Shyamol Da!’ It was the clerk of the law firm Chatterjee and Co. calling the office peon Shyamol Da at the top of his voice.
Dalhousie Mansion, the British-era building with its khorhori windows, the address of Chatterjee and Co., stood on the main road of the office para of Kolkata. The Writers Building and the General Post Office were close by, all at a walking distance. Dalhousie Mansion was witness, if nothing else, to the march of history. It seemed only the other day that the people of the city had walked in protest as countless michils had gone before Dalhousie Mansion. All this did not affect Shyamol Da or the tenants of Dalhousie Mansion. Every morning Shyamol Da would arrive at the same time, almost half an hour before the rest of the staff of the firm. Shyamol Da would unlock the gates of the firm and open the doors and the windows. The sweeper would mop the floors, and Shyamol Da would clean the desks with a duster. While the thakurmoshai, always in a hurry, would put a flower garland around the idols of the gods mounted on a wooden temple on the wall. The length of the puja mala had shortened by the day, and sometimes the flowers were not fresh, which thakurmoshai said had something to do with his dakshina not being proportionate to the cost of living in the city. But the goddess of wealth had not been offended and continued to shower her blessings as the firm had expanded its client base and its profits had multiplied.
As Shyamol Da would finish filling the water bottles to place them on the respective desks, one by one, the employees of the firm would arrive. Now, instead of an attendance register where the employees had to sign, there was an attendance punching machine. Being late for four days resulted in the deduction of salary for one day, something that didn't bother Shyamol Da because he was never late. Even the day the whole of Kolkata was flooded, the firm had remained open, and Shyamol Da had not been a minute late.
‘Shyamol Da!’ This was the second time the clerk called Shyamol Da again at the top of his voice. It wasn't that Shyamol Da was hard of hearing, and the clerk could have called him without raising his voice. This calling Shyamol Da was a call to attention for the staff of the firm because the managing partner of the firm, Advocate Biresh Chatterjee, was arriving. It wasn't that Biresh Chatterjee always came in the first hour, but whenever he came, he didn't want to enter the office and see the juniors chatting or laughing or scrolling through their mobile phones idly. Even as the cameras had been installed, Biresh Chatterjee didn't want to come across as a lawyer who had any time in the world much less, to watch the camera footage of his own office. And so this announcement of the arrival of the managing partner, like a king or a general, continued.
‘Shyamol Da, go in front of the Northern Gate,’ the clerk said as he informed Shyamol Da from which direction the managing partner’s car was arriving. Dalhousie Mansion had several entrances, and Shyamol Da, accordingly, had to wait at a particular gate. Shyamol Da didn't even wait for the elevator and rushed down the stairwell. Obviously, Biresh Chatterjee couldn't wait for Shyamol Da to arrive. It would be like the sun going round the earth, and that would mean calamity. If he got it wrong and Biresh Chatterjee didn't find him! That was Shyamol Da’s worst nightmare, and he didn't even want to think of it.
Shyamol Da waited at the Northern Gate of the building, his mind concentrated on the partner's car like Arjuna's eye on the bird that Drona had put. Shyamol Da's small Nokia phone rang again. The clerk had called, and Shyamol Da would have to go to the Southern Gate. The car had changed route. ‘Just try to be as fast as possible,’ the clerk said. Shyamol Da cursed the clerk. ‘Do I have wings or something?’ he muttered. Shyamol da took a shortcut within the building and came to the Southern Gate panting and out of breath. Shyamol Da wasn't particularly religious, but at this point he prayed to the thirty-three koti deities, hoping that Biresh Chatterjee had not got down from his car without Shyamol Da being there till he finally caught sight of the partner’s car.
Shyamol Da looked at the basic keypad Nokia phone that was given to him by the firm that never received the call from the managing partner. Biresh Chatterjee never spoke directly to Shyamol Da, but always gave instructions to the clerk who called him. Shyamol da’s increment or his leave was at the clerk’s mercy. Still, once when Shyamol Da’s leave was canceled and Biresh Chatterjee had said, ‘I can't let Shyamol be absent , how can I run the day a without him ?’ Shyamol Da had felt a spark of contentment. But the next moment his happiness was gone when he said to the clerk, ‘If Shyamol takes any more leave, then you will have to find someone else.’
Once Shyamol Da himself had tried to talk. As Biresh Chatterjee reached for the cup of tea that Shyamol Da had placed on his workstation, Shyamol Da began to ask him if he could listen to what he had to say. The first word Shyamol Da uttered was ‘tumi,’ the Bengali word of intimate address, instead of the word of respect ‘apni.’And then before he could complete midway, Biresh Chatterjee called the clerk. ‘I don't understand what he is saying. Can't you take care of all this?’ he said, pointing to Shyamol Da. That day the clerk had grumbled the whole day and had openly accused Shyamol Da of trying to sabotage him. ‘I do so much for you, Shyamol Da, but still you don't believe me! You know Dada was giving you even less than the usual percentage of increment. Do you know it was I who suggested that you be given a bit more, and do you know how much I fought for you?’ meaning that the clerk had put himself at a great disadvantage because of Shyamol Da. After that Shyamol Da didn't try anymore. That was Shyamol Da’s abhimaan.
