The Calcutta Chromosome

New York: sometime in the future. Antar has just finishing sending the message to Tara. He admits that he still is not used to her living next to him. He then sees that her kitchen windows are slightly ajar. This reminds him of a time before, when she had left her windows open and rain was pouring in. At the time, he had no way of letting her know, since this was before her getting a beeper. Once the storm had ended, Antar was surprised to see that it wasn’t Tara who had come home to clean up the mess but her friend, Lucky. Lucky spent the next hour or so cleaning up. Not long after, Tara came home. But instead of going to greet her, Antar noticed that Lucky “flung himself down on the floor in front of Tara and touched his forehead to her feet” (224). Tara noticed that Antar was watching and quickly motioned Lucky to get up. Tara later told Antar that she and Lucky had a complicated relationship, which is why he greeted her in such a way.

Antar hears the phone ring; it’s Tara, and she sounds breathless. She wants to know what he is up to, as his message sounded so mysterious. Antar tells Tara that it’s just routine stuff, and that the real reason he canceled is because he isn’t feeling well. Tara offers to help, but Antar tells her he will be all right. He then asks where she’s calling from. Tara tells him “the playground at 97th and Riverside” (225). Antar thinks it’s strange, though, as he doubts there are public phones at the playground. It’s one of the sitter’s phones, Tara replies, “those portable thingummyjigs” (225). Tara then suggests that if Antar changes his mind, she can be over in a couple of minutes. Antar questions whether this is possible, stating it would take at least half an hour by taxi from where she currently is. Tara responds by saying it’s “just a manner of speaking” (225).

At exactly the same moment, Ava emits a ping, indicating she’s about to go into standby mode. A moment later, “Antar heard the same sound relayed down the telephone line” (226). Tara tells Antar she has to get off the phone, but Antar tries to keep her on. She hangs up anyway. Antar is puzzled. The sound of the ping suggests that Tara is in the room with him, but he doesn’t think any more of it as he’s beginning to feel quite feverish and needs to lie down.

Calcutta: August 1995. Murugan sketches a drawing of “a figurine, a semicircular mound with two painted eyes. On one side of the mound was a tiny pigeon, and on the other a small semicircular instrument” (227). He then hands it to Urmila, who suggests that it looks like any temple image, except for the instrument. She asks Murugan what he thinks it is. He replies by telling her he thinks it’s an old-fashioned microscope. Murugan also tells Urmila that he thinks the figurine represents the demiurge of Ross’s discovery, and that the demiurge is a woman who is behind the whole experiment. Murugan then points to the alcove where he found the figurine.

This reminds Urmila of something Phulboni wrote a long time ago: “I have never known […] whether life lies in words or in images, in speech or sight. Does a story come to be in the words that I conjure out of my mind or does it live already, somewhere, enshrined in mud and clay” (228).

Urmila then talks about a story that Phulboni wrote years ago of a woman washing her clothes in a pond who then slipped beneath the surface and thought the face of extinction upon her, until her hand grasped hold of something that allowed her to claw her way back to the surface. Only then, as she breaches the surface, does she scream: “She saved me; she saved me” (229). Prying open her hands while she recovers, there is found “a polished gray stone with a whirl of white staring out of its center like an all-seeing eye” (229). She will not part with the stone, but the others take it from her, believing it to be a miracle.

Years later, Phulboni was passing the same park when he saw the little decorated shrine. He asked about it, but no one could tell him anything, until he went to Kalighat, one of the lanes where the images are made. Urmila tells Murugan this is where they have to go next.

A taxi is taking Urmila and Murugan to Kalighat lane. Urmila remembers going to the lane on her way to her aunt’s residence when still a child. She remembers a narrow alley, tin-roofed sheds, gray-brown clay figures, weapons, sitars, and skulls. She remembers watching as the figures took shape under the craftsman’s fingers, how the heads and hands were modeled, how the images change with the seasons, and how gods and goddesses were made present.

The taxi drops them off and they walk toward the low, bamboo-walled workshop at the end of the lane. They enter and after a few moments are greeted by an elderly man. He asks them what they want. Urmila identifies herself as a reporter for the Calcutta and asks the man if he can identify the image from Murugan’s drawing. The man says he cannot, but Murugan does not believe him. Murugan tries to press him, but the man ushers them out the door.

Once outside, Murugan sees a young girl playing with the doll and notices her push a semicircular object into the doll’s hands. Urmila goes over to the girl and asks her about the object. The girl tells Urmila that her father gave it to her, that he works in the workshop they just left, that he had made it “for the big puja tonight” (235). She then tells Urmila and Murugan that “today is the last day of the puja of Mangala-bibi. Baba says that tonight Mangala-bibi is going to enter a new body” (235). Urmila asks who that will be, and the girl replies by telling her it’s the one the Mangala has chosen. Murugan wants Urmila to ask about Lutchman, but the girl’s father shows up, leaving them no choice but to briskly walk away.

New York: sometime in the future. Antar is almost asleep when Ava begins summoning him, as she has a delivery for him. It is a folder from the Council’s Assistant-Secretary General for Human Resources, informing him that he can proceed further into the investigation and that he has been given a direct line to their representative in Calcutta. Antar then goes into the kitchen to splash some water on his face. He looks across to Tara’s apartment and sees that the lights are still off when he’s startled by a pigeon flapping its wings against the window, before flying off. Antar returns to his living room and proceeds to have Ava contact the director of the Calcutta office. After breaking through a few firewalls, a holographic projection of the director takes form in Antar’s living room. While getting dressed, the director complains about the office he has to run and that there is no work to do because the water doesn’t flow through the city anymore, and that the only project they were permitted to do was to run a shelter for the needy out of Fort William, an old British fort built in the 18th century.

Once the director has composed himself, Antar asks him about where the ID card originated. He replies that it can only come from the Fort William Shelter, and that it had been found in the department dealing with asylums. Moreover, the ID card was introduced to the system just this morning, while registering an inmate. The director won’t give his name, only that the guy “turned himself in at a railway station—a place called Sealdah” (240). Antar then asks the director to arrange for the man to speak to him, before cutting off the connection and going back to bed.