The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel

By Sara Banerji

The Mandel family is rich, powerful and superstitious. Twenty years ago things were very different when they arrived in Calcutta, starving and penniless, intent on making their fortune. Now, Papa Mandel, ruthless architect of the Mandel success story, is dead but his spirit lives on in his unwitting daughter Jayanthi.

Jayanthi is an avid reader of romantic magazines, and the plans for her marriage -a marriage of convenience which will further extend the Mandel influence -seem depressingly loveless to her; the more so as the wedding day approaches and increasingly bloody events surround the Mandel clan as they jostle for power.

Observing the gathering pandemonium and providing a bemused commentary on events is Police Deputy Babu, a sycophant by nature, whose attempts to gain promotion are continually thwarted, and whose efforts to keep in with the Mandels are largely self-defeating.

The violence and scheming and confusion come to a head on the day of Jayanthis wedding - but no one, not even the spirit of Papa Mandel, has predicted the extraordinary course the day is to take.

The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel is an original and powerful work. The authentic feel of India is caught - its extremes, its mysticism, its beauty, the voices of its people. And underlying the drama is a detached and ironic humour which both illuminates and enriches this remarkable novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Mar 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781448208364

Sara Banerji

Sara Banerji was born in England but lived for much of her adult life in India. She now lives in Oxford where she teaches creative writing.

Book preview

The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel

SARA BANERJI

For my mother, the novelist

Ann Mary Fielding,

for her inspiration and encouragement

There are crocodiles in the river,

And tigers on the bank.

(Old Bengali proverb)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

A Note on the Author

Chapter 1

Flow, so many times you have been told this! To keep the flow going is why you are to be seated here, I said with some severity to this police constable, who interrupted me to say, I am standing, not sitting, Sir. There was a weeping sound in his voice.

The flow to which I referred was the traffic flow, and my reason for having to remind the fellow repeatedly was because he, instead of attending to his duties, was hopping about like a cockroach on a hot chupati pan.

It is because the vehicles are nearly running into my legs, Sir, the fellow whimpered. He seemed to be a person of no spirit whatsoever.

I am Superintendent Babu of the Calcutta police force, and I had ordered this constable to place a wooden chair on which I was now seated, on the traffic rostrum at the junction of Clive Avenue and Jamagunga Road. I was keeping my hands pressed to my breast, for the constant blowing of car horns was giving my heart palpitations. I wondered if I should see Doctor Gupta about this first thing the next day, though this Doctor Gupta is very big for his shoes. It has been my experience that in the world is a certain class of persons who feel themselves to be in a position to criticise others because they themselves forgo the drinking of spirits and the enjoyment of the sensual appetites.

I myself derive some considerable pleasure from the former, and would also from the latter if my wife had not been struck with religion some years earlier by the God Karapaswami, and therefore eschewing subsequent sexual copulations.

The traffic duty fellow was a snivelling sort and, while setting up the seat for myself, and continually thereafter, kept up complaints saying that I had purloined the position from which he was supposed to direct the traffic, so that now he was being forced out on to the road. During the making of these complaints he was constantly jostling against myself under the guise of avoiding almost being run over by some car driver or other, and thus greatly increasing my discomfort.

I informed him with some heat that if he had not failed in his duty in the first place the chief of police would have found no need to order myself to be here to observe him.

During our conversation the fellow ceased to direct the traffic at all, so that eventually we became surrounded by a total jam with nothing able to move in any direction, and all blaring their horns continually, and leaning from their windows and shouting with considerable fury.

When I informed the policeman that I was now observing how greatly he was malingering in his duty and how I would be giving the police chief an extremely critical report of him, he began weeping, and said it was I who had caused the jam by forcing him to hold an umbrella over my head, thus leaving him with only one arm for traffic direction.

I shall mention in my report that you failed to use even that one! I retorted in considerable anger.

By this time those inside the vehicles were yelling extremely unpleasant abuses. This malingering police constable now began to shout back such things as, You who have sex with my mother! and the like.

This, as may be imagined, was an extremely unfortunate situation for myself, and made more so by the fact that I had an urgent task to perform for my friend and benefactor, Mihir Mandel, and was becoming late.

