The Mystery of the Key

Life has become worn out through endless use. Now, at times, he feels the urge to return—to the place from where he once came. Something is missing. What exactly is missing cannot be understood. Yet its absence is felt. Fifty-seven years have passed in this way. How long does a man live anyway? 

Sahadeb Mistry is not like other men. Within him burns a fire, a torment, far sharper than in others. He lives in a cramped room in Bansdroni. The room belongs to a school—a village-style secondary school. Sahadeb is its sweeper-caretaker-peon-cook, all rolled into one. His monthly pay is five hundred rupees. The school runs on government grants. Teachers draw salaries. But Sahadeb survives on money from the school fund. Despite many efforts, no government seal has ever been stamped on him. 

The single-storied schoolyard is alive with the chatter of students every morning. By evening it becomes Sahadeb’s haunted house. He mixes with no one. He never leaves the school. He has no addictions. Only one disease afflicts him: the habit of talking to himself. At night he drifts into a trance, unmindful of all around him. 

His life has withered away guarding this school. Sahadeb holds a fierce conviction: such loneliness—may God never inflict it upon another soul. In this urban cacophony, any lonely man turns impotent. Right in front of the school lies a market and a bus route. All day long: smoke and noise. In such solitude amidst clamor, a man goes mad. Especially a man like Sahadeb, untouched by modernity’s faintest breath.

And yet—what was that village once? Fields lush with green crops. Ponds filled with crystal water. Evergreen trees. A tiny mud house was his. Some land, a pond. Enough grain grew on the land for a year’s food. Fish came from the pond. Fruits hung from the trees. What more could life require?

A sigh rose from Sahadeb’s chest. Once there was a family. Once, a beloved household. Twenty-five years ago, when he came to Kolkata, he lost the key. Yes, life’s calamity—it was as though the key to happiness had slipped from his hand forever.

Yes, the Puranas say it somewhere. After creating man, God gave him neither sorrow nor joy. No sorrow—no joy. Was that life? One could not even feel alive. Then, men wept and clung to the feet of God. “O Lord, did You send us here only for eating, sleeping, coupling? Give us some spice of living. Else how shall we endure this stagnant existence?” Then God handed man a box. “Keep this. But beware when you open it. Who knows what will emerge.” Men guarded it for some days in fear. But curiosity prevailed. They opened it. At once the world was flooded with happiness. Such joy! At last life was fulfilled. But does man’s desire ever end? They opened the box again to see what more lay inside. Out leapt sorrow. Through the crack, joy slipped back inside. In their hurry to shut the lid, they lost the key as well. From then on began mankind’s life of sorrow.
 
Sahadeb has lost the key to his own box. And he knows, until he finds it again, misfortune will never release him. So he searches frantically for the key. On roads, in markets, within the school—everywhere he scours. Those who know Sahadeb all know: the man is half-mad. In the mornings, when school is in session, he seems normal. But the moment school ends, begins his madness of key-hunting.
 
One evening, the headmistress had come to school for some work. Entering his room, she found Sahadeb standing on a stool, hammering at the ceiling.
“Sahadeb-da, have you gone mad? What on earth are you doing?”
 
Startled by her voice, Sahadeb almost toppled from the stool.
“Are you truly mad, Sahadeb-da? Why are you hammering the ceiling?”
 
Embarrassed at being caught, he fumbled for words. Then muttered, “It’s all their mischief, you see. They won’t let me live in peace.”
 
“Who won’t let you? Tell me, I’ll take care of it,” said the headmistress.
 
“Who else? The insects in my head.”
 
“What’s that supposed to mean—?”
 
“You wouldn’t understand, Didi.”
 
“But why hammer the ceiling?”
 
“Eh? Hammer? Where? I was just fixing nails for a mosquito net rope. What you saw was something else. And anyway—why have you come to this room of mine?” Muttering, he went off to open the office room.
 
Watching him, the headmistress had to stifle a laugh. The man was half-mad indeed. Suppressing her amusement, she said gravely, “Instead of such nonsense in the evening, why not clean the office room a little, Sahadeb-da?” He nodded.
 
Middle-aged Sahadeb always spoke haltingly. His voice, his gestures—anyone would find them comical. Schoolchildren teased him as “Hakra.” Sometimes even teachers joined in. Everyone found joy in mocking this harmless man. Only the headmistress never did. She never hurt him with words, and forbade others too.
 
