The Last Burden by Upamanyu Chatterjee Page B

Bhubaneshwar. I was alone, utterly friendless, away from my children, in a defunct, unfamiliar town, regularly pondering why I was living, and every time prompting myself – oh, who’ll then see to your children, and, more to the purpose, who’ll then pay back your borrowings? Next, when your father was transferred to Jamshedpur, he famished himself to stow away some money towards building this house. He too was alone, friendless – but he adores squirrelling, and salting away.’
    On the beach, Jamun recalls that both Urmila and Burfi arepositive that, for Shyamanand, conserving money is exhilaration – ‘his bank deposits are his uppers’ is Burfi’s vitriolic remark. In his retirement, forenoon upon forenoon, unbathed, with his vitals paddling in litres of tea, Shyamanand has calculated and notched up figures in a large black diary, and has striven to sway his sons into sharing his enchantment with those numbers. The diary contains the particulars of his bank accounts, tidily jotted down in distinctive inks – green for name and location of bank, blue for rate of interest and duration of deposit, red for amount deposited and date of maturity, black for the run-of-the-mill reckoning, the withdrawals and accretions. Shyamanand jabs away for hours at the pocket calculator that Joyce has half-sardonically gifted him; now and then, never failing to jolt, like thunderclaps of delight, he will plangently whack his thigh or the table if his summations are roseate – if in May, they indicate that by July he’ll’ve scooped together a few more thousands in interest to open yet another account. If his computations augur against him, Shyamanand will remain glum till his further study of them touches off a new brainwave to swell his revenue by a thimbleful.
    The costs of Urmila’s rehabilitation have already blighted Shyamanand’s savings plans. Yet no one condoles with him in the least. He bickers, noon and night. ‘Don’t you follow? If I discontinue a deposit today,
I
pay the bank to allow me to touch my own money, whereas as soon as the deposits mature, I’ll repay you bloody all.’ And, ‘Isn’t my money yours? After I die, won’t my money be yours?’
    ‘We don’t want your money. Not that compellingly anyway. Wade into it now, when it’s needed the most.’
    Kasturi’s telephone at eight-thirty the next morning. ‘Hello, Jamun here . . . Thanks for waking me up . . . Sorry, I couldn’t contact you earlier . . . Oh, she was yakking chirpily last evening. They mean to hustle a pacemaker into her . . . I’m meeting Kuki about that this evening . . . will you come too? I could pick you up.’
    He isn’t certain that he’s glad at Kasturi having called. When he’s away from her, he believes that their friendship should moulder to nullity. They’ve been intimate for over a decade. After her marriage to someone that her grandfather found for her, Jamun’s slept with her twice, frenziedly, without fondness, trying to bludgeon with his phallus his own tension and rage. Neither much relishes alluding to those two misadventures, though silence will never whittle down their import. Yet every time that either’s taken a break at home – he, in particular, when repelled by his Kasibai life – one has dropped a line to the other, not to hint at a rendezvous but just to inform of one’s where-abouts, as a compliant child will to a domineering mother. But when they meet, their talk is just flotsam.
    Urmila despises Kasturi, without intelligible cause. Kasturi’s maiden visit to Jamun’s house, years ago, was a catastrophe.
    A holiday, about four in the afternoon, tea. Jamun’s parents are at the dining table. He introduces Kasturi.
    Shyamanand behaves with his wonted civility towards guests. ‘Do please sit down, Kasturi . . . Are you two in the same college? . . . Ah – Political Science, certainly a formidable subject . . .’ Urmila doesn’t acknowledge Kasturi in any way, and, after the preliminary