One-Hundred Rupees

The cheery picture on the book cover drew Pari's eyes. The hanging, exposed light quavered and swayed from side to side in a dance of light and shadow. The elephant on the cover marched on with a boy in a knight’s armor on its back. They seemed to be on their way to an exciting journey and Pari for a moment wished she could go along. She read the name on the cover. The Adventures of Dennis by Victor Dragunsky. Neither the title, nor the author rang a bell, yet she took the book off the shelf and settled down on the only stool in the bookstall, just as wobbly as the hanging bulb but sufficient to support her slight weight.

Ever since she had entered the double-digit age group, her body had grown in height and shoe size, but the rest of her had forgotten to play catch up. Her legs were like toothpicks and her hands, like rubber bands, all bendy, so much that her teacher had requested her to demonstrate a reflex angle with her hand at the start of the school year. It sparked guffaws around her classroom. Not conscious about her physical appearance till then, Pari had felt a hot flush of humiliation wash over her and decided with a heavy heart, to turn to books and stories instead of the mean kids around her.

The blurb on the back said that it was a collection of short stories about an eight-year-old boy in Moscow in the Nineteen-Sixties. Pari read the first short story and gawped at the cheerful illustrations. She read another and found it delightful. Wasn’t it a bit childish to indulge in a picture book, she wondered. After all, she had graduated from reading Enid Blyton to Classics like Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Treasure Island and was recently trying to read Sherlock Holmes though its archaic English was getting in her way more often than she would like to let on. Her newfound love for books and long hours of perusing was puffing her up, making her a book snob.

Pari turned the book over in her hands a couple of times and winced as she learned its price from the orange tag on its spine. One-hundred rupees was way out of her reach. It was double the amount she received as her monthly pocket money. She scanned the other books peeping out of the shelf. Nikolai Gogol and Leo Tolstoy stared back at her. She had seen these authors in her father’s collection. They looked terribly serious, unlike the yellow book. She turned her attention to the Russian fairy-tale illustrated books translated into English and Bengali. They looked less expensive but her heart did not desire them. The book that she wanted cost one-hundred rupees, a big amount for a twelve-year-old in the late Nineteen-Eighties Calcutta, much before it was renamed Kolkata.

It was a time when Salt Lake’s neighborhood Durga puja celebrations were low-key, the lighting and pandal tents, less elaborate; the Durga idol rosy-cheeked and homely, with no similarity with Bollywood stars as some of the idols of present time exhibit. Neither did they look like aliens packed with metallic steel or gold-colored paint designed by the present-day abstract art lovers. The business side of the puja had not yet kicked in as back then, there was no competition for the Asian Paints Award to attract media attention. It was the cultural and emotional side that found expression and nurturing during festivals mostly.

The tail end of the eighties had exposed India to the winds of change that were about to usher in economic liberalization but there was still a good dose of romanticism left for the Marxist ideology. The bond between Bengal and Russia was sounder than the rest of the country because of the Communist ruling party in charge in that era. Though the political party claimed to be secular, they did not shy away from tossing in a stall or two of Soviet Union bookstalls with their distinguished red colored banners in Durga Puja pandals. The over-the-top propaganda though did not seem out of place to children of those days who were unsuspectingly drawn towards Russian literature, popular for their amazing pictures and relatable storylines.

Pari was standing in one such garishly red, almost empty bookstall mindfully absorbing the smell of glue and paint and new books when her friend called out her name in an unintentionally harsh tone.

“The show is going to start any minute and they will not be able to hold on to our seats if we don’t show up now!”

Pari turned away from the bookstall and followed her friend through the crowd to watch the evening’s presentation. She did not care much for it, but her friend’s sister was participating in the dance show and it could appear rather rude if she chickened out of it at the last minute to stare at a silly book.

_________

The next morning as Pari sat dangling her thin legs from the wide window sill noisily sipping from her cup of Bournvita, she said to her father, “I saw a book last evening at the Soviet Union stall which looked like a lot of fun.”

“What is the book about?” he asked folding the paper in half.

“It is about a boy who lives in Moscow. The stories are hilarious…”

“How much?”

“What?” Pari paused between her sips.

“How much does the book cost?” asked her father without raising his eyes from the paper.

“One hundred,” Pari mumbled.

“I can’t hear you.”

“One hundred rupees.”

“Hmm…,” he said looking up from the newspaper for a moment. Pari knew that look too well.

“It is expensive,” she added.

“It is,” he said raising his eyebrows slightly.

And that was that. He went back to his newspaper and Pari let out a long sigh.

There was no point thinking about the book anymore. She would have to search for it in her school library or perhaps read a few more stories and look at the pictures later in the day.

