The Touch

I sat down on a small wooden stool, feeling relieved because I had found the sweet shop I had been looking for, and there were still some sweets left for sale. I had never thought it would take me the entire summer morning to reach the shop; it was such a remote place!

The sweet shop was a small room in an earthen house with a tin shed above. The shop had only one bowl of sweets kept on a wooden chair. The counter resembled a window opening in the wall. A hanging wooden panel could close it. The green, bushy surroundings added a primitive atmosphere to the shop. An old man was sitting inside with a shawl over his body. He was looking at me, expecting an order.

‘One sweet please!’ I said, thinking I might order more if it tasted as good as my friend had repeatedly claimed.

‘Please use a spoon to lift the sweet for me!’ I asked hurriedly as the old man tried to pick one from the bowl with his wrinkled, bare hand.

‘The sweet must have my touch!’ He replied softly.

‘What if you don’t touch it?’ I said with a sarcastic smile.

‘Then it won’t have the taste you've come for,’ the old man replied, looking straight into my eyes.

Hearing his seemingly nonsensical words, I tried to stay calm and took a fresh approach. ‘First, give me one sweet using a spoon, and then I'll have another with your touch. After that, I’ll know which one is better.’

‘I have no spoon. And, most importantly, you can’t have two sweets a day.’

I was amazed. I stood up to show my anger and said, ‘That’s none of your business. It’s my choice! I’ll buy as many sweets as I want. I could even buy all the sweets in your shop—I have enough money!’

‘You can’t have more than one sweet. That’s the tradition! It’s been this way for over a hundred years—forty sweets for forty people each day. You can’t take it home; you must eat it here, in front of me.’ He paused, gave me a brief look, then placed the sweet back into the bowl.

I could not believe his words. A sweet-lover like me had come this far only to taste one sweet touched by a wrinkled, bare hand! From the capital, I traveled over two and a half hours on the expressway, then spent about an hour on a ragged local bus along bumpy, muddy roads. Afterward, I walked along narrow paths through paddy fields, shoes in hand, sweating under the hot, humid air. And all for a single sweet! I felt frustrated with my friend who recommended the shop to me but didn’t mention the one-sweet rule and the traditional touch. I sat down on the wooden bench outside the shop and glanced at the signboard to confirm I was in the right place. The rusted letters spelled out "Noren Ghosh Sweets."

‘Are you Noren Ghosh?’

‘No, my name is Beeren Ghosh. Noren Ghosh was my great-grandfather—a brave man who fought and died in the Second World War. After him, my grandfather Dheeren Ghosh ran the shop, and when he passed, my father, Satyen Ghosh, took over. In 1971, he wouldn’t let Pakistani soldiers break our tradition of serving only one sweet per person. They shot him right here inside the shop,’ he said, pointing to a spot.

I was less interested in the family history and asked, ‘People don’t mind the touch on the sweets?’

‘Why should they? That’s what they come for.’

‘No, I mean… isn’t it seen as an issue in terms of religion?’ I would rather not raise the issue but could not stop myself.

‘Religion isn’t the problem here. The real issue is politics. That’s why the signboard took on new forms—first in 1947 during the partition of India and Pakistan and then again in 1971 during the Liberation War of Bangladesh. In the name of religion, miscreants burned it down repeatedly. But I know it was never about religion; it was all political. And you’d be surprised to know that each time, a Muslim carpenter family repaired the signboard, restoring it with their traditional touch.’

I got a new window into his ideas and wanted to learn more. I said, ‘Who do you think is responsible for burning down your signboard? Locals?’

‘No, locals never destroy a tradition; it’s something they try to preserve. Besides, they have to face me now and then. Criminals can’t bear the gaze of their victims’.

‘Who were the miscreants?’ I asked, hoping for a specific answer.

‘Soldiers.’

‘How could they do that? They’re educated, trained, and human!’

‘Educated and trained only to kill swiftly. They’re human beings without the uniform, but once they put it on, they become agents of killing and destruction. It’s not their fault—it’s the uniform. That’s why many soldiers take their lives after returning from war. They can’t bear the weight of the inhumanity they carry within themselves once the uniform is off.’

