Sugo was a tall, thin, very dark, really scrawny, bat-eared guy of about 15. He had large horn-rimmed glasses, a sullen expression and round, bulbous eyes. Now any one would think from my description that he was an extremely unattractive chap, but not really, he was just at that stage in life when guys don’t look their best.
Sugo had one ambition; to act. Well, not really. You see the urge to act stemmed from a desire to act alongside Mou. Lovely, slim, doe-eyed, raven haired, Mou. You know the girl next door everyone falls for?
But Sugo could not surmount one odd. He just could not act. Forget about acting, he couldn’t even look convincing as one of the banar sena. Except for maybe for the features required for the part. Mou on the other hand was Sita in the play (for they were doing Ramayana). Now how is Sita to be attained by a poor member of the banar sena, a mere monkey?
The occasion was Durga Poojo, the venue a makeshift stage made out of bamboo poles with red and yellow cloth lining the pandal. The script was ready, costumes ordered. The cast settled. Sugo kept trying to push his way up the ranks of the banar sena, but everytime he got close to Mou, she was always busy giggling at another heftier guy’s jokes. Also every time she appeared at the rehearsals, Sugo would forget to say his one line addressed to Hanuman, “What would you like me to do my lord?” It felt humiliating to call another monkey, lord in front of Mou. Even more so when she found it funny.
The day of the play dawned. Sugo was all in turmoil. This was his last chance to impress Mou. He had to do his part well. So well that the audience would throw garlands at him. Sugo could imagine himself bowing before the crowd, beaming, trying to be humble and to silence them. “Give Hanuman a chance to say his lines…,” he would tell them. As Sugo put on his costume that evening, he felt he looked like a king. All right, all right! A monkey king at any rate. His long brown tail firmly twisted around his wrist, so as to prevent him from tripping, Sugo set off for the Mukherjee’s mango groove where the pandal was built.
Mou was being fretted and fussed over, and told how pretty she was looking by her friends, when he arrived. She was wearing an orange sari and had jasmine buds in her hair. She smelt good, looked terrific, laughed like silver bells. Sugo stood enraptured, his bluster crumbling before her beauty. His face slowly twisting itself to resemble a primate, as he realized how she and her friends were looking at him. He tried to cover up the tell-tale tail with his shawl.
Dejectedly, he turned away. On the other end was Rama, alias Dipankur Basu, the best athlete in school. He was good at cricket, hockey, and most importantly, he played soccer. His family had only very ‘reasonable’ expectations of him. He would grow up to play for Mohanbagan, build a three-storied house in Kolkata, and practice medicine in a private clinic on the ground floor of his house, in his spare time.
Everyone overlooked one essential fact. Dipankur had a roshogolla for a brain. Sugo believed that the plasma in his blood was the mishti syrup, made solely out of his conceited belief in his own greatness, and the one million tonnes of sweets he consumed on a daily basis. Needless to say Sugo hated him; also needless to say he was good looking, curly haired and dreamy eyed. Wel- built too, which by Bengali standards meant that he was four points less than obese. Sugo’s mom was always telling him,“Look at Dipu’s appetite, ki shundor chehara!” Pretty face, indeed!
So Sugo decided to hate Dipu even more. Dipu was the only one who would share the stage with Mou, as her pretend husband Rama. How Sugo would have killed for that! As he gritted his teeth he was suddenly slapped on the back by Hanuman with a, “So humble servant ready to grovel at my feet?” Sugo could have knocked out the moron with a single punch, ok maybe three, but realized that he was to go on stage in five minutes and he didn’t have a helmet.
Five minutes later, Sugo found himself stumbling onto the stage with a tin foil helmet that kept slipping to one side. With headgear balanced precariously on one large ear and another hand attempting to hold up his parrot green dhoti, Sugo somehow managed to locate Hanuman from the corner of one eye. He started to take tentative steps to where his co-actor was standing. (He had simply to stumble at his feet and deliver his lines). The stumbling was superbly executed. He stepped on the pleat of his dhoti and the sandal on his other foot met with a lose bamboo plank. He found himself sprawled with panache at Hanuman’s feet; his helmet had fallen over his face so the dialogue was obviously muffled. But one cannot expect great acting in all departments, can one?
Up next was Mou’s apaharan….oops! Sita’s apaharan, infact, enacted by Mou. Sugo didn’t know why but this act always made him feel strangely angry. He fumed as a very tiny, vivacious Ravana ran around screaming at Mou in a high pitched voice, occasionally wiggling his nose to put his moonch back in place. Sugo was indignant, at the injustice of it all! He shouldn’t be here watching! He should be out there acting, saving Mou! After all he was a man. So what if he wore horn rimmed spectacles and oiled his hair six times a week.
Sugo rushed out onto the stage just as the tiny Ravana had finally managed to half-drag, half- lift, the rather tall Sita off the stage. For a tiny rakshasa, it was a great feat. Sugo leapt forward, sword in hand, helmet around the nape of his neck. He had hardly taken three steps before his frame encountered, a vast expanse of saffron.
Dipu/Rama was livid and said threateningly, “Get off the stage.. this is my scene!”
Sugo standing on the tips of his toes and reaching for Dipu’s neck, screamed back, “She is being abducted! We need to save her!”
Dipu yelled back, “This is the Ramayana, clutz! It’s supposed to be like that!”
Sugo retorted, “Oh! And what do you know about the Ramayana? Turnip brain!”
Dipu shouted, “What! You lame excuse for a mosquito! How dare you!”
Dipu’s curly wig was swaying dangerously as he gestured. Sugo knocked the helmet off his head and pushed his spectacles back up his nose, as though he were challenging Dipu.
Dipu started rolling his sleeves and realized he had none. Sugo and Dipu; Mithun Chakroborty versus Uttam Kumar. The result of this pandemonium was that the stage erupted in a very uneven but entertaining fight. The curtain got torn. Mou lost her lovely singing voice screaming in panic, and couldn’t perform Rabindra Sangeet on Navami day. Dipu got one black eye. Sugo got 10 bruises. He counted them out carefully and proudly, so as to accurately exaggerate. The poojo play was banned for all time, and future generations such as mine, have only heard, of the exploits of the famous Sugo or Sugato Hazra, my incorrigible father!
Amrapali Hazra is a design, art, literature and life enthusiast. Now pursuing a career in design, visual art, and occasional writing, she finally feels she is ready to take the plunge into her first novel. A self-proclaimed philosopher, she ponders history, anthropology, mythology, esoteric and metaphysical questions. She keeps her eyes, ears and mind as open as possible, and hopes for a day when only the connections between human cultures will matter and not the differences.