house, a hundred yards away from Mr Khandekar. Sheikh Mujib came to these parties when he could; he said it made him glad to hear the songs of the Bengali. He made no particular fuss when he entered a room as a guest; still, he was who he was, and the room was drawn towards his big glossy hair, his plump, humorous look. The room stood up at his entrance: he would force a friend, perhaps a distinguished poet, to sit down again, before him. A special place was made for him, and perhaps for his daughter, Hasina, too. He would accept the special place while, all the time, protesting mildly with his hands. You never knew who you would meet at one of these parties. The gates stood open, and almost everyone was welcome.
It was after one of these parties that the idea had been raised for a school that would teach the Bengali arts; not just gatherings, but an institution. Sheikh Mujib had heard, and said it was a wonderful idea, and so it had to be done. Khandekar, who could speak to Sheikh Mujib quite naturally, as an equal, volunteered to discover whether the university could find some place or other for it. Speaking, again quite naturally, as an equal, to Altaf, he asked him quietly if he could talk to a professor of Bengali he named to discuss the matter. ‘Quite hush-hush for the moment,’ he said. ‘I know I can trust you, Altaf.’
Altaf did not feel he was in a position to refuse Khandekar anything. The parties they played at were so nice. You had a feeling of something quite new starting up in everyone’s lives, as afternoon faded into evening and the tea-lights in the garden were lit, the manservants going silently with their tapers from lantern to lantern. Altaf made a small gesture with his head. He would go and ask the professor for the loan, once a week, of some rooms in the Curzon Hall at the university, and make himself useful to Khandekar.
In the early evening, in a crowded room, the song began. The room fell silent.
Chapter 4
A Journey in the Dry Season
1.
My father lived where he worked. His chambers were attached to the flat where we – my parents, my sisters, my brother and I – lived. The flat was even more crowded than my grandfather’s house. In both of them, transitory residents gave them the air of slight chaos, but at Nana’s house, at least Nana always knew who they all were – cousins from the village, brothers of his driver or gardener, dependants of his two mothers – and could explain who any stranger was. My father had strangers of this sort and, like Nana, employed vulnerable people – my ayah and the boy who served his chambers. He put up with their dependants in turn. But most of the crowds in our flat were clients: belligerent, impatient, wronged and sometimes rather smelly.
The antechamber to my father’s chambers was quite full. It was a dark room, with only one window looking out on to a blank wall where a building had been put up a year ago; it had been painted a light yellow colour in a not very successful attempt to lighten the mood. Outside office hours, it was not a place to linger: there were twenty mismatched chairs about a central table, a desk and a seat for the clerk, and nothing much else, except some files and a short bookcase, a black cashbox on the top shelf behind the clerk underneath the Supreme Court Calendar. In office hours, there was nothing to do but linger, and most of the time it was full. The first noise of the morning was the ring on the doorbell by the first client: it almost always woke us. Soon after that, the sick chatter of the clerk’s typewriter would begin, and continue all day. My father worked hard, at any aspect of law he could think of – criminal law, property law, tax law, family law – and his clients kept him busy.
It was not always as full as it was that afternoon. The clients, as usual, would have been what I thought of as ‘poor people’ – people who came to a lawyer’s office in long shirts and loose pyjama trousers, or with
It was after one of these parties that the idea had been raised for a school that would teach the Bengali arts; not just gatherings, but an institution. Sheikh Mujib had heard, and said it was a wonderful idea, and so it had to be done. Khandekar, who could speak to Sheikh Mujib quite naturally, as an equal, volunteered to discover whether the university could find some place or other for it. Speaking, again quite naturally, as an equal, to Altaf, he asked him quietly if he could talk to a professor of Bengali he named to discuss the matter. ‘Quite hush-hush for the moment,’ he said. ‘I know I can trust you, Altaf.’
Altaf did not feel he was in a position to refuse Khandekar anything. The parties they played at were so nice. You had a feeling of something quite new starting up in everyone’s lives, as afternoon faded into evening and the tea-lights in the garden were lit, the manservants going silently with their tapers from lantern to lantern. Altaf made a small gesture with his head. He would go and ask the professor for the loan, once a week, of some rooms in the Curzon Hall at the university, and make himself useful to Khandekar.
In the early evening, in a crowded room, the song began. The room fell silent.
Chapter 4
A Journey in the Dry Season
1.
My father lived where he worked. His chambers were attached to the flat where we – my parents, my sisters, my brother and I – lived. The flat was even more crowded than my grandfather’s house. In both of them, transitory residents gave them the air of slight chaos, but at Nana’s house, at least Nana always knew who they all were – cousins from the village, brothers of his driver or gardener, dependants of his two mothers – and could explain who any stranger was. My father had strangers of this sort and, like Nana, employed vulnerable people – my ayah and the boy who served his chambers. He put up with their dependants in turn. But most of the crowds in our flat were clients: belligerent, impatient, wronged and sometimes rather smelly.
The antechamber to my father’s chambers was quite full. It was a dark room, with only one window looking out on to a blank wall where a building had been put up a year ago; it had been painted a light yellow colour in a not very successful attempt to lighten the mood. Outside office hours, it was not a place to linger: there were twenty mismatched chairs about a central table, a desk and a seat for the clerk, and nothing much else, except some files and a short bookcase, a black cashbox on the top shelf behind the clerk underneath the Supreme Court Calendar. In office hours, there was nothing to do but linger, and most of the time it was full. The first noise of the morning was the ring on the doorbell by the first client: it almost always woke us. Soon after that, the sick chatter of the clerk’s typewriter would begin, and continue all day. My father worked hard, at any aspect of law he could think of – criminal law, property law, tax law, family law – and his clients kept him busy.
It was not always as full as it was that afternoon. The clients, as usual, would have been what I thought of as ‘poor people’ – people who came to a lawyer’s office in long shirts and loose pyjama trousers, or with
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