Translator’s Note
I was struck by the surreal darkness of the story. With the faux-naive style and deliberate lack of realistic space-time markers it becomes a universal tale of settler-colonial horror (with queer undertones). Hope the editors and readers are as struck by reading it as I am. Basudeb Dasgupta is one of my personal favourites among ‘Hungry Generation’ authors. — Sourav Roy
The original text of the story is available here: রন্ধনশালা / বাসুদেব দাশগুপ্ত
Randhanshala : The Cooking Place
I saw the lamb looking lost and helpless roaming by the riverside so I just grabbed it lightly, then and there. The lamb lifted its gray eyes and gave me a sad look. With my left hand I grasped its soft warm woolly body tightly, and with my right hand I snapped the neck. Didn’t even give it a chance for a single peep. When I wrung, I heard the soft, tiny bones of its neck breaking-crunch crunch munch munch; and a tiny splash of blood comes on my face, lips and tip of the nose. The tan fur on its neck turn pink instantly. I keep hugging it after I throw its torn head on the ground. Its headless body still had many spasms left—tight inside my hug, it was still warm. Robin shuddered and covered his eyes with both hands and as if he could not bear this horror anymore, he turned his back to the panoramic forest-view, me and the almost-dead lamb—and looked towards the front. In a while he takes the hands off his eyes and looks ahead. I look with him. Our house is visible nearby, the ice slabs are shining like sharp knives in the pale early morning sun. Not a whisper of breeze—the leaves are silent, scared stiff. Robin is standing absolutely still. I look at him and start talking—“Robin, you know everything. I have already told you everything. I have become very cruel, very ferocious. You know all that so there is no point acting like such a pansy.” Robin still doesn’t say anything, with his back towards me he stands silently. I have to get up now and slowly approach him. Steeling my voice, I tell him—“Hold the lamb.” Robin turns towards me, and without making a sound holds the dead lamb by its legs and starts walking: his face as if carved in stone. Robin walks ahead, I follow him. The blood from the lamb’s neck drips drop by drop by drop drop…
I made the house kind of like Eskimos, with brick-shaped ice slabs. Only one door for going in and out, no windows. The ceiling rising from the floor like a dome. The house was really cold and dark. There was no human habitation anywhere close, so this was the right place to build a house. There was a deep forest in front of the house, beyond that a vast field of sand and may be a human settlement beyond that. Behind my house there was a river. Where that river starts or ends I did not know, not that I tried to find out ever. There was a completely leafless tree standing near my house with its dry branches in all directions. An unnamed bird used to show up often—scary looking but with lot of sadness in its face. With large round eyes it used to ogle in all directions and started crying often, sounding like a human. What pathos in that crying, what sadness in that sound! Whining, screeching, whinnying, hollering, whimpering, sobbing, howling, screaming,—the bird cried, as if crying in front of a dead body. But in the beginning I was not quite afraid of it. But one stuffy night I stepped out for taking a shit, suddenly the bird screamed like a megaphone—“It is an Emergency now! It is an Emergency now!” I was scared shitless, rushed in and slammed the door shut. My whole body was shaking violently; my hands and feet went cold and even my bones were rattling rat a tat tat rat a tat tat. In a few days I saw that bird doesn’t come anymore, the bird went away somewhere else, to nowhere, the bird came no more to that dead tree. Oh, what joy it was that day. I did ten, twenty cartwheels with my hands and legs in air…
Then one of the days I was walking on my own by the riverside. The breeze was strong, the sky was clear, the river was rippling with waves, one or two stars were in the sky. The river was on its own, and I was on my own, walking. In the half-darkness of the evening, my house was looking like a white tent. Invisible windows seemed to open one by one all around me, I seemed to sink in a deep trance; time seemed to stop. Walking alone I seemed to have gone away very far and suddenly saw Robin. It was dark and I could not make out that it was Robin at first. Then I got closer and recognised him! His clothes were soaking wet, water was dripping from all over his body, it was full of stab wounds. Shocked, I ask—“How did you get like this?” He can barely talk, keeps gulping for air and trying to breathe. I go ahead, hold him by his hand and shake him, look him in the face and ask again, “Tell me, what has happened to you?” He looks at the ground, keeps digging the dirt with his big toenail, and then speaks softly, his voice still shaking—“They stabbed me and dropped me in the river, think the river has brought me till here. I will go back now.” Suddenly everything in front of me goes upside down, the river, field, jungle, house tilt, shift and go out of view. The ground beneath me funnels down and starts sucking me down. I understand there is nobody but Robin to hold on to, I give him a bone-crushing bear hug and plunge my head into his shoulder. I wail—“I won’t let you go! You will stay with me, you will stay with me.”…
