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Peter Cat Restaurant.
The glazed floor-spring door right in front slowly swung open. A glimpse of a man in a waist-coat and a bow-tie could be seen; in his hands a list. The names of guests waiting patiently for their turn at dinner were written serially on it. “Naveen Mittal, Neha Gupta, Avinash Bannerjee” – the man called out the names in order.
No, Mohua’s and Aveek’s names were not announced this time either. It was nearly ten at night on the clock. There was still a long queue of guests waiting outside. Mohua and Aveek too slowly started feeling a tad bored having to wait so long amidst a crowd of aristocratic guests.
Park Street; an aristocratic area of Kolkata, not just of today but of yore. This aristocracy stretches back to the times when the architecture of the colonial British rule was gradually taking shape. Mohua’s grandfather was a retired colonel in the post-independence Indian army. After retirement, he was a resident of Kolkata for a long time. It is from her grandfather that Mohua had heard so many old stories of Kolkata. The first department store in the country since the days of the British, was Hall and Anderson. Clutching onto her grandfather’s fingers, Mohua still remembered those childhood days of visiting that very store in Park Street as if these memories were of just the other day. The first nightclub of the country, Mocambo, was also something that she heard of from her grandfather. The dance floor of Mocambo made of Belgian glass attracted dancers from far off Europe and Mexico!
Stepping onto Park Street after so long really reminded Mohua of her retired colonel dadubhai a lot. Ah, with that semi-greying moustache, what a face dadubhai had, flush and ripe!
After her marriage, having quit her job at ENVIGIAR in Manyata Tech Park, Bangalore, Mohua arrived at Aveek’s place of work, Kolkata. Since the day they started staying at that apartment in Salt Lake, she had been nagging Aveek---one Saturday evening, they would go to Park Street for dinner. To have dinner with Aveek at Park Street was a dream of her since the days of her adolescence, of her youth. Many Saturdays slid past them with various excuses but their dinner at Park Street did not happen. If today it was Aveek’s manager’s daughter’s birthday party, tomorrow it'd be trip auditing at his office – basically in the fast-paced corporate life, their dinner date at Park Street kept getting postponed.
The foreign cars were all parked in the parking zone. Bored standing in front of the restaurant, some were seen going to their Mercedes Benz to sit a while; someone was leaning back on their Ford Ikon. Every now and then, the man in the waist-coat and bow-tie would appear all of a sudden at the spring-door with the list stuck on a hard-board. The waiting guests would look up at him. Ah, who would be the lucky ones this time?
The night was slowly deepening. It was a suffocating wait. Bela Sarkar, Shoumik Ray. Heaving a sigh of relief and with the aanchal of her jamdani saree flowing in the air, Bela Sarkar gracefully walks towards the spring door; in her two eyes float images of the tasty and tempting dishes of the ancient and prestigious Peter Cat restaurant.
Park Street; it was a road coming from Fort William in the days of the British. All around the street was abandoned marshy land and on the other end was a graveyard. On the uneven road laid with stones, only horse-carriages plied. This was even before the Plassey War; British architecture hadn’t yet made its mark in Kolkata. Slowly with the coming of the Americans and the Jews, many new avenues started springing up; this was the beginning of British architecture. On one end of the street was the bungalow of Iliwel sahab, the chief justice; a personal deer park within his compound. It was this park that was included in the name of the street and it became Park Street. Mohua’s grandfather would happily dress up these stories and narrate them to Mohua.
The English left and today, Park Street has been re-christened to Mother Teresa Sarani; but how many really know of this name today! Mohua feels as if Park Street was a connecting corridor between pre-independent British Calcutta and the Kolkata of today!
But this much is true, even though this crowd of people waiting till midnight to have their dinner at Peter Cat wasn’t the same like the rich and aristocratic Britishers of yore, they belonged to the wealthy middle-class of today. Ah, it was customary earlier in the evenings to see them attired in their suits and ties, thronging to Mocambo and Skyline. Her grandfather Bibhuti Bhushan Choudhury had told her that the wealthy back then would come from far off Lahore to Park Street just to shop! Back then the doors of Park Street were open only for the aristocrats!
Waiting on the footpath looking at the pedestrians walking all around her, Mohua realised that today having money was enough to come to Park Street; one didn’t really need to be an aristocrat. And the ways and attire of these people in Park Street now was entirely post-modern! That wide-eyed woman there, was attired in a sleeveless top and a long skirt, waves from which were sweeping the main road. And there, between the fingers of the teenaged girl having a chuski wearing a golden skirt was a cigarette. Another blue-eyed girl, not too far from her, had a joint in her hand. Among these so-called high-born, rich women, a small girl of about seven or eight was moving about, clad in an oversized frock and with unkempt reddish hair. There was a packet in her hand and in that packet was about a couple of dozen long Cadbury chocolates. Amongst these aristocratic women, she was scurrying here and there like a tiny mouse, breathing in the fragrance of costly silk and branded perfumes. Suddenly she stopped in front of a lady and lifted up the packet to her. “Twenty rupees”, the price was always on her lips.
