Friday, September 4, 2009

Tutool - A Short Story

This is the story about a boy in Kolkata named Tutool. All of 10 years of age. His tale of shame has long been pushed into the closet by his ‘respectable’ neighbours. After all, who wants to have the son of a drunkard and a mad woman in “bhodro shomaaj” (respectable society)?

It was a chance meeting with Tutool that I had, oh!, more than two decades ago. I was in Kolkata attending a dear friend’s wedding. The ‘pandal’ (tent) to shelter the ceremonies was being set up on the roof of the ten storey building called ‘Doya Shaagor’ (Ocean of Mercy). That building faced a five storey one called ‘Durga’. The two buildings constituted ‘Shetola Society’. The festivities were a source of great joy to everyone. The neighbourhood children made a bee line to the cooks busy rustling up Bengali delicacies to feed 250 guests of the bride and groom. All kinds of exciting smells wafted out of their enormous frying pans and vats. I was 16 at that time and more than a little bored with the state of affairs. My friend was ensconced with all his numerous relatives getting ‘made up’ for the big night of ‘mala bodol’ (exchange of garlands). He had no time for me just then. I was wandering all over the roof top trying to spot any handsome hunks through the apartment windows, preferably in a state of undress. I remember that I was perpetually horny at that age: I would masturbate five or more times with wild fantasies canoodling in my hormone charged brain. I had gone to Kolkata in the hope of seeing some hot Bengali hunks naked! Don’t ask me how I intended to view such a glorious spectacle, those days I was mentally undressing every hunk I saw on the road. A perpetual pornographic movie used to play in my fertile imagination.

That hot Kolkata afternoon I was particularly interested in the bathroom of an apartment on the 4th floor of ‘Durga’. A man seemed to have entered and shut the door. Unfortunately, because of the harsh noon sun’s glare, the inside of the bathroom was practically invisible. Still I persevered in my fervent efforts to spy on an unclothed specimen of a male Homo Sapien through the small bathroom window. I was already half aroused in expectation.

Suddenly my glance fell through the wide living room window of another apartment in 'Durga'. A woman was repeatedly hitting a sofa with a stick. The building was close enough for me to hear that she was screaming something in Bengali. My friend had taught me a smattering of that language but I couldn’t make out the words of the woman. Intrigued, I moved to get a closer look. The woman, about 30, had her red and white Bengali ‘saree’ in disarray, her hair flew every which way and she seemed to have red vermillion smeared all over her forehead. As I watched, a man entered the living room and attempted to grab her stick. He was screaming too. In hellish fury the woman charged upon the man. Finally I could get her words, “Bastard! You are a devil”, she was screaming. The man was holding a bottle in his left hand and he kept taking swigs out of it.

Ofcourse I had heard of domestic violence before, but this was the first time I was witness to the horror being played out in front of my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. Was there someone I could call? Maybe I should go there and stop them.

“Don’t worry babu”, Kanai, one of the cooks, quipped consolingly behind my back. I turned around in surprise; I had not noticed him sneak up. Kanai continued, “They are always at it, that ‘paagli’ (mad woman) and the ‘maataal’ (drunkard) husband of hers. ‘Bhogobaan’ (God) knows why these ‘bhodro lok’ building people still allow them to live here.”

“But there must be something someone can do, Kanai!”, I was beside myself with worry, “I mean, aren’t there doctors who can take care of her?”, my shocked brain was desperately trying to search for quick fix solutions to the domestic crisis that was unfolding.

Kanai snickered, “Naa babu. Those two are always at it, hammer and tongs. We enjoy the fun.” I couldn’t, for the world, imagine how anyone could possibly call such a hideous spectacle ‘fun’. I turned away from Kanai in disgust.