Mihir Mandel is a politician, owns a factory in which several thousand people are employed, and is, with his older brother, Bhola, the head of one of Calcutta’s most important and influential families. Bhola Mandel is a scientist, and has a pharmacy and laboratory in the basti, which means the city’s slums. However, even this Bhola, who proclaims himself to be in full tune with the poor people of the city, proceeds each evening to the palatial home of his brother, Mihir, and is able to spend his night in a coolness and comfort far superior to that of my own home. In addition to Mihir and Bhola there is one other brother, a young school fellow of no great importance named Rahul, and also one daughter, Jayanthi, who is the youngest and the only female of these siblings. These four are the children of one Papa Mandel, now deceased, and Mama Mandel, a lady of great ill-health who resides in the family’s original home in the village of Mandel Pukur.

I sat in the great heat of the Calcutta midday, with the sweat running over my face, and the furious car drivers shouting abuse at myself, and tried to keep my mind on pleasanter things, like the fact that, at this very moment, the wife of my superior in the force and my own wife were going together to the home of the Mandels to secure Jayanthi as bride for the police chief’s son. This arrangement would be exceedingly beneficial to myself, for I had a very good relationship with the whole Mandel family who, on frequent occasions, ask favours of myself. From this day also I would certainly receive better treatment from the chief for ever since the idea of this marriage had come into the chief’s mind his behaviour to myself had been much modified. He had lately asked my advice on several occasions, and had questioned myself as regards the appearance of this Jayanthi Mandel. Although, he told me, I have set my mind entirely on this union. So even if she is of dark complexion and with squinting eyes I will not reject her as a wife for my son, for I can see great advantage accruing to myself when I become related by marriage to the influential Mandel family.

However I assured him that this young female is not unpleasant to look at, and is in fact of quite a fair complexion, and somewhat of the build of a Hindi film star, being well-plumped in the body.

This young female had been living with her mother in the family village of Mandel Pukur, and had only recently come to Calcutta to reside in the home of her elder brother, Mihir, and for this reason the chief had not had an opportunity to see her.

The police chief was extremely pleased to hear that she was not hideous and at this point told me to instruct my wife to accompany his on the visit to the Mandel home. I was now, in spite of my grievous discomfort, able to anticipate my visit to Mihir Mandel’s home later in the day, when, under the guise of reporting to Mr Mihir the results of a certain task he had set me, I should be able to hear confirmation of the police chief’s son’s union with Jayanthi Mandel.

However I was becoming somewhat anxious in case all these dilly-dallyings of the Calcutta traffic should make me too late to be able to do as Mr Mihir wished. I like to be helpful to the Mandels on all occasions, as they have been most generous to my wife and myself, giving us several favours. But it was extremely difficult, if not dangerous, for me to leave my rostrum seat at this time for fear that, when I was halfway across the road, the traffic might start moving again. These car drivers seemed to be entertaining such strong feelings of hostility against me that I feared that they might run me down on purpose. I did not wish to put myself into a vulnerable position amongst them, and was therefore compelled to keep my seat and continue to upbraid the rascally traffic constable, and try to keep my thoughts on my good relationship with the Mandel family.

Papa Mandel was, during his life, an extremely short-statured person who lacked the use of his legs, and was forced to be shoved about in wheeled chairs by his wife and servants. He had come to Calcutta thirty years or so earlier as a penniless refugee, bringing with him only the one son, Bhola, and being pushed in a child’s pram by his wife, Mama Mandel, who is a large lady now but was at that time extremely thin due to lack of food. Papa and Mama Mandel had, it seemed, had two other sons when they set out on their long journey, but these two children had both died on the way from lack of nourishment.

Papa Mandel had settled with his wife and son in a village whose name is now forgotten because everyone has called it Mandel Pukur for so many years. Papa Mandel managed, in spite of his several handicaps, to establish himself in some profitable business of an extremely secret nature, and this subsequently involved all the people of Mandel Pukur, making them rich in a short space of time. In gratitude at having their lives improved most of the people in the village changed their names to Mandel. Also as the years passed Papa Mandel imported all his family members from the place from which he had come, so that by the time I was seated on the traffic island, contemplating the marriage of my boss’s son to my patron’s daughter, there were very many Mandels throughout both the countryside and the city of Calcutta. They were involved in the running of most of the big businesses, but also worked at humbler jobs such as collecting tickets at the railway stations, and some even worked as agricultural labourers, for not all Mandels are as clever as Papa Mandel and his sons. So the Mandel family is to be seen everywhere. Each business and bank, each restaurant and committee has at least one Mandel on it.