The moment the woman shook her head in refusal, the tiny girl disappeared like the porpoise diving into water and then emerged in front of some other potential customers. Her target was people who had with them children her own age. Perhaps someone or the other amongst them bought a chocolate or two from her; quickly pocketing the money, she would be off again to some distant land! She had no time to wait at all. Mastering the art of business at such a young age was something that did not escape Aveek’s notice. Mohua on the other hand doesn’t really pay much attention to all this. Her thoughts were flowing elsewhere.
The evening was over and the night, deepening. Mohua was really getting worried – this tiny little girl wouldn’t disappear somewhere in the deep darkness of the night, would she? One would hear of so many terrible incidents everywhere these days! The bodies of innocent young girls would be found in septic tanks, in ditches. Mohua was really worried about the little one. Ah, if only all her chocolates were sold soon. There – she was still roaming about amidst the crowd of people. Was this little girl all alone in this sea of people? Maybe there were others just like her roaming in the vicinity, selling something or the other. They will all perhaps gather in the footpath under the light of the halogen bulb to count their earnings at the end of the day’s business.
Once while shopping with Aveek in Chowringhee, having seen a similar girl selling things on the street, Aveek had said “They’re running quite a business, you know. A bunch of dalals put these items for sale in the hands of these kids and leave them in different streets and localities”.
“With these kids?! They’re running a racket?!” Mohua’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked at Aveek with a questioning gaze.
“Yes, it’s a business; it’s a fact. Who knows which dalal stationed somewhere nearby is keeping a hawk's eye on them even as we speak?”
She was shocked at Aveek’s response.
“You think they are but young children but they are far more experienced than you in the cruelty of life, Mohua! Do you think they ask for your pity? No, never. They will never beg; they will earn their keep.”
A surge of emotions overpowered Mohua; Aveek tried to explain to her about the state of the real world with these incidents. She listened to all of it quietly. Her heart wailed with agony for some unknown reason. Despite being so close to Mohua, Aveek felt so distant from her. How many times over the years since they got married, Mohua had been to the infertility clinic and how many times she had had to endure IVF failure. Grief-stricken , she would lose it at the sight of these children; if only one could pick one of them up from the streets and bring them home, close to her bosom. Carrying so many tempting chocolates in their hand, didn’t they ever feel like tasting one? Was somebody really tracking their actions from afar, like Aveek had said?
Aveek’s eyes were fixed upon the spring-door of Peter Cat and yet through the corner of his eyes he noticed Mohua’s actions. Mohua’s overwhelming worry for the little girl was something that did not escape Aveek’s eyes. He would impatiently look at his watch now and then, it was nearly 10:30, what should they do; would it be better just to head back home? No, Mohua would be very disappointed; she had had her heart set on this since so long. How often she would talk of Park Street, holding onto the stories and tales told to her by dadubhai. The Chicken Ala Kiev cooked by the Italian chef at Mocambo, the Lobster Thermidor of Blue Fox and the sizzlers from Moulin Rouge would travel on the evening flight and reach Indira Gandhi’s dinner table. Famous five-star hotels of the country could not compete with the likes of Blue Fox, Mocambo and Moulin Rouge! As a result of this, in post-independent India, Kolkata had transformed into a mercantile farm, housing the headquarters of corporate houses.
Pushing through the crowds, the little girl suddenly came and stood in front of Mohua. In the light of the halogen lamp, her malnourished dry body appeared pale like the water hyacinth. Perhaps she got an inkling of Mohua’s earnest sadness towards her. Did the little girl see through Mohua?
Mohua took out a hundred rupee note from her branded Lavie purse.
“Twenty rupees for one, madam. How many do you want?”
She spoke very quickly, as if uttering something she had learnt by rote.
“Five”, Mohua answered.
The little girl rolled up the note and put it into a fold of her undergarment; and in a swift business-like manner, she held up five chocolates to Mohua.
Mohua betrayed no signs of wanting to stretch her hand out and collect those chocolates.
The girl stood there, astonished.
Looking into the little one’s surprised eyes, Mohua now spoke very slowly.
“I bought these chocolates for you. Please have them, child. Don’t you ever feel like eating them?”
“No”
There was such extreme conviction in the little girl’s answer!
She quickly put the chocolates back into her packet and before Mohua could argue or say anything, she swiftly took the crisp hundred rupee note from her folds and pressed it back into Mohua’s hand, and faded away. The astonished Mohua kept looking at the hazy figure of the little girl disappearing into the sea of humanity.
Aveek slowly patted Mohua who had become very still, on the back, and said:
“Relax Mohua, relax. Take it easy!”
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