“Ode to a Soundbox”

Jhinuk stood outside the red-brick building and looked at the black letters scrawled in Bengali across the white marble facade, “Abha Rani Villa” it said, a house lovingly named by her grandfather after the indomitable woman that was his wife, the centre of his rather short life. Her grandmother had passed away just three days back and today the family members had gathered to decide what to do with her things.

“Don’t go there”, her father had cautioned her, “It’s a scavenger’s hunt”, he spit out the words distastefully. Her father had never understood his mother’s decision to choose her renters over her own son, he did not understand her desire for economic freedom when he was there to cater to her wishes. So, he had bought a plot of land, laid anchor for the first time in his life, never quite settled in the new neighbourhood, which had remained new twenty-eight years after they had built a house. He had seldom gone back to his childhood home, barring the customary days of Saptami and Ashtami on Durga Puja and Poila Baisakh and never once stayed the night, even though her grandmother would peremptorily insist. On the night she died, Jhinuk watched her inordinately strong father break down, deliriously sad, addressing her as Ma, looking into her eyes and saying, “You turn more and more into her with each passing day”.

“Thik ache Baba, it’s alright father, calm down, I’m right here”, was all she could muster, while the others looked at her, the question lingering straight on their faces- what is a woman doing at a burning ghat?

Jhinuk sighed, why did she have these thoughts all of a sudden? She trudged her way up the stairs. Her reason for coming here was to look at her Thamma’s things one last time. As if they would give you anything, her mother had scoffed. It was useless often times to reason with her parents and so she would just nod silently. She was an unusually silent child right from her early days, an only girl in a family of boys, a dark girl in a family of exquisitely fair women, always a misfit, always bubbling with questions, she dare not open her mouth.

She took off her slippers and her feet touched the blessed cold of the red cement floor. It was the 10^th of February, yet Kolkata was unusually warm. Her Kakima spotted her from the verandah, and waved at her, “Manu, ginger tea?”

Jhinuk smiled, her Kakima had been the only other person in the family to call her that, the primary being her Thamma, and was the only one with a ready hug and easy warmth emanating from her. She had always wanted a daughter, had been blessed with sons, and Jhinuk had been a shy substitute for a latent dream. She looked at her lovingly and nodded at the neat piles of books, Anandabazar Patrika, magazines, bed covers, trinkets from travel arranged in the verandah; the sarees and jewellery had been claimed previously. Kakima laughed, “It’s a wonder how your grandmother stocked all that inside that room. Manu, look at what you want. Don’t be bashful, please. Anything you want really.”

Jhinuk leaned her chin against the soft hands of her Kakima and smiled gratefully. She never felt not at home in her presence. The rest, of course, was a different story. Her Pishis, aunts, looked at her in ill-disguised suspicion, “What is the quiet one doing here?”, they exclaimed to each other, loudly enough for her to hear. Jhinuk went and gave them the cursory smile, before entering her Thamma’s room. “Never talks that one, strange child.”

She watched her aunts sifting through the pile and sharing stories about their mother and bellowing in nostalgic laughter. Jhinuk looked at the room. It looked extraordinarily large in the late morning sun. The walls were that waned pistachio green colour with faded lilac curtains, the room had always reminded her of pistachios, her Thamma’s favourite dry fruit. They would put a handful in their mouth with a conspiratorial wink, while her Thamma would make Sandesh, a delicacy prepared only during festivals and her birthdays. Her Thamma would call her Ma Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom. She had asked one time, “But Thamma, why don’t you call me Ma Lakshmi, like the others?”

“That’s because child, you will study a lot when you grow up. You will educate others. We have a lot of Ma Lakshmis, we could do with a few more Saraswatis.”

Everything her Grandmother said made sense to her. She would often ponder her words at night when sleep would refuse to come. She has always had a busy mind. Her grandmother was extremely fond of reading. Jhinuk thought she was perhaps the only person who used to read the newspaper bags the grocery would come in. They would be stuffed in weird shapes under her mattress to be read later. Jhinuk had begun the habit of saving every scrap of written Bengali material she could find and give it to her Thamma. In the lazy afternoons that she would return from school, Jhinuk would teach her Thamma English in exchange for stories. Her grandmother was a master storyteller, enthralling her childhood imagination with myths, fairy tales and detective stories. They would eat delectable murrabba, sweet mango pickle from glass jars, and share stories, their feet dangling from the high teak bed that had come with Thamma to this house, at the age of fourteen.

The beautiful teak bed was strangely empty, bereft of its mattress and the beautifully embroidered bed cover, in her Thamma’s loving hand. How she had chafed against learning how to stitch in her adolescence.

“Why do I need to learn how to stitch Thamma? It’s so girly and I hate it.”

“Manu, je meye raadhe, shei chul ow baadhe”, loosely translated as a truly empowered woman is self-sufficient. She plodded on with run stitch and chain stitch and hem stitch and satin stitch to please her grandmother, but these words rung true in her ears when her husband expressed surprise at her ability to fix her own buttons in her kurtas. She had smiled and thought, will have to tell Thamma. There were so many things left unsaid. She was always too busy.