The Mandels all support each other greatly, and any Mandel who wishes for a job can always obtain one from another member of the family. The Mandel group is very wide, and not easily detectable, because they are found at all levels of society. For this reason Mandels know what is going on everywhere and no one else knows what is going on among the Mandels at all.

One of the reasons for the great success of this family is that they are closely united. In spite of the fact that neither Mihir nor Bhola can be truly said to lead the family, the Mandels act very much in unison, and there appear to be few if any disputes among them. This is so much so that I have heard people say that Papa Mandel is not really dead at all, but in some constantly recumbent posture in his room in Mandel Pukur, and from there issuing instructions to his family.

This village, Mandel Pukur, is on the Indian border, and some two hours’ journey from Calcutta. Because the people of this out-of-the-way place do not truly believe in the demise of Papa Mandel they sometimes place offerings of fruit, sweets, piglets and such by the Mandels’ village home, telling Mama Mandel that these are for her husband to consume. This village is a rustic place, and the people there are full of superstitions and belief in magics and the like, as this feeding of a man long-dead demonstrates. For instance the villagers have some superstitious belief that heads of the Mandel family keep a pet snake which provides them and their dependants with prosperity. For this reason the people of Mandel Pukur hold the snake in great reverence, even to carving replicas of it into the wood of their houses, and weaving them into the cloth of their clothes. It’s also said that these people eat the flesh of snakes, although I cannot believe that even the Mandels would be capable of such disgusting behaviour. However these Mandels, with or without the help of the snake, have certainly become very prosperous, and for this reason the people of the surrounding villages, who have maintained their low status of poverty, feel great envy and enmity for the people of Mandel Pukur. The Mandel Pukur people themselves were of similar impoverished status in the days before Papa Mandel had come to reside there and before the village changed its name, However, since the arrival of the Mandel family, the situation of the villagers has become greatly improved and they now live in corrugated-iron dwellings, instead of huts, wear clothes of some quality, and also they are all somewhat plump. They even own cycles, transistor radios, and other objects normally possessed only by those living in the city. I have only visited Mandel Pukur once and this was for the eighteenth birthday party of the youngest son, Rahul. This was a very great celebration, but, as I sat on my wooden chair at Jamagunga Road, I thought to myself that the wedding of Jayanthi Mandel to the son of the police chief will be immeasurably greater, and I, with my very good relationship with the Mandels, will be certain to receive an invitation to this also.

On the occasion of Rahul’s birthday a very fine foreign brandy was served, and I looked forward with considerable anticipation to some more of this delectable refreshment at Jayanthi Mandel’s wedding. These Mandels always manage to find foreign spirits in great quantities, in spite of the fact that the import of such items is forbidden in our country.

There are two reasons for the fact that I have not visited Mandel Pukur apart from this one celebration in spite of my friendship with that family. The important members of the Mandel family spend most of their time in Calcutta, so that I am able to meet them freely there, either in the fine marble home of Mr Mihir, or the unpleasant slum laboratory of Mr Bhola, saving myself a most arduous train journey which, unless I am able to purloin a police vehicle, is what a journey to Mandel Pukur necessitates. But also these Mandels are secretive persons, and do not encourage visits into their premises without invitations. I have heard stories of people blundering on to the property of the Mandels, and not living to tell the tale. It is said that the village children of Mandel Pukur are trained from an early age, at the school started by Papa Mandel and subsequently maintained by the wealthy Mandel family, in the handling of small arms, and that the fellows have small regard for life. And the risk of a Mandel being caught in a criminal or even murderous act is not great, for there will always be a Mandel lawyer to defend him free of charge and a Mandel judge to find him innocent.

I myself, through my good friendship with this family, would not expect to be murdered by them. However it is sensible in this life not to take unnecessary risks.

