MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 49
teeth to it would neutralise the tang. In addition, in the process, I would save the buds of taste
from contact, pushing the foul smelling thing into the stomach directly, eluding on its way the
tongue and the teeth. This seemed to work, and I managed, under Minu Mashi's superintending to
get through the meal.
As the painful episode came to its conclusion, Minu Mashi turned towards the hall and
announced, with not a little pride, “Machch kheye niyechche, he has eaten the fish!”. There was
much jubilation as aunts, uncles, and the inquisitive little cousins began to applaud with a
clapping of the hands, and expressed their delight with resounding voices. My mother rushed in
from the kitchen and asked if I enjoyed the Maachch. For reasons that I could not explain, I said
that I did, and to this day, I recall the look of delight in Minu Mashi’s face.
I viewed my future trips to Jawarpara with a sense of growing apprehension now that the ice
(between fish and me) had broken; it had not of course, but that was the impression the family
carried, and dreaded the possibility of there being more fish days on the menu, without the eggs
dropping in as my saviour. This happily did not happen; I did, however, have to manage at least six
meals of fish every trip, and that I accomplished with a combination of extreme stoicism, and the
“swallow” strategy, which I had grown to perfect.
During my last trip, a trust had developed between Minu Mashi and me, and she no longer sat by
my side to ensure my continued compliance and after extricating the flesh from the bone with
expert fingers, she would often leave the dining table. She explained to me that extricating the
flesh from the small bones cleanly, and then, identifying, chewing, and spitting out the splinters of
bones that had eluded the fingers and entered the mouth, all in one motion, without being choked
to death by a fish-bone was an art form that was the exclusive reserve of the true Bengali. She had
no doubts that it was but a matter of time when such highly skilled capability would be within my
grasp, and I would achieve absolute mastery in this operation. (The skill, after all, was in my genes)
but until such time, she or a senior member would help in the delicate task of negotiating the
bones, which involved, chewing, sifting, and spitting, in that order.
In the meantime, more experienced and knowledgeable in the art of survival, I had developed
another means by which to neutralise my tormentor; this I did by taking advantage of its soft flesh,
having discovered that the soft flesh could be mashed into a paste, and hiding its smashed body
under a small mound of rice. I used this method, and after reducing the enemy to a state of pulp, I
placed the squashed remains under the steel bowl, in which the lentil or vegetable or some such
less threatening food item lingered. The trips to Jawarpara gradually ended. My grandmother died,
and with her death, and most of the family having moved away, my mother was less inclined to visit
the home of her childhood. I joined a boarding school and life changed for all of us. My aunts and
most of the cousins were married, and all of them left Jawarpara; some to find a career in the
metro of Calcutta and others relocated elsewhere. The large family had dwindled to just three
members- Minu Mashi and her two elder brothers- and they moved to the ground floor, leaving the
upstairs portion empty, and the rooms locked. Once a week she would go upstairs with a house
cleaner to dust and clean, then lock the rooms and bolt the windows.
As time went by and domestic staff reduced, her health failing, the weekly cleaning stopped, and
the upstairs portion of the house was locked and forgotten. She was offered a good position by a
private school in Calcutta but chose to remain in the backwaters of Jawarpara. She took this
decision, I suspect, out of a sense of necessity rather than desire; a necessity, brought about by
the poor financial situation of what remained of the family. Her brothers did not work, never did,
and were now quite incapable of joining a profession of any kind. When my grandmother was alive
she ran the household, and her children had not a clue of the source of income, even less of how
the establishment maintained all the servants, the house cleaners, the cooks, and the guards. Now
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