Humans and Eggplants

In the Kamini-scented breeze, Prafulla babu caught the smell of fried eggplants. Dappled sunlight filtered through after a brief spell of rain. On his way back to Kolkata from Durgapur where he had attended a seminar on the brightness of steel, Prafulla babu had paused for tea at Boodbood, a mofussil town en route.

Prafulla babu was a professor of metallurgy known as Dr Roychoudhury. He might have salivated upon smelling the begunis, the eggplant fritters, but he was still Dr Roychoudhury.

‘Would you like some biscuits, Sir?’ his driver asked.

‘No, not really – and no sugar in my tea.’

On a yellow mound of boiled chickpeas embellished with slivers of onion, peaked a glistening ripe red chilli. A small bird perched on the bonnet of the car. Was it a drongo? Are drongos that small? Could it be a weaver bird? A tailorbird? Across the road, the begunis were puffing up and darting about in the hot oil like school children on a lunch break! Oh! What a smell! A man lifted them with a skimmer and placed them in a basket.

‘Nagen, get two of those.’

‘What, Sir!’

Prafulla babu squinted slightly and whispered, almost conspiratorially, ‘Beguni.’

‘Oh no, Sir! You’re going to have beguni!’

‘I feel like it. Will you have one?’

‘No, Sir. I have an acidity problem.’

Prafulla babu took a gentle bite of the fritter, blowing softly into its succulent centre. A strange forgotten smell drifted in from the past. It filled him with an odd joy. He looked at the fritter with greedy eyes and only then noticed its smooth shiny surface.

Why are eggplants so glossy? Besan is protein and carbohydrate and oil is fatty acid ester. Then what causes the gleam? Once they’re cold, the shine fades. Dead human beings don’t retain their lustre either. Does life have a gloss, a coating? Do the begunis have life? What gives the chilli jutting out from the mound of chickpeas its lacquered glow? Why did a flash of light flicker off the bird’s feather as it sat on the car’s bonnet? Is it some kind of surface layer? A polymer? A polymer of fatty acid? Carotenoids? Or just wax?

There was a small market nearby. A boy with a printed shirt, unkempt hair, face marked with psoriasis, was buying a red shirt. It read Blue Blood.

So, this is the Kamini tree, whose fragrance makes the air so heavy! Aroma? Someone had hung a brassiere to dry. It floated in the breeze. Earthenware, cooking pots and pitchers, he saw them all. PCRC couldn’t recall the last time he drank water from an earthen pitcher. The faint scent of burnt clay enters the soul of the water. There’s oxide in burnt clay: Ferrous and Ferric. The same earthy smell.

The girl selling eggplants had a glistening dark complexion. Her skin shone as if polished with varnish. His wife used an array of cosmetics. His daughter, Kuntala! Her shelves were cluttered with bottles, jars and tubes. Dr Roychoudhury walked up to the girl. A Santhal, perhaps? Her whole body glistened. She was selling eggplants. His driver honked. He picked one up, held it in his hand, and gave it a slight squeeze. So soft. So fresh. So smooth. It gleamed.

‘How much?’ He asked.

‘One rupee.’

‘Per kilo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Give me five kilos.’

The girl looked slightly surprised. She asked, ‘How will you carry them?’ Prafulla babu was carrying a folio bag labelled Seminar on Chromium Management in Steel for Lustre and Brightness. Five kilos wouldn’t fit in there. So, he gathered the eggplants in his hands, and stuffed some into his coat pockets. An overwhelming feeling arose in him from holding the eggplants so close to his body as Dr Roychoudhury walked towards his car. His driver pulled the car closer and opened the door for him.

The seat was now strewn with eggplants and Dr Roychoudhury settled amidst them. He picked one up and stroked it gently. His touch was affectionate, and the eggplant seemed to respond. The driver asked, ‘How much did she charge, Sir?’

‘One rupee a kilo.’

‘Very cheap, Sir.’

