CHOROK PUJA WAS almost upon the village. Boidyonath Mojumdar from the village started making the rounds, account book in hand, soliciting contributions from every household for the community celebrations. When he came to Horihor, the latter was shocked at Boidyonath’s expectation.

‘No, Uncle,’ he insisted, ‘it’s very unfair of you to put me down for a whole rupee. Look at me—am I in any state to contribute a rupee?’

‘But you don’t understand!’ Boidyonath exclaimed. ‘We’ve bagged Neelmoni Hajra’s troupe of performers. No one in these parts has ever seen a troupe like that. The Paalpara Market people have booked Mohesh Jeweller’s choir of devotional singers—we have to beat them at the game!’

From his fervour, one might have thought that the very survival of Contentment was dependent on winning a non-existent competition with Paalpara Market.

The argument would have carried on, but Opu interrupted it by dragging a long piece of split bamboo into the courtyard.

‘Look at this, Baba,’ he called out to Horihor. ‘It’ll make for good pens. I saw it lying under the bamboo tree near the pond, so I picked it up for you.’

Then he brought the branch up to Horihor and held it up for a closer inspection, grinning with pride and satisfaction. ‘Good bamboo, isn’t it, Baba?’ he asked again. ‘Nice and ripe . . . no, Baba?’

Days passed. Choitro arrived. The festival of Chorok was now only a few days away. The dancing ascetics had already begun doing rounds of the neighbourhoods, seeking alms. Durga and Opu had given up on meals and sleep just so they could follow them around the village through every single neighbourhood, near and far. Most of the families gave generously of their old clothes, uncooked rice and spare paise. Some even donated a few of their old utensils. At their own house, though, there was never anything to spare except a small handful of rice. After years of receiving practically nothing, the ascetics had learnt not to come by their house at all.

The dancing ascetics took almost ten to twelve days to complete their rounds. Then, the day before the Chorok festival was to begin, came Neel Puja—the worship of the blue-skinned god, Shiva.

Every year on Neel Puja afternoon, the ascetics would perform the ritual of breaking the thorns on a date-palm tree. This time, Durga brought the news that they wouldn’t be performing the ritual on the usual tree. A different tree had been chosen on the banks of the river. Brother and sister joined the boisterous group of neighbourhood children as it set off towards the river. Once the ritual was over, nearly all of them walked over to the field where the festivities would be held. Thick clusters of undergrowth––chiefly toothbrush-bush, and a few other shrubs––had already been cleared from the field. A Neel Puja platform had been set up in a corner, fenced in with branches of the date-palm. The older girls of Bhubon Mukhujje’s household were already at the platform: Rani, Puti and Tunu. These girls were under far more strictures than Durga had ever been. Unlike her, they couldn’t afford to run around at will. They had been permitted to visit the field only after much begging and pleading, and didn’t dare go beyond the actual fairground.

‘Tonight’s the night the ascetics will go to the cremation grounds to raise the dead,’ Tunu informed the new group importantly.

‘Like we don’t know!’ said her cousin Rani, stung. ‘One of them will play dead. They’ll bundle him up and take him to the cremation grounds, under the milkwood pine. Then they’ll do a ritual to reanimate him, pick up a skull from the cremation grounds, and make their way back. They sing a special song while coming back, so I’ve heard. Besides there are other secret rituals that no one knows about. . .’

‘I know the coming-back song!’ Durga piped up. ‘Do you want to hear it? Should I sing? It goes like this.’

From heaven came the chariot

Landed straight on grass

Wherever Shib went,

Twenty-four crore hay-arrows

Showered en masse

From the golden era a corpse, from the ascetics the soil

Say ‘Shib Shib!’ everyone, and on those drums toil!

Then she grinned at the group. ‘Did you see this year’s Goshthobihar statue, Neeluda? Isn’t it beautiful? I went by Dashu the potter’s house to see. Have you seen it yet, Ranu?’

Before Rani could answer, Puti suddenly said, ‘Will the skull be real, Ranudi?’

‘Of course it’ll be real! You can see it, too, if you come here really late in the night. But we have to go now, girls. Come on, everybody . . . tonight’s not a good night for any of you to stay out. Opu, come with us. Come Duggadi.’

‘Why isn’t this a good night, Ranudi?’ asked Opu. ‘What’s going to happen tonight?’

‘These are not things one speaks of, Opu!’ Rani admonished. ‘You just come home with us!’

But Opu wasn’t prepared to go home this early. He stayed back, watching his sister walk back to their neighbourhood with the Mukhujje household’s girls.

Soon afterwards, the sky turned cloudy. Dense clouds obscured the last of the light, and made the fast-descending night darker. Left without friends in the Chorok field, Opu began to feel little shivers of fear go down his spine. All evening he had been told about dead people and cremation-ground skulls. It occurred to him that this might not be the evening he wanted to stay out alone. He began making his way back home as quickly as he could. But even the roads offered little comfort. They were dark with the dense clouds above, and completely deserted. When he reached the crossroads at the bamboo grove, he was certain he could smell something awful from within the grove. Scared, he began walking a little faster. A little further down the road, he finally saw another human being. At first the darkness had cloaked