I resumed staring at the violence in the apartment in a sort of horrified fascination. The man slapped the woman hard. I flinched as the sound resounded around me. The woman howled more obscenities. He tore at her ‘saree’ and took another swig from the bottle. He couldn’t seem to get any more from the bottle, he snarled his displeasure. With an oath he brought the empty bottle down hard on the woman’s head. The woman didn’t seem to feel anything, she kept hitting at the man with her bare fists. He began dragging her by her hair into the bedroom. I heard him scream “Maarbo” (I’ll kill you) repeatedly. A small figure of a boy wearing shorts and a t-shirt appeared on the scene. He was clutching at the man trying to stop him from dragging the woman. The man gave a back handed slap at the boy. The boy flew with the impact into a corner of the room. I screamed, in a terrified, impotent sort of way. The man seemed to realize the enormity of what he had done. He released the woman and barged out of the living room on to the stairs outside the apartment. The woman was on the boy consoling his anguished wails.

I turned around, pushed Kanai aside and ran down the stairs two at a time. I had to go to that apartment. I had to do something. This was outrageous.

The apartment door was thrown wide open. The woman was lying on the floor apparently unconscious. The boy was sprinkling water on her face trying to revive her. I knelt beside the boy, his forehead was cut and bleeding. He turned and saw me kneeling beside him. His teary eyes widened in surprise.

“Dada” (elder brother), he mumbled in a small voice, “my father has beaten my mom again because she protested when he hit me. She is mad, you know”.

I looked at the wiry frame of that little boy and I didn’t know what to say. There must be some words of consolation, I thought to myself, which I can utter at this point. But there were none. What can you say to a little boy who is trying to revive his mentally disturbed mother from a swoon after his father has smashed her with a bottle on the head? It was uncivilized, inhuman, and barbaric. No one should have to see this. This boy was living it. This little boy who had just called me his elder brother. This chit of a boy who I had not seen before that day. I shivered at the enormity of the responsibility that the boy had placed on me with that one word.

“What is your name?”, I whispered.

“Tutool”, he answered, his brown eyes peering into mine. He gave me a half smile and continued tremulously, “I have seen you in the other building with the marriage family. You are from Bombay, right?” I nodded.

“Your forehead is bleeding, Tutool”, I examined his wound, “Do you have Band-Aid in the house?”, I asked.

‘Wait dada’. Tutool got up slowly and walked to a wall cabinet. He took out a packet and gave it to me. I tore out a strip of Band-Aid and put it over his wound. Tutool stared at me.

“Dada no one comes to this house because my mother is ‘paagli’ and my father is ‘maataal’”, Tutool’s hurt face bore full into mine. “I am paaglee’s son and may spread the disease to other children, so no one here plays with me.”

I hugged Tutool. I had tears in my eyes. “I am your Deep dada, Tutool. And I am here now.”

Tutool’s mother was showing some signs of coming out of her swoon on the floor. In a few minutes she was sitting up mumbling to herself. She seemed to realize that a stranger, me, was in the room. She stared at me.

“Ke?” (Who is that?), she asked.

Tutool hastened to reply, ‘Deep dada ma!’.

The mother said something I couldn’t understand, Tutool got up to close the main door of house. The mother got up and walked to the kitchen. She seemed not to notice the state of her hair and dress. Presently she brought out two ‘thaalaas’ (steel dishes) and laid them on the living room floor in front of where Tutool and I were squatting. She went back and got a pot of rice and daal. These she served us.

“Khe nao beta” (eat my sons), she cajoled us.

Out of politeness and feeling very uncomfortable I began shovelling the food in my mouth. Tutool ate chattering with his mother in Bengali. She seemed to like her son talking to her and her face softened in affection.

I looked at the mother lovingly watching her son eat lunch, like thousands of mothers watching their sons eat at that very moment in Kolkata. Yet, this mother was different. This son was scarred. This scene was blighted. Their future was dark. And I was a mute spectator by virtue of the fact that I was made the ‘dada’ by little Tutool.

“I have manic depressive psychosis Deep beta but my son here is healthy”.

I looked up startled from my rice plate at the woman who had just spoken to me in flawless English, as sane as any woman I had ever met. I had my mouth full of rice and couldn’t think of a reply.

