This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  My garden worth thousands of rupees was eaten by a goat worth five quarters

  In the course of writing, I gave the manuscript to Nirmal-da of College Street to read and he later sent me his valuable opinion by letter. Nirmal Gupta was in his fifties, his sideburns were entirely grey, he ran a serious little magazine called Eikhon, it sold about a thousand copies. After reading his letter, as I was wondering whether I could write afresh, in a simpler way – as I was grappling with the subject – I saw to my surprise that Nirmal-da too was becoming entangled in the text, he was becoming another incident and clearly the complexity was continuously growing, multifarious, and more, what I have never thought also emerges clearly, page after page.

  NIRMAL-DA’S LETTER

  I am never elated about your writing, and it is quite difficult to suddenly come to any conclusion regarding you. Again, the question of outright rejection does not arise because some aspect or another haunts me, and it occurs to me that perhaps there could also be this kind of writing. In your writing, there are no such things as sequential events, it appears outwardly to be only floating images and to my eyes quite disconnected. Employing selected clippings from newspapers, an amalgam of politics and sex – something that mixes everything together. I won’t say that I was fully able to accept the writing. That’s because there are so many of your angles here which are of an attacking nature – as well as the ignoring of these same questions – demolishing popular beliefs, arriving at an unpredictable conclusion, which apparently is not even a conclusion. It’s not certain where the writer wants to go, or at least it’s unclear – I became confused reading it, and I have no hesitation in saying that most of the time I am confused by your writing. You have a tendency to debate everything, in some parts mixing a bit of French humour – there’s no certainty anywhere, no care to reach a conclusion – this apparent cynicism compels me to be confused. In the middle of discipline-less-ness, sometimes discipline peeps in, although discovering it is arduous. And this has to be searched for amid the wrecking of form, the use of elegiac language and ongoing experimentation. Throughout the writing there is a predilection towards investigation at work, a continuous search, which is at the same time sensational too. While it attracts me a bit, it’s good to admit that it’s not that much.

  MUCH LATER, FOR ANOTHER KIND OF POLITICS

  Reading Nirmal Gupta’s letter, the writer becomes very dejected. He sets out on the street despite the afternoon sun. A Sunday afternoon in July, not many people on the street. He will just not be at peace until he writes a suitable reply, conveying exactly what he thinks. He keeps walking along Park Street, towards the old cemetery, he buys beedis at a shop below the Asiatic Society. Long beedis, with red string, his favourite. As evening turns to night, he buys and eats telebhaja, the famous telebhaja from Hanif’s, at the kerbside on Circular Road. True to form, he has an attack of acidity soon after that. He searches frantically for Gelusil. As he searches, he feels terribly sick. In the drawer, in the box, under the bed – nowhere does he find the antacid tablet. That’s how he loses all his things, doesn’t he? Hadn’t he lost, just like this, all the news-clippings pertaining to the ninth Asiad – which would have gone very well with this text? Suddenly he finds a whole haritaki fruit. Is the haritaki a symbol, in this text? Putting it into his mouth, he sits down to write a reply; as is his habit, he makes a first draft in his diary. It is past midnight then. He doesn’t vomit that night. Needless to say, the very next day he overcomes his sadness and sits down again to write, with new zeal. That piece of his is reproduced here exactly.

  REPLY TO NIRMAL-DA’S CRITIQUE, WHICH WASN’T SENT

  The needs of the reader who makes an effort to become one with the times are not met merely by the popular stream of stories and novels. For him the story has to convey many-more-things beside the story. And it is through these many-more-things that the real character of the writer can be discerned. Consider all the information and statistics pertaining to a country or a society that are easily available in books and are published in newspapers. Some truths are contained ever more clearly in the many-more-things of a story, the effort is made to do just that. It’s because of the trustworthiness of the writer’s effort that a piece of text is simultaneously story, history, proclamation and personal diary. The carrying capacity of the text can be stretched as far as man’s thinking and imagination can reach and ascend. In the normal course of things, in the eyes of the unpractised reader, it may well appear complex and entirely doomed. A story or a novel is not merely a form of art, it is also a medium of expression of a personality. On the other hand, the writer is not merely a social theorist or sophisticated political thinker. The conscience of the independent writer submits only to truth and truth alone. And in that sense, it is the task of a writer to raise all kinds of questions, on all sides … and to always evaluate the possibility of alternative realities. Let us be able to recognize our own likes outside of the likes imposed upon us.