‘Why do people fight? What do you think?’ I asked him as my expectations grew.

‘They fight for profit. But they never consider that their profit brings loss to others.’

I nodded in agreement and decided to steer the conversation away from the war. ‘Don’t you seek profit in your shop?’

‘It’s nonprofit. Everything is the same as it was a century ago.’

‘You said your great-grandfather made 40 sweets a day, and that hasn’t changed. But what about the price? Is it the same as it was a century ago? I doubt it.’

‘It’s nonprofit.’

‘You raised the price of sweets—how can you call it nonprofit?’

‘Simple logic. The cost of milk and sugar has gone up, which is why the price increased. We don’t profit from this at all. In fact, we don’t charge for our labor or time.’

‘But why? Why do you do this? And not just for a day or a month—over the years. Why? It seems there might be some interest on your part. People don’t act without some sort of interest.’

‘The touch enriches me. As I spread the touch, I feel the magic of the Creator within me. When I hand over the sweets, I touch them to put my mark on them—the mark of a creator. Since there’s no place for profit, it passes on without barriers, from me to another person, from him to you, and from you to others.’

‘You could be a rich man by making more sweets and selling them all day. It’s a famous shop. There’s no shortage of customers, is there’?

‘I can’t even think of it. It will defile the touch. You shouldn’t seek profit everywhere. You know, the nonprofit touch is present in the world in one form or another; otherwise, it would be uninhabitable.’

I couldn’t say anything for a few seconds. I just stopped thinking about anything. Then, I understood it was my turn to say something. I nodded my head and softly uttered, ‘I agree.’

‘And remember that all the ingredients bear the touches of these wrinkled fingers and palms. I have a right to put a final touch on it.’

Customers came one by one, enjoying the sweets and the traditional touch before leaving the shop silently. At one point, only one sweet remained in the bowl when a young man stood beside me and asked for it.

The old man said, ‘The shop is closed for the day. Come tomorrow’.

The young man looked disappointed but smiled. ‘I’ll come early tomorrow.’

When the young man left, I asked the old man, ‘Why did you lie to him? You still have one sweet left. You could have sold it to him.’

‘No, I can’t. The sweet already had my touch. The touch is designated specifically for you. Look, I’ve kept it by the side of the bowl while I sold the others from the middle. You can take it if you want, but if you don’t, I’ll give it to my granddaughter.’ ‘I’ll take it.’ I said with a smile.

A glow of satisfaction brightened his face. ‘Oh! Here you are! I’m pleased that you have learned to realize the importance of touch at last. Many people come from distant places to taste my sweets, but they fail to understand the importance of touch. They leave this place without having my sweet and without knowledge of touch.’

He lifted the last sweet from the bowl with his wrinkled, bare hand, placed it on a small earthen plate, and handed it to me.

I stared at the sweet as the sugary syrup oozed out of it. I took it between my thumb and forefinger, dropped it into my mouth, and squeezed it slowly. I couldn’t help but close my eyes. I immediately understood why the signboard for Noren Ghosh Sweets has stood for over a century. The sweet had a magical taste within it, encompassing a variety of sweet flavors that have delighted taste buds for generations. I understood why the shop withstood two world wars and a Liberation War and why the tradition of ‘40 sweets a day for forty customers’ was passed down from Noren Ghosh to Dheeren Ghosh, then to Satyen Ghosh, and now to Beeren Ghosh.

I couldn’t finish the sweet, literally, because the taste lingered in my mouth. The material portion of the sweet passed through my esophagus, but the abstract touch of it stuck to my tongue and remained there.

I opened my eyes and said, ‘Yes, you’re right! The sweets must have your touch! I felt the touch traveling down to my heart! Without the touch, it would have been just another sweet’.

The old man put on a winning smile and said, ‘If you want to taste another, you can spend the night at my house. You could watch the process of making the sweets. Tomorrow afternoon, you can have another one!’

I grabbed his sticky, sugary hand and looked into his old but sharp eyes. I said nothing but forwarded my gratitude through my touch.

