An Atlas of Impossible Longing Read Online Free PDF

groom.
    â€œWhy put off something that needs doing? He’s old enough. What’re you waiting for? I tell you, Amulya, gentle, shy, good girls are as hard to find as …” – Amulya’s cousin was picking at the fish on his plate – “as good, fresh river fish in Songarh!” He laughed at his little joke, then, noticing no answering smile, explained in a conciliatory tone, “Boudi’s cooking is wonderful, but what can you do about the fish you get here? It just is not the same as … ”
    â€œYes, not the same as fish from the Ganga,” Amulya said, trying not to sound testy. The visit was nearing its end and he had heard the fish commented upon several times.
    â€œNihar’s niece – you remember Nihar, don’t you?”
    â€œI remember.”
    â€œWell, Nihar’s niece – is her name Shanti or Malati? – Shanti, yes, Shanti – she’s sixteen, and from what I hear, a pleasant, home-loving girl. I met her a few years ago, pretty girl. And what a house her father has, on a riverbank. Beautiful! It’s a well-to-do, good family, same caste as us, naturally. Nirmal could not pick better … this tomato chutney, it’s good, but I think there’s nothing like chutney … ”
    â€œMade from Calcutta’s green mangoes? Yes, I agree,” Amulya said.
    The cousin looked a little unsettled, but only for a minute. “If you like,” he continued, “I’ll go back to Calcutta and make some cautious enquiries. What do you say? I’ll write to you as soon as I find out what they think. Then Nirmal can go off and see the girl. I can go with him, it is Nirmal’s wedding after all!” The cousin drank a glass of water with noisy satisfaction and rose.
    â€œBut this place you live in,” Kananbala’s visiting sister-in-law said later that evening, picking up a shingara and biting into the warm crust, “I don’t know, but I couldn’t live here – in Songarh, I mean. Yes, I know, it’s clean and empty and Calcutta is dirty and crowded and noisy. But the crowds and noise keep me alive! It’s so soundless here, I thought for a moment I’d gone deaf!” Kananbala’s sister-in-law looked in her direction and said, “And I don’t think it’s doing you much good either.”
    â€œWhat can I say?” Kananbala replied in a hurry, to deflect the threatened analysis of her health. “I know you can buy shingaras in shops everywhere in Calcutta now, but not here. In Shyambazaar I’d have had someone run down the lane and conjure up a feast from all the sweet shops. Here Manjula and I make them.”
    â€œOh well,” her sister-in-law said contentedly, “They
are
delicious, and home-made is always better, isn’t it? I tell you, we can buy everything, but catch your brother agreeing to eat a shop shingara or cutlet. He can smell anything stale a mile off.”
    Kananbala felt confused, simultaneously put down and complimented. She got up and shook out her sari. “Manjula,” she called out from the head of the stairs down towards the kitchen. “Bring some more shingara if you’ve finished frying.”
    Already, it was twelve days since the visitors had come. The Songarh ruins, they had declared, did not compare with the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, nor the forest with the grand Botanical Gardens. The ridge was too tiring to walk to. At Finlays they chuckled over its provincial selection. “What would this Finlays say to Hogg Market, eh?” Amulya’s cousin had asked his wife, and then said to the puzzled sales boy, “Never heard of bandel cheese? B-a-n-d-e-l cheese? No?”
    Soon, they had run out of things to do and spent the holidays sequestered in Dulganj Road, exhausting even their fund of gossip about relatives. Confronted by her visitors’ boredom and scorn, Kananbala had begun perversely to long for