  TWENTY YEARS ON THE CHARGE OF STEALING

  A FEW PIECES OF CLOTH

  On a winter’s night in 1979, under cover of darkness, a family of approximately five half-naked adivasis had allegedly stolen a few pieces of expensive silk from the courtyard of a locally-influential person. Standing in the witness box, they admitted that they did not know that the pieces of cloth were so expensive. They were sentenced by the Raigarh sessions court. A welfare association filed an appeal on their behalf in the Madhya Pradesh high court. After eleven months, the Jabalpur bench of the high court gave the order for their release. They were arrested again after a few days by the Jashpur police, on a subsequent complaint by the same person. Apparently, they had now stolen mopping cloths and were roaming around wearing these. The pieces of cloth worn around their waists were identified as stolen goods. The old case was registered anew in court; they entered jail again. In Indian democracy, they were now sentenced to twenty years of rigorous imprisonment on the charge of stealing a few pieces of cloth. Although they were granted bail by the court, owing to the absence of the concerned officials, even their bail was repeatedly delayed. Finally, there wasn’t anyone to pay the bail. Who knows why the welfare association washed its hands of the matter.

  YOUTH’S CORPSE

  The body of Neelabja Roy, a.k.a. Neelu, a second-year student of Bengal Engineering College in Shibpur, and a hostel resident, was recovered from the Ganga on Thursday evening. The body of our Neelu, Neelabja Roy, had decomposed completely by then. His eyes had been gouged out. The police stated that at dawn on Wednesday, someone had come to call on him and he had set out immediately. Clad only in his vest and pajamas, he had gone towards the Ganga. His toothbrush and a tin of Monkey brand red toothpowder were in his hands. He did not return. After the body was recovered it was sent for post-mortem. The viscera would apparently also be examined. A major difference of opinion arose between the local police and the river traffic police on the question of who, or who all, had come to call on him, and why the student had gone to the riverbank. In the view of the local police, this was clearly suicide, while the river police held that this was a result of young love. A roommate of Neelu’s reported: ‘The boy had a bad habit, whenever he saw injustice he would immediately start arguing with the people concerned.’

  DOG’S DOINGS

  An adroit dog which was an expert at snatching the handbags of beautiful young women suddenly appeared in the town of Seville, in Spain. It was a huge dog, and a pedigreed one to boot – a German Shepherd. It used to snatch the handbags of beautiful women with its teeth and run away in a flash. The police said that the dog had troubled some twelve to fourteen women in this way – but they were simply unable to catch the dog. He did not pay any attention to little girls or elderly women, but as soon as he spotted a beautiful young woman, he leapt into action. Especially with those who were dressed in red, and those who liked the colour red. The police advised that in order to be safe from this danger, for the time being, for a few days, it was better not to wear re
d garments or bright red lipstick. It was not possible to say when or from where the menace might next arrive.

  A FULFILLED LIFE, O MOTHER

  My father drowned while performing tarpan at dawn on Mahalaya in Babughat. The news was published the next day in the newspaper. The report stated: Eight life-savers and two launches of the police began patrolling as early as five in the morning. We read that with astonishment. Where indeed were those launches that could have saved my drowning father! He drowned in front of the helpless eyes of my mother. The driver had left the car and had gone to have a cup of tea. A bare-bodied man, wearing a checked lungi, was standing near the riverbank. He said to my mother: ‘If you give me all your jewellery right now, I can make a try.’ My mother was somewhat startled at the proposal, she couldn’t decide what she ought to do, because she was wearing almost seventy to eighty thousand rupees worth of jewellery on her. Another man, also bare-bodied and lungi-clad, warned my mother: ‘Don’t give it to him, he’ll swim underwater and slip away.’ In practical terms, it was too late. One boat, life-saving boat No. 2, arrived ten minutes later. With folded hands, my mother pleaded with them to do something. The answer: ‘We don’t have divers in our boat. There’s nothing to be done at this moment.’ My mother ran around in a frenzy, like a lunatic she ran to the river traffic police. ‘Please save him in whichever way possible, I fall at your feet…’ – but the officer-in-charge informed her that he could do nothing, they had not yet received any order regarding this. Since then, we’ve been waiting confoundedly for my father’s dead body to surface, it’s been three days now.

