Evoking a time of innocence

Other writers and script-writers have explored this theme before. Grand Hotel by Vicki Bau and Deep River by Shusako Endo, which have been subsequently translated into celluloid are two titles which come to mind.

Four men — a contractor, a doctor, a bureaucrat and a writer get stranded at a remote railway-station in North India (Tundla to be exact) on a bitter winter’s night, and they find themselves together in the First Class waiting-room. They had met earlier that day in the garden of the Taj Mahal, on the steps of Sikandar, and again on leaving Agra. As they are huddling against the cold, the waiting-room door opens, and a honeymoon couple makes as if to enter, then seeing the room occupied, leave. This sparks speculation among the four men. In a poetic flight of fancy the writer reflects :

“That couple, who had only given them a glimpse of themselves at the door before disappearing had left something behind, as though the bird of youth had shed a few feathers as it flew by: some sign, some warmth, some pleasure, sorrow or tremor with which these four individuals even if they did not speak, even if they only thought about it silently — would be able to survive this terrible night.”

This is the pivot of the novel, for the fellow-travellers agree to take a nostalgic journey into the past, to share memories, stories, of a special love of their lives.

Set in the 1920s, these accounts read like period-pieces, evoking a time of innocence, restraint and understatement given today’s climate of permissiveness. Incidentally, they are inextricably woven into the fabric of the social history of their times.

The contractor is persuaded to tell his account first which he does vicariously. It is the bureaucrat’s turn next, followed by the doctor. Perhaps deliberately, the writer’s account comes last. By the times all four have finished their accounts, dawn is breaking and there is an announcement that the railway line has been cleared. The writer weaves the motif of the newly-married couple again into the fabric of the novel towards the end, rounding up the narrative neatly. (“In the end is my beginning.”)

Understandably, when their train arrives, the four passengers board different compartments, perhaps embarrassed by their shared confidences. But one has the impression that there has been a subtle change, a tiny shift in their alchemies because of this brief encounter, this emotional interaction.

Buddhadeva Bose (1908-1974) was a major Bengali writer of the Bengal modernist movement and wrote numerous novels, short story collection, plays, essays and books of verse. He was also an acclaimed translator and translated Baudelaire, Holderlin and Rilke into Bengali. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1970. My Kind of Girl originally entited Moner Mato Meye was written in 1951.

This edition is set in Didot, the typeface originally designed by Firmin Didot in Paris, in 1783, and is gilt-edged, which makes it a collector’s item.