The year was 1977. Sukumar was twenty-five years old, living in the Grand Old City, when he touched love for the first time.
That first touch of love was damp clay, patted down into an even mound, drying quickly in the autumnal heat, to be used for sculpting the divine frame of the mother goddess. And the love was for the young man who’d brought him here, to the Sculptors’ Quarters. Let’s call the man X; as in all clandestine love stories, the lovers shall go unnamed.
Sukumar had first met X outside the offices of the Jugantor newspaper, across the street from Sukumar’s house. It had been a rainy afternoon, and a group from the art college stood huddled on the pavement under the eaves of the overhanging balcony, talking about volunteering with a Master Sculptor for the idols that year. Sukumar was on his way back from the tuition class where he taught schoolchildren, but slowed down. He’d never really got along with this crowd, these men who chain-smoked and slapped each other’s backs and discussed communism in sure, deep voices. He’d always known he was different, his gait, his wrists, the way he let his dark curls caress his face like the locks of Suchitra Sen in the movies. As much as he was intrigued, accompanying these men to the Sculptors’ Quarters was out of the question.
Until X had angled his body in a way that formed a bridge between Sukumar and the group. “You coming?” he’d asked, as though he already knew Sukumar. The rest of the group turned to look, some might even have opened their mouths to correct X, oh he’s not one of us, he’s not even at art college, but there was something authoritative about X, even though his posture was relaxed, and when Sukumar found himself saying yes, X smiled and allowed smoke to roll out from the corner of his lips.
Of course Sukumar said yes! As far back as he could remember, he’d been in thrall to the divine frame, the perfect proportions of the goddess’s ten arms, her fiery potol-chera eyes, the graceful slant of the trishul with which she entrapped the buffalo-demon. As a boy, when Sukumar went to the Sarbojonin Park to attend the annual festivities of Durga Pujo with his grandma and little sister and cousins, and everyone else was so taken by the lights and the rituals and the stalls of food that lined the rims of the enclosure, Sukumar’s eyes would remain transfixed on the idol. “Ma Durga”, he’d utter her name, bewitched. What would it feel like to render her human for these five days of the year when she descended from heaven to bless the mortals?
On their way to the Sculptors’ Quarters though, X had paid Sukumar no attention. He seemed to know everyone, and flitted from one subgroup to another, while Sukumar fell in step behind them all. They walked through the Northern Quarters, crossed the wide road to the river, before turning inland again. The bank of the river was sludgy from the rains earlier, their shoes got stuck in the muck, some took off their footwear to avoid slipping. But X bent down and picked up a handful of the clumpy earth with an uninhibited flourish, held it up for his audience. “This alluvial soil of our land, ah!” X smacked his lips. “This is the clay with which we shall sculpt our goddess!” Some of the men clapped their hands, chanted sadhu-sadhu, hear, hear; some hooted, you should’ve been in the theatre, man! Sukumar let a smile escape his lips in spite of himself.
When they started again, he caught a glimpse of X turning back to check on him, and was that a wink X gave him?
It wasn’t until a few days later that Sukumar spoke to X. Sukumar had been here every afternoon since that first day, rushing after class through the snaking lanes, as though to fulfil a summons issued by the goddess herself. But X had been surrounded by the other art college apprentices. They’d been instructed to prepare the copious volumes of clay that it would take to sculpt the idols. After all, the demand was insatiable; every lane of the Grand Old City, every nook, every park would instal an idol to be worshipped. During those five days of Durga Pujo, the city fizzed with the heady energy of the devout. Even the atheists were out in their finest to partake in the extravaganza.
But that afternoon, a few days in, Sukumar found himself alone with X. The other men seemed to have vaporised, and Sukumar’s lean, young frame trembled from the proximity.
“I would never have thought they’d etch the idol’s eyes in first, even before the rest of her body is done.” Sukumar tried to sound spontaneous even though he’d obsessed about what to say for a long time.
X kneaded the putty, then sponged the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a streak just where his wavy hair ended. “Isshh,” he exclaimed, “so humid today.” Sukumar wanted to wipe the clay away, instead he added water to his mound.