There was a long pause. Everything in the world stood still for a moment. Then I said, ‘The Earth is sick! She needs your touch. You are a sage. I’ve learned so much from you.’

The old man smiled. ‘I’m an illiterate man. All my words have come to me through my predecessors. They are from Noren Ghosh. He was also an illiterate man. I don’t know where he learned those words. But for me, I utter the same words whenever a newcomer visits my shop and hesitates to taste the sweet because of the touch.’

I gazed at the old man and his wrinkled hand. I told him, ‘I don’t believe this! You can’t be an illiterate man. You have a philosophy of life, a philosophy of mankind on Earth.’

‘Wait, just wait for a second. I’ll call my granddaughter, Sharna Ghosh.’

He called out at the top of his voice, ‘Sharna, Sharna! Come here.’

A teenage girl emerged from the house and stood before me. She was the first female I had seen in the village.

The old man looked at me and said, ‘It’s your turn. Ask her any question you asked me earlier.’

‘Sharna, I want more than one sweet. What do you say? Will you allow me’?

‘You can’t have more than one sweet. That’s the tradition! It’s been this way for over a hundred years—forty sweets for forty people each day. You can’t take it home; you must eat it here, in front of me.’ Sharna spoke all those words in just one breath, then looked at her grandfather. With a simple nod from him, she vanished into the house.

The old man wanted to tell me something. I stopped him because I understood that every member of the family was prepared with answers to the ‘frequently asked questions.’ Religion and war never left people, so they were the common theme a thousand years ago, a century ago, and are still relevant today. I said, ‘I understand. Unfortunately, I cannot meet Noren Ghosh in person. But I feel the touch of that sage down the ages, even in the teenager.’

‘She will be the next Ghosh to sell the sweets!’

I felt a touch of anguish in his voice. I thought, ‘There must be a sad chapter here,’ but I didn’t dare to ask him about it.

He continued, ‘She will be the next Ghosh to sell the sweets because her father, my only son, died of cholera during the flood of 1988. She has two elder brothers. Both of them left the village for higher education.’

‘But they can come anytime and join the traditional business.’

‘Of course, they can. But they likely won’t. They want a better life, a better environment. They don’t like the earthen house. There are rats everywhere. They don’t like the muddy roads during the rains. They can’t tolerate the heat of the summer. There is no electricity here!’ He could say no more because tears began rolling down his cheeks.

I stood before him speechless. He recovered himself and said, ‘They don’t realize they have a sacred duty to pass on the non-profit traditional touch.’

I didn’t want to interrupt him, but I pointed out a valid argument: ‘They can pass on the non-profit touch by doing other businesses.’

‘It won’t work. You need to stick to the tradition. I do farming, but I can’t have the sacred touch there, for I do it to survive in this world, to sustain myself. The sacred touch is tied to my mental well-being. I serve as a link between my ancestors and the generations to come. That is why tradition is the most important part here.’

At that moment, I realized I had learned something new from an old man who was not enlightened by education but enriched by tradition. I learned something that was far more important than anything I had learned throughout my education. I realized that I had somehow missed our family tradition and lost the sacred touch.

‘I’ll come again someday to have a sweet with the touch.’ I wanted to leave because I was getting emotional.

‘You don’t need to come back. You know the reason.’ He smiled. There was a heavenly touch in his smile.

I held his hand again, pressed it to absorb some of its strength into mine, and bade him goodbye.

When I left the sweet shop behind, I told myself, ‘Yes, I don’t need to come back. I know the reason. It is enough to have just one sweet with the century-old touch! It is sufficient for a day and even enough for a lifetime! If someone were to ask me about its taste before my very last breath, I could easily describe it as if I had just tasted it seconds ago! The nonprofit touch carries the eternal, everlasting magic with it! It transcends religion and overcomes wars, connecting humanity from one corner to another, from one century to another, and across ages to come!’

As I started to lose myself among the green, I looked back for the last time. The old man was still waving his wrinkled right hand. I felt his sweet, soft touch in the air, and that air followed me through the paddy fields, country roads, and even into my bedroom in the capital.