Shambo by Kalkut/Samaresh Basu: An extract

Let me tell you about the time I went with this friend of mine whom I call Dada, to Shimultala in the Santhal Parganas. There were many others with us. It does not really matter why we were there. There was this feel of being on a picnic. After lunch and a rest it was decided that we would go to the markets at Tiluabazar three miles away to get some things. Actually that was like going on a trip on its own merit.

There was a Santhal girl at the markets with a cage full of pigeons. These were newly fledged and plump. The pigeons were anxious and fearful and the people around them made them flap their wings inside the cage. Suddenly recalling that we had not had pigeon meat in a long time, I said to Dada, ‘Let us buy all the pigeons, we will eat them.’

Dada looked at me through his thick lenses, his brown eyes bright as he asked, ‘You want to eat pigeon meat?’ He looked at the pigeons in the cage and then at the girl selling them. He said, ‘I suppose you should buy them then.’

Buy them I did. When I heard the price, I felt rather like the ‘Damn cheap’ babu of the story. Dada reached for the cage, saying, ‘Let me see them?’

I handed the cage to him. As he opened the door to the cage, he said, ‘You wanted to eat pigeon meat? Well, eat!’ And he caught the birds one by one and threw them into the sky.

As I tried to stop him,  I saw how the pigeons flew in an explosion of colours into the fading egg yolk sunshine of that autumn day in the Santhal Parganas. Dada was looking at me. There was not the slightest sign of regret in his face; his eyes twinkling instead as he asked, ‘Do you want to buy more pigeons? Come and let us see if there are any more on sale in the market.’

The Santhal girl who had sold the pigeons, the people around us and even our own friends had started laughing by now. I came on a trip. The pigeons went on one of their own to the skies. But by then, the laughter had entered my soul.

‘যে যায় এমন ভ্রমণে

কৃষ্ণ থাকে তার সনে।’

painting by Jan Fyt(1611-1661)

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/436424