‘About “residents”, “outsiders” and whose right it is to live in a particular place, this is also the moving story of friendship that transcends all barriers. With humour and profound insight, Choudhury marches his characters straight into the reader’s heart.’ —HANSDA SOWVENDRA SHEKHAR

A Story of Friendship and Fear

Nilanjan P. Choudhury

Nilanjan P. Choudhury’s debut novel, a mythological thriller titled Bali and the Ocean of Milk, was a (very) brief bestseller. His subsequent writings include The Case of the Secretive Sister, a detective caper set in Bangalore, and The Square Root of a Sonnet, a pioneering play on the history and science of black holes; both of which received wide critical acclaim. He confesses to having studied at IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Kanpur, and hopes that this will not be held against him. He grew up in Shillong and now lives in Bangalore with his family. He can be reached at www.nilanjan.net.

SHILLONG TIMES

A Story of Friendship and Fear

Nilanjan P. Choudhury

SPEAKING

SPEAKING TIGER BOOKS LLP 4381/4, Ansari Road, Daryaganj New Delhi 110002 First published in India by Speaking Tiger in paperback 2018 Copyright © Nilanjan P. Choudhury 2018 ISBN: 978-93-88070-47-8 eISBN: 978-93-88070-48-5 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The moral rights of the author have been asserted. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Typeset in Sabon Roman by SÜRYA, New Delhi All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

For Baba, Ma and Buri, in memory of the wonder years

‘You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives.’ —Luis Buñuel ‘Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears.’ —Italo Calvino ‘This city knows my every first thing The more I struggle to escape from it The stronger are the memories it brings.’ —Kabir Suman

CONTENTS

INCIDENT AT JACOB’S LADDER

1

THE FOREIGNERS

8

BORDER CROSSINGS

20

CLINT EASTWOOD LYNGDOH

31

THE EVENING OF FORBIDDEN PLEASURES

44

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

50

GULMAAL 63 THE HISTORY EXAM

75

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

87

THE WORLD BEYOND THE HILLS

94

GLAXO BABY

100

OH, CALCUTTA!

105

BISCUITS FOR BEGGARS

115

LAND OF THE LOTOS EATERS

131

CITY OF GHOSTS

146

A MACHCHLI-VELLIAN MOVE

157

COUNTRY ROADS

174

THE SACRED FOREST

185

ALONE 202 TRUCE 212 JOHN WAYNE LYNGDOH

220

THE ATTACK

225

THE SINS OF THE FATHERS

232

CALCUTTA 235

INCIDENT AT JACOB’S LADDER

Debu was fourteen when he first heard the word ‘dkhar’. He was walking back home from school, preoccupied with the dilemma of whether he should spend the last one rupee of his pocket money on chana masala or on sour berries. It was not an easy choice. The chana masala tasted better, but a larger quantity of sour berries could be had for the same money. The ten and twenty paisa coins inside his trouser pocket jangled agreeably as he stepped into Don Bosco Square. Lost in thought, he walked past the grey concrete statue of Don Bosco, who seemed to be in an equally pensive mood. A few minutes later he arrived at Jacob’s Ladder—a steep flight of steps that twisted down the slope of a low wooded hillock. Like most days, Jacob’s Ladder was empty. Not many people used it owing to the sharpness of its incline. But it was the shortest way back home and Debu’s preferred route, inspite of his mother’s orders to stay away from lonely roads. He was halfway down the steps when he heard someone yelling at him from behind. ‘Hey dkhar!’ the voice said. He turned around to see three boys standing at the top of the hillock, their dark silhouettes framed against the buttery sunshine of an early summer afternoon in Shillong. He squinted at them. They did not look like anyone he knew. Must have mistaken me for someone called ‘Dkhar’, he said to himself. Poor fellow, he thought, to be saddled with such a weird name. The three strangers began running towards him. He could not make out their faces clearly, but they looked like Khasis. ‘We need to talk to you,’ they said. ‘Wait for us.’ Debu was unsure what to do. On the one hand, it was clear that they were keen to meet him. Perhaps they had some urgent business with him, and he was curious to know what

