Charu Majumdar and my Ill-fated Romance

“During the mid 1960's Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal organized a leftist faction in CPI(M) in northern Bengal. In 1967 a militant peasant uprising took place in Naxalbari, led by the Majumdar-Sanyal group. The same year Majumdar and Sanyal broke away and formed the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. AICCCR founded Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, with Majumdar as its secretary.” 

The intro above is for the youngsters who may have  erroneously assumed that Charu Majumdar was my  neighborhood uncle. No, young readers, we are talking about the real deal, the fire-eating revolutionary, the father of the  Naxalite movement. No, the great Marxist-Leninist leader was never any  part of a love triangle involving  me and my sweetheart!

In 1970, just out of college, and  on a very tight budget, Uday and  I took off to good  old Darjeeling for a little R&R.

We checked into  a cheap hotel. Fifteen  rupees per person, including three meals a day - you get the idea.- crummy and a little dirty as well.

Darjeeling was probably prettier then, without  the new box-like hotels and apartment buildings. The mountains, the charming locals, and the bottles of booze we had in our hotel room made us happy. My young heart ached for a little romance. A little encounter, I thought, will make this into a perfect vacation.

Well, instead of  young maidens, we  met Baccha and Khokan from Behala, where I grew up. The middle-class suburbs of Calcutta were a fertile breeding ground for the Naxalite cadre. Since my father passed away in my early teens,  my petit-bourgeois attachment to my mother and siblings overpowered my political aspirations. But I had  a ton of Naxal friends, some really dedicated. Bachha was one of them. Khokan was the ruffian type.

Bachha was an affluent kid in our middle-class neighborhood. He used to be my close childhood friend. He went to an English-medium school. Spoke fluent English. Unlike the halting, broken Benglish that we could barely manage.

 My friend had  changed a lot after joining the Naxals. He was not the same person I grew up with.  

There were a lot of private rental houses in Darjeeling then. They were not very cheap. I was kind of surprised that Bachha and  Khokan were staying in a nice rental house  near the mall. Three rooms with nice furniture. The living room had Communist literature all over the place. Books, journals, pamphlets, they had it all.

We talked politics for awhile.

“Aren’t you going to see the sights?”  I asked after a while “This place is great!”

“Not really” He said “This is our Maoist retreat! We came here to study his teachings without any interruptions. There is so much to learn.”

“Drop by anytime” He said “We can form a study group.”

I kept wandering around this charming town. Then I ran into Sukanta at the mall.

Sukanta  Kumar  NondiChoudhry reeked of old Kolkata money. Lived in a big house  near my grandpa’s neighborhood in North Calcutta; studied Philosophy in Presidency College. Usually dressed like a classic Bengali bridegroom, a style that was  totally obsolete among young men even in 1970. Not only that, he was arrogant and obnoxious! I only befriended him because in spite of his hopeless demeanor, he was indeed a very good chess player.

Sukanta revealed that he was on a field trip with his college group. I accepted his invitation for a game of chess.

Walking along the hallway of  his hotel, Ashok Nivas,  I almost fainted!

There were dozens of  young women all over the place. Laughing, giggling, chatting,  snacking,  and just lounging around! These were, of course, his classmates studying philiosophy. Apparently, there were thirty-four of these heavenly bodies, accompanied by four  male philosophy students  and a balding college prof.

Ordinarily, this Sukanta creature with his see-through dhoti and silk Kurta  will be completely invisible to our crowd. But  right now, he was the king of the hill.

“Guru, can you introduce me to some of your female friends?

“Nope”

“Why?”

“I don’t’ want to”

After a long pause, he finally came clean.

 “You don’t deserve to talk to these women. They are from Presidency college. You are from nowhere. Want to play chess or not?”

I stormed out. I probably would have strangled him if I stayed.

Didn’t I tell you this guy was obnoxious?

Next morning, I counted my cash carefully. I was going to leave Uday  and  get a room at Ashok Nivas by myself. Right next to the Presidency girls. With grim determination, I walked to the hotel office.

My Behala connection came through again. There was Bishu da, our one time neighbor back from the suburbs, toiling in the hotel office. I knew there was a God!

Some serious embarrassment followed. Bishu da pointed me out to the entire office staff  and loudly remarked

“Look at this boy! I used to watch  him drinking milk , sitting on his mother’s lap (he did not!). Now he has  a moustache! Wants to pick up chicks!” A lot of hysterical guffaw ensued.

I saved my dough, however. A kind soul, Bishu da  introduced me to several young women during that day.