  SKY-CLAD

  Preliminary investigations have revealed that every litre of water from the river Damodar contains a thousand to fifteen hundred milligrams of phenol. In the view of experts, only 0.01 mg of phenol in a litre of water can be tolerated by humans. If there is phenol and mercury in excess of that, a process of slow poisoning begins in the consumer’s body. The poison has a harmful effect on the human nervous system. Through prolonged use of the water, the coordination of the body’s vital organs is affected, the joints become stiff, and the movement of the hands, legs, face and head is affected. The person slowly sinks towards a painful death. No apparent ailment is detected. The condition of the Damodar river today is a result of the discharge of chemicals and other polluting substances into the water by factories in Bihar and West Bengal.

  FATHER AND SON WERE PLAYING CAROM

  At about two in the afternoon on Sunday, in the vicinity of Entally police station, bomb-throwing and brandishing of razors broke out between a father and son in the course of playing carom. It spread to the entire locality very quickly. The police fired four rounds of live ammunition and also seven rounds of tear gas in order to bring the situation under control. A rice-vending woman was killed in the firing. There was a quarrel between a father and son about cheating while playing carom. After a few heated exchanges, they became incensed and the enraged father slashed his son’s cheek with a razor. The police had to rush to the spot to restore order. Both sides began attacking the police. Stones and bricks were thrown. Bombs rained down. According to the police report, one subedar and seventeen police personnel were injured in the bomb-throwing. Both father and son are now in hospital with critical injuries.

  MURDER, RAPE AND HIGHWAY ROBBERY OCCUR FREQUENTLY IN THIS COUNTRY, WHY MAKE SUCH A HULLABALOO ABOUT IT?

  A band of about forty people from the Thakur community attacked Babubigha village in Bihar under the cover of darkness. Babubigha was a predominantly dalit village. There had been a long-standing difference between the dalits and the thakur moneylenders and zamindars. The dalits were no longer willing to work under the begar system. On the night in question, the thakurs caught and raped each and every woman in the village to avenge this offence. It was only due to their noble magnanimity that they did not set fire to all the houses. An appeal concerning the incident was made to the supreme court by Dr Jose Kannailal, the programme director for dalits. Dr Kannailal complained in his appeal that, inflamed by a group of zamindars and mahajans, and with their unconcealed encouragement, some forty high-caste Hindus had attacked Babubigha at night. They did not spare anyone in the village, not even an infant on one woman’s arm. The raiders snatched away a six-month-old child from its mother’s bosom and smashed it against a stone. This stone was a Ramshila, bearing Shri Ramachandra’s footprint, where the village folk worshipped daily. Blood thus mixed with the vermillion spread on it, dark-red blood. They also did not spare any girl or woman between four and seventy from sexual abuse. Among the rape victims were a four-year-old child as well as pregnant women. The child’s name was Lalti, she was now in an unconscious state in hospital. A few women suffered miscarriages just after being raped. One young woman just could not be brought under control and so the hair on her head was pulled out and one of her breasts was cut off with a sharp cleaver. Before that, the girl had badly bitten a man, and even gouged out another man’s eye. More than a hundred people were injured in the violence unleashed upon the village and the condition of thirteen of them was serious. The injured were sent to the hospital in Sarmera for treatment. In shame and terror, the rape victims did not initially lodge any complaint. But later, everyone opened their mouths. The names of a few miscreants were specified in the complaint. But the Sarmera police did not accord much importance to the matter. Such treatment of dalits was a frequent occurrence. For that matter, the district’s superintendent of police too did not initially agree to any investigation.