I start showing him around in the house with great gusto. A really thick candle was burning on a wooden stool. None of us cast any shadow on the wall, may be because it is of ice. Everything looks very bright in the smokeless candlelight. Robin looks around, his face lights up. He tells me – “What have you done? This is a palace!” I blush and tell him—“Yes, this is ‘my place’, you can also call it my cooking place.” Robin checks out the bottles and jars on the shelf, asks—“What for?” “I have collected them for keeping spices. See that large glass jar? I will keep good cow ghee there. And see this…” I take out the shining, sharp standing blade from under the wooden bed and show him. Robin lightly tests the sharpness of the blade, looks at the other corner of the house, and exclaims—“Oh you got the grinding stone, also?” “Yes brother,” I say—“Grinding whole spices is a big bother but food made with masala powder is so dull, I mean the finer you grind the paste, tastier the food. That’s all there is to it.” Robin walks about and picks up my pots, pans, spoons and plates and looks at them closely. They are shiny, as good as new. Robin’s eyes now stop at me, and I almost read his mind and pipe up—“I have never cooked so far, but I will. For now, I am eating the moss on the wall.” I point Robin to the green moss growing on the icy wall. “But now that you are here, I will cook now, and I will cook well. Besides I have thought a lot about it, and written quite a bit. Actually cooking is a high art, not to be taken lightly. Take for instance, you are cooking Hilsa fish with mustard paste, but do you know if you add one sliced Bengal currant per piece of fish in the gravy, it tastes amazing? You don’t know. Many don’t know. I am writing down all these, have filled many pages with the bits and pieces about cooking. See here…” I open the suitcase and show him the hardbound notebook. Robin opens the notebook, flips through the pages and even starts reading some of them. I tell him—“These things are very essential… These will disappear soon. We have to save these right now, preserve these.” Robin doesn’t seem to listen to me, keeps reading the notebook intently. In a while he looks up from the pages, shuts the notebook and asks me in an overjoyed voice—“So tell me when will you cook? I can’t wait to taste it!” Hearing this praise from Robin, my chest puffs up exactly by four inches…
We were standing outside. The sky had half a moon. The light was dim but we could make everything out, all around us. The deep forest in front was standing like a giant with the vast darkness in its heart. Robin says—“How do you spend your time?” “Why?”—I tell him, astonished—“How hard is it to pass time? I sleep most of the time and think about cooking, sometimes clean the utensils in the river water. Also…and…” Suddenly I feel that I should have done many more things, but I have done nothing else so I can’t find anything more to tell Robin. Right then I remember the half-torn Ludo board, and tell him—“And…also…I play Ludo sometimes.” “Can one play Ludo alone?” Robin asks. “Why not”—I explain to Robin—“I play for two at a time. Sometime for four. Very interesting game. Now you and me will play.” Robin doesn’t answer me. He looks at the dark forest and thinks of something pensively. Then he says suddenly—“Hey what is there on the other side of the forest?” “Sandy field”—I answer curtly. “Ever been there?” “No.” I don’t want Robin to linger on this. I want to hide the whole thing about the forest from him. Robin now goes towards the back of the house, I walk next to him. When the river bank submerges in darkness, an unnamed mystery from the deep waters beautifies everything strangely. Robin asks, “Don’t you have a boat?” “No, how will I have a boat?” “Why”—Robin says without missing a beat—“One can easily make a boat by cutting tree branch.” I stop talking. In the river there is the sound of splish-splash-splish and with that sound of music so many garlands are made without our knowledge. I don’t know how to avoid this topic anymore. Then I suddenly hear myself saying—“No no, no need for boat etc. I feel afraid. Don’t know how to swim.”…
In a few days Robin broke some tree-branches and made a boat, and started doing day trips with it—river cruise. Because of these cruises Robin started getting ravenously hungry. No amount of green moss was enough for his hunger. Then he started telling me again and again—“Now you cook, please. Please start cooking.” But I could not find anything to cook with then. There was a great lack of comestibles…
I thoroughly washed the pink, fatty body of the lamb with clean water after taking out the hide and the innards. Then I lay it out on a big plate. Robin has become very normal and relaxed by now. He sits like a cat near the plate and looks at the raw meat with greedy eyes. He tells me laughingly—“I feel like eating it raw.” Before I can tell him anything, he takes the utensils to the river for cleaning, “If I do the chores, I will be more hungry.” After so many days I am cooking, this makes him besides himself in joy. When Robin leaves, I suddenly realise that I have nothing to cook it with—no spices or oil or ghee at all. Everything has to be arranged. But how? I almost lose all hope while I start thinking, holding my head with my hands. Do I have to keep regretting for many days to come? Will everything be for nothing? The hunger starts taking bigger bites inside my body, I start feeling dizzy. But I can find no solution at all. Robin returns and sees me in this state. “What has happened now?” I open up and tell him everything. He doesn’t even blink twice. Says—“Let’s go, we will get everything done. What do you think I made the boat for?” Robin takes the boat out in the river. I climb into it reluctantly. The boat starts moving. Where will this journey end, neither of us knows. But we keep rowing the boat…
