This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  At the end of the text, he, the writer, carries an unknown dead body on his shoulder, wrapped in a white sheet. So, did anyone die in this piece of writing? He carts and brings the dead body that’s completely covered in a white sheet to the middle of the text, lays it on a table. Lying outside are the torn slippers he has removed, covered in dust, they compose another picture.

  Unseen, the kirtan becomes a roar

  Surrendering everything, with heart and mind

  I shall most definitely be a slave girl

  Oh de-e-e-e-e-ar

  Don’t ask questions

  never ask questions

  eat and live, get your arse fucked

  Ask questions and you’ll go to jail

  One nation, one life, unity

  The masses of great India awaken

  Sidestepping all this tumult and rumbling, the one in the dirty long-cloth punjabi and knee-length dhuti, who seeks to live free of hassles, advances. Lakshmi and Satyanarayan puja performed regularly at home, at least one lottery ticket every month, as a rule … ‘Do you know, if you are caught taking bribes, your job’s gone…’ ‘I’ll die, sir, I’ll be completely finished, my children will die of starvation…’

  Ranu-di

  It’s terribly hot today. Goats and cows on the field move to the shade under trees. There’s a traffic jam in Sealdah. Just now, a man wearing a brown lungi went by under our window, tugging at the rope tied to a goat. The goat was bleating, beanh, beanh, it did not want to go. The man was hitting it with a stick. It must definitely be snowing in Darjeeling now. The clock-tower in the jailhouse rings, dong, dong, it is two o’clock. An unrecognizable youth stands at the end of the road and waves towards our window, trying to convey something. I open the window a bit to hear. A stream of sunlight enters the room and at once we hear: ‘Leave the house and come down quickly, an earthquake’s going to strike just now!’ The meaning of the words does not sink in immediately. I see that an old beggar lies beneath our veranda, in the patch of shade. Beside him are a box and a staff. A stray dog sniffs the old man’s face suspiciously. Craning my neck from the window upstairs, my head half in and half out, I can see. I can see the dog sniffing the old man’s grey moustache and beard. The boy wearing punjabi-pajama, the unrecognizable boy – screams out once again at that moment. ‘Come down at once, there’s going to be an earthquake right now!’ From here, I can clearly see the boy’s frantic gesticulations, the veins popping out on his throat as he screams.

  Then, the future hoodlum, Ramayan Chamar, the girl from Metiabruz, as well as the writer, all of them together, all the same characters, begin screaming in complaint –

  Ramayan Chamar

  ‘I’m from Aarah in north Bihar. I was supposed to work in fields and farms. But you turned me into a tea-garden coolie.’

  The girl from Metiabruz

  ‘What you’ve done to me … what’s it called … it isn’t complete, that’s it, why don’t you make me clearer, ple-a-se’

  Future hoodlum, coming on to the stage

  ‘At the time of the riots – am I alive or did I die?’

  Phantom

  ‘My character is not at all clear, how will people recognize me…’

  Writer

  ‘Whatever happened to me, where exactly am I located?’

  Go to the end of the text, there you’ll see the bulb from the table lamp on the writing table being removed, the writer’s thing being inserted, and the switch being turned on, nearby the characters from Guernica have grabbed space and squatted. All of you know that the last ten pages are devoted entirely to a description of the storm, like in The Tempest. There, neither the characters nor the incidents are under the writer’s control, they have determined their destinies by themselves … only the storm in the last ten pages, only the massacre, which indicates a change in the weather.

  Unseen

  The choral group of the Greek play emerges

  One nation, one life, unity

  The masses of great India awaken

  A vulture from Antigone’s crematorium comes flying. In a rented flat on Camac Street, father and son begin quarrelling over a girl. A bayonet is thrust into the chest of the most impartial clerk. Those who had nothing whatsoever to lose, realize they’re losing nothing. Who does what, who has which role – nothing can be understood clearly.

  The characters are then no longer porters carrying the writer’s luggage, it is the characters who set about controlling the writer. Oppression begins everywhere. The police step down from the Guernica. The description of just that in the last ten pages. And, of course, obviously, in such a narration, there are no paragraphs.

  ‘It’s funny, Ranu-di, that literature is a lie through which we try to understand the truth, at least the intelligible truth … I have an old habit of marking the text while reading books – three or four months ago, I had read a book on social economy, actually it was four interviews, or I should say more accurately, conversations between a famous sociologist and four persons, all of nearly the same calibre, and I had marked the text – now I find that almost every mark was made emotionally – in the wrong sense – and quite a bit of the elaboration and explanation too – or to say it correctly, a simple, straightforward ability to corroborate the complex subject, according to my own preference – I had done that, I don’t mind admitting that now. Reading through a few pages of the book, I’m having to think anew now, about the issues raised in the book – and also about the markings on the book. I’m thinking, I’ve been biting my pen for a long time, the truth is that this arrogance on my part of writing Ramayan Chamar’s tale is also only a pretence, an attempt to go close to the intelligible truth – where I myself am the impediment – but not to reach.’

