The Scent of God by Saikat Majumdar

Author:Saikat Majumdar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S India
Published: 2019-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

A beautiful passage was read out during prayer that evening. A passage about women and gold, drugs that ambushed you on the way to god. Women were gold; and gold, women. They cast a spell on you.

It was a beautiful passage read out by Niraj Bora. Why did Kamal Swami make Bora read this? For him it was a pain, stammering and stuttering and all that. Continuous reading in Bangla lay many traps for him, perhaps continuous reading in any language. But as he read, the prayer hall gasped with the wet dreams he proudly shared in the hostel, about the bodies of the mothers and sisters of his classmates, dreams that had caught like wildfire and made Bora the big boy in Bliss Hall.

The red cloud spread in the air again, the redness and the beads of sweat on Bora’s forehead as he trudged through sentences about the drug of women.

Yogi did not dare to look back, for the fear of Kamal Swami’s closed eyes, the smile dancing across his mouth like a white cloud on a sunny day.

At dinner, Kamal Swami announced that they were going on a trip that weekend to a beautiful place— Chandrachur, the moon-mountain, a town by the Ganges where the monastic order had its headquarter. Just a few hours from the ashram. A blessing of a place.

‘Whoever goes there,’ the Swami said. ‘comes back a changed person.’

Saturday morning was a riot. They piled into two giant tourist buses. All of Class 9 was going. One hundred and twenty students. Sections A, C and E in one bus, and sections B, D, F in another. English and Bengali medium, mixed up.

Kajol had entered the bus early and got a seat by the window. He had saved the aisle seat for Yogi.

‘Changed person, perhaps,’ Kajol said. ‘But it’s still a waste of the weekend.’

To be able to sit next to Kajol made Yogi happy. But there was also a rash of fear. Kajol had his goal sharp and clear. He had signed up for coaching for the engineering entrance exams, Sylvan Mentoring. Once every month, they sent whole question banks of Class 12 math and physics and chemistry reprogrammed in mind-altering permutations. Kajol knew the questions they would mail every month and the four years till Class 12 were just a waste of time as he was prepared to crack the IIT entrance tests already. He was on his way and he was going to take Yogi with him. He would do nothing without Yogi.

‘Why?’ Yogi had asked. ‘Isn’t this nice?’

‘The half-yearly exams are just around the corner.’ Kajol had frowned. He looked like a little boy when he did that. ‘I wanted to get started this weekend. Especially on the trigonometry.’

‘Trigonometry?’ Yogi was terrified. Did they have trigonometry? In Class 9? He couldn’t ask.

He averted Kajol’s glance and looked down. They were wearing their school uniform. Ashen shorts and white shirts made of coarse cotton. It had to be the cheapest kind of cloth.

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