own, no partner, no children. Ahare,poor things. Perhaps that is why, somewhere deep in my childhood mind, I began to call her “Masi”,Auntie, It sounded close to Ma, close enough to mother.

She had no household of her own, yet she was always somewhere around everyone else’s. Whenever a baby was born in the neighbourhood, Dalim Masi would appear, dancing and singing with the child, clapping her hand. She would receive two or four hundred taka, sometimes a thousand, or perhaps some rice. That was enough to carry Masi through a few days.

Once a newborn had passed its twenty-first day, Masi would place her hand gently on its head and bless the child. May the child never have a fate like hers. The power of Masi’s blessing was said to be immense. No one in the whole neighbourhood was like her:all successfully avoid to inherit her situation.

At weddings she would arrive quietly, receive a sharee or a little money, and perhaps sit unnoticed in a corner of the house, eating a decent meal after many days. Then Masi, who had never had a household of her own, would bless the newlyweds for the new household they were about to begin.

I saw her walking alone along the village roads,a cloth bag hanging from her shoulder. Wherever and whenever I saw her, my mind would instinctively whisper and I would call out, “Dalim Masi!”

When Dalim Masi came to our house, my grandmother would bring out chira and muri.If there was grated coconut, she would give her some of that too.Mother would give her some dal-bhat,bread and butter ; my boroma, eldest aunt, would give her a handful of rice into her palm. I would climb a tree, pluck a couple of guavas and bring them down for her. Masi would bless us lavishly before she left.

Her hair was cut short, thin in little patches, almost bald in places. She was tall and spare, all length and angles. Her hands, feet and face carried the unmistakable shape of a boy’s. Yet on her wrists she always wore two beautiful bangles; a large nose-ring rested on her nose, earrings hung from her ears, and around her neck, beside a silver chain, hung an amulet.But Dalim Masi’s greatest adornment was her smile. It came from a mouth darkened by years of chewing paan; revealing teeth white and blackened in places, worn away by decay.

The lively, quick-witted Dalim Masi who could once set a wedding gathering alight—I saw her one day sitting quietly on a stool. Our veranda had not yet been fitted with a grill. She was eating rice with a painfully dry face.

:Masi, why have you come out when you are so unwell?”

:Ah, bacha,child! My wandering nature doesn’t let me stay indoors..

But I knew what Dalim Masi had left unspoken: beneath her physical weakness lay the heavier weight of poverty.

She is the only one in the whole neighbourhood—or so everyone seemed to believe, as though it were an implicit truth. There were not many dalim trees in the neighbourhood, and dalim fruit did not grow all year round.The only Dalim, my aunty, remained here throughout the year, and still, somehow, she was always an outsider.She came from house to house, walked along the roads, an unwanted, unnecessary disturbance, like an unwelcome stranger.

What kind of outsider was she. Except during weddings and celebrations for newborns, Masi wandered through the neighbourhood as though she were invisible. As though nobody needed her.As though she were simply walking from one end of the village to the other just because she herself needed to.As though her walking meant nothing. As though, without that little blessing she carried from house to house, her existence itself meant nothing. As though she had only herself to keep alive with the burden of her own existence, weaving the meaning of her life, thread by thread, upon society’s blank page—understanding that meaning solely by herself:a meaning the rest of the world could ignore, if it wished. And yet Dalim Masi could never stop coming.

The last time I saw Dalim Masi, I told her I would visit her home. But where was her home?

A short story by Tanusree Das

Tag: fiction

The Pink Frock

Dalim Masi