Fresh! Incredibly fresh! Even now, there were prickly thorns near the stem. He pressed a finger on one – physically enjoying the pleasure of the pain. Then he cupped the eggplant in both his palms and brought it near his face. He inhaled the scent. Purnima used endless cosmetics and perfumes. How many years had he lived with Purnima? How old were eggplants? Didn’t they arrive on earth prior to human beings? Who came first, eggplants or human beings? Homo sapiens, or…

When tomatoes are picked in the field, the plants release a particular smell which is not in the fruit. He suddenly remembered that wild aroma. He remembered early dawn in a date palm grove: the scent of the sap, the foam on the freshly tapped trees, the birds drawn by the sweet trickle. He remembered the straws pulled from paddy sheaves – the white hollow ones used to sip the date palm juice. The eggplant fields? Didn’t he remember the scratches? His aunt had once warned him: ‘Don’t run, Polu, eggplant thorns will scratch you.’ Polu, ten or twelve then, had been chasing a dragonfly. The eggplants hid behind the leaves. They made no sound, as if playing a game of hide and seek.

There was a certain fragrance in the courtyard of his maternal uncle’s house in the early mornings. Dew has no scent. Nor does morning mist. What about sunlight? The morning breeze? Dawn has a scent of its own, doesn’t it? Do you remember Polu, do you, those clusters of plants? Do you remember what you saw while picking eggplants from the bush? On the surface of the smooth purple skin, two glistening drops of dew! Do you remember?

He could see the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. He was watching Prafulla babu in this state, rubbing an eggplant on his cheek. Prafulla babu shifted his position. He put the eggplant down by his side. A member of the Rotary Club, a guide to research students, a personage whose name could be found in the Who’s Who, a frequent flyer – that Dr Roychoudhury opened the newspaper, and re-read the report: ‘Furnace water flowing downstream into Damodar River’. The water is contaminated. It can no longer be used. There will be water scarcity in Durgapur.

Prafulla babu stood near the elevator, buried in eggplants. The driver had been given his share too. Seventh floor. Mrs Roychoudhury opened the door. ‘What’s this? So many eggplants?’ she exclaimed at the profusion of eggplants. Dr Roychoudhury dropped them onto the sofa. Some bounced on the mosaic floor. Mrs Roychoudhury was thrilled. So fresh! She thought, Mr Trivedi is a vegetarian. He’ll be pleased. She had to also give some to Jayashree, Suvadra, Shanta. They would all be delighted – fresh eggplants from the countryside.

Eggplants weren’t rare things. They were easily available. May be even some that were just as fresh. But somehow these were drawing a new kind of attention.

Mr Trivedi grew chillies in pots on his rooftop. Occasionally, he would gift a few. Those were kept aside to be relished with steaming rice and ghee. Prafulla babu remembered he had once exclaimed in delight, ‘Oh, what a scent’ just because they were grown without chemical fertilisers!

That evening, Mrs Roychoudhury announced excitedly, ‘For dinner we’ll have roasted eggplants.’

Kuntala returned home a little late. ‘Bapi, I went to see a play,’ she said. She was doing her master’s at Jadavpur University. Purnima was very busy at that moment. She had already smeared mustard oil on the eggplant. Roasting them directly on the gas stove was always a bit messy. Kuntala went to help her mother. The maid had left – as she always did – right before her favourite programme on the national channel. The eggplant was placed on the roti-toasting sieve on the low flame.

Eggplants are older than humans. But their evolution has stopped, and they have reached their final form. So now humans roast them. If it so happens that human evolution halts, and eggplants evolve further, will there come a time when eggplants roast humans?

They had the roasted eggplant garnished with mustard oil.

Kuntala said, ‘Why don’t you bring more like these sometimes…?’

‘Yes, I will. I’ll bring baichi if I find them, I will. Do you know baichi?’

‘What’s that?’

‘You don’t! Gaab, do you know gaab?’

‘Gaab? What a funny name!’

‘Dheuah?’