A new teacher had joined—Bhavatosh Ray. Not very old. He too showed kindness to Sahadeb, asked him many questions. One day, while fetching a glass of water from beside Sahadeb’s room, he heard the man muttering to himself. This habit of his—everyone knew. Talking aloud, alone. That’s why they called him Hakra.
 
Bhavatosh pressed his ear to the door. He heard Sahadeb’s ramblings:
“I know nothing, you think? It’s all your devilry. You hid the key! If need be, I’ll smash the world to dust. I want my key! Beware, bastard! If you’ve opened that box you are doomed. A deadly serpent sleeps inside. It will sting you.”
 
Amazed, Bhavatosh saw that in his hand was that morning’s newspaper.
 
Unable to contain himself, he burst in:
“Sahadeb-da, what’s in your box?”
 
Still in a trance, Sahadeb snapped, “Shut up, boy! Talking back to me? Listen—if I don’t get my key, disaster will strike. I’ll drown the world in deluge.”
 
“Sahadeb-da—what’s happening?” Bhavatosh shouted.
 
His trance broke. Embarrassed, he rubbed his hands. “When did you come, Master-babu?”
 
“What’s in that box of yours?”
 
“Box? What box? You’ve come for tea, haven’t you? I’ve made some. I’ll bring it right away.”
 
Bhavatosh understood: Sahadeb will discuss the box with no one. Out on the veranda, he wondered: what priceless treasure could lie within? A poor man like him—perhaps jewelry, or some cash? People said, twenty-five years ago when he came to Kolkata, he had brought that box. Folk assumed it held ancestral wealth. Yet no one had ever seen him open it. Soon the tale of the lost key spread. Doubts grew about his sanity.
 
But Bhavatosh’s curiosity deepened. Some days later he again asked about the box. At his question, Sahadeb looked as if struck from the sky.
“A poor man’s box—what could it hold?”
 
“What’s in it, then? You refuse to tell. At most, some gold or money. Why not call a locksmith to break it open?”
 
Terror flared on Sahadeb’s face.
“What are you saying, Master-moshai! This lock can’t be broken. That box—my elder brother gave it to my grandfather, my grandfather to my father, my father to me. It’s sacred. What a great sin I committed, losing the key! That’s why I’ve no happiness in life.”
 
Bhavatosh realized: some great shock haunts this man’s life. Otherwise, who behaves so? And he noticed another thing: Sahadeb always guarded the box. If he left, he locked the room.
 
Then came Saraswati Puja’s eve. A Saturday. School was closed. Some students, Bhavatosh, and the headmistress had gathered to prepare. By ten in the morning all had arrived. But Sahadeb was missing. Nowhere to be found. Unheard of.
His room’s door was open. Unprotected—never before! Inside, all was in disarray. The box was gone. Bhavatosh’s suspicion grew.
 
Outside, a local man came to meet the headmistress. He said that last night he had heard weeping inside the school. He saw Sahadeb run out, chasing two or three men. Despite his shouts, Sahadeb gave no reply. Later, he had shut the door and left.
 
Bhavatosh grew worried. Something happened last night that drove Sahadeb away. Perhaps thieves? But then why did he not return? Where had he gone into the dark?
 
Police were informed. News was sent to his village. Ten days—no trace. Bhavatosh finally took leave and secretly went to Sahadeb’s village, Balsidhi.
A remote hamlet, with three thousand souls. The fields barren, ponds dry. Crops had failed for lack of rain. Farmers beaten down. Mud houses stood like poems—simple, fragile.
 
Sahadeb’s home was at the far end. A mud house fenced with straw.
 
On the veranda sat some villagers chatting. On hearing Bhavatosh’s query, they looked at each other uneasily. “Yes, he lived here. But now his brother lives here. He left family, wife, children—all. Strange fate. Why, has something happened? Has he returned from Kolkata?”
 
“No, but did he come here recently?” Bhavatosh asked. The crowd shuffled in silence.
“What would he do here? He lives happily in Kolkata,” one elder said.
 
“Which is his brother?” Bhavatosh asked.
 
Again silence. Finally one said: “Panchkori, answer him. Speak.”
 
Out stepped a short, dark, middle-aged man. Unhappy at being approached. Thin, half-fed. When Bhavatosh told him all, his face fell. “Then it’s over, brother. My elder won’t return. His head was not right. And then—”
 
“Does Sahadeb have a wife?”
 
