In an Ideal World , livre ebook
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English
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2022
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92
pages
English
Ebook
2022
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Publié par
Date de parution
10 janvier 2022
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9789354924576
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
10 janvier 2022
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9789354924576
Langue
English
Kunal Basu
In an Ideal World
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
The Call
The Lie
The Rock
Follow Penguin
Copyright
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOVELS IN ENGLISH Sarojini s Mother Kalkatta The Yellow Emperor s Cure Racists The Miniaturist The Opium Clerk
SHORT STORIES IN ENGLISH The Japanese Wife
NOVELS IN BENGALI Angel Tejaswini O Shabnam Byrer Dorja Rabi-Shankar
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE NOVEL
Communalism turns men into bombs. They invade lives and explode, recruit the unsuspecting in the army of hate. This brilliantly absorbing novel tells the story of the human bombs and their victims.
-Ravish Kumar, Magsaysay award-winning Indian journalist and author
Evocative, engrossing, and shot through with the tension of a dangerous new era, Kunal Basu s In An Ideal World explores the challenging dynamics of family ties and political turmoil. Through his portrait of the Sengupta family and the kidnapping of a Muslim student, Basu paints a disturbing picture of a country where the ties that bind us have come under intolerable strain.
-Shashi Tharoor, Indian parliamentarian, author and former UN Under-Secretary-General
A gripping novel in which the political meets the personal in a fractured land .
-Shobhaa De, author and columnist
In an Ideal World is a searing account of a world being shattered by commonplace prejudices and complicity. It is a powerful meditation on communalism and its irrevocable hold on our lives. Kunal Basu s narrative gifts shed light on the deepest divisions of our times.
-Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Laurence S Rockefeller visiting professor for distinguished teaching at Princeton University and senior fellow at Centre for Policy Research
for Ajlai as ever and always
The lion wasn t dead, only sleeping. He is rousing himself up again. M.S. Golwalkar
If they attack, we shall fight. Ernesto Che Guevara
The Call
The call came late. With the last of the customers leaving, Joy Sengupta, the branch manager of Bharat Bank, stepped out of his tobacco-free office for a quiet smoke. The minute hand of the century-old T. Martin Co. wall clock was fast approaching the half-hour mark past four when the real work of the branch would begin. Aided by his loyal and hypertensive deputy, Manmohan Das, Joy would soon commence a personal dialogue with his desktop-nicknamed the Machine -to complete the End of Day entries before locking up their Lake Avenue branch and assigning it to the care of the mongrels who slept in the shade of its awning.
As one of Bharat Bank s 2700 branches, Lake Avenue was neither the oldest nor the best. Among its peers, it occupied the comfortable middle row, shielded from the glare of the head office. In its half a century of existence, its whitewashed walls had withstood nationalization and denationalization, a currency crisis and a hostile takeover bid by a brash tycoon hailed as a messiah by the press. Like a friendly banyan tree, it had held on to its vital resource-loyal customers who cared less for glitter and gloss than a friendly face at the counter. In the terminology of the bank, it served the LVLI (Low-Value Low-Income) segment, a far cry from the high-value Generation X.
The seasoned warrior that it was, Lake Avenue was of late under attack by the Machine, which cared less about segments than the obsessive hunt for errors. It commanded with greater zeal than a general on the battlefield and had the bank staff running for cover. The Machine had changed the branch-veteran clients were apt to grumble-wiped off the friendly smiles and replaced them with the keyboard s clatter.
As much as Joy tried to reassure Manmohan Das of the Machine s goodwill towards all, the End of Day-EOD-entries raised his blood pressure. A model employee, a year away from retirement, his deputy was calm throughout the day. Casting a shield around the branch manager, he protected Joy from the messy business of misspelt names on cheques, absent-minded ladies complaining about missing items from their vaults, and fraudsters hunting for free loans. Das was the real bank-Joy never failed to remind his dozen-strong staff-while the rest made up the numbers. But the computer set his pulse racing. Every error message raised his systolic count by ten. A glass of water failed to calm the agony of missing files. To him and countless bank employees who were simply too old to learn the ways of the Machine, it was the customer from hell, more obstinate than a retiree and beyond appeasement.