I was forced to sit pondering on these Mandel matters for at least one hour, during which several of the car drivers came out of their vehicles and, after addressing some words of abuse to the traffic constable and myself, departed on foot, abandoning their vehicles, and thus increasing the impossibility of getting the jam on the move again. Also one peasant unloosed his buffaloes from their cart, and managed with extreme difficulty to press these animals past all the blocked traffic, leaving the empty cart as one further insurmountable obstacle on the road. I shouted that I was a police superintendent, and that he was under arrest for causing an obstruction, but he paid no attention to me, but, under the pretext of not hearing me over the incessant din of horns, reached the pavement without one backward look. He must have been a cunning fellow, for, having reached the pavement with these two bulls, he tied them to a lamp-post, and returned to his cart which he then dismantled plank by plank, wheel by wheel, carrying each part to the spot where the bulls were kept, until at last the whole cart had been removed. And once he was out of the crush I was able to observe him reassemble his cart, tie the bulls to it, and continue on his way.

However, it is not, it would seem, possible to dismantle a motor car in this way, so those who had abandoned theirs were forced to stand at the roadside shouting advice as to how the jam was to be disentangled, and adding to the clamour.

After some considerable time there came sounds of bombings from close by, whereupon many more jumped from their cars, and departed from the area. I was beginning to feel considerable anxiety, some degrees of thirst, and also despair regarding my appointment. Apparently Mr Mihir Mandel had overheard some conversation between his two brothers, Bhola and Rahul, which caused Mihir to think that these two were hatching a plan to make and explode bombs near the college in which Rahul Mandel studied. Several times in the last few weeks there had been sounds of explosions coming from this college, and on each such occasion Rahul Mandel had been seen earlier, according to other students, carrying some suspicious packagings with the name of his brother’s laboratory printed on it. I asked Mr Mihir why he thought these two brothers should do such things and he told me, All college boys are filled with wild and revengeful ideas and half the bombings of Calcutta are carried out by students. My brother Rahul entertains absurd and fanciful notions about being one with the common man, and the common man’s favourite occupation in this city is the exploding of bombs. And as for brother Bhola, if he can find anyone to experiment with a new invention of his he will not hesitate to avail himself of the opportunity, even if it entails a scandal, and subsequent damage to my career. Mihir was at the time trying to gain a place in parliament, and therefore in a somewhat delicate situation.

He told me that Bhola would not be in his laboratory in the late afternoon, but said that before examining the Eternal Bliss Pharmacy and Laboratory for evidence of bomb-making I should proceed to a certain tea-shop, at which he knew Rahul Mandel would be taking tea and where I could question him. I have considerable hopes that you will catch the fellow red-handed! And when you have completed your investigations, Babu, he told me, report to me at my house. Make sure you come before six, because I have a private family meeting later on in the evening.

Even this bombing that started up suddenly during the traffic jam was probably caused by Calcutta students, but on this occasion it might have had some benefits, since it was helpful in disentangling the jam, for those drivers at the perimeter finding themselves in dense smoke and imminent danger began to reverse their cars and withdraw from the area. In this way the traffic thinned out at the edges, and after some fifteen or twenty minutes the traffic was, though very slowly, on the move once more and I was able to hurry off.

Chapter 2

On Babu’s beat something is always happening, for Babu looks on the whole of Calcutta as his beat, and the streets of Calcutta are never empty. Every moment of the day and night on the pavements of Calcutta are people eating, sleeping, dying, being born, fighting, loving, marrying and even milking their cattle.

During the day over the hot and dirty pavements lie merchandise for sale, everything from shoe-laces to dancing monkeys, from feather dusters to paper dragons. Here beggars display their deformities, fortune-tellers throw bones in the dust, quacks sell gaudy pills and pickled entrails to cure everything from piles to leprosy, and furtive elderly men buy powdered rhino horn and tigers’ whiskers to assist them in their love affairs.

There is a robbery every minute in Calcutta, a mugging every hour, a murder every day, and a riot every week. Babu and his men could be as busy as they wished and not make much impression on the crime rate.

And at night the Calcutta streets are still not empty. The homeless families are joined by those from the hot and stuffy bedrooms above, who roll themselves up corpselike in sheets against the mosquitoes, and lie down among the cows and buffaloes. The well-organised bring their charpoys, wooden string-sprung beds, and the beggars and orphans lie on the concrete. Even through the night it is not quiet. Madmen dance to the moon, sailors reel shouting from the bars and homes of prostitutes, children in the grip of cholera wake screaming, and the rich, watched from the shadows by thieves and muggers, shout for taxis from the pillared porticos of the grand clubs and restaurants. Cow-bells chime, dogs howl, and the rickshaw