Day's End & Other Bangal Stories by Amiyo Dev

Author:Amiyo Dev [Dev, Amiyo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Srishti
Published: 2003-08-09T18:30:00+00:00

* Originally published in Bangla as Boner Raja.

CUSTOMS DUTY

Narendranath Mitra

Translated By Sayantan Dasgupta*

Dhaka Mail will leave at ten p.m., but Lalmohan Saha arrives at the station some two hours in advance. He has with him a large trunk, two suitcases, a basket of food and his bedding. With the help of the coolie, Lalmohanbabu got his luggage down from the rickshaw. Then, after telling the coolie to come back at the right time, he lit a beedi. Of course, he had bought his ticket in advance, but, these days, having a ticket doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to board the train smoothly with your luggage. One has to get the approval of Land Customs; there, every bag and trunk is opened and checked. They search every piece of baggage to see if the passenger is taking any contraband goods to Pakistan. No leniency, absolutely none. Lalmohan has suffered a reverse some fifteen days ago. The Customs officer had confiscated fifteen yards of printed fabric and five mill sarees from his suitcase. Lalmohan had prayed and pleaded, he had thrown himself at the officer’s feet; he had even tried to push a couple of rupees into the officer’s left hand. But his attempts had backfired; the officer had got mad and had wanted to hand him over to the police. He had managed to evade imprisonment only after a lot of sweat. That’s the end of this business for me, lie had told himself. But he’d forgotten his vow as soon as he returned to Calcutta. If you are in business, you have to take both losses and gains in your stride. You have to take various kinds of risks. Merchants lose so many thousands of rupees, but do they stop doing business and sit idle because of that? Of course, Lalmohan is not a merchant; it’s difficult for him to meet a loss of a hundred-odd rupees, let alone thousands and lakhs. Still, Lalmohan couldn’t just sit idle, twiddling his fingers. This is the most flourishing business in Pakistan. Three hundred-four hundred per cent profit. Many traders, big and small, are carrying on with their business under the same circumstances. This time, too, when he came to Calcutta, Lalmohan went and invested some three hundred rupees in sarees, dhotis and printed fabric. Stuffed the material into bags and beddings. Some bags have fruit near the top, others have vegetables, innocent, inconsequential trifles like that. But, this time, Lalmohan is forewarned; he has been trying to find a solution to his problem. He won’t go to the male Customs Officer this time. He will have to take the help of a woman and get his stuff passed by a lady Customs Officer. Lalmohan has been doing the rounds here for the last few days and has observed that the department has a few young women from decent families. They let the baggage of women passengers pass with only a cursory look; they don’t meddle much with the contents. The women’s counter is the easiest and the most comfortable way out.

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