The Kadamba Gem

 

I never happened to like Mukul Babu. He always seemed to carry an air of arrogance around him. There was also a sense of superiority about him. Yet it was this very attitude that attracted many of the local people who visited him and fed his ego.

The other evening, Shambo said to me, “Come, let’s go and visit Mukul Babu. He seems to have collected yet another rare object.”

Mukul Babu had a habit of collecting rare things. It was his hobby, you could say: rare stamps, rare coins, jewels and precious stones. He was a rich man, living off his family inheritance. He did not have to worry about everyday struggles like the rest of us middle-class and lower-middle-class people. Naturally, he spent much of his time travelling around the world and collecting whatever caught his eye.

And, of course, he had to show off his collections to the local people. Otherwise, how would Mukul Babu sleep at night? His displays often brought us all together. We went to admire his collection, but perhaps we also went because it gave us a glimpse of the comfortable life we secretly wished we could have: a palatial house, servants and no worries about money. Maybe that was why I went too, even though I did not like him.

The previous evening had been rather unusual.

The moment we entered his house, I noticed a peculiar smell. It was not the expensive French perfume he claimed to use. This was something earthy. You know the smell that rises from the ground after the first rain? This was deeper and much stronger, as if it could reach every cell in your body.

We settled around the huge sofa in his living room. Mukul Babu ordered Ramdas, his servant, to bring us ginger tea and some special biscuits. I could tell that he was extremely pleased with his latest acquisition. He was eager to show it to us, and the evening was clearly arranged for that purpose.

Outside, a thunderstorm began. Soon the smell of masala chai filled the living room. Whatever I might say about Mukul Babu, I must admit that Ramdas made wonderful tea. It was good enough to make up, at least for a little while, the arrogance we had to put up with, whenever we gathered around his collection.

I had already eaten five Bourbon biscuits, dipping them into the delicious tea and listening to the heavy staccato of the rain outside. The rain had also brought in a large number of moths. They fluttered around the Venetian chandeliers: some green, some brown and some white, a few extraordinarily large and with intricate wings. I had never seen many of these and wished I had a big net to catch them all, but Mukul Babu seemed completely unconcerned.

When we had finished our tea, he brought out a beautifully decorated cotton-bag and began his story.

He had apparently travelled to Dinajpur for a few weeks, partly to visit an old friend and partly to see the sights, as usual. During his visit, he had gone to a very old village hidden deep inside a forest.

He began speaking in his loud, rumbling voice. The conversations around the room slowly came to a stop. Everyone turned towards him.

“You know, the Adivasis there live in a very primitive way,” he said. “It is interesting for the first five minutes. After that, when you see their poor living conditions, you don't feel like staying any longer. I certainly didn't want to spend more than a few minutes there.

“But then something interesting happened. It was a tree-worshipping society, something that we seem to have lost over time. They worship the Kadamba tree. Have you all seen a Kadamba tree? We all know what one looks like, don't we?

We nodded like obedient school children.

“Their village was in the middle of the forest. But over many decades, perhaps even centuries, they had created an entire forest of Kadamba trees around their homes. Have you seen the fruit? Those lovely orange, round fruits are greatly loved by birds. Naturally, there was a lot of birdlife in the village. The place may have seemed primitive, but it would have been a birdwatcher's delight.

“Now, in the middle of the village, they had a temple dedicated to the Kadamba god. Out of curiosity, I went inside. And there, I found a beautiful object that I simply could not resist.

“Now, mind you, this was not their main god. It was not the object in the main shrine. So I think I was fully justified in taking it.

“The main deity was a beautiful figure carved from the wood of a Kadamba tree. Beside it was a polished piece of some mineral that the villagers had found. It was so smooth and round that it looked just like a Kadamba fruit. That was why they considered it sacred.

“But I looked at it and thought to myself: what a waste! Such beauty, hidden away in a forest. If something happened to this village, mankind might lose this wonderful object forever. I decided that I had to take it and make sure that it received the attention it deserved.”

At this point, Mukul Babu stopped speaking. Very slowly, he put his hand inside the cotton bag and began to take something out.

I must admit, he was a master showman. After his story, we were all waiting impatiently to see what had caught his attention in that remote village.

Slowly, he brought out a dazzling object. All our eyes were fixed on it. It looked like a jewel, or perhaps a precious stone. It was almost a perfect sphere, the size of a slightly oversized tennis ball, shining in the light of the chandelier.

Inside it were delicate golden structures. They looked like tiny fibres or filaments, all spreading out from the centre in different directions. Together, they created the appearance of a Kadamba fruit inside the sphere.

Imagine a beautiful, shining ball with golden threads suspended inside it. You may have seen those plasma balls. This looked a little like one, except that it seemed perfectly natural. I could not tell whether anyone had polished it at all.

“How did you get it?” someone asked.

Mukul Babu did not answer immediately. He seemed almost lost for words. But he was quite willing to talk about its value.

We asked him if we could look at it more closely. With his usual air of importance, he handed it to the first person. One by one, it passed from hand to hand.

When it came to me, I was completely taken in by its beauty. For a few moments, the rest of the room seemed to disappear. There was only me and the sphere.

The moment I touched it, something seemed to ripple through my body. I felt as if my chakras had suddenly come alive. My spine began to tingle, and the hair on my arms stood up. It was as if the sphere were sending tiny electric shocks through me.

It was not just beautiful. It was mysterious. There was something almost magical about it.

I do not know how long I held it, but eventually I had to let it go. Shambo took it from my hands.

“Hey, don't keep it all to yourself. It’s our turn to see it,” he said.

He looked at it, and I could see that he too was completely absorbed. The same thing happened with everyone else. This small sphere seemed to contain an entire universe inside it. As we looked at it, we felt almost as if we were being drawn into that universe.

