As we proceeded on our tour, I asked Nishanathbabu, ‘Tell me, how long have Nepalbabu and his daughter been here?’

‘Nearly two years, give or take a month.’

I made a mental note of the fact that it was roughly around the time of Sunayana’s disappearance from Calcutta. I asked again, ‘You don’t recall the exact date?’

Nishanathbabu pondered for a while before answering, ‘They arrived two years ago … probably in the month of July. I remember it was a couple of days after my wife discontinued her studies.’

‘Your wife … studies …?’

‘Oh, my wife had got it into her head lately that she wanted to be educated and acquire English manners. Over a ten-month period, she had visited Calcutta quite regularly and had enrolled herself in a girls’ school there. But eventually, she gave it all up because she wasn’t up to it. A couple of days after she left school, Nepalbabu arrived with Mukul.’

I digested this piece of information and returned to the earlier topic. ‘What duties on the farm is Nepalbabu in charge of?’

Nishanathbabu’s smile was vitriolic. ‘He conducts scientific experiments, plays chess and nit-picks over everything I do.’

‘Over what you do?’

‘That’s right. He doesn’t approve of the way I run the farm. He believes if he were to administer it, the place would run better.’

‘In other words, he does precious little?’

After a moment of silence, Nishanathbabu replied, ‘Mukul is a very hard-working girl.’

Mukul may well have been hard-working; she made up for her father’s utter uselessness through her own untiring efforts. But why had she developed a headache when she heard of our arrival? Besides, what reasons could she have for scrutinizing us from the window?

We had reached the intersection. The road stretched ahead and beyond. Huts and cottages stood here and there along the route. The huts were separated by wide stretches planted with rose bushes and other floral plants. In spite of regular and plentiful irrigation, the plants were wilting.

At the crossing, Nishanathbabu pointed to the huts at the far end and told us, ‘Rashik lives in the hut that’s furthest from here. The one on this side belongs to Brojodas; there he is, sitting on the porch, busy with something.’

He made his way to the hut. ‘Hello, Brojodas, what are you up to?’ he asked.

On the porch in front of the hut, an elderly man with a pestle gripped between his knees was grinding something into powder. A short, rotund man with a salt-and-pepper thatch of hair, he wore beads around his neck. A tilak of sandalwood paste marked his forehead, indicating that he was an ardent devotee of the god Vishnu and belonged to the Vaishnav faith. At the sound of Nishanathbabu’s voice, he stood up respectfully and replied with a smile, ‘One of the cows is ill. I am preparing a laxative for her—neem leaves, the husk of sesame seeds and some herbal seeds.’

‘Oh, good. If you can manage to do so, just coax Professor Gupta into having some too—it’ll be quite effective.’ Nishanathbabu turned away.

Brojodas continued to smile to himself as he stood there. But his eyes, unlike the dreamy ones of the typical Vaishnav lost in the devotional rasas, were alert and watchful. He did not allow the query that evidently sprang to his mind on seeing two strangers to pass his lips. Nishanathbabu too, did not introduce us.

On our way back, Nishanathbabu volunteered, ‘Brojodas was not born a Vaishnav. But ever since he became one, the cattle and dairy have really prospered. He takes very good care of them and he has also picked up some veterinary skills. You see, a devotee of that faith is duty-bound to see to the welfare of cows and bulls.’

There was a hint of derision in Nishanathbabu’s tone.

‘What was he before he embraced this faith?’ I asked.

‘A clerk in the record office of the justice department. I’ve known him for a good many years now. He didn’t earn much of a salary, but his tastes ran to music, fun and frolic. The clerks who work in these offices often make an extra buck on the sly, but Brojodas was once responsible for a serious offence. He accepted a bribe for expunging an important document from the office records.’

‘And then?’

‘He was found out. As it happens, I was the one who caught him. The case went to court and I had to appear as a witness. He was jailed for six years. In the meantime, I had resigned from my post and started the farm. After he was released, Brojodas landed up at my doorstep right away. He was a different man. The rigours of prison life had honed him into an ardent Vaishnav. Although it was my testimony that had sent him to jail, he seemed deeply beholden to me instead of nursing a grudge. Since then, he has been living here’

‘The old whore turns devout,’ I quipped.

After a moment of silence, Nishanathbabu observed, ‘Not quite that either. I’m not referring to spiritual upliftment here. But I have noticed that he does not lie any more.’

While still in conversation, we had been moving towards another hut. As we paused before it, the soft strains of the sitar wafted out from inside. In answer to my inquiring glance, Nishanathbabu replied, ‘The doctor Bhujangadhar. He plays the sitar.’

Ramenbabu listened to the music intently and remarked, ‘He’s a master at it—that’s the raga Gaur Sarang .’

Perhaps, Dr Bhujangadhar had spotted us through the window, because the music was cut off in mid-note. He came out on to the porch and said, ‘Hello, Mr Sen, why are you standing out in the sun? Do you want your blood pressure to shoot up?’

Dr Bhujangadhar was nearly forty years old and sturdily built. His face wore a twisted look of utter disdain, as if the razor-sharp intelligence within—impeded from flowing