The Invitation

"A steady downpour lined the margins of the open sky. Grey clouds reared their heads out into the open. It had been raining for close to fifteen days by then; a long, tireless stream of liquid memory: constant and continuous. It had been two long days since Khudiram Bhattacharya's house saw the fair face of food. Khudiram wasn't a regular earner. He was a family man, but nothing much remained for his family. They had to make do with erratic crop yields from the little land that he owned, and the periodic kindnesses of his disciples and his jajman. He should consider himself lucky—this terrifying monsoon had turned many a well-to- do household in his village a victim of hunger." Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay is mostly associated with Satyajit Ray's movie adaptation of his classic novel, Pather Panchali. But to readers of Bengali, Bandyopadhyay remains an icon. This is one of his stories, originally written in Bengali, translated in English by Utsa Bose.