At last, it made its way back to Mukul Babu. He seemed relieved when it was safely in his hands. Perhaps he had been thinking, “These useless people! What if one of them drops it?”

He quickly placed it back inside the cotton bag and put it away.

He was full of pride, and his arrogance seemed to grow as he looked around at all of us sitting there, listening to him and admiring his latest acquisition.

What we had just seen was surely an object that belonged in a museum.

As we were getting ready to leave, one of us asked whether he really had the right to take it from the village.

Mukul Babu was ready with his explanation.

“I compensated them more than enough. I offered them ten thousand rupees. In fact, I called the village panchayat and told them I was taking it. There was a lot of resistance. They behaved almost as if I were taking away their god.

“I had to explain to them that their god was already in the shrine. If this object was their god, it would have been in the shrine too. It wasn't. So why should they stop me from taking it?

“In the end, I had to spend twenty thousand rupees. I even gave my expensive Rolex watch to the village headman. Only then did he agree to let me take it.

“The moment I picked it up, I felt something like the universe tingling inside me. I knew I had to leave before the villagers changed their minds. Some of them were very angry. I slipped away, got into my Ambassador car and drove out of the village before anything worse could happen.”

“What will you do with it?” one of us asked. “Will you keep it in your private collection, or will you give it to the Indian Museum?”

“Are you mad?” Mukul Babu replied. “The Indian Museum? Do you think they would ever understand something as unusual as this? I am thinking of sending a few photographs to museums in New York and London. They might be able to appreciate it.

“For now, I will keep it until I understand its chemical composition and its molecular structure. I want to study its beauty properly and admire it to the fullest. Perhaps I will call it the Kadamba Gem.”

Just then, as if to prove that he was indeed the perfect person to own rare things, a huge dog came walking towards him.

“I hope you all remember that this is a Tibetan mastiff,” he said. “You must have heard me speak about him a hundred times. I can assure you that there is not a single household in the whole of Calcutta that owns such an expensive Tibetan mastiff. Foreigners would willingly pay millions of rupees for a dog like this. Very few people can afford to keep one, let alone find one as wonderful as mine.

“Just like the rest of my collection, Brutus is with me. And this gem will remain with me for the rest of my life.”

For a moment, I wondered whether he was actually comparing his dog to an object in his collection. But I said nothing.

Soon afterwards, the evening came to an end. I felt the familiar restlessness and irritation that I always felt after spending time with Mukul Babu. I took my leave and walked away with Shambo.

Shambo was still excited. He could not stop talking about the wonders in Mukul Babu's collection. I, however, kept thinking about those few seconds when I had held the sphere in my hands. The memory filled me with a strange feeling of joy. It was as if I had become one with the earth itself.

Even thinking about it made the hair on my arms stand up again. A strange sensation travelled up and down my spine.

And then something even stranger happened.

For a brief moment, I felt that I could sense all the animals around me. It was as if I could hear and feel them, even though they were nowhere nearby. I could still picture the moths that had been flying around Mukul Babu's living room. I shook my head and tried to get rid of the feeling. I told myself that I was imagining things.

That was the end of the evening, but something strange happened in a couple of days’ time. Shambo and I had stopped at a local tea stall for a cup of chai.

Just then, a dog walked into the street.

And guess what? It was Brutus, the Tibetan mastiff.

He was walking calmly along the road, but his enormous size was causing quite a stir among the local dogs. The smaller dogs were barking and keeping their distance.

“Isn't that Brutus?” Shambo exclaimed. “What is he doing here? How could Mukul Babu let his precious, million-rupee dog wander around on the streets? Come on. Let's take him back.”

I was not particularly keen on going back, but I thought we should probably do the right thing.

The dog seemed to recognise us. He calmly followed us as we walked towards Mukul Babu's house.

When we reached the bungalow, we found the gate slightly open. We went in through the lovely lavender and camellia gardens and knocked on the front door, but nobody answered. It was still early in the morning, so perhaps Ramdas had not arrived yet.

After knocking several times without getting a response, we tried pushing the door. It opened.

Just then, Ramdas came in from outside.

“Ramdas, your master's dog is wandering around the streets. What has happened?” we asked.

He looked concerned, or perhaps simply confused.

“This is very unusual,” he said. “Brutus never leaves the air-conditioned rooms of his master. I don't know what has happened today.”

We went inside and called out for Mukul Babu.

“Mukul Babu! Mukul Babu!”

There was no reply.

Ramdas went first to the living room and then to the study. He looked around, but there was no sign of his master.

I noticed that the moths from the other evening were still hovering around the lights, passive in the day time. And then I heard something else.

Birds.

There seemed to be birds calling from somewhere inside the house.

Had Mukul Babu collected some exotic birds now?

We followed the sound. It was coming from his bedroom.

The bedroom door was shut.

We knocked.

“Mukul Babu, are you inside?”

There was no answer.  Just the chirping of the birds.

We knocked three or four more times. By now, Ramdas knew that something was not right. Brutus, meanwhile, remained strangely calm.

The three of us pushed against the door with all our strength. At last, it gave way.

We stood there, completely speechless.

Mukul Babu's enormous bedroom was filled with birds. There were all kinds of common and unusual birds, the sort that one would never normally see in the streets of Calcutta. They were flying around the room, calling to one another.

And in the middle of the huge king-size bed grew surprisingly, a giant Kadamba tree, rupturing through the bed itself. Its massive deep brown trunk was eerily surrounded by the torn and tattered pristine white bed.

Its roots had grown deep into the floor. Its enormous trunk had risen through the bedroom and burst through the ceiling, reaching higher and higher. Beautiful orange fruits hanged from its emerald like leaves. Nature, pure nature, as we felt like intruders.

We could only stand and stare.

31^st October, 2026