“The Empty Chest" by Indira Goswami, Indian Literatures in English, 3rd Year 6th Semester, B.A English Literature, Syllabus, University of Madras

B.A English Literature

3^rd Year 6^th Semester

Indian Literatures in English

UNIT 4. Short Story

4.4. “The Empty Chest” - Indira Goswami

About Writer:
            Indira Goswami, or Mamoni Raisom Goswami as she is popularly known, is among the best-kown names in the field of Assamese literature. She was a Professor in the Department of Modern Indian Languages in the University of Delhi. A prolific writer, Dr Goswami has been honoured with a numb er of prestigious awards including the Jnanpith Award for the year 2000. She dies in 2011. Her stories are characterized by an unusual sensitivity and a felicity of expression. The themes explored in her stories are wide ranging – the pain of thwarted passion, blighted hopes, and the struggle for existence – and they transcend the ambience with ease.
Text:
            No one got up at this hour, not even the people who had come to live on the fringes of the cremation ground under the shrine of Kamakhya. A few bulbuls chattered in the Hijol tree in front of Toradoi's shack. A flock of yellow-billed goru-bok had just flown past, heading for the horizon to the east of the Brahmaputra. The stench of burnt human flesh stole across the cremation ground to mingle with the sweet scent of distant lemon blossom.
            Coming out of her shack, Toradoi saw that Haibor, the fire wood-vendor from the crematory, was standing under the Hijol tree. His spindly legs stuck out of his black shorts. His white teeth gleamed like the chewed-up remains of sugarcane sticks.
Toradoi darted back into the house.
"What is left in this body to draw you back?" she muttered.
"Why don't you leave me in peace?"
How well she remembered some of his words. They fell on her ears, again, like hammer blows.
"It will be a long time before that drunkard of yours comes out of jail. That is, if he comes out at all! After all, he has killed not one, but two people by ramming into them. It has been proved that he was drunk while driving. But I am here, don't worry! I will help, only keep the door open at night. This Way at least your two kids won't starve to death!" Haibor had said.
Since then, lured by the prospect of seeing Toradoi's door open to him he had come, even before daybreak, to stand under the Hijol tree where the birds chirped and sipped honey from the flowers above his head.
When finally Toradoi went out again and looked around, Haibor was nowhere in sight. No, this firewood-vendor was not among those who furtively came to see the wooden chest she had scavenged from the cremation ground.
Toradoi peered around. Was someone still prying?
What kind of people were these, who liked to sniff at each other like the starved do? Shameless bastards! As if they would not strip you naked if they could. The other day the zemindar of Chakroad died-now doesn't the chowkidar Haladhar's hag of a wife sleep on the zemindar's bed made of Uriam wood? Doesn't the woodcutter Sukura's wife puff away at the hookah scrounged from this cremation ground? Some people had even salvaged gold rings from the charred remains of cremated bodies-but no, no one kept track of those things. No one had the morbid curiosity to go and see how Haladhar's spectre-like wife slept on the zernindar's bed. The belongings of the dead were scattered in the shacks and shanties in and around the crematorium. Various opulent objects peeked from these incongruous settings. Yet all eyes were only on this black box of hers!
Toradoi returned to her shack. She could see her sleeping children. Anyone could count their ribs. Their trousers hung loose like the hides of goats strung up in a butcher's shop. But there, next to them, lay the wooden chest! Its very existence was a source of strength to Toradoi.
She caressed the chest with her hands. The bakul flowers, beautifully engraved on its sides, seemed quite real. She pressed her cheek to these flowers. After that, as on other days, she wriggled into the huge chest and by there, leaving its cavernous mouth open.
Strange! Strange indeed! Revelling in the incomparable pleasure she felt, she lay inert or for a long time in this chest which had been flung aside after it had been divested of its dead passenger. When she had scrounged the chest from the cremation ground she had to take out some blood-stained pieces from it. She had almost forgotten about that, Toradoi wept.
After some time, a police jeep roared past her hut. Usually no vehicles other than police cars passed this way. Were the certificates pertaining to the handing over of the bodies of people killed by gunshot in order? Was it true, as the chowkidar's report would have it, that someone had come and burnt a bastard-child here without getting a 'handover' certificate? And what about the unregistered corpses? Such were the matters that drew the police to this area. Also, the flesh-trade of the prostitutes of Satgaon flourished here.
It seemed as if the higher the flames devouring the dead, the greater was the heat generated by the bodies of these prostitutes. Yes, there were so many things that the police had to attend to! So many matters that ensured a continual movement of police cars that led to altercations between the police and members of the crematorium committee.
