The simpleton from Kalighat

Let us call him Sunil; it is as good a Bengali name as any. A young promising man in his late twenties, having had a decent education, he stayed at Kalighat where the famous Kali temple of Kolkata stands cheek by jowl with the numerous brothels on the eastern side of the Tolly Nallah. He had a pretty girlfriend and let’s call her Aparna, who was in her midtwenties. They were very much in love and shared more than a few moments of intimacy.

Come October and the wanderlust springs eternal in the Bengali soul. This couple, though unmarried, decided to visit a town about a hundred kilometers from Kolkata, a fabulous tourist spot. They checked into a hotel and had a hectic time journeying to the various attractions that were on offer. By nightfall they were back in the hotel and had a befitting dinner.

It was time for the action to begin. They had sex, as young lovers are wont to do, far away from the prying eyes and nosy neighbours. Sunil, for reasons best known to him, had the whole sequence of intimacy recorded on video. Aparna was not reluctant to go on record exposing her intimate jewels: unlike Britney Spear’s, hers was a well-forested pudendum on display. Not to be outdone, Sunil indulged in sexual pyrotechniques worthy of a Casanova. It was a long drawn out affair traversing a bathroom sequence the following morning.

On coming back to Kolkata, Sunil approached a nearby studio to convert the video into a digital format, which was the studio’s specialty. The studio obliged.

Some months later Sunil had a career interview at Mumbai and he put up in a hotel there. While having dinner at a restaurant the cheeky waiter grinned at him mischievously and said ‘ bara maaza aya sahab, apko blue film mey dekha’ [I enjoyed a lot watching you in a blue film]. Sunil was about to put a juicy morsel of Chicken Tandoori into his mouth when his hand froze in midair and his eyes jutted out from the socket. He hurried to his room and left for Kolkata on the morrow hiding his face, the face of ridicule and infamy. Stupidity worst confounded: he lodged a complaint with the local police station against the studio owner. The leering policemen, it must be said, took serious note of his predicament and the studio owner was brought to justice.