“He had.” The man pointed. “There she stands at the door.” A middle-aged woman stood, face veiled.
 
“I am from his office. He has vanished. If he does not return in fifteen days, he will lose his job. I came to see if he was here.”
 
The woman wept silently, gave no answer.
 
The crowd whispered. “Ask the panchayat. They know.” The woman’s sobbing grew louder.
 
“Why is she crying?”
 
“Sin makes her weep,” someone muttered. Panchkori too broke down, weeping. Husband and wife retreated indoors. The crowd thinned.
 
A man whispered to Bhavatosh: “Her name is Rukkuna. She was Sahadeb’s wife. Long ago. But she loved his brother. Leaving son and wife, Sahadeb fled. The woman married the brother. That is why Sahadeb ran.”
 
Inside the house, her groaning continued.
 
“Why is she weeping now?”
 
“Torment of the heart. Sahadeb was summoned to Kolkata. His son—”
 
“What happened? Whose son?”
 
“Sahadeb’s.”
 
Startled, Bhavatosh asked, “What of him?”
 
“He died.”
 
Bhavatosh reeled. “How?”
 
“That cannot be said. Ask the panchayat. But on hearing the news he came here twenty days ago. Arrived in the morning. Left after cremating the boy at night. Gone again. He had left twenty-five years ago. When one loses both wife and land, can a man keep his mind whole? Once he was a great farmer—none like him in the region. Land was his life.”
 
“What happened to his land?”
 
“The landlords seized it with police. Said land belongs to the people, not individuals. Truth is—he grieved less for his wife’s betrayal than for losing his land. He would rather die than work another’s field. That’s why he went to Kolkata.”
 
On the way back, Bhavatosh asked: “What did his son do?”
 
“He sold goods on trains. A restless lad. Obstinate, like his father. Loved his mother. Never obeyed the party. Resisted often. We dare not say more. We are afraid.”
 
Back in Kolkata, Bhavatosh found in the newspaper Jugantar a five-line report: another political murder. No longer newsworthy—political killings are now routine.
 
Where had Sahadeb gone? The question gnawed.
 
Twenty days later, Sahadeb returned. Everyone surrounded him. Strangely, the box was no longer with him.
 
Bhavatosh did not tell anyone the whole village tale. In a school run on government funds, how could he reveal such truth? Freedom of speech—what a magic trick in this country!
 
The headmistress warned Sahadeb: “You may keep your job, but no more madness. And wherever you go, inform me.”
 
Sahadeb replied, “Without the box, what madness remains? And besides this school, where else could I go?”
 
“Nonsense!” a teacher snapped.
 
The eldest teacher, Shatadal Babu, said, “Where did you leave the box, Sahadeb? Such treasure cannot be left with just anyone.” The others roared with laughter. Sahadeb laughed foolishly with them. Bhavatosh clenched his teeth, holding back uncontainable rage.
 
Some days later, on a rainy day, while borrowing an umbrella from Sahadeb, Bhavatosh asked: “Sahadeb-da, you took the box to the village. Where did you leave it? And where were you hiding that month?”
 
Ashamed, Sahadeb said: “My mortgaged land was inside that box, Master-babu. I guarded it all these years. Lest it be looted. At last I dropped the key itself inside through a hole on top.”
 
Bhavatosh stared at him. No madness shone now in his face.
“To whom did you mortgage it, Sahadeb-da?”
 
“Why, to the government. Don’t you remember—they took all the land.” Sahadeb looked at him, surprised.
 
“Then where is the box?”
 
“For a month I wandered, thinking of nothing else. I have no one. What use was it to me anymore? I am no farmer, but a watchman. So I flung the box from a moving train. Now I am at peace. No worries left.” Tears glistened in his eyes.
Bhavatosh asked softly, “By what magic did you place an entire field into a box, Sahadeb-da?” With a wooden smile he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder.
 
For the first time, Sahadeb looked straight into his eyes. His gaze flared like fire.
“Land means grain. Seed. Cast into soil, the earth comes alive. Priceless treasure. My ancestral soil.”
 
Then he broke down, sobbing. “That soil is no longer mine. I have lost it forever.” He wailed aloud.
 
Bhavatosh felt his own jaw tighten with rage.