Kuntala burst out laughing. ‘What are you saying today, Bapi. Such funny names!’

‘Dheuah, they’re a golden fruit, sweet and tangy. The pods are small and soft … no, you wouldn’t know. You people know lanolin, eau de cologne, dental fluoride.’

The phone rang. ‘Trivedi speaking. Your eggplant was delicious. Very good. Very sweet and soft too – that’s because it’s fresh; no fertilisers. Convey my thanks to your wife.’

No fertiliser, therefore tasty. But how could they be sure that no fertiliser had been used? Both he and Trivedi worked at the Fertiliser Corporation of India, but that didn’t mean that they would know just by tasting them. Wasn’t that just wishful thinking! How long had it been since humans learnt to make urea by synthesis? Now, even the word ‘fertiliser’ was considered nauseating. They had grown allergic to the term ‘insecticide’. And the moment they heard ‘proton-neutron-electron’, they felt a flash of Hiroshima heat…

Anxious scientists occupied the tv screen. The furnace oil contaminating the Damodar River was moving downstream. Purnima asked, ‘Do people die if they drink that water? Prafulla babu replied, ‘No, not exactly…’ Kuntala asked, ‘Bapi, has the Damodar ultimately merged with the Ganga?’

Prafulla babu felt a little uneasy. He wasn’t quite sure of Bengal’s river maps anymore. He pulled a book from the shelf and flipped through it. He said, ‘It’s far south of Kolkata, a dead Damodar. Kolkata is safe.’

Both Purnima and Kuntala said at the same time, ‘What a relief!’

Prafulla babu couldn’t exactly make out why he was feeling a bit different that day. How could a simple eggplant of the Solanaceae variety move him so deeply! Lying on a Relaxon mattress, under a dim blue light, why did he feel that an Australopithecus rested inside a cave. There was a moon in the sky. A herd of spotted deer had gathered round a lake, thirsty. The Australopithecus rose to drink water. Prafulla babu opened the fridge, drank some water. In the faint light inside the refrigerator, he saw the curves of the eggplants. They seemed to have lost their earlier sheen. Was it due to the cold? He took one out. Switched on the light. He saw tiny water droplets shimmered on its surface. Raga Ananda Bhairabi resonated within him. It’s dew! Dew everywhere! On the smooth skin of the eggplant – his childhood memories!

‘What’s going on?’ Purnima stirred, awakened by the light.

Prafulla babu returned to bed. How old is human life? How many million years? But, this species of eggplant had been on Earth for two million years along with kolmilata and sushni sag, with goatlings, swans, bulbuls and parrots, with baichi fruits, and the rustle of coconut leaves, and dew-drenched fruits and flowers. How powerful were the last two hundred years that they could wrench the eggplants out of those ancient times?

The next morning Prafulla babu woke up, walked to the fridge, and took out another eggplant. He went out to the balcony. The water droplets formed in the fridge were nothing like natural dew. Prafulla babu saw that the eggplant was entirely covered by drops of water. Natural dew, formed in air and sky, clung like molten pearls. Just one or two quivering drops of liquid. Machine-generated dew was nothing like that.

Does one see dew in Kolkata? Prafulla babu hadn’t ever seen morning dew in the city. He studied late and couldn’t wake up before seven. The flat had no opening on the eastern side. Early morning rays had no point of entry. In the winter mornings, from the balcony, one could view the fog-wrapped city and the geometrical patterns of tyres on the wet asphalt road.

On his way back from the university, Prafulla babu bought a spool of thick thread. That night, he took out an eggplant from the fridge, wiped it softly with a towel, tied the stem with the thread and hung it from the balcony.

Purnima was sleeping, she smelled of light jasmine – her talcum powder. That was synthetic: benzyl acetate. He had to wake up early. He went to bed. Nowadays insomnia gripped him. He counted sheep, took sleeping pills. He had to sleep today. He wanted to get up early and show everybody: see Kuntala see, look at the gleaming dew.