Joy was resigned to a future with the Machine but unhappy at the prospect. There was an age beyond which it was impossible to make friends with an entity that operated simply on the basis of right and wrong. Wasn t friendship a matter of accepting imperfections? Truth is rarely pure and never simple . . . the wisdom of Oscar Wilde rang in his ears as he went about saving and deleting documents like a ruthless gardener. The fact was, Joy was a misfit. Nothing about his life and loves-the theatre and politics-had prepared him to care for the LVLI segment. In his youth, he d dreamt of becoming a guerrilla fighter like Guevara or a journalist flung into daring assignments. Such dreams make life worth living, he d confess to his comrades and admirers, of which there were plenty. Heady days of youth were bound to end, and when they did, Joy, like many of the liberated young, ended up inside the whitewashed walls of Bharat Bank, as solid as cement, with a guaranteed salary and pension.
But Joy Sengupta was a leader. He didn t win over his staff with a grand vision like Gandhi or the doggedness of Churchill. His strength came from the ability to smile whenever it was most needed. He didn t have answers to difficult questions, which his staff didn t mind, happy to be spared a tongue-lashing for cock-ups and late arrivals. Joy was the lovable boss, paterfamilias ; sweetness was his secret weapon. Even his deputy trusted him when it came to the computer. Like a deceitful lover, he knew how to trick the damned Machine into believing that all was well with the Lake Avenue branch.
The late afternoon smoke prepared Joy for Das and the Machine, helped him see the lighter side of things, like the budding affair between Mrs Sen, the cashier, and the much younger loan officer Jamshed. Smoke expanded the alveoli of the lungs-he remembered reading somewhere-pumping extra oxygen to the brain and helped it relax, freed his mind from banking matters.
On that day, as he enjoyed his respite from the branch, Joy s thoughts turned to the surprise anniversary dinner he was planning for Rohini, his wife of twenty years. He was torn between a quiet evening at home regaled with the mother of all feasts prepared by Ratna, their expert chef-cum-housemaid, or a formal party with friends at a posh restaurant. He knew it d be hard to keep his plans to himself, given Rohini s uncanny knack of prising out the deepest of secrets.
Halfway through the cigarette, he could feel his phone buzzing inside his pocket. The call came from an unknown number, and Joy thought Rohini s phone had run out of charge and she was using a friend s. Maybe she was calling to inform him that she d be late coming home, held back by her duties as head teacher of her school.
Hello, Joy, it s Mimi.
Like a seasoned bank manager, Joy s mind ran a fast scan of depositors and creditors at the branch.
I am Mimi from Spartacus . Don t you remember me?
Spartacus, the gladiator! It took the good part of a minute for Joy to travel from Kolkata to ancient Rome as he wrestled to fill in the blanks between the leader of the slave revolt and Mimi, whoever she was. But the voice at the other end of the line persisted.
You were Spartacus and I, your wife Varinia. It was our first show and the last.
The play, do you mean . . .? Managing to crawl back a good twenty-five years, Joy recovered the dusty remains of a file that held the record of his college days, including fist fights and failed affairs, plus handwritten dialogues of one-act and full-length plays.
Everyone thought we were wonderful. Everyone except the police. The very idea of a revolt scared them. The authorities thought we d gone too far. When they broke up our play, you were about to recite your famous speech from the cross.
Slaves have no gods. I never believed in gods, I believed in men . . . Joy muttered under his breath.
When the police mounted the stage and struck you with their batons, the audience thought they were Romans torturing their victim!
Joy winced, feeling his right knee snap. It was a grade three anterior ligament tear. Chandra, his friendly physiotherapist, never failed to remind him that it would be a lifelong friend, troubling him during the winter.
Everyone ran from the stage; only you stood your ground. Mimi s voice trailed off.
Mrs Sen and Jamshed waved at Joy, leaving the branch together. He waved back, his mind still caught up with Spartacus. Flicking away the cigarette, he recovered from his surprise to offer polite greetings to Mimi.
Gosh, it has been years, decades!
Twenty-three years, to be precise. I think it s time for us to meet again.
That was Mimi. She was precise and decisive. Always. Politics or plays, she held her views firmly, never granted passage to doubt or indecision. Mimi was Marx and Mao, ideologue and agent provocateur, the leader of their band of college rebels, and his Varinia.
Of course we should meet. Maybe we could throw a grand reunion of the Spartacus gang! I must tell . . .
I meant we should meet today. Her voice sounded crisp. This evening.
Today! Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Joy could think of nothing better than to offer a lame excuse, I m a bit tied up, I m afraid, at work. How about tomorrow or this weekend?
There was ambient noise on the line, the din of hawkers, a car blowing its horn. When she spoke again, Mimi seemed to have moved into a quieter corner. Listen, I have just arrived in Kolkata. It ll take me an hour or s