The day the old partner, Biresh Chatterjee's father, had died, only Shyamol Da had rushed down the stairs crying, ‘Baro Babu is no more, he is no more.’ The people of the neighboring offices had stared at Shyamol Da. The clerk to this day reprimanded Shyamol Da for crying out in that manner and said that it was not the proper way of expressing grief. As if the British hadn't left Kolkata, as if Dalhousie Mansion was still under the Queen of England, and everyone had to have a stiff upper lip. Shyamol Da had seen that day that the juniors had gone about their cases, there was a condolence meeting at the Bar, and a full court was called. After that the juniors had laughed and joked as usual as if it was just another day. Biresh Chatterjee then took charge; the building of Indraprastha began, and some might even say the Rajasuya Yagna too had taken place. He promoted his coterie of juniors close to him to partnership and brought some partners from outside to expand the client base. After that the juniors close to the old partner had left one by one. Shyamol Da had seen it all, the new taking over the old. Now if Shyamol Da met some of the old juniors of the father's time, even if they called him, Shyamol Da would pretend not to know them and walk past as if they were his sworn enemies.
Biresh Chatterjee got down from the car, adjusting his expensive suit, and looked ahead as though Shyamol Da was invisible. At present there were five more partners beside Biresh Chatterjee, but he was more than the first amongst the equals. Biresh Chatterjee was to his clients and juniors something more than a man or a lawyer, for he was but a representative of a certain kind of society where money and access to the law went hand in hand, and therefore he had both prestige and wealth. Shyamol Da took the briefcase and the advocate gown from the car and followed him at a safe distance like his shadow. After that, as Biresh Chatterjee took the elevator and Shyamol Da put the lawyer gown on the hanger and kept the briefcase on the workstation, the rest of the day for Shyamol Da was an anticlimax.
Shyamol Da made tea for Biresh Chatterjee. Biresh Chatterjee said without tea his mind didn't work, so the juniors joked that Shyamol Da had an implicit role in the cases the firm won by preparing the tea. While for the rest of the employees, Shyamol Da brought tea from the local tea stall as also the lunch of some of the juniors who stayed back during tiffin time. Shyamol Da served the fastest tea to the favorite junior who came late and still didn't get his salary deducted. And if Shyamol Da didn't grudge or forgot to serve tea to any junior, that meant that their days were numbered in the firm. One such junior, whom Shyamol Da tried to avoid at all costs, had asked a question as to why the managing partner, Biresh Chatterjee, couldn't carry his own lawyer gown if he could install cameras and attendance machines. As if that was not enough, she even questioned the whole exercise of lawyers adorning advocate gowns in the first place, dismissing it contemptuously as something known as ‘colonial hangover.’ Of course she didn't last long, but as long as she was there Shyamol Da had not been able to decide if this kind of idea would ever put his livelihood in danger.
As another day would go by, the juniors and the partners would return from the court, tribunals, or departments, while some juniors would stay back with the drafting of petitions and sending the emails. Shyamol Da didn't have a desk but was given a small stool close to the entrance of the firm, though to find Shyamol Da sitting would be an anomaly itself. Sometimes petitions would have to be filed on an urgent basis, or clients would give papers at the last moment. Shyamol Da often ran errands like sending or bringing files from the retainer client offices.
Some days cases were won; other days appeals were filed or orders were not favorable. Throughout the day the landline of the firm with its extensions and the mobiles of the juniors and the partners would continuously ring with urgent calls being exchanged according to the day's progress. Sometimes the juniors would walk outside and take their personal calls from their family or friends. Shyamol Da could often hear the juniors quarreling with their lovers, some planning a trip with their family, and some discussing family matters with their spouses. Shyamol Da had not married, and for Shyamol Da, home was just a place to spend the night because the rest of the day was spent in the firm, on the train, or on the road. In his immediate family his brothers were just waiting for Shyamol Da to depart to the heavens so that they could take over that one room where he lived.
For himself, Shyamol Da ate only muri makha (puffed rice) once every day, a mystery how he survived on that. Sometimes Shyamol Da, while munching on muri, would take out the Nokia phone and stare at its screen. Shyamol Da had a personal SIM card too, but the messages in his phone were only advertisement messages from the operator. Shyamol Da had no one whom he could call. Shyamol Da had no one to call him too except mostly the clerk during office time, whose orders he awaited. And then Shyamol Da felt the clerk didn't really call him because most of the time he simply narrated the instructions and cut the call as if he was not speaking to Shyamol Da but to the phone itself. Shyamol Da didn't know why the Nokia phone that connected him to the clerk and therefore to the firm made him feel like an untouchable in the caste system of the firm. As if he were outside of it all, this world that he inhabited and yet was not really a part of. Sometimes Shyamol Da thought he would complete the conversation with the managing partner beginning with ‘tumi,’ the intimate form of Bengali address. If only the telephone had never been invented, Shyamol Da wouldn't have anything to want.
‘Shyamol Da!’ The clerk was calling him again. This time, as Biresh Chatterjee was leaving directly from court for a conference, Shyamol Da had to drop off the briefcase and the gown at the car that would stop on the way before Dalhousie Mansion. Midway on the stairwell, Shyamol Da’s phone rang. Shyamol Da couldn't pick up the phone with the gown in one hand and the briefcase in the other. The ringing stopped. Shyamol Da smiled to himself, imagining himself calling back and talking on the phone like everyone else in the world did to at last metaphorically cross the entrance of the firm. Today for some reason Shyamol Da desperately wanted someone to call him so that he could speak and hear only the sound of his voice. Shyamol Da had not really heard his own voice for a long time.
DoubleSpeak 