  EVERY CHILD WILL BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL

  The hydrant tap was open and so the pavement on the roadside was brimming with flowing water. Two kids were splashing around in great delight in the brown river-water. One was completely naked, the other’s only cover was a pair of elastic-less underpants. Just observe these boys with their jutting ribs – looking just like plucked chickens ... ‘Who are you to call my mother lame-duck, stupid fucker, I’ll ____ your mother.’ The other throws the first boy to the ground and presses his head down in the gushing flow of the Ganga’s water: ‘Serves you right – your dad’s a whore-chaser, everyone knows that your mother enlisted her name in the whore register...’ The tire of a bus with the tiger logo was getting stuck in molten pitch. The bank officer’s wife was taking her Bubun, who studied in KG1, from the nursery to their flat. There was kohl on Bubun’s lovely eyes, a blue ribbon on her head and her hair was in a bob-cut. Hearing the talk of the two naked boys frolicking in the water from the hydrant, she came to a halt and devoured their actions and gestures with wide eyes. ‘Chhee chhee, you shouldn’t hear all that bad talk, dear ... You don’t know, they’re basti boys.’ ... A rickshaw-puller parked his rickshaw beneath a luxuriant gulmohar and was fanning himself by twirling his gamcha around. The sun beat down mercilessly on the desolate street.

  BADSHAH BEGUM JHAM-JHAMA-JHAM

  Most of the male youths of the village drove van-rickshaws. The rest were agricultural labourers. Some tended paan gardens. There were no male youths left in Hamidnagar village, almost everyone was in hospital, some were in jail or in police custody, the rest had fled. There were only three rifle-bearing police constables sitting on a bench. And all around, one after another, were mud houses burnt to cinders. Maniruddin’s house was set on fire last Wednesday morning. A few hundred people had surrounded the hamlet from all sides and then set it on fire. They threw fistfuls of dry chillies into the fire. About twelve people had locked themselves inside Maniruddin’s house, they were trembling in fear. As soon as they stepped out of the house coughing, they would be beaten with lathis. Maniruddin’s mother, seventy-year-old Mariam Bibi, was hunched in a corner of a room on the second floor. She was thrown out of the window. She was still alive. A neighbour, Salehan Bibi, had bravely avoided the incensed mob and given her water to drink. No one saw Mariam Bibi after that – neither the police nor the village folk. Three days later, Mariam’s body was spotted floating in the river. A dog was tearing away the stomach and eating, the bloated in
nards were spilling out. That morning, a total of twelve persons had hidden themselves in that accursed house to save their lives. Most of them were now in hospital. Either burnt or concussed by lathis. Among them was also a one-and-half-year-old baby girl, Habiba Khatun. Three persons died the following day, they were Abdul Latif, Sheikh Karim and Hatem. After Maniruddin’s house was burnt, the mob looted the house of Sheikh Yasin. Some youths held down his daughter in the room and destroyed her honour in front of her father. The girl is still unconscious, she is in the district hospital. Asma Khatun and Salehan Bibi managed to escape. Salehan was Maniruddin’s sister-in-law. When the arson began, she was nearby. She said: ‘Escaping somehow from the fire, I ran to the police station across the lake. It was nine in the morning then. The big babu was there. I said: “Come at once, the Hindus have burnt down the entire neighbourhood.” The OC stared at me blankly, he said: “Can’t go now. There are no cars. The daughter-in-law of the zamindar has hanged herself. I’ll go after seeing her first. You go now.”’ Salehan reported that the babus from the police station did finally arrive at around five in the evening. Everything was over by then. Hamidnagar had become a graveyard. The officer-in-charge of the police station was not present on Friday afternoon. The second officer was present. He was queried:

  Some seven persons have been apprehended. A picket is in place. It’s the old Hindu-Muslim quarrel, mister … it keeps happening.