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that might be. On the other hand, his mother had repeatedly warned him to come home straight after school—no looking left or right, no stopping here and there, no eating this and that, and most importantly, no talking to anyone and everyone—especially not strangers and Khasis. The trio was closer to him now and he could see them clearly. They were older than him, probably eighteen or nineteen. Their lips were stained red with kwai juice—the local betel nut and leaf. They were smiling at him—cold smiles that stopped short of their eyes. ‘Hey, dkhar!’ they yelled again. ‘You going home? Come with us, man. We’ll take you home.’ They broke into a sprint now. As they loped towards him, eyes glistening in the summer sun, a chilling thought occurred to Debu. What if they were after his pocket money? Or his school bag? It was a recently purchased khaki-coloured satchel, and he was rather proud of how smart it looked. What if they thrashed him and took it away? They looked like the sort of boys who thrashed other boys. Of course, they might be completely harmless also. But why take a risk, especially when his mother had repeatedly warned him to stay clear of strangers? Better safe than sorry, he thought, and clutching the coins inside his pocket, he broke into a half-run. The boys stepped up their pace. ‘Hey, think you can run away from us?’ one of them said. ‘Why are you here? What are you doing in our country?’ said another. ‘Yeah. Go back to your own country and eat your rotten fish, dkhar bastard,’ the third shouted. By now, it was beginning to dawn on Debu that ‘dkhar’ wasn’t someone’s name but an insult of some sort. One that could not be taken lightly by any self-respecting fourteenyear-old. A suitable retaliation was called for. But the enemy outnumbered him three to one, and it would be foolhardy to get into a physical fight. Better to hit back with a few stinging

Incident At Jacob’s Ladder

3

counter-insults and make a run for it, thought Debu. He delved into his limited stock of invectives. Most of them concerned the offspring of pigs and dogs, going along the lines of: ‘shaala shuworor bachcha,’ ‘halar hala kuttar bachcha,’ and so on. But compared to the raspy, guttural ring that ‘dkhar’ had about it, they all seemed rather tame, musical almost. The most venomous abuse he could think of was one that his father was prone to use on the rare occasion when he was really furious—‘phungir-bai’. He had no idea what it meant and his attempts to find out had been greeted with a curt dismissal from his father. In any case, there was no need to know what it meant. It sounded adequately indecent and there was a nice explosive feel to it. It would do for now. He spun around and threw what he hoped was a dirty look at his assailants. ‘Halaar haala phungir-bai!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. And without further ado, he fled down the steps of Jacob’s Ladder as fast as his legs would carry him. ‘Bengali bastard! Stut liah!’ the boys yelled back as they pursued him down the hillock. They were good runners. The gap that separated them from Debu was rapidly shrinking. It was only a matter of minutes before they caught up with him. The weight of the books inside his school bag was slowing him down. He could hear them panting behind him. The sweat streamed down his forehead, trickling into his eyes and lips. He felt himself growing tired, slowing down as he laboured past the final bend on Jacob’s Ladder. He knew that he wasn’t far from the main road now. The thought gave him hope. Bomfyle Road was home to several government offices, most notably that of All India Radio. It was far less lonely than Jacob’s Ladder and there was a chance that the boys might not attack him if there were people around. With a desperate effort, he put on a final burst of speed and hurtled onto Bomfyle Road. To his relief, there were several people ambling along the pavement near the entrance of the

