Phokla Takes Anindo Away from the Cabaret Performance

Phokla Chatterjee Takes Anindo Away from the Cabaret Performance is a small but decisive act of withdrawal: Phokla recognizes that he has brought his innocent nephew into a world he himself cannot resist, and chooses to take Anindo away rather than remain for the cabaret’s final act. The scene exposes both Phokla’s alcohol dependence and his shame at having passed its consequences to the younger man.

The Visit to the Mumtaz

Phokla has brought Anindo Pakrashi to the Hotel Shahjahan for what he calls the young man’s initiation into the hotel. Anindo is already so sleepy that his eyes are nearly closed, and Phokla asks the narrator to look after him so that he will not leave with a poor impression of the place. The narrator greets him and reassures him that the family’s long association with his uncle means he should feel at home. This hospitality gives the visit the air of a managed introduction: Anindo is not simply out for the evening, but being shown a social world by his uncle.

Sata Bose joins in that welcome by offering Anindo a sparkling drink, a bottle dated to the year Bose was born. Phokla responds with exuberant praise, likening the Hotel Shahjahan without Sata Bose to Madhab Industries without Madhab, Hamlet without its prince, Bengali literature without Tagore, and the Ramakrishna mission without Vivekananda. The comparisons are comic in their scale, but they also establish Bose as the person who makes the hotel’s social machinery work. Phokla’s final comparison, however, turns the joke inward: he says that he cannot do without alcohol.

Phokla’s Confession

The banter gives way to an admission of dependence. Phokla describes being unable to restrain himself after sunset, and says that he must get hold of a bottle every day, whether by begging, borrowing, or stealing. The confession is not presented as a passing joke: his eyes are clouded with tears, and he struggles to control himself as he speaks. Anindo calls out to his uncle, visibly unsettled by the sudden change in him.

Phokla then names the harm he believes he has done. He says he is no man but an animal, and admits that he was the one who first encouraged Anindo to drink. When his sister once asked him to choose a name for her son, he thought of Anindo, meaning the irreproachable; now he looks at his nephew with affection and sees a boy who is still innocent. His remorse links his own dependence to a fear for Anindo’s future, though the scene does not say that Anindo has developed a drinking problem. What Phokla acknowledges is his responsibility for introducing him to alcohol, not a settled outcome for the nephew.

The Decision to Leave

Bose is preparing to have Phokla’s drink brought when Phokla stops him. He pauses to think, rises, and leaves cash on the table for the drinks. Then he tells Anindo that they are going. The sequence makes the departure a deliberate choice rather than the result of drunkenness: Anindo is surprised, and the narrator notes that Phokla has not had enough to lose his balance. Phokla is responding instead to the recognition that he should not have brought his nephew there.

Bose asks whether he will stay for the cabaret’s last act. Phokla declines with a sad expression and apologizes for having brought Anindo to the place. Taking his nephew by the hand, he leaves the performance. The gesture answers the earlier image of him holding Anindo’s hand as he confessed: now that contact becomes the means of leading the young man out. The scene does not resolve Phokla’s dependence, but it gives his remorse an immediate consequence: for once, he interrupts the evening rather than allowing the pull of alcohol and entertainment to carry on unchecked.

Aftermath and Narrative Significance

The narrator and Bose remain perplexed and overwhelmed as Phokla and Anindo depart. The cabaret does not stop for them. The lights at the Mumtaz shine again, and waiters serve the customers their drinks for the last time. This return to routine places the uncle and nephew’s private crisis against the hotel’s continuing service: a moment of moral recognition occurs, but the evening’s commercial rhythm resumes around it.

The scene also sharpens the contrast between public performance and private distress. Earlier, Bose had praised the narrator’s work introducing Connie and imagined him becoming indispensable across the hotel’s counter, bar, and cabaret. Here, the same entertainment setting becomes the place where Phokla sees what he has exposed Anindo to. The cabaret can continue its show, but Phokla’s departure briefly refuses its momentum. The event’s significance lies in that limited, concrete change: a man unable to promise that he will overcome his own dependence nevertheless recognizes a boundary he should not cross with his nephew, and acts on that recognition by taking Anindo away.