DAKGHAR: THE HOUSE THAT CALLS
A Novel in Four Voices
ASHIS GUPTA
Dakghar: The House That Calls
Copyright © Ashis Gupta, 2019
Publication: July 2019
Published in Canada by Bayeux Arts Digital - Traditional Publishing
2403, 510 6th Avenue, S.E. Calgary, Canada T2G 1L7
www.bayeux.com
Cover design by Alexiev Gandman
Book design by Lumina
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Dakghar: the house that calls: a novel in four voices / Ashis Gupta
Names: Gupta, Ashis, 1940- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190157720 | Canadiana (ebook)
20190157739 | ISBN 9781988440354 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781988440361 (HTML)
Classification: LCC PS8613.U68 D34 2019 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
The ongoing publishing activities of Bayeux Arts Digital - Traditional Publishing under its varied imprints are supported by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Development Fund, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
Dedicated to victims of tyranny, oppression, and racism
ALSO BY ASHIS GUPTA
Krishna, a love story
Rahul, a different love story
The Siberian Odyssey of Hans Schroeder
Requiem for the Last Indian Animal Farm, 2017
The Irrelevance of Space and Other Stories (with Swapna Gupta)
The Gospel according to Clarence Thomas (A Libretto)
The Acts of the Compassionates (A Satire)
Warsaw, Poland, is as much a city of beauty as it is one of memories, not unlike many other great cities of the world. But there is a difference – the Warsaw Ghetto, ravaged and made desolate by the Nazis in April 1943. The spirits of more than 50,000 murdered Jews still haunt parts of Warsaw, so it is said. On July 15, 1942, the Jewish population already under siege in Warsaw, residents of an orphanage on Sliska Street, run by Dr. Janusz Korczak, staged the play, “The Post Office,” (Bengali - Daak Ghawr) by the poet Rabindranath Tagore. It was as much an act of defiance as an assertion of the indomitable human spirit.
October 11, 1998
“Tetsuo is the midwife to our dreams,” said Martin Fisher. “But for him, we would all have faced terrible ends.”
What my father meant was that Tetsuo, who had a sleek office on the topmost floor of a Warsaw glass tower, was something of a god. The slightest touch of his hand unlocked vast stores of wealth and power beyond our imagination. Tetsuo touched our lives. Tetsuo gave us voices. Tetsuo shared our songs. Tetsuo set us free.
The first voice was spread out to dry on a chain of diamonds. People gathered around, in hushed silence, waiting for it to speak. The chain swayed in the wind, or so it seemed, sending flashes of lightning that jolted the crowd to shivers of ecstasy. Their polite murmurs and the sigh of the wind were all the sounds I could hear, for the voice remained silent. It remained locked in my memory.
DAKGHAR: The House that Calls
Ever so slowly, time passed. One by one, the crowd began to drift away until only a single curious dog, a brown mongrel, remained behind, playfully pawing an empty pop can rattling near the sewer, sniffing at the crumpled sandwich wrappings fluttering in the gutter. Suddenly, the voice came to life with a soft whistling noise. The startled dog leapt up and ran to catch up with its departing owner. The whistling grew louder, punctuated by the staccato gurgling of boiling water. The flashes of light shooting from the diamonds mingled with the hissing steam and appeared more like hooded snakes blinded by mist frantically striking in every direction. The gaunt old man in a faded green suit had so far remained motionless and unnoticed on the steps to the jewelry store. Now he started to cough, his body shaking violently, his vacant eyes staring into space. That’s where I found him.
The brown dog didn’t run very far. The crowd had reassembled only half a block away. I dragged the bewildered old man there. He knew me, he loved me, and came uncomplainingly with me.
The crowd stood in silence, unable or unwilling to move any closer to the woman. Shadows from a balcony up above lay stencilled on the sidewalk and on her body, relentlessly pinning her to the ground, two parallel lines like the dark oars I often saw resting against a rotting boathouse wall along the Vistula. Some had children with them, children they held tightly pressed to their bodies. Others stared uncomprehendingly. A young girl knelt on the sidewalk and sobbed into her hands. Hers was the only sound there until a delivery truck came round and screeched to a halt under an ornamental street lamp strangely out of place among the modern store fronts. Surprised and curious, the driver leapt out of the
