A BENGALI STORY ABOUT TWO LOVERS

The late Sandipan Chattopadhyay nudges us into introspection over a heartbreaking love story that is set up to fail.

Ten Days of the Strike by Sandipan CHattopadhyay, translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha. Harper Collins 2024.

As I’ve said before, I’m unable to invest much time for reading during the week while I work on my book. Hence, for an extended period of time, I’ve decided to write about a short story in translation. I wish to do this weekly as much as I can so that I’m still reading and mulling over what I read.

This week I picked the first story in a collection by the late Sandipan Chattopadhyay, an Indian Bengali writer whose 1961 book Kritadas Kritadasi is believed to have altered the landscape of Bengali fiction.Its title sucked me in right away: With Ruby in Diamond Harbour.

Translated by Arunava Sinha, this story is about a man who has found true love with a certain Ruby outside his failing marriage. There’s no love between him and his wife but a child has come out of it and he must stay within the ramparts of the relationship for many reasons many of which are imposed by a conservative Bengali society. With Ruby, however, he has found love and a lot of physical intimacy. We learn that it’s a relationship that is devoid of sex because of how the city and the society are structured. Extramarital affairs are hard to conduct in this old Calcutta and Chattopadhyay does a hilarious and astute job of telling us exactly why.

There’s been no sex. In Calcutta it’s quite difficult for this thing to materialize with your girlfriend. It’s impossible in the home of married friends, for they have mothers and sisters and children. But when those who are pure contrarians—that is to say, those who have occupied their flats with nobody but their wives, and have no children yet, or have infertile wives—shut their front doors, they may at first sight seem to be slamming it in the face of not just their parents or brothers or relatives, not just their nation and race, but the entire world. But that’s not the case. Harbouring hopes of using their flats is futile. For the wife herself is installed there. The goddess incarnate.

Interlaced in all that wit and sarcasm is the pathos of this unforgettable story that’s told by such a gifted storyteller. At Diamond Harbour, then, one day, their relationship is about to be consummated. We get to see how their adventures of clandestine love all across Calcutta finally culminate in this one tenuous moment in a room at a hotel in Diamond Harbour.

That evening, as Ruby looks her most desirable, just as he takes in her naked flesh in all its glory, he discovers a lesion on her shoulder. At the same moment, she too discovers the same on his waist.

Just when we think he has found love, he realizes he has received a death sentence, one that will mean he will die a painful death in isolation with others like them. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is primarily transmitted through close and prolonged contact with an untreated individual. In the years before leprosy was contained in India, it was thought to be highly contagious and incurable and was also associated with sin, impurity, and divine punishment.

There, on the skin of her shoulder, is the reflection of my unseen waist, like red turning to black, a livid patch of nine inches. There is no longer any sensation on these two spots on her body and on mine. Ruby keeps talking. She doesn’t know any more what she’s saying. she doesn’t know when she’ll stop. She has no interest in finding out whether anyone’s listening.

Are we going back tonight? Possibly not. It’s full moon. There will be a high tide. A cannon will have to be fired to break the wall of water. Even if the roof is only on the first floor, if I go up there alone tonight, I’m certain I will hear the ocean roar.

It’s a heartbreaking moment of revelation for him and for us, the readers. The story ends with the protagonist taking it all in just as we must. Everything beautiful has consequences. What must he do next?