The next morning, I found out that the CEO, Mr. Ghosh stayed in the guest house. He stood brushing his teeth at the basin near the foot of the staircase. The early morning attire consisted of not a safari suit, but a white turned grey vest and a checked green dhoti. He nodded at me and tried to grin, digging shamelessly into his crotch and the toothpaste foaming at his open mouth.
A small porcelain cup, covered with brown cracks stood waiting for me in the room marked “DINING HALL”. A single table with six chairs was occupied by a boisterous family of ten. Two wailing kids ran around the table, chasing one another for a toy. My tea didn't look very appetizing and I stayed just long enough to know that the family's excitement bordered around a marriage they had come to attend.
I asked Gopal if Pintuda was waiting for me. He said a quick no and disappeared around the corner. Then he yelled from the passage that the driver often drank in to the night at the street corner stall. I left Monalisa behind for the day- alone and without any orientation and annoyed at having trusted the driver so easily.
The city had woken up to the hot day. The imminent traffic jams. A sudden bend. And then an empty brown road, separated by a tram track. The new driver asked me the address of my destination for the third time in a row. And I replied yet again- Ballygunge, adding the Mime Academy and “55 by 4”. I said the numbers in English, because I had always been confused about reciting numbers in Bengali.
Numbers...5...6..7. I gathered that we were heading in the wrong direction. So we turned back again. A mall with a glass exterior reflected light on the dusty brown road. Blonde models staring out from Marks and Spencer windows and Revlon salons looked upon the rest of the buildings that stood low, without walls, melting in to one another. An overwhelming number of cables, wires, battered telephone polls and aged hoardings tied this mass of concrete and glass together. The driver told me at this point that it was not profitable for him to help me in this search. The black and yellow taxi sped off as I stood on the road, and read the address boards, hoping that the number 4 would magically appear somewhere.
In desperation, I walked in to one of the bicycle repair shops to ask find the whereabouts of the “Academy”. The shop owner looked with interest at my diary, and kept saying that the name was familiar. He went out in to the next shop. The second shopkeeper went out to ask a man on the street.
They argued for a couple of minutes and then the original shopkeeper finally led the way in to a narrow alley between two shops. The drain was choked, the earth semi dry under the sun now.
I could already see the camera man sneering at this pitiful “location”. Location had to be sublime beauty for him. A white board with faded letters said- JOGESH DUTTA MIME ACADEMY.
The sunlight reflected off the jagged edges of broken windows on a forlorn building. A nylon rope hung low around the compound, displaying underwear of varying sizes but there was no sign of any family member. A door half open seemed like the only entry. I entered a dark interior.
The shopkeeper disappeared and so did the sounds of the street. Slightly unsure,I made my way up a flight of staircase. There must be a nice auditorium somewhere, I assured myself.
“Hello! How can I help you?”. It was so dark that I hadn't noticed a man sitting there. Medium build, puffy faced and hair parted in the center. The room looked like an attic. There were posters with painted faces and I couldn't really be sure if this was the same man, but in a moment of nervousness I said, “Hello! Mr. Dutta. I have come from Delhi to meet you.”
His face remained expressionless, “I am not Mr. Dutta. I am his assistant Somesh.”
“Will Mr. Dutta come anytime soon? It is really important that I meet him. I am a producer for a children's program. Sesame Street. It is quite famous...it is shown in the US as well..” I rattled on. The assistant didn't look impressed.
He started patronizingly, “Well, Mr Dutta is 90 years old now. Great man!”
“Umm..I know,” I said, my heart starting to sink.
“He does not come to the Academy anymore. So I manage it on my own. We are facing a hard time...no money,” he paused and then said, “Which channel did you say you are from?”
“Cartoon network.”
Smoothing his parting, he continued, “Channels pay a lot of money..right? Well, we charge atleast 5000 rupees for using our auditorium. We are planning a children's workshop in August....”
“I don't want to shoot a workshop...” I tried to cut in. The program had to be on air in August I thought to myself. But it seemed as if he hadn't heard me and continued talking in his monotone, “I am off to Edinburgh today for a performance. When I come back we can talk.”
Be a persistent journalist, my boss had said. So I tried asking a final question, “Where is your auditorium?” The question seemed to have shaken him up. Irritatedly he replied, “Oh..I could have shown you...but I seem to have lost the keys. But you can see it from here..” pointing to an hollow spot on the wall. The beam of sunlight brought out the shape of a pile of broken chairs and moth eaten curtains. I looked back at Somesh and gave him a weak smile. He stared back unsmiling, the middle parting on his scalp glimmering like a frozen river bed.
The idea of a story on mime had evaporated. His beady, empty eyes stared back. I said a hasty goodbye and started to walk away. "You want water..Ms..?" Somesh started to ask, walking towards me.
"No..no..I am fine.."
I could feel sweat trickling down my spine. I backed towards the staircase and knocked myself against something hard and wooden. There was a gnawing pain somewhere.
"Be careful..these stairs are old," he was walking towards me with his hands outstretched. Psycho. Psycho. My head was pounding. You are over reacting. This happens only in movies. Wait..you are here to make movies. Move, you idiot. Move!
Out on the street, I ran past a family who probably owned the displayed clothes. I stopped only when I had come back to the spot where I had been dropped off before. I was breathing hard. But I was more worried that my first idea had fallen through. I walked down the road- aimless and less certain now. Day 1 was half way through and the story count was still zilch. My boss wouldn't really care that some assistant had turned out turned out to be a psychpath cum serial killer. He would probably make a joke that all Bengali men had a psycho streak in them.
A sign across the street said Calcutta Information Center. On an instinct I walked in.
Clusters of twenty-somethings burst out laughing at the computer screen. The information bureau seemed more like a seedy cyber cafe. I picked up a city catalogue and flipped the pages to the section of “Important people in the city”. Thankfully the catalogue was in both English and Bengali. Musicians. Painters. Politicians. Magicians. Jugglers. A whole family of jugglers.
“Hi. I am Moushumi speaking.” I recognized her as the daughter of the head juggler and gave my usual introduction- that I had come from to Delhi to meet them for my film, since they were famous in the country. “Do you have children?” I asked her a little bluntly. “Yes, I have a daughter. She is six.”
“Can she juggle?” I asked.
“Not too much, but she can do some tricks. But she is really good at studies and painting too.”
“Oh! Great...!” I replied back. I wasn't really interested in her academics or painting skills. Ruthless as it seemed, I just wanted the child to be a juggler.
“I am visiting my father right now. You can come and meet us all tomorrow.”
I gave a silent sigh of relief and hailed a taxi back to Monalisa Guest house.A child juggler- this would be the best story ever!
More adventures coming up readers..not quite the Byomkesh Bakshi stuff..but oh well!
Cheerio!
Travel Bee
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