HORIHOR HADN’T RECEIVED the letter from home.

When he left Contentment this time, Horihor had gone first to Gowari Krishnonogor. Though he knew no one in that area, he had deluded himself with the hope that work would be easier to find in a large urban marketplace. After spending a few days in Gowari, he found out that the local households of lawyers and zamindars paid a daily honorarium for reciting the Devimahatyam on their premises. He spent fifteen days in the hopes of getting such a job, till he finally ran out whatever little savings he had managed to bring with him from home.

Horihor was in a severely dire situation. He was stranded alone in an unfamiliar area, without a single friendly face for help or reassurance. Once his scant money ran out, he was obliged to move out of the thatched-hut hotel he had been staying in. After much asking around, he discovered that the local Hori temple provided meals and shelter to newly arrived destitute brahmins in the city. Once he went and described his situation, they did give him a bed in one corner of a small room, but Horihor was acutely uncomfortable in the place. First, he was kept up at nights by a group of ganja-smoking men, who laughed and talked loudly to each other till the small hours of the morning. Second, he occasionally woke up at night to see women coming in and going out of the temple area . . . and none of them looked like pious women from decent households, who had come to offer their prayers to the deity.

He spent a few nights there in considerable discomfort, using the daylight hours to visit every well-to-do lawyer and zamindar he could find. Sometimes, when he returned late at night to the temple, someone else would be stretched out in his corner, on his bed, comfortably snoring. Horihor would have to spend those nights lying in the veranda. When this became more frequent, Horihor had a slightly heated exchange with the people who did this—the aforementioned smokers. The lord alone knows what the group then went and said to the secretary of the temple, but the secretary babu then called Horihor in and informed him that it was against the temple’s rules to let anyone stay for more than three nights, so Horihor should seek alternate accommodation from that night onwards.

So, late that evening, Horihor found himself and his bundles back on the streets, bereft of even the lowly shelter he had found at the Horishobha. He made his way down to the Khore river and washed himself in its waters. He had earned a full rupee at a timbre storehouse that day by singing songs in praise of the goddess Shyama. He now took that rupee to the market, exchanged it for smaller denominations, and with some of it bought some yogurt and puffed rice for his dinner. Eating it proved almost impossible. He had only left enough at home to cover ten days’ expenses; now it was almost two months . . . and he still had not been able to send back a single paisa. How were they managing? What were they eating? His son had reminded him over and over again to bring back a copy of the Poddopuran for him. The boy really did love to read. Horihor knew that his son borrowed books from his personal book box while he was away. He would do his best to cover his tracks, but having no idea about the order in which his father kept his books, he would leave the box in a telltale mess. Horihor would take one look at the haphazard pile, and know immediately about his son’s pilfering.

This time before leaving, Horihor had bought a locally printed verse version of the Poddopuran from the Jugi neighbourhood in the village. Opu had immediately claimed it as his own and refused to give it up. He read and reread it every day, particularly relishing the bit where Shiva goes to the Kuchuni neighbourhood to catch fish. Finally, Horihor had to practically beg it back from his son.

‘Give it here, son,’ he had implored. ‘The book’s owners want it back!’

In the end Opu returned the book, but only after extracting the promise that his father would get him his own copy. Before he left, Opu had reminded him several times of that promise.

‘That book of mine, Baba! Remember to get me a copy!’

His daughter, on the other hand, didn’t have such elevated tastes. A simple green sari and a single sheet of good-quality red dye for her feet—that was all she had asked for.

But never mind these extra presents, he hadn’t even been able to send enough to keep the household running. Later that night, he sought out a timbre storehouse to shelter his head for the night. But he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he spent much of the night tossing and turning, wondering how he could send home some money.

The next morning, he was out in the streets, wandering aimlessly in the hopes of something—anything—happening. Suddenly, his eyes fell upon a red-brick house, guarded by an iron-barred gate. Staring at the house, Horihor felt a conviction take root within him: the answer to all his troubles lay within that house. He made himself cross the unlocked gate and walk towards the main entrance. It was very obviously a rich household—the stairs leading up to the drawing room were encased in marble and decorated with potted flowering plants, palm trees and tall stone statues.

Inside, a man in his late middle age was reading a newspaper. Seeing a stranger enter, he kept the paper aside and sat up.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’m a brahmon,’ Horihor supplied humbly. ‘Trained in Sanskrit, capable of doing Chondipath and similar. Also the Bhagobot and Geeta, if you want . . .’

The man interrupted,