MATCHBOX

Across the general din of a busy marketplace in a South Indian megapolis, Tanu finds herself a little lost. It is not as if she is small in stature, that her limbs don’t sit proper on her, or that she doesn’t have a voice loud enough to make herself heard. The babble she hears all around her bounces off her ears in strangeness. People speak hurriedly here, in a different rhythm and she doesn’t know why she always imagines speeding trains that blur right in front of her eyes. Their tongues roll a lot and sometimes in front of a mirror she sticks out her tongue and flips it back to feel how the mouths of the people here must be when they speak. Five years into her marriage to an IT professional, Tanu left her humid, old city she seldom comes back to, assured that the climate in her new home would be great. It is. The climate and the places nearby. That is what holds her here. The climate. The greenery. The hills nearby. But the rest of it she would trade any day. She finds this a friendless city. Attracted by the hypnotic lyricism of this strange language, she has tried to pick up words from her maid who gesticulates rather furiously while she does the dishes. The seller at the plant nursery thankfully throws in a bit of pidgin Hindi for her sake. She talks in Hindi and then asks the regional equivalent and when the man obliges, she makes a mental note and pronounces the word, feeling it inside her mouth first and then her head. She wonders why they barely breathe between words when they speak in their rhythm, each word stretched as it were, each having its own melody and strung together, they sound deep to her these words, their rhythm like the Chhora back home in Laban, the little rivulet just behind her maternal home, sometimes she would hear the sitar play in her ears and smell a melody forming at the back of her mind. She knew it is this rhythm that she would never quite emulate, if she ever managed to learn the language, it is this rhythm that would always keep her on the periphery of this manicured city with dog parks and beautiful cafes.

Kita maatle? What did you say? The words reach her ear, and they prick at her skin. She turns and tries to locate the source. No, my flight is the day after tomorrow. Yes, I have my medicines with me. Kichu lagbo ni? Khulakhuli koi lao, do you need anything, tell me frankly.  Do I ask Biraj to come ask you? Accha Ma, I will call you once I get back to the hotel. Tanu has by then located the man speaking these words. Tall, swarthy, in a grey shirt that seemed to mix with the clouds of the city, a face full of overgrown beard, he looks older than he actually is, perhaps because of the exhaustion writ clearly on his face. He speaks rather softly, which she finds unusual for his frame, very powerfully antithetical. She decides to look directly at him, attracted by his voice and his words, more than anything else. It has been years since she heard this particular dialect of her mother tongue, the tongue that smelled of pinecones, wet earth, warm sunshine, gerberas dancing in the morning breeze, trees laden with pomegranates, quaint potholed lanes after the never-ending rains. She smiles despite herself, this man sounds like home.

He observes her smiling at him and immediately his eyebrows lift. He smiles rather cautiously, comes and standing next to her, asks politely, can I help you? She just smiles and says, I didn’t expect to hear Sylheti here. Oh, you speak it too? The man smiles broader now as he asks her. Not quite, it was spoken at my maternal home in Laban. I used to vacation there every summer, winter and even during the Puja vacations, you know. My mum is from there. So, you can say I listened to a lot of it. I see! he says. No, I am from a different part. We speak only in Sylheti from where I come. She smiles, I heard you on the phone with your mum. Are you an only child? She regrets her question as soon as it escapes her mouth. He seems amused, however. What gave me away? The medicines, she answers sheepishly. Somehow, Tanu puts her default shyness aside and blurts, can you talk in Sylheti with me, and I will talk to you in Bangla? This was how it was in my childhood.  He gives her a knowing look. I can’t see why not, but do you want to do that here or do we go sit someplace? There’s a park nearby, a small one, actually its quite near my home and I would have called you, but my in-laws will find it weird. I completely understand, he says and smiling, he pats gently on her shoulder, the park it is. Tanu doesn’t mind the gesture. There’s a strange warmth to him, a weird familiarity. He takes his long legs and walks in front of her, sometimes looking back to check if he’s heading in the right direction, then he stops suddenly and says, I should walk with you and flashes a cheeky grin. Tanu immediately thinks of her first playmate and smiles back fully.