Prafulla babu sees as if in a dream that a hook is stuck on his back, as on the backs of devotees of charak. That hook is tied with a nylon string and a live eggplant is at the other end of the string. Prafulla babu is being brought down. He coughs terribly as the white smoke below sinks in the clouds. Someone says in a metallic voice, ‘MIC gas. From Bhopal. Do you enjoy it?’ After that there is a flashing burst of colours. The same voice says, ‘Proceed. Become Shiva. Smear yourself with the ashes of Chernobyl.’

Prafulla babu got up in a rush. It was seven already. He went to the balcony, pulled up the thread and lifted the eggplant. It was dry. Do you expect to find dew at seven?

That very day, on his way back from the university, he bought an alarm clock. Was he overreacting? Buying an alarm clock for an eggplant, or for a drop of dew?

Is there any formula for what is excessive and what is not? Once he was so keen on listening to Debabrata Biswas singing Tagore’s ‘keno cheye acho go Ma’, ‘Oh Ma, why do you look so expectantly…’ that he drove to Somesh’s house in Barasat, that too on a Sunday, using up six litres of petrol. Was that an excess? Was it an excess when the mother–daughter duo spent the whole afternoon mixing flour and egg for a cake? Moreover, an alarm clock is a useful thing, we may need it sometime. The old one has been out of use for long. It’s good to be an early riser. One can do light free hand…

The minute he rang the bell, Kuntala opened the door. She had a mischievous smile, and Purnima looked grave. Kuntala jokingly asked, ‘Did you hang the eggplant, Bapi?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know, Bapi, when Ma told me I laughed it away. What a surprise then, when I saw a piece of thread on your table, the spool, and the knot on the grill.’

Prafulla babu smiled, tapped gently on Kuntala’s shoulder and said, ‘Again tomorrow! How about that?’

‘Please stop!’ Purnima said. ‘Are you aware of the vulgar comments Trivedi made about the hanging eggplant? Tell me, why play like a kid at your age?’

‘Play! No, no, it’s research. Well, not exactly research. Yes, a game of sorts.’

‘Please be serious.’ Purnima’s voice was sharp. ‘Will you please tell me, what the purpose is of all this?’

‘I wanted to check if there was dew on the eggplant.’

‘Madness! What purpose would that serve?’

‘So much could have gone wrong. People want to return to their ancestral homes. Don’t you visit your paternal house even though you parents are gone? Just look at the sari you are wearing – a printed medley of greens! There are embroidered flowers on the pillowcases. You’re trying to be a daughter of the forest, drifting among the greenery. Look at our windows – the money plant creepers. In the corner, a brown rubber plant. On the wall, a plastic butterfly. And in the puja room when you fan the gods with chaamor, what do you think of but a horse’s tail?’

‘Please stop! That’s enough!’

That night, while applying cream on her face, Purnima said, ‘At times you behave so childishly, it’s embarrassing. It’s beneath our dignity. You know how narrow-minded Mrs Trivedi is. The way you dangled the eggplant – it hung right in front of their balcony.

‘So what?’

‘Well, people are making vulgar remarks – and these are educated women, mind you!’

Now, from her tone, Prafulla babu could assume that this was her prelude to a longer session. Kuntala was studying in the other room – she still read aloud. Purnima combed her hair. Usually, by this point, she’d comment on her hair fall. Today she didn’t say any such thing. Prafulla babu was at his table, the table lamp glowing. Purnima suddenly switched off the tube light and stepped inside the mosquito net. Turning on her side she mumbled, ‘So strange! Of all things, a hanging eggplant. An eggplant. Tied to a thread from Dr Roychaudhury’s flat and swinging in front of the Trivedi’s.’