Ratna, with curly hair, full lips and  fancy eye-glasses, was the one I started talking to. The first day, I talked about anything I could think of. She mainly listened, slightly amused. The next day, she started talking. Turned out that she read a lot of poetry. Me, I only read Jibananda Das. She covered the whole spectrum, from Tagore to the recent mini-mags published in Kolkata.

On the third day, standing before a certain well-known waterfall together, I  held her hand. Then I kissed her fingers.

She was frowning, “Why are you kissing my hand?”

I looked at her.

“Because I like you. I like you a lot. And  I wanna kiss you for real”.

She turned her face away.

“I don’t want to kiss you. At all”

Well, I tried.

I randomly picked another topic. Told her how Uday and I have been imbibing some cool brandy every evening.

“How does brandy taste?”

“I like it more than whiskey. It goes down smooth.” I bragged

“I wanna drink brandy. I never tried it before.”

Whoa! I didn’t see that coming!

“Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Of course! I will just drink a little bit!”

“I can’t take you to a bar” I said “I am broke.”

“But wait a minute” I suddenly had an idea. “ We can go to Bachha’s place in the evening. Those Naxals read Mao all the time, they won’t even notice us. They have a really nice place, three big rooms.”

“ I will give you just a little bit of brandy if you read a lot of poetry for me”

 I said seriously, as if poetry’s all I cared about.

“Ok”, said my fair friend. Then she raised her index finger and told me clearly “But no kissing! None at all.”

“Of course.” I totally agreed  with a sad  bechari face. “Of course”

Finally, looking at my bechari face, she broke into a smile. Poked  at my chest and said sweetly.

“Bhishon Dushtoo Tumi!” (You are very naughty!)

I felt pretty good. No, I was ecstatic!”

( In Bengali chick talk, “you are very naughty” used to be a very encouraging sign for the courting male! I guess it still does. Courting males, when you hear this, stick around! Good things are likely to happen!)

Early in the  evening, with a lot of  after-shave on my face  and a bottle of brandy in a bag, I went to see Baccha. The idea was to  alert him about my plan, then go get my friend  from Ashok Nivas. Little did I know about what was awaiting me!

Baccha  was standing in front of the house. Instead of reading Maoist literature inside. Something was up!

“This is no  bullshit”  Baccha said in English. “you can’t go in.”

“Why?”

“Look behind the house. We have tried to cover it with tarp, but you can still see it”

Sure enough, there was the  black Ambassador half covered with tarp.

“You mean, you guys…” I was stammering now.

“Yes, we were sent by the  Committee to keep a.safe house here” He said “You know, they are all wanted by the police. This is the way they meet with the locals  in different cities every few weeks. We were waiting for them to show up.”

“You mean,  he is here right now! With his associate, Kanu…”

He grabbed my shoulder. Hard. “No names, you idiot. Yes, everyone is here. Even the  “uncle” guy.  We are standing around the house as  sentries. I got a gun  in my pocket right now.”

“Scram. Get lost.” Baccha said “Don’t come back here. I will see you in Kolkata.”

Back at my hotel room, I closed the door first before I started talking.

“Gentlemen!” I announced  “The Central Committee of CPI (M-L) is meeting with the Darjeeling local committee at Bachha’s place, even as we speak.”

There was a long silence. “That’s why ….,” Uday  murmured.

I  had a crazy idea “Look! I can go to the police! They will arrest the whole Central Committee in one swoop! I will get a big cash reward! I will get a suite in Oberoi Darj.

 I am sure Ratna wouldn’t mind visiting me there”

“Great idea, moron” Uday said “By the time you go back home, your mom and sister will be dead.”

He had a very valid point. I guess it was time to suppress my romantic desires!

So there you have it! The great  comrade irrevocably  interfered with my romantic tryst in Darjeeling. Yet another  young man’s quest for brandy, poetry and hopefully a little romance was nipped in the bud!

Oh, about the  object of  my affection. Ratna gave me the cold shoulder when we went back to Kolkata. Apparently, some Presidency dada caught her fancy. Grrrr!

Sukanta became an obnoxious rich capitalist. How predictable!

Bachha, on the other hand,  was destined to become  a dead Naxalite. Fortunately, his shrewd dad sent his inquisitve son to Jawaharlal Nehru University, a hotbed of leftist discourse. Bachha gave up gun-toting and became a  fire-breathing leftist intellectual instead!  I don’t like his politics, but a live leftist friend is better than a dead one!

Charu Majumdar did a lot of damage to my generation. My loss was really minimal. I am glad we somehow survived the Naxalite Twilight Zone!

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