She placed her hand on the flowers engraved in the bedposts, looking closely at the layers of dust that had gathered over the years, and the bright polish of the wood where it was exposed, touched and attentively polished. Her Thamma would often lie in her bed, her skin smelling of Mysore sandal soap, her luxurious, long hair falling loosely over the ornate bedpost, drying in the afternoon sun, more black than white, with streaks of burnished gold, where she had applied henna. They would listen to the radio, to her favourite songs in the Calcutta B channel, and her Thamma would teach her to sing. She would affectionately call her Munia, a songbird. She had fought vehemently with her son to give Jhinuk a formal musical training, but her father had considered it a frivolous enterprise for a good student. Her grandmother had taken it upon herself to make her sing, “Can’t have you quiet all the time my dear Munia. Sing my child”. Jhinuk absent-mindedly hummed her grandmother’s favourite song:

Ore mono pakhi,

Kyano daka daki,

Tui thaak na re, gopone…

Oh my heart’s songbird, why do you call? Why don’t you stay within me, hidden?

She wondered what secrets did her Thamma’s heart hold. Curiously enough, while she shared everything with her Grandmother, apart from the frightful things of course, Jhinuk knew little of her Grandmother’s childhood, apart from the few stories that she told her in those lazy afternoons. Orphaned at the age of nine, she was brought up by her maternal uncle till they found her a suitable groom, ten years older. Thamma was a diminutive young Boro Bou, elder bride, till she took charge of everything.

“Manu, tea.”

“Yes, Kakima. Thank you.”

“Where’s the sonodyne?”

“The what?”

“The radio?”

“Oh, that? It must be on top of the Almirah. It’s been in a state of disrepair for ages. Thamma used the transistor that your Kaka had gifted, these past few years. Why?”

“Can I have a look at it?”

“Of course. But I have a question Manu. Would you want your Thamma’s mahogany almirah? I know how you love that. Remember the time you hid in that thing and all of us were frantic looking for you? Who would have thought that you were a naughty child?”

“Na Kakima. I don’t want anything expensive.”

“Why? You are a daughter of this house and you can have it if you want.”

Her Choto Pishi came along and said, “Where will she find the space in her tiny one-bedroom apartment to store this large almirah? Boudi, I tell you. Sell off the bed, the dining table and the almirah. They are pure teak and would fetch a good price. Rohan has planned such modern furniture for this room.”

Rohan, her cousin, Kakima’s son, was a younger sibling she was particularly close to. He was planning a marriage next year and would take up this room, since it was the largest in the house. Jhinuk nodded, “Yes Kakima, that’ll be wise.”

Her aunt unsure of the agreement waddled off. Jhinuk remembered the time Dadu had passed away and Thamma had declared a few days later that she would give up fish. Jhinuk could not acclimate with this decision and the unusually quiet child spoke up, “Thamma, are they forcing you to do this? Please tell me.”

“Don’t take your name literally. You are no Jhansi ki Rani. It is my mother’s decision. You stay out of it”, Choto Pishi had hissed.

“Na my dear, I am doing it out of love. You will too. You will find someone you would sacrifice things you love for.”

“Accha, ok.” As usual, Jhinuk knew better than to question her grandmother’s sagacity.

Jhinuk slowly got up on the bed and tied to pry at the top of the almirah.

“Bordidi, do you need help?” Rohan called out.

“Yes please”

“What are you looking for?”

“The old sonodyne. Thamma’s gaan er bashko, the soundbox.”

Both of them burst out laughing. No matter how hard they tried, Thamma would never call it radio or the proper Bangla pronunciation for a box, baksho. It was her world, her link to outer space, just as the word was hers and hers alone. Sifting through the old newspapers, a shoe box, sneezing in the dust, they found it hidden under a beige tablecloth. Slowly, gingerly, the two kept it on the thread-bare bed. Jhinuk looked at the radio, the label Sonodyne, emblazoned boldly in metallic letters, its honey-coloured wood still shone mildly in the afternoon sun, the front of the box, a network of intricate honeycomb mesh, knobs of steel poking at her feet. As soon as she looked at it, she could hear the morning music of the All India Radio, to which she would wake up. This sudden memory brought tears to her eyes. She reached into her bag and brought out a wad of tissues and began rubbing the surface vehemently, tears streaming down her face, her guilt constricting her heart. Why had she always been busy? Rohan laid a hand on her shoulder and softly walked out. She felt grateful to be left alone.

“Look at her, hard as nails, not a single tear for her grandmother.” Someone among her relatives had said. She was too busy to cry, her eyes desperately looking out for her father.

Jhinuk had always been an outsider in her family, but her sudden decision to quietly marry a man, younger than her, had cemented her strangeness in her family. Going against her parents’ wishes, she had disclosed her wish to her beloved Thamma, imploring her,

“You do understand right? I feel safe and okay with him.”

“You are a brave girl, Manu. You have nothing to worry about. Both of you earn, you will be able to take care of each other. Tell me”, she added with a wink, “Does he take you to the movies?”

“Yes Thamma, we go almost every week.”

“Then you are in good hands. You have my blessing. You will have a good marriage”, she had said with a far-away look in her eyes. 

This quiet moment in her grandmother’s room was not enough to bid goodbye to all that she had meant to Jhinuk, but she was glad she had come today, to take in the sights and smells of the room before modernity touched it. The Sonodyne was the repository of her secrets, of her afternoons with her grandmother, of music, of the songs they had sung together, of pickles, of crooked embroidery lessons. She made a decision.

“Kakima. Can I take the Sonodyne?”

“Yes of course you can. But Manu, it doesn’t make music anymore. What will you do with it? It’s junk. I was thinking of giving it away to the local junk shop.”

“I know. Someday, I will be like it too.” She would explain to her husband later.

“Let her take it. Maybe she’ll write a song on it. She is the poet after all.” Her Boro Pishi chimed in humorously.

Jhinuk tenderly covered the Sonodyne with the table cloth and hummed to herself,

Oh my heart’s songbird, why do you call? Why don’t you stay within me, hidden?

Monograph Magazine, Vol 6, March 2022