This is the story of two people who live in Navabhum, or the New World. Navabhum is often called Gaurbhum or the Land of the Fair-complexioned.
They live in Navabhum but were not born there. They were born in Purabhum, the Old World.
Which makes it difficult to say where they are from. Well, maybe it doesn’t matter where one comes from. Especially if you are talking about emotions like the flavour of love, which encapsulates all feelings, all you need for that is two hearts that beat. It can happen anywhere – on earth, in the heavens or even the space between heaven and earth.
It’s true that hearts exist in certain bodies, and bodies grow in a particular soil, breathe in a particular air, connect with a particular kind of sunlight and water, and are formed and take shape in a particular manner.
This is why anyone who settles in Navabhum still bears the fragrance of the soil they were created in. The real smell lingers no matter how much you wash, scrub, or spray yourself with perfume.
Every soil bears a colour of its own, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, sometimes brown and sometimes red. Once a colour has set in, it won’t go away, no matter how much powder and rouge you rub on or how much kajal you smear. As Radhika said after being tinted by the colour of her love for Krishna, “Kāli kamri pe sakhī chaṛho na dūjo rang,” meaning that you can dye something that has other colours black, but if a cloth is black, it will not take other colours well in the dyeing process. Not that this is valid anymore. Nothing is impossible, thanks to the science of chemistry. You can remove the black by bleaching.
Scientific methods today can change a dark colour to a lighter one. I’ve heard that a famous singer in the New World changed the colour of the skin he was born with. But he still gets counted among those who have his original colour. I am trying to say that the colour of one’s soil does not wash off. Or that people don’t let you wash it off.
Even if your colour changes, does everything inside also change? Some colours might be able to cover attitudes, but it’s just a very thin veneer. If you look closely, you can see the variations and layers inside.
And the quality of colours tends to vary as well. Some colours stick, others don’t. If a colour is not fast, it will fade when washed a couple of times. Then it is easy to dye it another colour. Even black, if the dye is not fast, can be covered by other colours easily. It must be seen which and how man colours are mixed in our hero and heroine, which ones are fast and which wash off.
The fact is that people have been coming and going from Purabhum for ages. No one kept track of which place they left, where they settled, and where they went again; people in Purabhum are remarkably incapable of keeping track of things. They only know how to scuttle around all day long. Not to keep accounts of things. So, we are still determining who will meet and who should be matched with whom. In Navabhum, people do not believe just about anything. This is why they are incredibly proud that they have invented a machine capable of keeping track of everything, a computer, and that you can turn it on at any time and read what is on the screen. The people in Gaurbhum write down details of every activity of theirs. Everything holds a historical significance for them. What George Washington ate, on which side of the bed he slept, and everything he did from the minute he got up until he went to bed must be documented. The matter has reached a stage where every being in Navabhum considers himself as important as his ancestors and fills the computer with descriptions of all he does. Who knows when it might be of historical interest?
The only thing we know of the hero and heroine of this story is that one is from the East and one is from the West. When they left the old country and settled in the new world, one settled on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. In a way, both come from opposing directions, and their colours and castes are mixed. Both consider themselves the offspring of the Aryans. Their mother tongues are derived from Sanskrit, and they are both coloured by the language of Gaurbhum.
Another thing to note about colours is that if a colour is diluted, you can tell because it will always be different from the original colours it came from. Yes, it can be more beautiful than the original colours and a bit strange. But it is distinctive.
This is how we can say that, had this story occurred in Purabhum, it would have taken another form. Particularly because the story’s main characters have their roots and upbringing in the old country – they reached adulthood there, which means the plants grew there. They were full-grown trees, in a way, and were uprooted in their entirety and replanted in Gaurbhum. They were luxuriant and laden with tiny, light green leaves when they arrived. Because they were promising plants, they kept their inner desire to live and their passion contained for a long time. They didn’t wither. But how long can a tree last without its roots? While some trees might be able to set down new roots in new soil, it depends on whether they thrive in the new atmosphere. And a tree can be saved from withering away. But what is the point of saving it if it just does not grow new leaves? If not now, then tomorrow, it will give up and die anyway. How long can the leaves remain lush and green? It’s like a Christmas tree. Uproot it and bring it home and decorate it. Then, when the holidays are over, throw it out again.
Our hero and heroine are Christmas trees that have been strung with colourful decorations but whose roots are firmly planted in the soil from which they were uprooted. The hero claims he was brought here, roots and all, and replanted.
Excerpted with permission from A New World Romance, Susham Bedi, translated from the Hindi by Astri Ghosh, Zubaan Books.