“I worry about my son. His father is an alcoholic and a violent man. In one of his violent episodes he may harm my child and I may be in an unconscious fit at that time.”

The very hopelessness of her words made a chill wind blow in my heart. I looked at the small head of Tutool bent over his rice place and I looked at the bedraggled woman who had just uttered words of the sanest mother I had ever heard. I felt helpless and afraid. I wanted to do something for these two people. Carry them away to Bombay; keep them in my house, anything. Anything I could do to snatch them out of the grasp of this accursed house. Could I tell my parents I wanted to keep them with me and take care of them for ever and ever? That I wanted to hold Tutool against my heart and rock him to sleep every night and tell him that he will never have to be sad again? Could I? What would my parents say? I would get this mother to a Psychiatrist in Mumbai and she would get cured. I would ensure that Tutool got a good education. I would set all these wrongs right. The brute of a husband would never get to see his wife and boy again. I resolved all of these in my head right there. I had no idea how I was going to carry all this on my shoulders. But I resolved.

After we finished eating, the mother carried the plates back in the kitchen. I followed her.

“Aren’t you going to eat, maashimaa (aunty)?”, I asked her. “Not now, beta. I have to wait half an hour after I take my medicines.“

“Then I’ll help you wash the dishes, maashimaa”, I offered. She laughed and hugged me. “Naa re beta! You go and play with my Tutool”.

I went back to the living room and saw Tutool sitting over a book. “What book is that Tutool?”, I asked.

“Enid Blyton, The Secret Island, dada”.

His face had lit up with the childhood joy of exploring the mysteries of a make believe world. I understood completely, that book was my favourite not so many years before. Tutool suddenly gave me a hug.

“Thank you dada!”.

I kissed his forehead and hugged him back. I wanted this moment to last forever. I wanted no dark clouds to cast shadows over the lives of Tutool and his mom. Today, chance had decided that Tutool and I would be brothers fighting a cruel fate. And this day had perchance shoved me into their lives. Maybe, today, the gods had decided that they needed help at last. Maybe, today was the day when I was to pay my debts from a past life. But the gods had not cared that I was only 16 and dependant on others for my own survival. A feeling of helplessness oozed through my bones and brought with it a sick feeling of unease. Was I upto the onerous task?

The hours flew. The husband did not return. The mother said that there were no chances of him coming before the following morning. She seemed very lucid and did not have any attacks of her illness. She even groomed herself well and appeared like any of the thousands of ‘normal’ mothers of Kolkata. At 4 she made tea for all of us and we sat, cross legged, in companionable silence on the drawing room floor drinking the sweet concoction with plain Parle biscuits.

The marriage ceremony of my friend was to be conducted that evening from 7. I wanted both mother and son to attend it with me. Even my most fervent entreaties wouldn’t bring her to come with me, but she was all encouragement for her son to go with me. Tutool changed into a fresh pair of shorts and a bright t-shirt and we walked hand in hand merrily to the function.
It was my first glimpse of a Bengali wedding, and evidently, so was Tutool’s. The two of us held hands throughout and ate a sumptuous dinner together. It was close to midnight, when I went back to drop a sleepy Tutool to his house. His mother met us at the door smiling. There was no sign of her husband and I was relieved.

I touched her feet at the door, “Maashimaa, good night. I’ll come again tomorrow”.

Arrangements had been made for the guests to stay at a hotel nearby. I went to my room and fell on the bed already asleep.

It was nearing ten the next morning when I woke up from my dreamless slumber. I languorously stretched on my too soft hotel bed. I rang for the tea and it arrived with an assortment of exotic biscuits. Remembering the plane Parle biscuits that we had had the previous day, I stuffed the entire tray full of biscuits in a bag meaning to take it for Tutool. I hurried through my toilet and got out of the hotel room.

Knowing that my friend wouldn’t be expecting me (Ha! He would be ‘busy’ with his new wife!) I made haste towards Tutool’s building. There was a crowd of people at the entrance. I pushed past them and attempted to walk up to Tutool’s apartment. I was blocked by a posse of policemen.

