Asha perceived that Binodini was adept at all the household chores and supervision came naturally to her. She never hesitated to set the maids to work, scolding them and ordering them about. All this made Asha feel very small beside Binodini. But when that epitome of perfection, Binodini herself came to seek Asha’s friendship, her pleasure drowned her hesitation and flooded her heart with joy. As if a magician had waved his wand somewhere, their friendship grew, blossomed and flourished in the space of a single day.

Asha said, ‘Come, let’s give our friendship a name—let’s be something to each other.’

Binodini laughed. ‘Like what?’

Asha suggested many pretty names like flower and bee, Ganga and Yamuna. But Binodini said, ‘All those are outdated; an affectionate name is no longer worthy of love.’

Asha said, ‘What would you like us to be?’

Binodini laughed and said, ‘A grain of sand in the eye. Chokher Bali.’

Asha was more inclined towards the sweeter names, but she took Binodini’s advice and settled for the affectionate invective of Chokher Bali—a grain of sand in the eye that drew pearly tears. She hugged Binodini and said, ‘Chokher Bali,’ and rolled to the floor, giggling.

11

ASHA WAS BADLY IN NEED OF A COMPANION. EVEN A ROMANCE IS INCOMPLETE if there are just two players—extra ears are needed to spread the words of love around. A famished Binodini drank up the details of the new bride’s new-found romance like a drunkard swigging at a bottle. Her ears reddened as she listened and her blood fairly simmered in her veins.

In the muted afternoons, when Rajlakshmi was asleep, the servants disappeared into the rooms downstairs to rest and Mahendra went to college after much cajoling from Behari, when the faint cries of the kite could be heard from the far end of the blistering horizon, Asha lay flat on the bed with her hair spread out on the pillow and Binodini pulled up another pillow under her breast as she lay on her stomach; the two of them were lost in whispered tales—Binodini’s face became flushed and her breath quickened. She always asked eager questions and got the tiniest details, heard the same stories over and over again and once they were told, she took recourse to her imagination and asked, ‘What if things happened like this or like that?’ Asha too enjoyed dragging the discussions onto those uncharted paths of what-if.

Binodini asked, ‘Tell me, Chokher Bali, what would you do if you’d been married to Beharibabu instead?’

Asha said, ‘Oh no, don’t ever say that—oh God, I feel so embarrassed. But you would have suited him well; there was some talk once, wasn’t there?’

Binodini said, ‘Oh, there were talks about so many men for me. It’s good it didn’t happen—I am fine the way I am.’

Asha protested. How could she accept Binodini was happier than she was? ‘Just think for a moment, Bali, if you’d got married to my husband! It nearly happened, too!’

Of course it had nearly happened. Why didn’t it? Once this bed of Asha’s was waiting for her. Binodini glanced around at this well-decorated room and simply couldn’t push the thought out of her mind. Today she was a mere guest in this room, here today and gone tomorrow.

In the evening Binodini often took it upon herself to tie Asha’s hair in a fancy hairdo and send her to greet her husband. Her imagination, veiled and hidden, crept behind this bedecked bride and entered the isolated room for a tryst with the spellbound young man. On some other days she refused to let Asha go. ‘Oh come on, sit a little longer.Your husband won’t run away. He’s not the fleet-footed buck of the woods, he’s the tame deer tethered at your threshold.’ She would try to hold Asha back with such comments.

Mahendra got impatient and said, ‘Your friend never seems to want to leave—when will she go back home?’

Asha rose to Binodini’s defence zealously. ‘No, you shan’t be angry at my Chokher Bali.You’ll be surprised to know that she loves hearing about you—she dresses me up so tenderly with her own hands and sends me to meet you.’

Rajlakshmi didn’t let Asha do any household work. Binodini took Asha’s side and let her in on some of the chores. Binodini was busy all day long with a variety of housework and now she wanted Asha at her side as well. She had woven a chain of household tasks so skillfully that it was impossible for Asha to find even a few minutes to steal away to Mahendra. Binodini laughed a cruel, jagged smile to herself when she thought of Asha’s husband sitting in a corner of that lonely room on the terrace, bursting with impatience and thwarted passion. Concerned and anxious, Asha would remark, ‘I’ll be off now, Bali dear, or he’ll be very angry.’

Quickly Binodini would say, ‘Oh wait, just finish this bit and go—it won’t take long.’

A little later Asha would grow restless again. ‘No my friend, he’ll be really angry now—let me go.’

Binodini would say, ‘Oh dear, and I suppose that would be so terrible? There’s no fun in romance if there isn’t a bit of provocation sprinkled on the love—it’s like the spice in the curry, it brings the flavour out.’

Actually, only Binodini knew the taste of this spice, but in her life the vegetables were missing from the curry.