October 2018
First published in Usawa Literary Review
It’s October, but still uncomfortably muggy in Delhi. We’re crammed in a small car, five of us, including the driver, and frantically looking for a school in Civil Lines, one of the oldest areas in India’s capital city. The search gets long-winded as we have no GPS and directions from passersby keep leading us into lonely alleys. The school we’re looking for is the venue of a Durga Puja, the autumnal festival I’ve returned home for, from Canada, where I’ve been living for a decade now. By the time we finally find the school, it is way past lunch time, and my seven-year-old niece, who is with us, is hangry, a neologism I’ve heard friends in Canada use to describe someone whose anger is induced by hunger.
We take a customary look at the idol of Durga, then dash for the food court area the Kashmiri Gate – as this venue is called – Durga Puja is famous for. A, my niece, is led to the spot where steaming mutton biryani made with succulent, spiced goat meat, is being served on shiny aluminium foil plates. There are kebabs on offer as well, but the little girl isn’t interested in any of those items. She surveys the stalls and settles on samosas as a fresh batch of these deep-fried triangles arrives before her. I reach for my purse, but A stops me. She has her own money bag with some real money her parents gave her as festival allowance. For a plate of samosa that costs 20 rupees, A pulls out not two, but five ten-rupee bills – the entire amount she’s carrying – from her purse. She places all the five notes – 50 rupees on the table for the cashier. Everyone around her breaks into laughter. At seven, A knows her counting, but clearly, she doesn’t have enough experience in dealing with currency notes to know their value. The cashier kindly picks up two of the bills and asks her to keep the rest. After finishing her samosas, a less hangry A decides to cool off with an ice cream. She gives the vendor 20 rupees and he gives her a 5-rupee coin back after deducting the price of the chocolate cone she grabs.
Later as I try to guide A through counting currency, she tells me she’s got it all. “Look, you give someone money, they give you money back,” she insists, her knowledge fresh from the transaction with the ice cream seller. The child’s innocence humours and stuns me at the same time. To her, currency notes are the same as any other — only less interesting — thing you share with people to get something (including more of it) back. It’s of no greater value than the pencils or hair clips she exchanges with a friend. I refrain from giving her financial management lessons. This is her teaching moment, and for a change, I am the student. ***
April 1999
It has been nearly three weeks since I’ve stopped going to work. A supervisor has been putting me on difficult shifts for weeks in a row. At first it seems innocuous, but when the pattern keeps repeating itself alongside favours being granted to other colleagues for no discernible reason, I stop going to work. I don’t have it in me to confront people and have internalized the idea of resigning as I spend time doing mostly nothing at home. I say mostly because almost every morning, I walk down our street, a fat book in hand, to the house of Mastermoshai, as I call Sudhir Chanda, the elderly gentleman who teaches me the songs of Rabindranath Tagore.
Mastermoshai is a professional Rabindrasangeet teacher. Professional only in the notional sense, considering his indifference, bordering on abhorrence, to money in exchange for his lessons. Through close to half a century that would see New Delhi, the city of Mastermoshai’s work and teaching, transform from a quasi-socialist to a neoliberal economy, plush with high-paying private sector jobs, redoubled spending power for the middle class and steady inflation, the teacher’s tuition fee – a laughable 30 rupees – remains unchanged. Even that amount he hardly cares for. One is free to drop into his class, named Robigeetika, and learn without paying a single rupee.
During one of his occasional visits to our house he learns about my absence from work and asks me to make better use of my time – by going to his house for music lessons. No money is mentioned. All he asks for is that I call him once before leaving the house to make sure he doesn’t have any other appointment that day. Mastermoshai specifies no time either – any time before noon is good for him. I lap up the offer. I need something that can fill up my heart like soil does a freshly-dug grave. Music seems like a safe and sanative layer at the time.
Read the rest in Usawa Literary Review
Bhaswati Ghosh 