Rajmahal

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165 for a time after the sardar bahadur’s momentous departure, the ground floor Rajmahal apartment acted as a curtailed visiting pad for the Ohris till Surjeet Shona moved in. Much to its delight, for it longed for one of the blooded Ohris to honor its insides permanently. Surjeet Shona was the daughter of the same favorite great grand son, Satinder, who had dared to question the Sardar Bahadur’s last wishes. Surjeet Shona Kaur, daughter of Satinder Singh Ohri, son of Maninder Singh Ohri, son of Rupinder Singh Ohri, son of Sardar Bahadur Surjeet Singh Ohri. So the “Surjeet” was after the progenitor on the Sikh side, and the “Shona” after an illustrious Bengali ancestress, the redeeming feature of course, being that she was from the aristocratic family of Raja Sheetanath himself. “See here, ji,” the Sardar Bahadur’s wife had protested. “How are you sitting quietly and saying nothing to this shameful thing?” “It had to happen some day, didn’t it? I expected worse when we sent the boy out of the country to study. Aren’t you thankful he hasn’t come back with a mem and the girl is from a Raja’s family, connected to us by this house? And haven’t we lived so happily in this house, in Calcutta, a Bengali city?” “I told you even then!” said Inderjeet Kaur as if he hadn’t spoken. “I told you something terrible would happen. And what about Satinder’s children? They will become soft with eating rice and fish! They will not even be proper Punjabis, let alone Sikhs! The line will die away and they will speak that gole matole rasgulla language!” She rocked back and forth and slapped her forehead. “Arrey baba they will be Ohris, and they will be brought up as Sikhs! That has been made clear. And they will speak Punjabi, even if they know a 1 Surjeet Shona Moves In 166 little Bengali. Don’t I know Bengali?!” he thundered. “Are you saying I am any less a Sikh?” “I know how you learned Bengali, Rupinder’s father,” mumbled Inderjeet Kaur. “Oh yes, I know very well!” The reference was to the Sardar Bahadur’s ladies, who had acted as sleep-in language primers to him, so he didn’t answer. The Rajmahal, on the other hand, found the double pedigree of the Sheetanath-Ohri conjunction most auspicious and a cause for rejoicing. Surjeet Shona, the first born of that upsetting, breakaway marriage, was able, in the end, to absorb both Punjabi and Bengali currents and speak both languages, neither well. She was aware of the xenophobia of both sides and would often discuss the problem with the Rajmahal’s resident philosopher, Petrov. At the end of one of his discourses, Surjeet Shona forced the issue back to her personal self. “And in any case, what should I, as a hybrid, then do?” “Nothing, dear child, nothing. You are an important manifestation of what will inevitably happen after a hundred years, when every Indian is a hybrid like you and all the cultures fade out, and the not-this-not-that hybrid shines out like an arc lamp!” “God forbid!” shuddered Surjeet Shona. “What a deep loss that will be to us. Even I, a hybrid, feel this! Just a hundred years, you say?” “Even if it were after a thousand years, you would still say, ‘God forbid,’ would you not?” But all Petrov could do was to inscribe this discourse in his diary, which Surjeet Shona often dipped into in idle moments, or when she drifted up to talk to the old man. If she had known her Sikh great-great-grandmother she might have understood her fears about her parents’ marriage, because Surjeet Shona herself was gripped by confusion, sometimes overcome with loss at her split heritage, at others with elation at the unimaginable richness of that heritage. “Fifth rung” Surjeet Shona had been taken away by her parents to Delhi soon after her birth, coinciding with the change of hands of the mansion. When she moved back into the Ohri apartment, therefore, she had never met any of the Rajmahal tenants nor returned to her city of birth till now. Entering the Rajmahal as an adult, she felt the warm embrace of her ancestors’abode.TheRajmahal,havinggotbackthisOhri-cum-Sheetanath as a resident, was beside itself with emotion. If it could it would have shed [3.138.134.107] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 19...