Indrani Talukdar

Drama

3.8  

Indrani Talukdar

Drama

The Three Witches

The Three Witches

7 mins
270


The world obscured before my eyes as Ratna broke the news. It can’t be true, I remember thinking as I climbed out of Roopa’s four-poster bed. Indeed, it was only yesterday evening that I saw Dadu curled up in his favourite recliner, reading Bartaman's current issue.


Visits to Dadu’s Kolkata house had always been a treat. This is back in the days before apartments and “societies” had begun taking over the urban space. Dadu usually had simmeringly syrupy jalebis ready for me on the dining table as soon as I landed with Bapi inside his three-story rusty bungalow with its colonial-style shuttered windows. 


“Don’t you get stifled inside this edifice?” Bapi would inquire. The stained-glass windows kept out the light and sunshine. But Dadu wouldn’t have it any other way. Inside the laminated interiors beneath the muted light of tallboy lamps, he would read aloud passages of Sarat Chandra and Tagore as Ratna would continue to heap fish fries and bread pakoras on our impatient plates.


Dadu always maintained that reading aloud Bengali classics and poetry would help second-generation “expat Bengalis” like me to stay in touch with our roots.To claim that the sizzlingly drippy jalebis and mounds of fish fries enticed me to Dadu’s house next to the teeming College Street would be wildly inaccurate, though. I loved the flow and cadence of his recital. And so did Roopa. 


Poor Roopa. Having lost her mother when she was barely five, she was left at the mercy of her Bapi’s three spinster sisters. Did I say “spinster”? Amrita Pishi, the oldest, was a widow with a son. Choton dada whose collection of armoured weaponry had earned him something of a reputation in the block. The Three Witches, is what Ammu called my three aunts. It is because of them that Ammu did not like to visit Kolkata. 


The Three Witches were kind to Bapi, even though he was Dadu’s adopted son. Roopa said it was because of Bapi’s outstanding business successes.

“My father never had the money to throw in their faces,” she had remarked on my last visit. 

They were also kind - kinder - to me than they were to Roopa. 


“Stop daydreaming and follow me!” A crimson-eyed Ratna was leading me by the arm down the stairs, into Dadu’s chamber filling up with neighbours and well-wishers. I could hardly see Dadu's face through the incense smoke. Ratna said he had died of a stroke. 


One of the guests asked where Hiren was, referring to Roopa’s Bapi. 


“Gone off, as usual, leaving his mess behind. Damn!” Amrita Pishi snarled, fluttering her pallu. An incongruously comical sight.


“Nothing to grin about,” Joya Pishi chided over the wailing chorale. The wailing had spread like a contagion across the assembly. The sole pair of dry eyes belonged to Amrita Pishi who, after ordering Ratna to stop bawling “like a typical woman from the jhuggies”, motioned her to boil tea for Dr Dutta who’d declared Dadu dead. My stomach had clenched with hunger by then. But I chose to ignore its summons. For the time being, that is. 


Roopa’s Bapi had to be informed. My Bapi, who was travelling, would be informed later. I moved my gaze to Amrita Pishi, whose jaw was set in a fine sliver of a line. I knew she wouldn’t let anyone near the phone. I knew I wouldn’t get any food either. Nor would Roopa.


But I knew where we could get food. I motioned to Roopa frantically. Poor Roopa. Amrita Pishi wouldn’t allow her to budge. 

When she cried, “But I need to inform Bapi…” the witches began closing in.

That is the reason they did not spot me slinking out of the entrance. I knew the skies would fall when I returned from Shona kaki’s, but the growls in my stomach were becoming insistent. 


Tip-toeing past the entrance staircase like an amateur ballerina I halted for a brief second hearing Noni Pishi, the third witch, lisping, as she always did, to Choton dada. “We need you to perform the last rites before Hiren gets in. And, as for the property…” I could not hear more as the landing door slammed shut. 

I had to get to Shona kaki’s. And fast. I spilt out of the doorway as guests poured in. Cars were parked nose-to-tail on the pint-sized lane outside the gate. I vanished into the throng undetected. 


Shona kaki's house, with its shuttered doors and stained glass windows, was a visible relic of the colonial past. A spiral staircase with a floral-patterned railing led up to her drawing room with a suspended hung bell that I loved to clang with my little hands. 

This time, though, the door was open as I tip-toed in. 

“You poor thing, just look at you! Have you had anything to eat?” Shona kaki's coal-black flowing tresses, offset by her off-white cotton sari with crimson borders, reminded me of Roopa's mother, Geeta kaki. Neither spoke for the next ten minutes as I devoured a plate of biryani and raita. Shona kaki was well-versed in all my favourite dishes, including aloo chole and luchi.


“Your face has cleared, thank heavens. The dark patches have gone from under your eyes,” she crooned, patting my head. People close to me knew that I could not endure hunger pangs for too long. 


Now all I needed to do was locate Hiren kaka’s whereabouts. Which was easier said than done. Roopa had mentioned that he was somewhere in Bihar doing his sales’ rounds. That, or he was conducting training sessions for a marketing unit in a West Bengal suburb. 


“I know the name of his firm,” said Shona kaki. A well-thumbed fat telephone directory with a fat spine was produced and the head office of Hiren kaka’s firm located. 

The lane was still crowded when I slunk back in. My absence had gone unnoticed. 

There was no one to greet Roopa’s Bapi when he arrived that evening looking like a piece of rung out cloth, his face set in granite. Ratna, who was upstairs attending to Amrita Pishi's endless chores, had not been informed about his arrival. 

In the depth of winter, Roopa's father took a cold shower and ate at a dhaba on the adjoining block's street corner. The street corner was a prominent landmark, not because of its modest run-down dhaba, but because of the office building of the political party noted for its strong-arm tactics.


As the night came clamping its jaws, the conversation began bubbling up inside the main hall. Stung by the scent of anger, I stopped outside the door, my breath quickening seeing Roopa in Amrita Pishi’s grip. I recognized the antique bronze knife she was holding from Choton dada’s collection.


“You cannot leave without signing the will, Khoka.” 


“Stop being so dramatic, and put that thing down!”. The startling flash of the copper-coloured blade with an ivory-studded hilt mirrored the metallic glint in Hiren kaka's eyes.


“As for the will,” his breathing sounded like nasal congestion, “it’s a fake and we both know it. Baba would never…”


An invisible frost blanketed the hall within the next second as a tonsured-headed human tower with a complexion darker than night burst in brandishing what looked like a revolver. The bronze knife clattered to the floor. 


Doubling up to collect the weapon, the Goliath’s cresting muscles rippled through his incongruously cheery red T-shirt. Flashing unexpectedly white teeth, he turned to address Amrita Pishi, “Sorry Mashimoni, but I will have to ask you to vacate the premises. This house,” he jerked his massive head at Hiren kaka who stared back with a half-smile, “has been donated to the party by this kind gentleman here.” 


The party people were kind enough to invite Shona kaki, Roopa, and yours truly to their new guest house, which now had the party flag fluttering on its steepled rooftop. 


Today, the gigantic hall doubles up as a conference venue and an elite cafe. Roopa’s Bapi, who quit his sales’ job soon after Dadu’s demise, invites me over for an occasional lunch or breakfast. As a Rajya Sabha MP, he ensures that his niece is served the best of cuisines.


As for the Three Witches, I have no idea what became of them.


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