Hemanter Pakhi
Autumn Bird
Suchitra Bhattacharya
Translated by
Swapna Dutta
Srishti
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S RISHTI P UBLISHERS & D ISTRIBUTORS
64-A, Adhchini
Sri Aurobindo Marg
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First published in English by Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2003
Copyright original Bangla Suchitra Bhattacharya
Copyright English translation: Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2003
ISBN 81-88575-03-8
Rs. 195.00
Cover design: Vinayak Bhattacharya
Cover photographs: Courtesy NFDC
Typeset in AGaramond 11pt. by Skumar at Srishti.
Printed and bound in India by Saurabh Print-O-Pack, Noida
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Chapter
One
A diti was trying to make the caged parrot talk. It was something she tried every afternoon when there was no one around. The parrot was determined not to utter a sound. Aditi was equally determined to get her way. It was a strange game involving the two.
Aditi had bought the bird a couple of months ago from a wayside dealer, paying eighty rupees in hard cash. The bird wasnt particularly young. In fact, it was fairly big in size. Its deep green colour looked mature, as did its well grown wings and the clear black buckle like a band around its neck. The bird-seller had held forth about its many virtues. He could have beaten Supratim, the seasoned salesman, hollow!
Take the bird, Boudi he had pleaded, Its fully trained and just ready for a home. Youd need less than a week to tame it - totally and absolutely. Cant you see its a genuine Singapore parrot? Itll chatter nineteen to the dozen and repeat whatever it gets to hear. Stretch out your arms and it will fly to you. It will cling to your shoulder like a baby. In fact, you wont even feel like putting it inside a cage, youll get so fond of it.
But the bird refused to talk. For more than a month now Aditi had heard nothing more than a harsh, ugly croak from it. As for taming the creature, the bird came to attack her with a raucous squawk even when she tried to feed it. It was downright humiliating! Something that made her feel embarrassed before Supratim and her two sons.
All three felt the same about the parrot. It was old. Old and totally useless.
But Aditi found it hard to accept it.
Perhaps the bird was actually bright, sharp, and intelligent.
Perhaps it refused to talk because it expected her to feel exasperated and open the door of the cage some day. That would set it free to streak across the sky once more.
Perhaps it just couldnt forget the trees and the rivers, the forest and the open sky it had left behind.
And perhaps it was determined not to talk unless those memories were wiped clean from its consciousness.
But that didnt mean that Aditi should give up trying.
Even Papai, her son, had been weak in mathematics when he was a child. He couldnt even manage simple multiplications and divisions. He chewed up his pencils to a pulp, trying to solve them.
Hed mutter, I dont understand it, Mom or I cant manage it Mom, or Mom, its totally beyond me.
But Aditi hadnt given up trying. And now mathematics was his strong point.
He had scored ninety-seven percent in his Secondary exams, and hundred and ninety in his Higher Secondary. Hed won prizes at inter-school mathematics competitions. So many of them! Now that he was in the third year of college his classmates sought his help in solving tough problems in physics. Surely making a bird talk couldnt be tougher than what she had gone through to make him lose his fear of mathematics?
Aditi gently shook the iron cage that hung from a rod in her balcony.
Well? she asked in a low voice, Wont you really speak - ever:
The parrot fluttered across to the other side.
Aditi followed it and pressed her face against the cage.
Come on, speak. Say Supratim. S-u-p-r-a-t-i-m. Say it, say it, I tell you!
But the parrot couldnt be bothered uttering a word with so many syllables. It turned its neck looking disdainfully at Aditi and moved away once again.
I understand she muttered, You dont like my hubby, do you? Thats why you wont say it. Its natural; he doesnt like you either.
The parrot remained dumb; it seemed to agree with what was being said.
Aditi smiled. Very well, call Papai andTatai, then. Say P-a-p-a-i! T-a-t-a-i!
The parrot made anther croaking sound and plonked itself down on the floor of the cage. Then it started fluttering around.
You really are a boor! Cant you at least call your brothers?
The parrot flew up at the top of the cage and swung like a gymnast.
Very well, then. You dont: have to call anyone else. Just call me. Say Aditi. A-d-i-t-i!
The parrot jumped back on its perch and started blinking, over and over again.
Dont tell me you find even Aditi difficult to pronounce? she said in a whisper. Do you want something simpler? Very well. Say Khuku. K-h-u-k-u.
Both her sons used to call her Khuku when they were young. It was Supratim who taught them to call her that. The younger one continued to call her by that name for a long time. Tatai called her Khuku-ma even when he was in class five. How she used to scold him for doing it!
She couldnt imagine why she felt a sudden craving to hear the old name once again after all these years!
She sighed and made a last attempt. Wont you call me Khuku-ma just once? Come on! Say it.
The parrot screeched loudly.
Why are you screeching, you rascal?
The parrot screeched once again.
Its useless trying to teach you anything. The others knew it from the start that youre far too old to learn anything - Old and senile.
Aditi walked away from the cage and stared at it from afar. So the birdman had really cheated her, taking all that money for a bird that was no good!
But there was nothing unexpected about her being cheated. Shortly before buying the parrot she had fallen for a mynah from Nepal and had bought it instantly. Shed stand before the cage for hours, waiting to hear it speak. But as luck would have it, the bird merely stuffed itself silly and messed up the cage. Nothing more! It flew away one fine morning finding the cage door open.
How Supratim and her sons jeered at her when it happened. They insisted that it was a magpie and not a mynah at all. It was just like Aditi to have mistaken it for one!
Perhaps they were right.
Another time when Papai and Tatai were very young she had bought some lovebirds from a fair. They made a gorgeous riot of colour green and yellow, black, blue and brown. But as soon as her sons sprayed them with a syringe, trying to give them a bath, their colours ran out and they turned out to be a pack of sparrows.
Supratim had been wild with her for having wasted thirty rupees on the birds.
I cant really expect you to understand the value of money since you dont have to earn any, he had told her in a taunting voice. But things were different now. Supratim was no longer bothered about her wasting such a meagre amount. He was not a mere salesman now, always having to rush around; he was the high and mighty area manager of Lotus India.