Toradoi woke up with a start at the sound of the police zonga.
Vermillion and flowers, which were meant for decorating the hair, lay scattered inside the chest. Strange! How had her very being become so inextricably entangled with this inanimate chest? This wooden chest bore the imprints of her personality - her hair, oil, vermillion. Last night she had again taken out her wedding blouse from the pile of tattered clothes, and put it on. It was her only article of clothing, which was still intact. Looking at her reflection in the mirror in the flickering light of a kerosene lamp, she had combed her hair with frantic eagerness, as she had done ten years ago. She had not even felt the comb grate against the bones on her shoulder and neck. In those days she had hardly known of the existence of bones, buried underneath the abundance of pliant flesh. Now people said that she was one of the numerous living skeletons subsisting on the cremation ground.
Was anyone looking?
These days people peeped through crannies and gaps between doors and windows and walls. Her boys, now sleeping peacefully, had complained that people spied all the time-secretively.
"Shame, shame! Sleeping in the box that carried the dead! Throw it away!" the voices seemed to say.
Toradoi snuggled into the chest. This experience was unique.
Suddenly, someone gave a massive kick to the door. Startled and flustered, Toradoi got up. Straining her ears, she heard the booming voice of her brother, Someswar, who worked in the police.
"Toradoi! Toradoi!"
As soon as Toradoi opened the door a man dressed in police uniform burst in. He was sturdily built, with an imposing moustache. He wore a pair of huge, ungainly boots and carried a sizable stick.
"1 haven't been able until now, to find the time to see how you are. Today my duty is in these parts. That woman from Satgaon has virtually set up shop here. It seems virtue is totally extinct. Only the other day Barua died and his two sons brought his body to the crematory. While one was busy performing the last rites, the other gave everyone the slip and was in that prostitute's room in a twinkle. Really, we have fallen on evil days!"
Suddenly he gave a gasp and retreated a few steps as if he'd seen a snake. Someswar gaped at the massive, elaborately decorated wooden chest. Going closer he tapped it with his stick. Then he walked around it. Finally, he knelt down by its side and taking out a handkerchief rubbed his eyes. The man who had rushed in like a storm a few moments earlier, now resembled a dejected and defeated soldier. He looked at Toradoi and asked in a broken voice, "Is there some water in the house? Get me a glass of water, will you?"
He gulped down the water and then, said with his head downcast, "What I heard is true, then. Saru Bopa's corpse travelled here in this chest. I accompanied the family part of the way from the airport. Yes, this is that chest, all right."
Casting a level and direct gaze at Toradoi, he said, "Don't think I don't remember that you worked for them. Everyone knows what a great help you were when Saru Bopa's father, the Thakur, was ill. Washing all those clothes stained with blood and pus. And Saru Bopa?" Someswar's voice grew heavy with emotion. "He was so fond of you. Wasn't that the time when he was bent on marrying you? What a fracas there was in the Thakur's household over this! Then came the hasty transfer to Upper Assam-and then-the accident."
Toradoi asked suddenly, "What killed him?"
''A jeep. What a fine figure of a man he was! After removing the blood-stained pieces of ice I helped hoist his body on to the funeral pyre. With these two hands of mine. Fresh young blood on my hands .... "
Looking at Toradoi standing like a statue, he could not complete his sentence. The big, black box with its open mouth was like some mysterious cave, separating and alienating the two of them. Suddenly Someswar stood up and bellowed. There was a hint of the theatrical in his gesture. "Toradoi, the days of the sahebs marrying the daughters of labourers are gone. The grass now grows tall over the bones of Jenkins Saheb who married a labourer's girl. The big saheb's son, Saru Bopa, vowed he'd marry you. But could he do it? Did he succeed in taking you away from this hovel and giving you a place in a house with a tin-roof?"
A sigh that seemed to rack her whole being escaped Toradoi. "Only because he couldn't marry me, did he remain a bachelor. Twelve whole years have gone by-probably he would not have married at all."
The huge constable glared at Toradoi. Beating a staccato note on the floor with his stout lathi he stood up, cursing Toradoi in a deep, rumbling voice. "You are still as much of an idiot now as you were when you gave yourself completely to the Thakur's son. I work in the police, so I have heard everything and have come prepared."
Toradoi looked helplessly at her brother. She had managed to salvage something precious from what had once been would her brother deprive her of even that?
By this time the sleeping children had got up. The three of them huddled together. They looked like phantoms from the cremation ground.
