This coming-of-age novel about friendship is set against the 1987 Khasi-Bengali clashes in Shillong

The relationship that the Bengalis of Shillong had with the city of Calcutta could be described in two words: it’s complicated.

At one level, Calcutta was regarded as the mother ship to which they were all moored by an invisible umbilical cord. Like the space shuttles of Star Trek returning to the USS Enterprise after their solitary forays into space, the Shillong Bengalis believed that one day, they too would inevitably have to seek refuge in the bowels of Calcutta. This was the dominant feeling, even among those who had never laid their eyes upon the place. Calcutta was to the Shillong Bengali what Israel was to the Jews – an imagined sanctuary from the various “Bongal Khedao” (Banish the Bengalis) movements that were flaring up across the Northeast. It was a shelter from the gathering storms that threatened to burst upon them at any moment. Where else can we go, who else would accept us, where else would we be safe? – they would ask each other from time to time.

Yet, people like Mr Dutta, who had lived in the mist-covered hills of Shillong all their lives, dreaded the day when they would be forced to leave their cozy wattle and daub cottages and flee to some ghastly little flat in the chaos of Calcutta.

To older generations, the prospect of an exodus from the Scotland of the East to the City of Dreadful Night brought back bitter memories of Partition, and their exile from Bangladesh. It troubled them to think that, once again, they could become strangers in a strange land – eternal refugees – cursed forever to be called dkhars in a hundred different tongues.

The same unspoken fears lurked inside Mr Dutta’s heart. A true-blooded Shillong Bengali who had had his fair share of exposure to the Calcutta Bengali, he had come to accept that they were as different as chalk from cheese. To begin with, there was the minefield of language. Like most Shillong Bengalis, Mr Dutta spoke Sylheti, a dialect of Bengali that was almost incomprehensible to his Calcuttan relatives. The differences were sometimes so great that it was possible that the same sentence spoken in Sylheti Bengali would not have a single syllable in common with Calcuttan Bengali (or Calcatian, as it was sarcastically called by the Sylhetis). For example, the sentence “He is very dirty” would be spoken in Calcatian as, “O na, bheeshon nongra”; while in Sylheti, it would become far more evocative: “Hota akta phyarot.”

Sylheti and Calcatian were like two edges of the same knife. It was a knife that cut deep and left lasting scars on the psyche of the Shillong Sylheti. The probable cause could be traced to one of the three all-time favourite words of the modern-day Bengali. These, in order of importance, were: Struggle, Culture and Acidity (the last being a common affliction usually referred to as “ambol” in Calcatian and “gyaash” in Sylheti).

In matters of Struggle and Acidity, both communities were equal in their suffering. But when it came to Culture, the average Sylheti believed that he was far behind his Calcuttan brethren. Mr Dutta, in particular, had often felt like a gauche schoolboy while conversing with his urbane brother-in-law, the formidable Phool Pishima’s husband – Shushobhan-da.

Just as Phool Pishima was the gadget goddess of the family, Shushobhan-da, who had recently retired from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, was its cultural czar. He was a tall, reedy man with a long, thin moustache, which he superciliously stroked as he bestowed upon Mr Dutta his pontifications on the galaxy of stars sparkling in the firmament of Bengali culture – who, of course, were all Calcuttans. Tagore, undoubtedly, was the dazzling centre of this universe, but around him revolved many other luminaries such as Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Salil Choudhury, Ritwick Ghatak and of course, the redoubtable Satyajit Ray.

Their creations were undeniably of great significance and had gone on to receive much national and global acclaim. But the problem was that they were all Calcuttan. In comparison, there were hardly any works of literature, cinema or music in Sylheti that came even remotely close. And into the ears of the Mr Duttas of this world, there whispered a chorus of insidious voices:

Sylheti is not Bengali. In fact, it isn’t even a proper language. It’s just pidgin.
You live with the tribals and you speak like them too. The Calcuttans make fun of you. And why shouldn’t they? You Sylhetis are so funny!

The voices convinced them that as a language, Sylheti was inferior to Calcatian. From this they internalised the notion that Sylhetis were inferior to Calcuttans – they would never be as clever or as cultured as them.

And yet, in the face of increasing tribal hostility towards the Sylhetis, there was no one else that they could think of as their kin, apart from their Calcutta cousins and brothers-in-law: no safe haven apart from Kolikata, the City of Kali.

Kali Kalkattewali! The fierce goddess who wore a garland of skulls as she danced upon her supine husband and delivered her devotees from evil and injustice. To the likes of Mr Dutta, Ma Kali was the essence of Kolikata – the loving yet terrifying mother, dark with mystery yet luminous with hope. It was only in the folds of her arms, they believed, that they would finally be safe. But Ma Kali’s blessings were not free, they had to be earned the hard way. For she was a goddess who demanded sacrifice, sometimes even human sacrifice.