  A hullabaloo begins everywhere

  Far away, country-bombs rain down on Lenin Sarani

  Thus, in all the commotion, who said what

  Can’t be heard clearly anymore

  The cuntry advances through all this. Revolutionary thoughts as well as Shani worship increase dramatically. Science and chiromancy become mutual rivals. An electronic watch hangs on the wrist, and exactly six inches above that, the Baba Taraknath amulet. The cuntry advances. Through the English-medium schools, the cut and style of clothes, marriage ceremonies and Happy Birthdays, through pencilled eyebrows and free mixing with girls, the cuntry advances. Father speedily becomes ‘Dad’ from ‘Bapi’. Mother, father, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, all of them together, in unison, get down on the dance floor. Hips swing and gyrate in a particular animal-like way. Seeing the vast jiggling field reaching down from between the mother’s breasts to beneath her navel, the boy’s friends put fingers to mouth and whistle, mother lovingly pinches their cheeks and says: ‘You naughty boys!’ Modernity – fierce modernity, not to be outdone by the developed races. The cuntry advances.

  This part must be read keeping in mind what the average per capita consumption of 95 per cent of the people is, those who live permanently below the poverty line

  Ramayan Chamar

  ‘For the last year and a half, not a drop of kerosene oil reached the tea-garden, can you imagine that? The brother of the tea-garden manager is the kerosene oil dealer, and our quarrel is with the manager. For a year and a half, we have been living in darkness, bribes have also been paid to the panchayat to make sure they don’t do anything untoward. There was an announcement that the kerosene van was looted by someone while it was on its way to the tea-garden, and that the supply of kerosene oil was discontinued for that reason.’

  The home commissioner announced that the police had undertaken large-scale search operations since yesterday night in the concerned areas and recovered three-thousand country-bombs and eight-thousand quintals of explosives. They believe a huge quantity of illegal firearms is in existence across the country. They have discovered many secret arms-making workshops. 20,370 illegal firearms, including rifles, guns and pistols, were seized in a single day. According to the police, this figure does not
include pipe-guns, cleavers, choppers and axes.

  The zombie emerges from behind the green curtain

  ‘We’ll set the CPI(M) against the Naxalites and set the Naxalites against the CPI(M) – there’ll be fratricide between the shits, and then we’ll come to power – ha ha ha.’

  The first wife looks like fire

  The middle wife a blessing

  The last wife’s a working cunt

  She shags by secretly glancing

  Ranu-di

  ‘Everyone has one weak point or another … don’t they?’

  The neighbourhood grandpa

  ‘Nowadays boys attain puberty by the time they are twelve years old … See the furore at the neighbourhood kerb … the girls’ school is about to get over now, you see…’

  Phantom

  ‘By strewing grains of wheat, I can get any domesticated hen to the bakul-lined alley, keeping a safe distance. When I’m chewing on that chicken’s leg, at night – together with the necessary drinks – and I think of it getting lured, I’m unable to contain my laughter!’

  The youth whose decapitated body will be found in the drain

  On the 4:56 a.m. local train, a wagon full of pitchers of toddy goes to Calcutta, and from the 11:13 a.m. down train, professors from Calcutta, clad in dhutis with hanging pleats, get down to go to the local college – all the calculations are correct, aren’t they?

  The babu, umbrella in hand, who was run

  over by a bus

  ‘Why do you try to write about what you don’t know or understand, mister? Just think once about where the country is headed, day by day … It would have been different if Subhas Bose, together with the Indian National Army, could have made an entry that day…’

  Ramayan Chamar

  Unable to bear the torments of the goondas – extorting donations night and day – we’ve registered a few dozen police complaints. But the police station must surely have been displeased with our complaints because they only conducted a nominal enquiry, and did not find any evidence to support the complaints.

  The officer-in-charge of the police station

  ‘No untoward incident has occurred in the last 24 hours.’

  A dalit leader from Bihar

  ‘Between 1975 and 1980, there have been 56,596 incidents of oppression of dalits, 1,852 persons were killed, and 1,941 women raped. These are the government’s figures. According to non-governmental sources, the number of incidents is ten times greater. There are thousands of incidents of oppression that do not even find any mention in the newspapers.’

  Father

  ‘Remove your watch and ring, son. Because I have seen with my own eyes, just as the train was about to leave, an arm was severed from the elbow through the window of the train compartment, using a cleaver…’

  Mother

  ‘I’m touching the bel leaf blessed by Baba Taraknath to your head … keep it in your pocket, son. The Sai Baba picture is in the suitcase … Arrange it on your desk as soon as you reach … You’ll see, son, there’ll be no more danger or difficulty then.’

  An inspector on probation was informed over the phone at about 4 p.m. in the afternoon that there was a dead body inside a public toilet, with the face smashed in. It could not be identified. Later, the information was conveyed to the police. The dead body was removed at about 7.30 p.m. The tram conductor kept saying with a weepy face that he was forcibly pushed off the tram, and that kerosene oil was splashed and the tram was set on fire. They stood on the edge of the pavement and silently watched the front car of the tram being reduced to ashes. Killing, rioting and looting began and spread across a very large area.