Someswar started rummaging in his pocket. The boys thought he was going to come up with something for them, just as the man did who always waited for their mother. After all, he was their uncle, though he had not once come to inquire after them when their father had gone to jail.
The three creatures continued to stare at Someswar, Toradoi could almost hear her own heartbeats.
Someswar dug out a bundle of letters from his pocket and flung them in Toradoi's face. "Here, take these wedding cards of his," he declared. "Seeing the way things are going, I came prepared. Saru Bopa was not planning to stay an eternal bachelor because of you. His wedding had been fixed. Wedding cards had also been printed. Read them.
Read them! In fact he was on his way home to get married when the accident happened. Read them and pray for the peace of his soul."
As he was about to rush out of the room, he suddenly noticed the boys clinging to their mother. He searched for some coins, but his mind was already on other things. Toradoi could hear him mutter, "If I can catch that woman who peddles her body to mourners, or catch Haibor red-handed, I can make this trip worthwhile. That bastard Haibor passes off worm-eaten wood as Sal wood." Taking out a fistful of coins, Someswar thrust them into the eager hands of the boys and retraced his steps. The moment their fingers closed on the coins, the half-starved urchins streaked off to the nearest shop.
Toradoi remained rooted to the spot near the pile of wedding cards. She reached out for the cards like someone groping for the bones of the dead among the ashes of the crematorium.
Yes indeed, these were invitations to a wedding. Toradoi did not venture out for many days. Tormented by unbearable hunger, her two boys were driven to beg from the people who came to burn bodies. Someone had tied a gamocha (which must have been worn by a person performing the last rites) around the younger boy's head. The boys had managed to scavenge two empty liquor bottles from the cremation ground. These they had washed, filled with water from the: well, near the statue of Yama astride a buffalo. They drank the water to quench their hunger. The neighbours knew that Toradoi's hearth was cold.
The big black chest lay with its mouth yawning open, like the cavernous mouth of hell. Under the Hijol tree Haibor kept up his unceasing vigil. One morning, while the gloom of night still clung to the sky, Toradoi and her two sons could be seen dragging the wooden chest towards the cremation ground. Toradoi put the box on the spot where the bastard-child had been controversially burnt. She set fire to it.
The bulbuls on the Hijol tree started chirping noisily. The sun rose above the Brahmaputra. Wreaths of violet and brown clouds clung to it, making it look like the pinched and paleface of a hapless prostitute, blushing at the thought of having to spend time with an unwanted stranger. The clouds seemed to lay bare the strange combination of helplessness and indomitable strength on this face.
The cinders of the burnt-out chest were scattered all over the place. In the morning sunshine this resembled the hide of a freshly butchered goat, spread out on the earth to dry.
Toradoi came out of her shack. She wore no chadar. The man who always stood under the Hijol tree was not there.
Translated from Assamese by Pradipta Borgohain
Summary:
The Empty Chest is based on a true story of a coffin found in a cremation ground. The sight of the coffin made the writer brood and she created a life- like personal? Story of Toradoi, the protagonist. The story was first published in an Assamese magazine in the nineties.
The protagonist Toradoi lives in a shack near a cremation ground. One day she finds a bloodstained empty chest lying on the ground. On coming to know that it had carried the dead body of her lover Saru Bopa, she retrieves it and takes it to her shack. Saru Bopa was the son of a zamindar in whose house Toradoi had worked, and had died in an accident. Saru Bopa and Toradoi were in love with each other and he had vowed that he would marry her. But he did not marry her and they get separated.
She decorates herself in whatever meagre way she can and sleeps inside the empty chest in order to relive her moments of love with her lover until the reality dawns upon her. She comes to know through her policeman brother that Saru Bopa was not faithful to her as she had thought he was and had planned to marry someone else. As a proof of this he shows her the invitation cards that had been printed for the occasion. When this reality breaks upon her, she is stunned. But she recovers in a few days and with the help of her two children she drags the empty chest outside and burns it down.
Her husband is in jail for rash driving and in her absence a firewood vendor Haijol has been pestering her to sleep with him, promising to look after her two children. Earlier she would find invariably him standing outside her door fruitlessly waiting for her. But when after the death of love for Saru Bopa, she comes out of her shack ready to do anything, there is no Haibor waiting for her.

Text Source: https://pdfcoffee.com/qdownload/the-empty-chest-a-love-story-by-indira-goswami-pdf-free.html

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