And deep down, Mr Dutta and countless other Sylhetis knew that a day would come when they would have to make that sacrifice and submit themselves to her dark forces – they would have to endure the heat, the humidity, the traffic, the load shedding, the open wound of the never-ending Metro construction along Central Avenue and the spectre of unemployment. But above all, they would have to endure the derision of those hordes of snooty, smarmy and ridiculous Calcuttans who spent much of their lives moaning about acidity or marching in rallies to the cries of “Cholbe na! Cholbe na!”

And as the hostilities against non-tribals kept increasing, like the Prince of Denmark, Mr Dutta was forced to confront the increasingly pressing dilemma of his life – to become a second-class Bengali in the terrifying chaos of Kolikata or to survive as a third-class Indian in the beautiful hills of Shillong.

For Debu however, there was no such dilemma. The Duttas would usually visit Phool Pishima’s house in Ballygunge for a few days during the annual winter vacations. Debu had seen enough of Calcutta and Calcuttans to realise that it wasn’t for him. Shushobhan-da alone would have been enough but the advent of Shyamal Lahiri in his life firmly cemented his views.

In Debu’s eyes, Lahiri was the archetype of the typical Calcuttan – full of hot air and himself. Much to his horror, the man had now become a regular fixture at home. He would arrive in the evenings soon after work and help himself to generous portions of tea and snacks that Mrs Dutta would dotingly prepare for him. He would then proceed to recite unbearably long and complicated poems, which Mrs Dutta would insist Debu listen to. But the worst was yet to come.

One evening, after a particularly rousing performance by Mr Lahiri, Mrs Dutta said to Debu, “I have decided that you will learn Rabindra Sangeet from Mr Lahiri. He has very kindly agreed to take classes two days a week.”

“What! No way!” Debu yelped.

“Don’t talk to me like that!” Mrs Dutta smacked him on the head. “You don’t know how lucky you are. If only we had got such opportunities when we were your age, then we would have reached somewhere else by now.”

“Then why don’t you take classes with him instead of me?”

“Aiiee, chup!”

“What chup! As it is I have to go for maths tuitions three days a week and then this! When will I get the time to play? When will I get any time for myself?”

Mrs Dutta changed tack. “I understand that you don’t have much free time, Debu,” she said in a gentler tone. “But you also have to understand that this is not the age for playing games. This is the age to work hard and learn as much as you can. You cannot learn music when you are older. This is the time. And we are so lucky to have Lahiri-babu right here in Shillong. He has been trained in Shantiniketan, no less. He has agreed to teach you from the goodness of his heart. He is even willing to come home.”

“Of course. For the free tea and snacks,” Debu muttered.

His mother either didn’t hear him or pretended not to. “You just have to sit and learn from him,” she continued, “and even that much you don’t want to do. Our parents never gave us even one per cent of what we are giving to you.”

“But I don’t want to learn Rabindra Sangeet. It’s slow! It’s boring. I hate it! I hate it!”

The mildest utterance against Tagore in a Bengali household was asking for trouble. There was a sharp sound like the bursting of a fire-cracker as One Tight Slap landed on Debu’s cheek.

“I don’t want to hear a single word more,” said Debu’s mother in a glacial voice that could have frozen the Hooghly on a midsummer’s afternoon. “Your lessons will start from Monday. Tomorrow we will go and buy a harmonium for you. Mr Lahiri has said that it is necessary to practice scales using a harmonium.”

“H...harmonium?” Debu spluttered as he rubbed his cheek. “No Ma, please!”

“Now what’s the problem?” his mother snapped.

“I can’t play the harmonium, Ma! If it was a guitar, it would have been fine. But not a harmonium. Please! It’s so sissy, so old-fashioned. If my friends come to know about it, then they’ll tease me to death!”

“Don’t be stupid. All great singers play the harmonium when they sing – Hemanta, Manna – ”

“Exactly,” Debu cut her short. “Old men wearing dhotis – those are the only people who play the harmonium.”

“Enough! I can’t listen to this nonsense anymore.”

Debu made one last, desperate attempt. “Can I play the guitar instead? Please Ma!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Rabindra Sangeet and guitar! What rubbish! I don’t want any more arguments. My decision is final. We will go to Melody House tomorrow evening to buy your harmonium. And that is that.”

Excerpted with permission from Shillong Times, Nilanjan P Choudhury, Speaking Tiger.