“Do you really like the book?” her father asked as she was about to leave for the pandal.

“Yes, I do,” said Pari, her eyes lighting up.

“Then you have to earn it.”

“How?”

“Come closer.”

Pari stepped close to him, taking in his broad forehead and shapely eyes behind thick-framed glasses. A smile formed on his lips traveling up to his eyes, adding a secret twinkle to them. Pari loved looking at her father’s face. It was her most favorite face in the World.

“How many grey hairs can you see?” he asked.

Pari’s eyes narrowed as she focused on her father’s scattering of grey amidst mostly black hair. “I don’t see too many.”

“I will pay you for every grey hair you pluck out. One rupee per hair.”

“Why?” It sounded like a ridiculous idea to Pari.

“So that you can buy that book you were telling me about.”

“What if I don’t find much grey hair?”

“What if you do?”

Pari gazed at her father, turning over the idea in her mind slowly. It was impossible to judge looking at his mop of thick hair if there were really that much grey hair hiding in there.

“It will take time.”

“I know but, today is only Saptami. You have till Dashami. That gives you four days.” he said sticking out four of his slender fingers.

“Can I start now?”

“Aren’t you going out with your friends now?”

“That can wait.”

______

Next morning, she asked her mother for a tweezer. “My fingers get slippery,” she explained. As her mother learned about her arrangement with her father, she teased Pari. “Are you plucking out black hair as well?”

“You know, I don’t cheat.” A scowl zigzagged her thin brows.

“Then you will never get a hundred rupees.”

Her mother was not pessimistic as such but her brand of honesty tended to discourage Pari from doing anything experimental or adventurous. Pari nodded at her mother acknowledging the truth in her words.

“Now how can I back out?”

“The tweezer is in the first drawer of my dressing table. Return it to its place once you are done,” said her mother before turning away, leaving behind her a whiff of talcum powder.

She sat her father down for another session and plucked out thirty-five shiny, silver hair. Thirty-five plus twenty-two from the previous day equal to fifty-seven. Another forty-three to go!

Dashami arrived way too soon. She and her friends had spent their puja days frolicking around in their new clothes, the kind that was in fashion, dhoti salwars, and long skirts with absurdly wide belts, eating an insane amount of bhelpuri and phuchka. Every now and then Pari would peep into the bookstall to look at the yellow book, sometimes managing to read an additional story, but mostly catching only a brief glimpse.

The number of grey hair severed stood at eighty-nine on Dashami. Pari combed through her father’s hair carefully but could not find any more.

“I took out eighty-nine of them. I can't find any more. So, will I still get a hundred-rupees or only eighty-nine?”

“What do you think I should do?” asked her father.

Pari shrugged her shoulder without responding. Her father fixed her with a stare. There was no telling what was going on in his mind when he looked at anyone like that. A sudden spell of self-respect took over her and she felt irritated by the uncertainty the situation had brought in.

It was just a book. There was no reason to feel so attached.

As she sat finishing her breakfast that morning, her father joined her dressed in ironed Dhoti Punjabi, the traditional Bengali attire, she did not often find him in.

“Let’s go to the pandal together,” he said and Pari’s eyebrows shot up.

And the mystery continues. Why did he have to create so much suspense about a simple thing? He could have simply told her if he will give her hundred-rupees, or not, but he chose to drag it on meaninglessly.

She had to walk fast to keep up with her father’s long strides. A gentle October breeze ruffled her new frock’s lace. She hated the frilly frock she was wearing but her mother had stated firmly that she was not grown up enough to choose her dress every day of the puja, which Pari had wholeheartedly argued against. But however willful she might be she could not hurt her mother’s feelings by refusing to obey her, and now she felt annoyed as she came close to the pandal. Nothing was in her control, neither the dress she wore nor the book she wanted to buy. That, mixed with the realization that it was the last day of the puja, dampened her mood infinitely. She did not want to pause but, her legs stopped involuntarily in front of the Soviet Union bookstall. The yellow book was displayed in the front today as if to mock her further. She turned away from it and bumped into her father, who stood watching, right behind her.

“Sorry,” she said with a start.

With an unreadable expression pasted on his face, he pointed towards the book. “Is that the one you were telling me about?”

Pari nodded.

He picked up the book and leafed through the pages. A slight smile hovered over his mouth as he took in the pictures. Pari observed her father. She could tell that he liked her choice and that made her happy. He caught her looking at him a moment later and his lips opened in a generous smile. He handed her the book and took out a hundred rupee note from his wallet.

“Go buy it,” he said softly.

Pari stood blinking her eyes in quick succession.

Her father knew she wanted a glimpse into his thought. “I am paying you eighty-nine for the grey hairs and an extra eleven for your patience.”