“What happened?”, I asked, alarmed, to the nearest man in uniform.

“The mad woman killed her drunkard husband last night. She has been taken to the lockup this morning”.

The cold wind which had blown in my heart the previous afternoon turned into an icy blizzard.

“And the child?”, I asked frightened.

“We are all virtuous people, we don’t let such filthy kids stay in our building complex”, answered Mr. D.K. Das, honourable chairperson of the building committee of Shetola Society.

“That boy was despatched (sic) by train to his maternal grandmother in Chinsoora village of the 24 Parganas. Durga Durga! Such filth should not corrupt our angelic little children in this society”.

Thus did the honourable Mr. D.K. Das cleanse the merciful ocean of 'Doya Shaagor' and restore the sanctity of the Goddess most powerful, 'Durga'.

Another noon was about to break outside, I walked under the sun away from the buildings towards the rudiments of a garden. The blizzard in my heart blew the hard heat of the sun away. As I sat near a bed of roses, all I could feel was little Tutool blankly watching rows and rows of rice fields from the train, rushing towards his darkness.

If you are reading this Tutool, after all these years, dada says sorry he could not snatch you away from the darkness. Your dada was too puny to be able to do that.

17 comments:

Alan said...

Another gem, Sandeep.
I expected something so different after reading the opening lines. It was a sadly delicious surprise to find the doleful tale below.

My favorite line? "The blizzard in my heart blew the hard heat of the sun away."

Do keep at it. I want MORE!

Gay Man said...

Thank you so much Alan! Your words of encouragement yesterday spurred me to write Tutool. I am usually too lazy to type out my thoughts. But when I get into the mood I do it non-stop for a couple of hours… and the result is Tutool.
I shall make some changes to this piece.

Keepsaker said...

i want u to read it urself once again....and i m sure it will restore in u the faith tht u hav writing skills....
u actually made all the characters as well as the place stand infornt of me.....read it twice and yet couldnt escape visualizing the whole thing. Thts my compliment abt ur writing.....hope to see much much more here and also a few on the stands of book stores....
All the best!

Gay Man said...

@Keepsaker: MWAH MWAH MWAH!!!!!

Unknown said...

it was a touching piece of writing...I cud feel ur helplessness and anguish..

dew_drop aka Prasad

Gay Man said...

Thank you for your comments Prasad :-)

Nishant Philip said...

I wonder why society & societal scrutiny so often causes so much pain...

Excellent writing. Felt like I was in the moment...as if I was actually experiencing every feeling you were trying to convey..very well written...

Will look forward to reading more of your posts...

regards,
Nishant

Gay Man said...

Thank you Nishant! :-)

Unknown said...

What a fantastic piece!

I also read Enid Blyton when was a kid...

Bruno

Gay Man said...

Thank you Bruno! I cannot find your blog or your email id by clicking on your name...

Natural Man said...

I totally agree with all comments: you should write more and if you come up with a book, please let me know the title and when it will be on a book stand....
All the Best

Gay Man said...

Thank you Swami! I am writing a novel, but am doing so in fits and starts....

Anonymous said...

Heavens... what a story! So much food for thought! Why not draft a sequel?
Best wishes
John

Unknown said...

amazing amazing story...reminded me of my kolkata days...descriptions were more vivid than my actual memories of that place...
you should write much much more man!!
All the best for you book...

Gay Man said...

Thank you Sameer!

Donald said...

You've written it so well Sandeep, I could feel your pain, your every emotion you went through when you saw this kid. At times, we are so helpless, we want somethings to change but we can't ..
Anyway, just like every other reader has said, you should write more, you are such a wonderful writer !!!

Gay Man said...

Thank you for your words of encouragement and praise Donald.

"Tutool" is a figment of my imagination Donald. All events and characters depicted in this tory are entirely fictitious. None of that ever happened.

I wish people would believe me when I say this, but this is just a story I thought of. Nothing in real life.