1. Party Time

An email suddenly popped up on Malati’s screen. She had just completed a medical discussion about a complex and difficult open-heart surgery with her team, and was about to call Anjan to discuss whether she would be able to make it to the weekend party that he had organised. They had been friends since school and as many as twelve among them had been in touch, meeting regularly. Most often they gathered at Anjan’s house, a plush affair which he amicably shared with his cousins who were co-owners. It had been handed down several generations and kept up by inherited wealth as well as the earnings from his flourishing stock brokerage firm.

The façade of the house had not changed much but the interiors were dazzling, quite evidently modernised at great expense. But this time around he had invited his friends to his farmhouse at Singur, his trophy residence, as it were, that he liked to flaunt to the guests he invited to stay for weekends or holidays. There were many whispers about it, though, to the effect that it was effectively a tax dodge for much of what he had paid for buying the land and putting up the house was in the form of cash that could only have come into his hands by not being upfront with his taxes. Anjan, however, was completely unperturbed by the swirling gossip and took great pleasure and even pride in the property which was neither an inheritance nor shared with anybody else.

Although Malati never minded Anjan’s barely concealed display of wealth, others in their group like Gour, who was a psychiatrist, did. Gour hailed from an ordinary family from Burdwan and had come up entirely by dint of his own merit. He had scant regard for Anjan’s privileged upbringing and in fact, had confided to others that Anjan’s in-your-face, compulsive vulgarity amounted to being a psychiatric disorder. He did not get along well with Anjan and had frequent altercations when their paths crossed. On most occasions these had to be resolved by the mediation of another of their classmates, Anjan’s petite and beautiful wife, Leena.

Leena was the lone homemaker among the friends and therefore had more time in her hands. She chatted with most of them often, some more than others like the ethereally beautiful Debi who was married to her high school sweetheart, Subhash. She did not get along with some, though, like Malati who too admired Debi’s looks and thought of her as the prettiest of them all, but considered Leena more bejewelled than beautiful, a rag doll in a Barbie outfit as it were.

Malati was too smart to publicly display these thoughts, though, not even to Ashish, who was her bosom friend since kindergarten. They lived in the same government housing, since Ashish’s father had been a public prosecutor and Malati’s father was a state lawyer. Though Ashish followed in his father’s footsteps and became a well-known lawyer, Malati chose to keep herself away from crime and criminals, instead choosing to save lives. She always said that’s what doctors always do much to the irritation of Amal, their friend who was a financier. He had several bad experiences with doctors in his lifetime which had led to him thinking of them as nothing better than blood sucking leeches. He practised what he preached by declaring that he would refuse to give loans to doctors if any came to him in a bind.

Such declarations were met with large guffaws by Manas, especially when he had a peg or two. Manas was a creative genius, a filmmaker who was planning to go international. He would tell Amal that doctors earned so much that they never needed a loan, but he might, as he was always in perpetual debt. He hoped that if the time came, Amal would help him just like he often came to the rescue of his wife, Arati, who ran her own charity for the destitute.

Manas, in fact, had become something of a concern for the group of friends for he had run up debts to make films that did not do too well at the box office. The combination of professional and financial worries had led to him seeking psychiatric help from Gour. Prithwish, another of the friends who worked in the advertisement industry, tried to get Manas some assignments for making ad films which could have helped him make some money quickly. Prithwish’s wife, Sutapa, who was a banker had volunteered to try to secure some bank loans for Manas which could have replaced the high-cost debt that Manas had run up, but it seemed that he was not interested.

It was a dull winter morning in Kolkata. These days winter got delayed and even December felt like autumn in the city. Gone were the chills of childhood and adolescence.

Malati remembered how, even as a medical intern, she would savour her journeys in trams which she would take to Calcutt a Medical College. Even trams had vanished from the heart of the city. Why was everything vanishing, Malati often wondered. Sometimes this became the theme of her conversations with her friends. Anjan had heartily laughed once and added: “Who knows? One day one of us might also vanish into thin air!”

Anjan’s e-mail asking all his dear friends to come over to his farmhouse in Singur was a relief to Malati. The drive down the highway would be fun and the distance from the hurly burly of her medical practice for a day or two would be even more welcome. Most of all, Malati could not help admitting to herself, she much enjoyed the company of the ‘Terrific Twelve’ friends in their forties—Leena, Amal, Arati, Manas, Subhash, Debi, Ashish, Gour, Prithwish, Sutapa and of course Anjan himself—who had become more like an extended family to her. Their regular gatherings, Malati thought to herself, should have been medically prescribed for they were great stress relievers.

From: Anjan

To: All (Leena, Amal, Arati, Malati, Manas, Subhash, Debi,

Ashish, Gour, Prithwish, Sutapa)

Subject: Let’s go away for the weekend!

Date: 01 Dec 2007

Time: 11.13 a.m.

Hiya Everybody

It’s been a long time since we’ve all been together—how about spending the weekend of 7–8 Dec together at our farmhouse in Singur?

If all, or at least some of you, would like to, I was thinking that you could perhaps get there on Saturday in time for lunch and leave aft er breakfast on Monday. That way we’d have almost two full days together during which time we could do absolutely nothing! Lazing, eating and sleeping excepted, of course!

We’ve refurbished the place to almost 3-star standards, and there is ample space for parking your cars! Even the cook is excellent. Leena and I would be overjoyed to have all of you at our place. Leena is looking forward to show you the new additions since you all last visited our house. She has been meticulously planning the redecoration for months and as you all know Leena’s tastes are impeccable if somewhat injurious to my pocket! Now we have a lovely kitchen garden too and I assure you of good organic winter vegetables cooked to perfection under Leena’s supervision.

So Singur’s waiting for you—do say yes!

Can you please confirm by Thursday so that I can plan for the food and the booze?

Very much hope that all of you will be able to make it!