& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

SHORT STORY

Unknown Face

Purobi Basu (translated by Farhad Ahmed)
I felt scared.
When you said, 'So this is your true face. Look---this is who you really are. Can't you see my shadow reflected in your eyes? You are mine, only mine, and the rest is all lies.' It was right then that I made up my mind that you'd never see me again.
Yesterday at noon, just having come back from you, I had entered my secret room and was getting ready to take a bath. This was the only time I would have to myself during the whole day. On the wall next to me hung a row of masks. Anytime, whichever one I needed, I would put on.
I'd just finished washing the one made out of thick lines of white hair, the one for my son.
I had finished wiping from my forehead the brown, three-eyed teep that I usually wore to please my husband. I had also removed the dangling wireearrings I would wear for my father. The stethoscope and spectacles worn for the benefit of my patients had also been taken off. Just then you walked into the room.
The red rose you had given me was still ablaze in my hair. You looked at it, and you loved me for it, felt as if I was very near and dear to you. You wanted to completely overpower me, though you yet did not know why right then I seemed so very dear to you, so very close. I understood why, because yesterday my eyes were far more clear, were not the pair of eyes you were accustomed to seeing every day.
Because by then one by one I had stripped off the spangles from the irises of my eyes, the ones that made me so beloved by my husband, the red ones that drew my son towards me, the off-white spangles that gave comfort and security to my patients, the golden ones that made me my father's darling little girl.
I was about to take off the rose-coloured spangle, through which I would see you and the one you knew---that look you were familiar with, my eye in which you would see the flame of desire, when right at that very moment in you walked.
You were not supposed to come in then.
I had met you just a little while back.
Yet you came. At a very inconvenient time.
I felt scared.
When you said, 'So this is your true face. Look---this is who you really are. Can't you see my shadow reflected in your eyes? You are mine, mine only, and the rest is all lies,' I immediately made up my mind that you'd never see me again.
Yesterday, after coming back from you, I came straight to this dressingroom. I had thought that before I took my bath I would take off the mask familiar to you, put on the mask for my son and go to his room. That would have been the right thing to do. But I couldn't do it because you robbed me of that opportunity. You had returned too quickly. It hadn't entered my mind that you could do so. And the way you desired me then, it wasn't because of the mask. That mask you had seen on me many times before. In fact, to tell the
truth, that was the only face of mine that you were familiar with. So why did you lay claim to me with such complete arrogance yesterday? With such selfishness?
Because then the usual laughing words I reserved for my son were not there.
Then I hadn't even thrown away the dimples in my cheeks which enchanted my husband. Because then for a moment there had disappeared the frowning, lip-biting evaluations of the sick who came to me.
And because my bright red-lipsticked lips of which you were so fond were still locked in a wide smile.
You wanted me very much then. Nobody else existed except you. Alone, by myself, you wanted me. When, after getting naked, I was about to go take a bath.
Nobody knew about the existence of this room of mine.
Inside this big house was this six feet-by-eight feet secret little room, in this world the only thing I owned---the one thing I had earned. In this whole wide world there was nothing else I could call mine. Even the handbag I used daily was not fully mine. I would not use this room merely to check on or change my daily masks or clothes, put on makeup and dresses and various paints. Every day I came to this room and washed my body clean of all colours. I would take off all my ornaments, masks and clothes and quietly see myself naked for some time. Look out of the small window. Listen to the beat of bird wings. Give my ear to the racing falguni wind. Be spell-bound by the blue sky, white clouds and the array of flowers in my neighbour's garden. I would sit quietly. With nobody around.
Not you.
Not my husband.
Not my son.
Not my father.
Not my patients.
In this six feet-by-eight feet room, except for my own five-and-a-half-foot frame, there wasn't enough room for anybody else. I would sit and grow so powerful, so huge, so mighty that it would seem this room would no longer be able to hold me. And armed with that power and confidence, putting on any one of my masks, I would stride out swiftly ready to face the world. This room of mine---nobody was allowed to enter it. You did not know that. Which is why breaking all the rules you barged into my designated space like some idiot. Nobody else had done it before.
I felt scared.
When you said, 'So this is your true face. Look---this is who you really are. Can't you see my shadow reflected in your eyes? You are mine, only mine, and the rest is all lies,' observing your arrogance I felt scared. I was hurt by your selfishness. And immediately made up my mind that you'd never see me again.
Now there were only five masks in front of my eyes. Four of them hung on the wall. The fifth mask that I had been putting on for you was in my hand. It is this mask that I wanted to break first. My hands smashed to pieces your familiar, much-loved mask that was the bed of your eyes, the one with the thin curved eyebrow, the slightly flushed cheek. They all fell to the ground---the scarlet teep, the short hairs trailing by the ears. Then I lifted the mask kept
aside for my father. It wasn't any trouble breaking that. It had become old and ragged with long use---its skin had grown loose, its colour pallid. Breaking the mask for my son--its calm facade creased on the forehead like a school-teacher's---now that hurt a bit. My son, who only wanted to see his mother pretty, and did not deserve to lose her for that! The mask that I wore for my
patients, the one nearly everybody saw me wear most of the time, that one I broke next. The one with a spectacled face and the hair pulled back tight from the forehead. What remained was the mask used for my husband, the one I wore the most around the house. On its cheeks and forehead were the lingering smells of fish and curry. I threw it with my hands. In an instant before my very eyes it cracked into tiny pieces.
Now I felt completely free. I had no more masks.
Sometime later the 10 o'clock train will go by on these tracks. A crowd will gather around the mutilated corpse. The police will arrive on the scene. With everybody milling around desperate to identify the body, you will suddenly scream out on seeing the sari. The handloom sari that you yourself had designed and then had it specially made by the weaver. There is none like it anywhere else. Even if you fail to recognize me, surely my dress will make you realize that I have gone away. Father will cry out piteously on seeing the gold bangle on my right arm. Will the shell earrings bought from a beachfront store survive intact? At least in one ear? If they don't, surely a few beads from the beaded necklace that he gave me will lie scattered on my neck.
Upon lifting up the hem of my sari my husband shouldn't have any difficulty in identifying me from the birthmark on my knee. And even if the knee is mutilated beyond recognition, the mole on my back underneath the right side of my neck should still be there. The one that you too have seen so many times! It won't be difficult to recognize. But of course you won't be able to confess to it in front of the gathered people.
But if for some reason my face survives intact, if the train is not going fast or my soul happen to miss its target and fail to rend apart my body, then none of you will recognize the face that you will see. And yet that was me, the one that none of you ever saw.
Please, dear, do not get angry. To tell the truth, I couldn't bear all that anymore. I truly was getting very tired of all the constant changing of masks and dresses and putting on all these colours and makeup and wiping them off. And right then you came and invaded my little private room. I felt scared.
And when you said, 'So this is your true face. Look---this is who you really are. Can't you see my shadow reflected in your eyes? You are mine, mine only, and the rest is all lies,'
observing your arrogance I felt scared. I was hurt by your selfishness. And immediately made up my mind that you'd never see me again.
Purobi Basu is a well-known Bengali short story writer. Farhad Ahmed is a free-lance translator/writer.