When they come and sit at the park, Tanu looks at the cherry blossoms that dot the park, a spring delight in this city of strange tongues. We had cherry blossoms back home as well. Where did you grow up? Laban? He asks. No, Kolkata. Laban was my Mama’s home. I used to vacation there for two, sometimes three whole months. Ah, yes! You said that a while back. Sorry I didn’t mean to forget. Hey, it’s alright, it’s nice to be talking this way. I gather you don’t go there anymore? he asks. How do you know? she asks surprised. Not too hard to guess, you wouldn’t have stopped to speak to me if you did. She nods and smiles, sharp! He laughs, a free, throaty laughter that ends in a blush. It’s endearing, she thinks. So, why is it that you don’t go there anymore? he asks, suddenly serious. Well, my family decided to move out of there because of the riots in my childhood. I don’t remember what year it was. There was a lot of turmoil. I was in Kolkata back then and it wasn’t the age of mobile phones yet. My Mama and his best friend, Partha Mama were stuck in the riots. My cousins were sheltered in the school by the sisters. My Mami was alone the whole night. I remember my Ma sobbing, my Baba pacing the entire night. They came away after that. Sold that beautiful wood house and came and settled in a tiny apartment in Kolkata. Mama bari never felt the same after that. There was barely any place to sit, no gardens, no Chhora, my Didon searched for something outside her window and I don’t know why she gazed with such affection at the burnt factory out back. Dadu snapped at Ma and Mama more often. He took to the bed in a lasting paralysis, his mucus would float in a bowl kept next to him. I didn’t like going there much after that.

He nods and looks down, and when he looks up, his eyes are pained. They disarm her and she tries to quickly think of her husband’s face. It doesn’t come to her immediately. She asks, so how are things in your part of the hills? Do you have wooden houses there as well? He smiles indulgently, some yes, you do know that some things change. They laugh. Yes, sometimes I feel like I haven’t done a lot of growing up at all, she says. I can see that, he teases. Must be nice there, isn’t it? I wish I could get there for just one day and be surrounded by Sylheti all day, she smiles. That’s one way of looking at it, he says, but I am not sure you’d really like it there, and she wonders if a little bitter twang has crept in his warm voice. She prods, how do you mean? Well, yes, we do speak the language there a lot. All the time, like you say. But how do we speak it, that’s the bigger picture, isn’t it? She knows. Hasn’t she heard her Mama and Baba speak of this in her childhood?

Then as if to demonstrate that she knows, she volunteers, there’s another reason why we don’t go there. He looks up at her quizzically. My Baba took a posting there when I was older, in college to be exact, and I had seldom seen him that happy. Ma, on the other hand, was always cautious. Ma and Baba had a curious relationship. I suppose marriages are curious. He smiles. She goes on, suddenly bolstered by his face. So, they barely spoke in each other’s presence, aside from food and tea and cricket matches, but whenever Baba was posted outside, he would call her every hour on the landline. That day he hadn’t called her for seven hours. When I got back home after my tuitions that day, I saw the house thronging with Mama, Mami, two of my Pishis, their husbands, Bhai was busy shooting at the computer screen with my cousin brothers. Ma took me aside, tor Babar log e kotha oise na, I haven’t been able to talk to your father. I noticed she wasn’t speaking to me in the standard Kolkata Bangla she always used.

Tanu turns quiet. I hope your father is alright, he asks with sudden intensity. Yes, he lost his left eye in a riot there. A taxi driver rescued him, otherwise who knows… her voice drops. He looks at her silently. She smiles, he’s hale and hearty now. In fact, he writes more with one eye than he ever did with two. I’m glad, he says and smiles ruefully, I write too. You look like the type, she teases. So that’s why you don’t get back there? Yes, Baba still insists he will be back there in a heartbeat, I know he dreams of it, just like I do. But Ma would have none of it. She feels betrayed by her hometown, and frankly, after that day, we don’t have the heart to argue with her anymore. Sometimes, I just remember my father standing at the Dowki river and staring strangely at the other side. Anyhow, look at me rambling! No, no, I was rather enjoying it, he smiles, his eyes clear, glassy, red at the corners. They give her courage, enough for her to ask, so if it’s difficult for you at home, have you ever thought of leaving the hills and may be coming to some such city, this for example? Yeah, plenty of times, but I don’t think I can get the hills out of my blood, much like your Baba.

She nods. She knows its time although she doesn’t look at her watch, nor her mobile phone. He somehow understands and gets up from the park bench. She falters, actually I need to head back and make lunch. My in-laws need to take their medicine on time. I know. I must be heading back as well. I need to report to the office at noon. Shabdhane, she says, reach safe. He smiles and nods. I didn’t catch your name, he says. I didn’t say it out loud, she smiles openly. Well, should we try to find each other on Facebook? he jeers. I don’t think so, she laughs. Yes, I thought so, cholo, bhala thakiyo. She steps up and moves close and looking at her, lifting his eyebrows as if checking with her, he wraps his arms around her. She pats his back and smiles, tumio! Tanu feels an unknown thrill race through her, but she quashes the what if before it can occupy any space in her heart. As she walks on, she doesn’t look back. She plans her lunch menu looking at the groceries in her jute carry-all.

As soon as she steps inside her room at home, she takes the phone out of her bag and dials her mum’s number. Hello Manu, what are you doing? Lunch all done? Tanu asks her mother what she never did before, Ma, why didn’t you talk to us in Sylheti?