When we jump from the boat to the shore we see all of them have lined up, waiting for us. As if they knew we would reach at this exact moment. They pipe up together—“Here, here, they are here, at last!” A group of young men roll up their sleeves and approach us slowly—“ What now, dear? Where will you go now, my loves?” My heart starts jumping up and down but I keep a smile on the face and look for escape routes. But all the routes are shut. No way out at all. They hold more grudge for Robin. A few young kids start slinging mud from the riverside on Robin. And suddenly an old man clears the crowd, trying to calm them and approaches us. He asks very coolly—“What do you want?” I tell him what we need, very politely. The gentleman listens to me and keeps guffawing—“You will get everything, we will give you. But before that…” Before he can finish his sentence the young men start screaming their lungs out—“Beat them, beat them black and blue!” “Noooooo. No!”. The old gentleman holds both his hands up and says decisively and loudly—“They will be beaten in the proper Police style. Not a simple drop of blood! Tie them up, tie them up tightly.” They immediately carry out his orders. They fold our limbs up and tie us up with strong ropes. Then the game begins. They make us almost into footballs and start playing with us. They kick us that side, then kick us this side. Kicked here, kicked there. Kicked this side, kicked that side. One of them seems to hang a harmonium on his neck and plays it. But he presses only one key, so only one note plays in a monotone prrrrrrrrringggggggggggggggggg…
Even after we have a long bath and take a good rest, our bodies still ache. Our hands and limbs are still sore and ringing with pain. Still I get up, and grind the masala. Robin sets fire to the pile of dry twigs and leaves. The fire stands up, big and noisy. I rub the marinade on the whole lamb, then stuff masala inside its belly and sew it shut. A lot of masala is still left. Even through our body pain we bubble with excitement. We get a thick branch, truss it up and rotate it together over the fire from both sides. Soon, the masala roasts and aroma starts spreading. Our mouth waters, saliva drips. The stomach twists in hunger; as if trying to digest itself. The lamb turns golden, then light brown…
Suddenly we see our house is melting. The house, our dear home, which even the high noonday sun could not melt is being melted from within, by the heat of this fire. The ice slabs melt one by one and in some time the whole house disappears, but I remain unshaken. I pinch Robin, he turns towards me. I tell him—“Do you get it? This is their trick. All this is their plan to stop us from cooking.” The naked flames now get the taste of open air, and burn helter skelter. They try to run away from us, yet we work ahead in full steam with high concentration. It gets harder to roast the lamb, but we keep trying our best. The birds in the forest can smell the food, the flock starts flying overhead in a circle, seeing us, they don’t dare to come down. And right then we can hear the call of that large, scary, weird, sad bird. It starts doing wah wah of a newborn baby, the bird stats crying like a baby who has no father no mother nobody and is crying for a single drop of milk. It perfectly mimics a baby who doesn’t yet know how to see well or scream well yet throws all its limbs in the air, it cries the heartrending cry of a completely helpless child. We start feeling uneasy and grow glum. The cry gets more and more intense. We can’t see the bird. Maybe it is hiding inside the forest, afraid of the fire or something else. We can hear only the overwhelming cry. I pinch Robin again. Robin looks at me again. I tell him—“Do you get it? This is their trick. All this is their plan to stop us from cooking.” Robin doesn’t respond. He keeps thinking of something. My roasting gets over. I put it on a plate and start licking my fingers off all the excess masala and drippings, very carefully. The bird starts crying more heavily. We can’t decide what is to be done. The tone of crying makes us increasingly sad. Robin keeps mum and stays thoughtful. Even though the food is ready to eat, we can’t start eating. … Suddenly Robin says—“Let the food be.” I can understand everything. I was scared of exactly this or I was hoping to hear this from Robin. I still ask, “Why?” “I don’t feel like eating.” Robin averts his eyes; then he gulps and says—“We could make do with the moss, but even that is not left for our children and their children.” He looks at the molten house will teary eyes. I don’t dare to oppose him. My body is seized by an unknown dread.
I say weakly—“But that crying is not real.” “It may be fake, still…” Robin starts shaking his head vigorously. The cry of the bird gets even more plaintive, the whole sky and all the air starts melting in that pain. I extend my yes towards the vast forest in front. My eyes start burning, my chest starts feeling empty. After a long time, I sigh and say, “That’s OK. Let the food be.” The cry of the bird dissolves and disappears slowly. Calm and quiet slowly returns on all four sides. Only a few birds keep circling in the sky. I cover the food with another large plate. I feel extremely tired, it seems I have aged by several decades in a few hours. The hunger doesn’t push me anymore. The only thing I crave for is sleep. I don’t have any strength to do anything anymore. Robin starts loitering here and there, shakes his head thoughtfully and mumbles to himself. I feel scared looking at him, he looks like a madman. He goes and touches the lid but doesn’t uncover it. Because the bird starts crying that cry again. Robin grows restless. He doesn’t seem to decide what to do anymore. I start crying silently. My tears fall drop by drop on the ground, the ground gets soaked. The suffering becomes unbearable. Then Robin suddenly runs towards the heap of trash where I threw the innards and discards of the lamb. He goes there and starts gobbling all those up. I can’t control myself anymore and drag myself to sit my body next to him. Then two of us start gulping them down whole—the lamb’s head, horns, hide and entrails. It gets over in a few seconds. Then we clean our faces and sit next to the covered food, like very old men. The aroma of roast makes the air fragrant, and it hits us in our noses. And by drinking that aroma with our noses we sharpen our hunger of days, nights, years, decades, may be of millennia…
গানপারে ইংরেজি রচনা / gaanpaar English
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