Fortune Revisited

[A monologue story. First published at www.Sulekha.com]

This is the big key.

Ah!

Come in.

Look at the dust. Two decades’ dust.

Oops! Pigeons. Ah!

The second door and the small key. Um!

For twenty years these have been locked and still they open easily.

Don’t keep it there. Bhimal, wipe it.

Hmm. Now you can.

Clean this room.

Come let us un-jam all the doors and windows, and let the light come in.

Her I was born thirty years ago. How often I had crawled on this verandah. Ran round this courtyard. And till the other day I had little knowledge that all this still exists.

How could I forget? I can’t imagine that I quite forgot this past. Not exactly the past but certainly I forgot that I was the owner of this palace. Maybe because I don’t have any great memories of this place – this palace. I was then only ten. When we left…

But it was here only that I was born lucky.

I mean I was lucky not because I was not born on the thirteenth, but because of an incident that took place in my infancy. By that time I had already learnt to crawl and my caregiver as usually took me out in a perambulator. And for some unknown reason that day she pushed the pram up till the highway, left me by one side of the road, and she went to the other side. I don’t know why. There were no flowers on the other side of the road. There had never been any but the reason she gave my mother was that she went to pick some flowers. And I somehow managed to climb down the pram, and stealthily crawled out to safely cross the road.

Oh! How her heart must have pounded seeing my antics. You will say that she should have kept it a secret. Neglecting an ex-Maharaja’s son and risking his life. No one would have thought of it. But she went to my mother and told everything. Or in fact more than everything. I believe that she must have said it with such dramatic intensity that my mother must have forgotten all her ifs and buts.

Since my childhood I heard how my lucky stars saved me from hundreds of vehicles on that highway. But I have hardly seen any vehicle on that desert highway. Anyway, I became the lucky one.

Oh! This pipe is still here. You know what I used to do. This pipe used to go down to the garden and there the mali, thinking that there is no more water in the pipe, would roll the pipe and as he used to raise it to hang it on the wall, I would remove the thumb from my end of the pipe, and then remaining water used to wet him all over. used to water the plants. The water came from this tap. I used to watch him water the plants from the windows. When he would finish he used to ask me to close the tap and I used to do it. Then I would pull the pipe from the mouth of the tap and the water that remained in the pipe used to gush out from the other end of the pipe. But halfway I used to close the inlet of the pipe with my thumb to cease the flow of water at the other end. The

This went on for months and the poor mali never could make out why this happens, till one day he decided never to put the pipe in its place. My mother used to scold him but he would not do it. He would never do it. Uff.

But don’t think that no one ever caught my mischief just because I was the lucky one. I wasn’t exactly lucky. After I was declared the lucky one my father risked all his wealth and bought shares in my name. But during the war the market also came under depression and there were huge losses. Already the annual income from the government had become history. So we had no choice but to leave the palace. We just couldn’t maintain it. That’s how we came to the city. But still I remained the lucky one for everyone acknowledged that it was only my father’s rashness that brought this downfall. The only thing that I can be proud of now is that my ancestors were once the Maharajas of the desert.

This door is jammed. This won’t… open.

Come in. This is my grandfather’s room. Bring that cover.

Whenever I used to look at myself in this mirror, I used to hear my grandfather saying from behind, “Looking at the face again and again will not change its colour or shape.”

The only words I ever heard him speak in English.

The vestiges of the Raj.

Oh! My cradle. How nice!

Hey look. That’s our backyard. It’s still so fresh. Greenery and beyond it the vast expanse of sand.

The desert.

In the city all our backyard windows were always closed because in our backyard was the red-light area.

In my childhood days I used to hide in the storeroom and, there, sifting the blinds of the backyard window slightly, I used to watch intently till dark. Expecting to see the mysterious red lights lighting the streets. But never, never; no red light ever lighted those streets. It was only after a long gradual process that I came to truth of it all.

Imagine a prince, hiding and watching a red-light area. Ha!

Anyway, in the city also fate gradually began to consume our fortune. I grew up. Fortunes dwindled. And I saw Fate’s voracious appetite. Luckily I the city we did not have any close relatives. And the relatives who lived here were, if not distant relatives, but certainly distanced relatives. So our financial condition was safe from their scrutiny. I thank those old cars. Very few took the risk to travel in their cars and come to visit us in the city. Those who did come for the first time also came for the last time. All of them had decided that it wasn’t destined for them to travel thus. Only time would provide them with better mode of conveyance. But when the new cars came I had already left the desert region to try my luck at some other place.

That’s how I came to know you.

Look at our terrace. It’s big. It’s huge.

Those are marble.

That’s the highway. Do you see any vehicle apart from that matador? I wasn’t really that lucky after all. It all might have been that caregiver’s imagination. She might have been a witch. Who knows?

No. No. I don’t believe in witches, but still it’s all so perplexing.

Just see, you were so impressed by my erudition. You recognized my prowess. I had everything that’s needed to be lucky, but it was luck only that eluded me. Isn’t it so. Luck. Luck. Luck.

I am not as haughty as my ancestors, though I am a little hedonistic. But it’s fully natural. It’s my way of life.

After chasing luck for all those years, when I returned, our financial condition was still the same. I’ll say it was worse, for all those distanced relatives had once again came close quarters with us. And what did they bring for us? Advices. They advised us on everything. Their advices were so varied that it brought a hell of a time for my parents. In such a situation my mother passed away.

And my father started cutting loose.

He wanted to shed the burden of all those advices. And how will he do that? He began to put into practice all those advices. But not before he took my permission. For I was the lucky one. And I being a novice gave everything I had in the form of permissions. I might also have been taken by the belief that I was the lucky one and since everything was done under my name, at least one of them would be successful. So, along with the luck the property also went.

All the advisers went into hiding for we did not have anything more to lose. The only thing that was lost after all this was my father’s life. He died in no time leaving behind debts here and there. Before dying the told me to sell the city house and clear all his debts. It was then that he also told me that he also told me about this palace. As soon as he died I sold that house and cleared the debts.

Oh! Bhimal must have finished by now. Let’s go down.

Good work.

You know this palace never had a name until I was born. It was then only that this palace was named after me.

The vestiges of the Maharaja.

I might have been a second time lucky. No one ever thought of risking this palace in my name. What do you say?

Hmm…

Story ID:	4131
Written by:	Amit Shankar Saha (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Fiction
Location:	Kolkata West Bengal India
Year:	1997