CalcuttaChromosome excerpt

From The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

 Murugan could not get to sleep. Sweltering under the mosquito net, he lay awake, watching the ceiling fan beat the heavy monsoon air, its stubby blades flashing hypnotically in the thin crack of light that was shining through the stubbornly unfastenable balcony door. The bedclothes had bunched up around his waist in moist, sweat-soaked clusters. Taking off his vest, he rolled it into a ball and dropped it out of the mosquito net. He was naked now, except for his cotton boxer shorts. The generator was still pounding away at the wedding down the road. The music seemed even louder now. But somehow, despite all that noise, he could hear the mosquitoes clearly, droning patiently around the bed, testing for openings, gathering in excitement every time a hand or a foot brushed against the fabric. Soon he couldn't ell whether the buzz was inside the net or outside; whether the tingling in his limbs came from their interrupted probings or the chafing of the moist sheets. - - -     The fan become a blur; the mosquito net melted into a milky fog. He was floating outside it now, looking in, at people he knew, knew very well, even if only through books and papers. And now he was in again, inside the net; he was one of them too, lying on a hard hospital charpoy, stripped, naked, watching the English doctor uncork a test tube full of mosquitoes into his net. In his fist he still clutched the coins he had been given at the hospital gates. He held onto them tightly, savouring their feel, their reassurance; they were so cool to the touch, so hard edged; they made everything so simple, so clean: a handful of coins, a rupee, for handing on the the thing that lived in his blood, for safekeeping, to the doctor. - - -     Murugan sat suddenly upright, the sweat pouring off his face, not sure whether he was still dreaming or awake. The net was buzzing with mosquitoes; he could see them dancing like motes, in the finger of light that bisected his bed. 

© Amitav Ghosh