X sat down, his body effortless on the unpaved ground, knees digging into his torso, not caring that his panjabi would get soiled. “The goddess needs to see herself being created from the earth, that’s why we do the eyes first.”
Sukumar was flattered that X had heard his question, had cared to answer. He gave his head a nonchalant jerk. “Well, we aren’t doing anything. We are just preparing clay for Masterbabu.” Truth be told, he’d been disappointed at the menial nature of the task he’d been assigned. But there were too many experts here, people who’d sculpted for decades, people for whom this was the family trade, their heritage. “I’m going to tell Master-babu that I want to paint the eyes, I’m good with strokes.” He felt foolish the moment he said it. He stopped himself from telling X that he had spent his childhood painting the goddess’s face on sheet after sheet of paper, the angle of her eyes, the curve of her chin, the spot at which the gold nath pierced the left side of her nose.
X leaned forward, his smoky breath on Sukumar’s face. “You know what I’m waiting for? When they put clothes on the idols. It’s not easy, wrapping the heavy silk around a murti, but I’m good with folds.” He held his fingers out, flexed taut between imaginary pleats of garment. The fingers were long, the nails filed, and Sukumar had to fight the urge to entangle them in his.
“If you’re so good at this, why do you have that job?” Sukumar mocked. He’d learnt from the others that X worked at the printing press of the Jugantor newspaper. He’d gone to art college, had wanted to be an illustrator, but since the newspaper already had two illustrators who weren’t going to retire any time soon, X had had to start in a clerical role.
“And if you’re so good with paintbrushes, why did you study commerce?” X teased back.
Sukumar wanted to tell X of the afternoon his father had taken him to Hare School to get him admitted into the commerce stream. His marks in science had been poor at the end of middle school, and he’d heard his parents’ voices in hushed drones from outside the closed doors of their room. What were his options, what would give their son a good future? The next day, his father had told Sukumar that henceforth, he would study commerce; the prospects were looking good, he could become a chartered accountant. His mother had ironed his shirt and trousers, and father and son sat in the car and were driven to the gates of the school’s overbearing colonial building, where he’d walked behind his father down the pillared corridors until they’d reached the principal’s office. They were asked to wait, and as Sukumar stared out through the window at the grassy playground, he felt his father’s palm on the small of his back. “Stand straight, son,” his father said in a low voice, manoeuvring his fingertips as though to pile the discs in Sukumar’s spine atop one another. Sukumar had slipped into his default standing position, leaning on his right hip, curving it out, buckling the right knee to take his ample weight, pushing the left palm into his left hip for balance. It was how girls stood, he’d been scolded in school. That afternoon, having been exposed to his father, his face had flushed crimson. As they waited for the principal, he observed his father’s posture; the man was short, Sukumar was already two heads taller than him, but he had a spine as straight as a pole, his chin pointed upward, his bushy eyebrows always equanimous, never betraying what he was feeling. His father had been one of the city’s most promising young barristers, a self-made man, a low-ranking police constable’s son who’d paid his way through law school himself and topped his class, set up a practice from scratch, raced ahead of a cohort that consisted only of lawyers’ sons who’d inherited their family’s leatherbound libraries and address books. His father was his hero. For the rest of that afternoon, he’d made sure his back was erect, his head steady on his long neck. He’d been thirteen then, two years before his father had suddenly fallen ill, then died within a few months.
But it was too early to tell X all this. Instead, now in the Sculptors’ Quarters, he danced his eyebrows in mischief. “That’s because I love commerce so much!”
This got X giggling too. Master-babu frowned from the corner of his eye. The young men fell silent. Quietly, Sukumar extended his hand and patterned the clay on X’s forehead into a design. The clay had dried a while back, and globs of it dropped on X’s nose. Sukumar brushed them away with care.
“What did you make?” X mouthed, not wanting to disturb Master-babu again.
“The third eye,” Sukumar whispered.
X widened his eyes in a show of sacrilege. “I thought only the goddess could have a third eye, to see what the rest of us can’t.”
Well, you see in me what no one else does, Sukumar wanted to say, but he just blushed.
Excerpted with permission from Deviants, Santanu Bhattacharya, Tranquebar/Westland.