  Leader

  ‘A great evil power is at work in the country. Unparalleled goondaism has started all over the country…’

  Clerk

  ‘Do you understand – actually a world war is needed, or else military rule … otherwise nothing will happen…’

  Diary

  All the waters become one, there are connections between all the rivers…

  The girl selling spinach on the roadside

  ‘All the babus who work in offices, who walk with squeaking shoes … they take out a stick at the slightest pretext and torment us.’

  The Naxalite youth whose decomposed body would be found

  ‘If India was a genuine democracy based on adult franchise, would the workers, peasants and poor employees, who comprise 95 per cent of the population, ever vote for the tiny minority to rule over them?’

  The youth sitting at the rawk

  ‘Quite sexy, really … When she walks on the road, swinging her hips, then, I swear on my mother, drums thunder in my chest.’

  Mother-and-child [Adhar Jena’s wife]

  ‘To be able to eat two handfuls twice a day … for fifteen days this month there was no cooking … And you want to play the husband?’

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  I saw the starving child die in front of my eyes. That’s why the dilemma in the novel, Nausea, is now extremely irrelevant.

  Mister Leader, who’s built a house

  after having retired from politics

  ‘Forget all this talk about the country, mister, wear silk clothes and recite the Gita every morning, especially the second chapter…’

  Writer

  ‘Remember this person – earlier he used to talk about revolution, now he goes around clad in khadi. Meanwhile, he’s got a mini-bus permit. He shaves very carefully every morning. He unfailingly buys a 400-gram cut of fresh fish from the market. Just look at him, he has the demeanour of a most-responsible citizen.’

  A reader, sotto voce

  ‘What’s this, mister … You’re describing your own face … pipe down for heaven’s sake…’

  The very person described, clad in a lungi, shopping bag in hand, turns around suddenly, he confronts the writer:

  ‘Neither CPI(M) nor Naxalite, you occupy such a nice opportunity-seeking halfway house, evading all responsibilities – fine fuckery, boy…’

  A flat attaché-case in the room, the stuff had been stored inside that. Filling up the box very carefully with the dynamite now, the lid was shut and fastened with tape. Now came the wooden clothes peg and battery. Power would come from the battery – and the clothes peg would function as a switch – meaning, at the right time, it would draw out the current from the battery…

  ‘By talking about deprived people

  You have taken literature to a nauseating place.’

  Hands trembling, the blasting cap was in place. A slight mistake and the whole bloody country would explode to high heavens. Holding his breath, he took out a cable from the dynamite and joined it to the wooden clothes peg. He attached another cable with extreme caution. Now there was only a small piece of plastic remaining on the path of the electric current.

  ‘You are fickle-minded, perverted. And you have also cleverly laid out the rationale for the perversion.’

  A small hole inside the piece of plastic, he slid the string through that. He tied one end tightly and put the other end through a narrow hole already made earlier in the attaché case. It jutted out beneath the handle. Making a loop on the string, he cut off the remaining portion. If a finger was inserted into the loop now and it was tugged, there would be an immediate explosion.

  ‘After so long, you’ll surely admit you have failed…’

  He stuffed some papers inside the attaché case now – right on top, he kept Manik’s Non-Violence, with a wry smile – so that the explosives couldn’t be seen, so that even if the bag had to be opened for some reason, no one would suspect anything.

  The dead body wrapped in a white sheet lay in the same way, in the middle of the whole incident. Whose dead body was it, why was it here, no one thought it necessary to open the sheet and look, no one even enquired. The soundtrack’s completely silent. On television, the physical gyrations of Hindi films become excessive.

  Writer

  In the last scene, he will be seen with the terrifying dog that
he had always wanted to feed poison to and kill.

  Police officer

  ‘The complaint against us, that for a “consideration” we refrain from catching the real culprit, is not correct. Whenever we arrest someone for murder, assault and bomb-throwing, we find that he belongs to some trade union or another. There’s continuous pressure from the top to release him … So tell me, what can we do…’

  Ranu-di

  ‘Look, look, see how the two plump pigeons sitting on the tile roof of Aru’s cow-shed clasp beaks and make love!’

  Munia’s dad

  ‘Steel will be made in the furnace. Rolling will be done in the mill. But the contract labour shall remain contract labour, they will not be made permanent workers.’

  Munia’s mother

  ‘Smoked ganja again, have you – oh – don’t you have any shame, may fire scorch the face of such a man.’

  Rabindranath

  ‘How much money the babus have … bundles and bundles of notes…’

  Maidservant

  ‘Your smile clings to my melody.’

  College boy

  ‘Irrespective of whether I do well in my studies or not, if an English newspaper is subscribed to at home, even today, here in the city fringes, in this locality, people talk to you respectfully – that’s why I take an English newspaper.’

  Youth sitting on the rawk

  ‘I’ll toil on your behalf during elections. But I must get a mini-bus permit.’

  Diary