Srinjay Chakravarti is a writer, editor and translator based in Salt Lake City, Calcutta, India. A former journalist with The Financial Times Group, his creative writing has appeared in over 150 publications in 30-odd countries. His first book of poems Occam’s Razor received the Salt Literary Award in 1995. He has won one of the top prizes ($7,500) in the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Poetry Competition 2007–08. www.srinjaychakravarti.com.
The Butterfly Net
The little boy was skipping about in the green paddy fields under the mild winter sun, now catching a dragonfly and then setting it free, now chasing a grasshopper and then teasing it, annoying it no end.
Suddenly he stopped in alarm. A tall bearded man, dressed in a white flannel shirt and khaki corduroy trousers, with a sola topi on his head, was peering at him from behind a bamboo grove. But then the man smiled, a nice kindly gentle smile, and the boy felt more at ease.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’
‘My name is Prof. Chayan Rakshit. I am a professor of entomology at a university in Calcutta. Can you do something for me?’
‘Anto—antomo—what? What’s that?’
The man smiled again. ‘Entomology. It’s the study of insects. You know—grasshoppers and dragonflies, mantids and moths, butterflies, bees, and ants…’
‘Ants? You study ants? What for?’ The little village boy was astounded.
Prof. Rakshit sighed. ‘Oh, never mind. Can you do a little task for me?’
‘What sort of job?’ The boy’s guard was up.
‘Can you catch me a few butterflies? I’ll pay you good money.’
‘Butterflies? What for?’
‘To study them, of course.’
‘Why do you want to study them?’
Prof. Rakshit was exasperated. ‘Look, boy—now, what’s your name again?’
‘Shobuj Tanti.’
‘Ah, “Shobuj”, which means “green” in Bangla. How appropriate! Well, Shobuj, take me to your parents. I’ll explain it to them.’
Shobuj’s father ran a small grocery shop in the nearby village, a few miles from the town of Anjanagunj. The boy announced the professor as he entered the shop. ‘Here’s an antologist to meet you, baba. He teaches everything about ants in a big school.’
‘Huh?’ The boy’s father stared at them, startled.
Over a cup of tea, Prof. Rakshit explained what he wanted. ‘I’ll pay you an advance of a hundred rupees. And twenty rupees for every butterfly Shobuj can catch.’
Shobuj’s father, Mr Niramoy Tanti, was astounded. ‘If my son catches fifty of those flying insects, you’ll pay him a thousand rupees?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’
‘I’m too old for it, for one thing. I’m over fifty. I can’t go gallivanting over all that mud and slush at this age. This boy can do it much better than me.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Shobuj’s father, dubiously.
Prof. Rakshit produced a crisp hundred-rupee note, which Mr Tanti pocketed with alacrity. The professor went to his vehicle, a Tata Sumo, and took out a big butterfly net.
Shobuj woke up at dawn the next day and skipped off to the fields, armed with the ‘antologist’s’ butterfly net and a packet of muri and gur his mother had given him.
He roamed all day, netting all sorts of butterflies—emperors and monarchs, cardinals and satyrs, metalmarks and swallowtails.
At the end of the day, when he returned with his catch, his parents were dazzled—‘You’ve caught at least thirty!’ said his delighted father. Mrs Deboki Tanti said, ‘How lovely! That should bring us at least six hundred rupees!’
It was a happy and contented Shobuj who went to sleep that night. But just before daybreak, he crashed out of his little bed, entangled in the mosquito net. His body was drenched in a cold sweat, and he was trembling with terror as he struggled in the fine cotton mesh in which he was trapped.
His parents had come running over on hearing the crash. They rescued him and pulled him out. ‘What happened?’
‘I—I—dreamt that I had become a butterfly, and that I was caught in the professor’s net! I had nowhere to escape!’
Shobuj started weeping. ‘Oh, it was horrible. Just horrible! I felt someone was suffocating me. I felt as though I would die!’
‘Don’t worry, son,’ said his father soothingly, ‘you had a bad dream. Just a nightmare.’
‘No,’ said Shobuj, ‘I won’t keep the butterflies. I shall set them free!’
‘What! Set them free! What for?! What about the cash?’
Mr Tanti went on threatening and cajoling his son, but Shobuj was obdurate. When Prof. Rakshit arrived at seven o’clock, Mr Tanti was still haranguing his son.
Shobuj came running out. He told the professor all about his dream, then pulled out the butterfly net. Before anyone could protest, he opened the net and set his entire harvest free.
‘Hey, what’re you doing? Wait a minute!’ said Prof. Rakshit. But he was too late. The lepidoptera blossomed out in a brilliant burst of fluttering, multicoloured wings and dispersed immediately, revelling in their new-found freedom.
Mr Niramoy Tanti fell upon his son, pummelling Shobuj with blows and slaps. Prof. Rakshit intervened and stayed his hand.
The entomologist then said, more to himself, ‘Chuang Tzu dreamt at dawn that a butterfly had lost its way…’
‘What’s that?’ Shobuj’s father was still panting with rage.
‘Oh, it came to my mind that there was an old Chinese philosopher, who once dreamt he had become a butterfly. When he woke up, he wasn’t sure whether he was a man who had been dreaming he had been a butterfly in his sleep, or a butterfly dreaming it was Chuang Tzu in its own sleep.’
Shobuj’s parents exchanged astounded glances. Shobuj was now looking distinctly happier.
Prof. Rakshit patted the boy on his head, then extracted a couple of five-hundred rupee notes from his wallet.
‘Keep the money,’ he said to Shobuj and his dumbstruck parents.
The entomologist picked up his butterfly net and strode out of the courtyard. Shobuj and his parents stood there, gaping after him.