Black Tongue by Anjana Basu

Author:Anjana Basu [Basu, Anjana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351940630
Publisher: Roli Books

He went home and packed his overnight case with whatever clothes he thought he might need. The drive would let some space into his mind. Perhaps that long road would wind through his brain and restore it to sense and peace. He took his Ma some Italian chicken salami as a peace offering and watched her turmeric it and garlic it and curry it till it tasted like any other meat. ‘Shall I bring you anything special from Shantiniketan, Ma, if I go that way?’ She had been to Shantiniketan once and bowled down the green roads in a cycle rickshaw singing Rabindra Sangeet loudly, much to his embarrassment. She never forgot the visit. ‘Nothing,’ she answered, kneading the rice on her plate with the curry gravy, as she always answered.

Her nothings were commands to be obeyed with respect. Nothing meant a kantha sari at the very least, a humble tribute from her son. He could not agree to nothing because he liked to bring her rare things, luxuries that had never come her way before. She had turned over a bag of Twinings teabags once with awe and asked, ‘Is this really tea?’ It was odd how much his Ma meant to him, more than any other woman, even more than Meeta, though that thought felt a little like heresy. Here he was on the brink of taking flight into the scorched depths of Birbhum looking for a girl who would undoubtedly tell him how worthless his love was – simply because he did not want to blackmail her into his bed. There was obviously something convoluted about his way of thinking – it was not the usual politician trend of thought.

‘What is worrying you?’ his Ma asked, pausing in the act of raising her rice-filled hand to her mouth. Yellowy grains robbed the mudra of its grace otherwise it would have looked like the flight of fingers into the wind.

‘Nothing – just this trip to Birbhum.’

‘Why don’t you send Birendra? To go there in this weather. Insane! I will ring Bhabesh Babu and tell him that he is working my son too hard.’ She had done that once when he had returned from the mofussils yellow with fever. The minister had condescended to her and even touched her feet – one of those gestures he liked making in the middle of Writers’, even though it was not a CPI (M) gesture. ‘Respect to one’s mother is not a class thing,’ he had announced loudly and made sure it had gone into the Ananda Bazaar with the most spectacular headline possible. It had embarrassed Paresh because his colleagues were all convinced that it was done deliberately. ‘Sticking it to us where the sun don’t shine, eh Boss?’ one of them had asked loudly and nastily. ‘It’ll be sisters next making Bhabesh Babu their dearest brother ...’ And he had had to stand back and pretend to be unmoved, muttering that Mas were a law unto themselves. He had vowed

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