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All India Radio station. He sneaked a quick look behind to see if their presence had induced the boys from calling off their pursuit. But their resolve only seemed to have hardened. A squat, thickset fellow with close-cropped hair that stood up like a porcupine’s spikes, had shot ahead of his companions. He was racing towards Debu, his arm stretched out. A few more strides and Debu’s neck would be in his grasp. There were only two choices now—turn around and fight, or surrender and beg his way out by appealing to the hitherto undiscovered humanitarian impulses of his pursuers. Either way, he didn’t rate his chances of survival very highly. Only god could save him now, Debu thought in despair. He uttered a silent prayer that if he managed to escape unscathed today, he would perform a grand puja at the Shani Mandir in Police Bazar. The temple was held in high regard by the people of Shillong, on account of a popular belief that Shani Dev himself paid it the occasional visit. He was in desperate need of an ally and who better than the powerful Lord Shani, whom even his mother feared? O, Lord Shani, save me today, and I will sacrifice one full year of my pocket money for your puja, Debu muttered under his breath. At ten rupees a month, this would amount to one hundred and twenty rupees. A handsome offering by any standards, thought Debu. Surely enough to earn him the blessings and protection of the gods, even one as grouchy as Shani. The very thought gave him fresh hope. He raced ahead with renewed energy and opened up a respectable gap between himself and his pursuers. They seemed to be slowing down. Perhaps they were getting tired or simply giving up. In any case, it would appear that Lord Shani had heard his prayers and he might get away after all. His investment was showing a return already. On second thoughts…perhaps he had been a little too

Incident At Jacob’s Ladder

5

hasty…a little too generous for his own good. It would be torture to live through one whole year without any pocket money. Besides, one hundred and twenty rupees was a lot of money…too much money, in fact—nearly the price of a new Asterix comic. Better to make it a hundred. But even that seemed a little excessive. After all, he wasn’t some rich Marwari kid. Eighty would be quite enough. Or maybe even sixty. Yes, sixty rupees would be perfect. Sixty for god and sixty for himself. 50–50: an equal partnership. Sixty it was—he made his final decision. He was feeling quite pleased with how cleverly he had extricated himself from the hole he had dug himself into, when he felt a whirr near his ear—like the sound of a dragonfly whizzing past. A fist-sized rock crashed in front of him, splintering against the stone pavement. As he spun around, a second rock came flying at him and struck him on the right knee. A stinging pain sliced through his leg and he fell to the ground, squealing in agony. ‘Thought you could get away from us, dkhar?’ the boys laughed. They were advancing towards him, rocks held in their hands. ‘Not so easy, shih kmei,’ said one of them. ‘We got you now.’ ‘And we will not let you go,’ his companion sang out in a falsetto. ‘Bismillah! No, we will not let you go,’ all three sang in unison, the words spat out quick and hard, like the rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire. Debu’s mouth turned dry with fear. They were ambling towards him, casually tossing the rocks up in the air like cricket balls. Debu looked around desperately for help. But the road was deserted. The few pedestrians that he had seen earlier seemed to have vanished. There was no hope now. Even ten years of pocket money could not save him from his fate, he thought. They would reach him any minute. ‘Mamma mia, mamma mia,’ the boys were shrieking behind

A delightful story about growing up in Shillong in the 1980s— a time when political connections are required to get a phone connection, Bajaj Chetak scooters are status symbols and a grim-faced lady named Salma Sultan reads the news every night on Doordarshan.  When fourteen-year-old Debojit Dutta meets the slightly older Clint Eastwood Lyngdoh in his maths tuition classes, he is wary of his cigarette-smoking, whiskyswilling ways. Besides, Debu has only recently escaped a bunch of local ruffians who wanted him to ‘go back home to Bangladesh’. But Debu is unable to resist being friends with Clint. For, in return for doing his maths homework, Clint introduces him to a completely new life: the heady charms of Kalsang, the Chinese restaurant forbidden by Debu’s mother; the revolutionary sounds of Pink Floyd; and most importantly, the coolest, prettiest girl in town— Audrey Pariat. Audrey loves maths and detective stories, just like Debu, and does not make him feel awkward or exotic. Together, the three of them look set to embark on many adventures. But when tensions between the Khasi and Bengali communities boil over, Shillong becomes a battlefield—old neighbours become outsiders and the limits of friendship are challenged. With crackling energy, Nilanjan P. Choudhury immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Debu, his friends and his family, and their attempts to find love and belonging. Written with uncommon warmth, humour and delightful evocation of place, Shillong Times is an exhilarating coming-of-age story—showing us how friendship can eclipse the hardened enmities of adulthood.

Fiction ISBN 978-93-88070-47-8

`350 Cover illustration by Sandhya Prabhat

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