Afternoons were the time Thamma met with the contractors and tenants of our various properties and decided on what should be done, especially with those on rent. The Khajanchi Khana would be full of such people. People unable to pay their rent were warned and threatened with the law. Although she appeared tough on the outside, Thamma never forced anyone out of their homes. She said these people had already faced it once. I had sat through such a long session, reminding myself that I needed to start liking what I do if I don’t want to go back to the city of honking cars. After she decided to retire for an afternoon siesta and the men dispersed, I stretched myself and looked at the watch on my right hand. Still a good few hours till dusk. I decided to make good use of it. I placed the stacks of fresh paper down on the table and poured ink into the fountain pen. This was something I did on my own time. Note down my thoughts after reading something. First, my examinations, then the dilemma of a career and the journey from Kharagpur to Punnya to Calcutta and back to Punnya had made me weary in the last week. I hadn’t read a page in the last few days. It was unlike me.
I sat in the downstairs library room with a book in hand. After lunch, when the village grew relatively quiet as everyone in the house had a siesta, I found it a perfect time to engross myself in encyclopaedias and nonfiction. I might be comfortable in my own boundaries, but should that stop me from knowing more about the world? I lit a cigarette, a bad habit that had caught up with me since college, and held it between the index and middle finger in my watch-clad right hand, as I turned the leaf of the book. I am a lefty, something my mother was always “worried” about. I took a puff, careful enough to keep the window open and the door closed, lest Thamma walk in someday and catch me in this addiction she wasn’t aware of, or Ananta saw it and followed. Children his age were impressionable by the actions of the elder siblings. I was aware of that.
I yawned carelessly while scribbling down some notable lines. The door creaked open as I, almost in a reflex, put the cigarette out on the ashtray; Lata stopped at the threshold, a little alarmed. I sensed something in her body language that she didn’t expect me to be there. She eyed the ashtray disapprovingly once as I looked back into the book, ignoring her judgmental stares. She was quick to place the book in her hand under her anchol. That prompted me to be suspicious. What was she hiding?
She murmured that she was here for a book and didn’t intend to disturb me. I nodded, aware that she was disapproving of my smoking and that sooner or later she would bring it up. She tiptoed to the shelf and put the book back swiftly enough before looking for another. I know the shelf. The books here have been arranged according to genres. I frowned disapprovingly. I enquired about what she was reading. My gruff voice made her glance over her shoulder, book in hand.
“A novel.” She said rather softly, “Didi recommended.” She stood fixed in her spot as I walked up to her, keeping my pen down. My hand reached for the shelf, and to her utter disbelief, I traced out the thin book she put back in. She looked a little intimidated as I frowned at the title.
“How old are you?” She was a little startled at my question. Whether it was because of the question or because I was unaware of the answer, I couldn’t tell. She was fifteen. What an impressionable age to be in. I eyed the romance novel I still held in my hand, its name in gold over the red hard cover.
I suggested she should read better genres, still in that authoritative voice. Both Bibha and Lata should put more effort into knowledge over fiction and choose better books at such an age; I will let them know my opinion. These books taught them nothing. I put the book away on the shelf as Lata frowned. I turned, hoping the conversation ended there, at my authoritative instruction.
“It is literature.” She protested. I stopped in my tracks near the table. This was something my siblings never did. Talk back to me. I looked up at her frowning face.
“There is better literature than novelists feeding you fictitious ideas about emotions.”My words came out almost defensively. Lata’s brows shot up, confused. I had no time or will to elaborate to her further on the nuances of love, a topic left unspoken of in real life, contrasting to the highly worded importance it received in the printed pages; so I sank back into my chair and picked up the pen. She walked up to the table. I didn’t look up from the encyclopedia. She grabbed the packet of cigarettes kept beside the ashtray as I looked up, a little alarmed.
“I will stop reading them the day you stop having these!” Her tone changed, from the soft and unsure protesting tone to that of a concerned mother. She always used this tone with my siblings. While I maintained the aura of a strict, unreachable elder brother, perhaps both of them found solace in Lata’s affection in the absence of a mother, and she found a lost sibling in them. She promptly started leaving with the cigarette packet as I stood up.
“Give them back!” I shouted after her.
“Debo na. Ja iccha koro.” She refused to hand over the packet in a threatening tone and turned at the threshold, still wearing a disappointed look, before throwing it out of the window and running away towards Bibha’s room, book in hand. I sat down, looking at the empty corridor leading out of the room with a sigh.
