She adored expensive perfume, sadly something I share with her - why on why can't I be happy with the odd drop of patchouli? One of the hardest things to go without in Calcutta was her perfume - even bought on the black market it was often adulterated and unusable. I remember once waiting in Siliguri for a plane to Calcutta , one of the tea garden ladies returning from home leave dropping her precious Duty Free bag, and the scent of Chanel and Dior somehow absorbing her sobs . Tea gardener's wives only went on leave every four years. For her, it was a tragedy.
Mum's driver George was a bit of a rogue. We all knew it but Mum having given her affection could see no wrong, He had run off with my darling Joe's Rosie and for months we all held our breath but Joe was a good man, he took his son and never spoke to,or of, either of them again, He operated a very lucrative money lending business - when we lived in Alipore Estates Abdul and I would hide behind a car and watch as the durwans, sweepers, bearers and ayahs queued to make their payments. Mum of course refused to accept it - "simply helping them dear, he is a very kind man",
This "very kind man" also arranged for us to hire an Ambassador to drive to Puri in - he neglected to mention it was one of his fleet of six cars that were hired for wedding and grand occasions. But to his credit, when the Naxalite Buddhist cook tried to arrange some dire misfortune, George stepped in and all was well,
He was very partial to a drink - holidays in Puri involved much mirth at the sight of George unshaven, in a lungi, straw hat and dark glasses when he made his infrequent forays into the harsh daylight.
Like most people in Calcutta he was constantly involved in litigation of one form or another and had frequent mornings off to attend court, He had one of the best barristers in the city as his lawyer and seemed to comfortably win most cases. One day, on the way out to Tolly a strikingly handsome woman called to form the side of the road. Mum told him to go and see what she wanted. They talked for a few minutes and the woman gave him a folder of legal looking papers; "She could be his lawyer's wife", Mum whispered, "Or another floozie," snorted my sister.
George got back into the car and we drove off in anticipatory silence. Finally Mum could bear it no more, "George. Who was that woman?"
We almost went of the road as he started to laugh -"That's not a woman Mam, that's my lawyer" The silence had now become incredulous. " But she is a woman?'
"Noooo Mum! He is a hijra, both man and woman. In the daytine he is a very respected lawyer - at night he dances. When a baby is born wrong - both boy and girl, the hijras come and they sing and dance and take the baby away to raise among themselves,"
Of course this had to be investigated further so we all went to court with George the next time he was there. Alipore Courthouse and Maycombe Court are inextricably linked - I was reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' at the time and it seemed to me that I was seeing the same people and activities that Harper Lee had in faraway Alabama.
Lines of young men with ancient typewriter waited expectantly for their clients to dictate their cases, alongside them there were rows of barbers waiting to give shaves to the appellants and accused, equipped with razors that made naming them cutthroat was nowhere near an accurate description. There were paan sellers and biri wallas, the man who squeezed the sweet juice of the sugar cane from between two villainous looking cogged wheels, and through it all that most common of sounds, "Chai, guram chai!"
George went into the courthouse and we sat under a peepul tree and watched the drama of the day unfold in front of us. And then we spotted him - a small old man struggling with a heavy wooden box. We called him over and we seemed suddenly to have left this place and be in a souk in a Thousand and One Nights. Inside the box there must have been at least 50 little bottles of essential oils alongside vials and glass bottles containing water and spirit. He was a street parfumier. We all soon smelled like the most Babyloniash of whores and were utterly enchanted with this new game.
George and the hermaphrodite lawyer (now dressed in an expensive looking suit, the only give away was slight over rouging of the cheek bones) and they took over, The old man had lost this case and giving up his perfumes - he wanted to sell them and use the money to get home to his village. I don;t need to labour the point do I? To misquote Ms Bronte - reader we bought them.
For six months the house smelt of jasmine, lilies and roses. Never quite got the blending right and my father finally put his foot firmly down and said the perfume or him. Mum did have to think about it for at least ten seconds. A month later he went to Bangkok with a patient and bought her the most enormous bottle of Chanel 5. Yet again optimism triumphed albeit somewhat circuitously.
Millesimo
And Happy Diwali
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