‘Jayasree saw it first, on her morning walk. On her way back, she asked Mrs Trivedi what the matter was. And then, right then, they saw the eggplant moving – upwards. That was when you were just pulling it up. Do you want to know what Mrs Trivedi said? She said she finds it all mysterious. ‘Something suspicious must be going on. First, they sent raw eggplants, now here is a hanging one. Must be voodoo. Some mantra.’ Want to know more? She even said I must have feelings for Mr Trivedi, and that I’m the one behind all this. The gossip has spread across the whole complex.’

Purnima now moved away from her side of the bed and said, ‘Because of your outlandish ideas I have to suffer.’

Prafulla babu did not respond. He switched off the table lamp and lay down beside her. He drew Purnima close, stroking her hair. As he caressed her cheek, he felt her tears. His hand recoiled. Can water shock like electricity?

Prafulla Babu began to flee – from his lecture halls, from his PCRC identity, from his Dr Roychoudhury persona, from seminars, and symposiums, from the confines of his eight-hundred-and-ten-square-foot apartment. He ran across massive zebra crossings towards a distant unknown. He could hear the water hyacinths flop down under his feet, the buzz of dragonfly wings, the rustle of dry fig leaves, his white-clad, widowed didima’s lullaby from the distant past as he lay on her lap: ‘Ghum jayre ghum jayre ghumer latapata, dui duare ghum jayre duti dumur pata. Henshel ghore ghum jayre bhromora bhromori… (Sleep comes and goes, the creepers of slumber sleep/sleep flits through the two doors where two fig leaves sleep/in the kitchen sleep a pair of bees…). Then, all he could hear was the dragonfly’s hum. He desperately needed to sleep … sleep. He pleaded, ‘Oh, creepers of slumber, wrap me up in your tangled vine.’ He felt thirsty. Water. He opened the fridge. Again, the same eggplants. He walked back to the room, stepped inside the blue mosquito net, he looked at Purnima – her sorrow-smudged sleep, and returned to the irresistible eggplants. The fridge opened as if it was a morgue. Some eggplants lay still. He picked one up by the stem and laid it on the floor. The yellow glow of a halogen light somewhere outside, pierced through the glass window and entered the silent room. Everyone was asleep. Without switching on the light, he very cautiously groped for the spool of thread and grasped it. No, not that balcony again. He walked to the dining room window, opened it. It was half past twelve at night and Kolkata was still awake. From the seventh floor everything below looked like toys. Two toy men stepped out of a toy Maruti. A pop song was playing in some apartment nearby. Prafulla babu gently wiped the machine-generated dewdrops from the eggplant. Then he tied the stem to a long piece of thread and let it down, this time, further, so it dropped below the flat of the Trivedis. He went to his room and grabbed the alarm clock. He closed the bathroom door and wound the clock; he did not want anyone to hear any sound. He set the alarm for 4:30, then shifted it to 4:45. Pressing the clock to his chest, he fell asleep. All night the clock ticked. Suddenly, it shrieked. He silenced it instantly and sprang out of bed. He went straight to the window. He pulled up the thread, it felt light. There was only the thread, nothing hanging from it. He pressed his head on the window grill and saw the thread fluttering freely in the wind. Prafulla babu ran down the stairs – in vest and pajamas – out onto the street.

In the early hours of the morning, a soft blue radiance spread across the earth and sky. In that light, he saw the eggplant. On the road.

It was half crushed, and its white flesh, patterned geometrically by tyre tracks, spread on the dark asphalt road. The rest of the bruised, blood-stained remains still stuck to the stem, and Prafulla babu saw there, right at the joint, on the glossy purple skin, a single quivering drop of dew.

Prafulla babu’s hand gently lifted the remains as if his arm was a crane. He heard drums. He heard ululations. Just then, a Hero Honda roared past behind him. If he looked up, he would see a magic mountain. A cave and its dark interior. Who stood there? The primeval woman? C 16, 7th floor. Was it Purnima? Purnima – just look, just look…

Prafulla babu watched mesmerised. At that very moment, Purnima’s hand, too, became a crane. He looked into her eyes. She was wiping away her tears…

Dewdrops! Dewdrops!