by Niranjan Jha
He took me to the village without letting me have breakfast.
It wouldn't be amiss to state that no event till the date had taught me to recognize friends-turned-foes. The village he took me in was worse than mine. Poverty, illiteracy, castism and crime had broken the backbone of the society long ago. The people never knew a full measure of justice in any aspect of life. They were in the path of embracing the burdens of their past without having any knowledge of their betterment. Binding their particular grievances and struggling to feed their families were the only aim of their life, which was making themselves, succumbed to despair or cynicism. Their anger and resentment weren’t always expressed in polite company but they had helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. The politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. The conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of castism in the state. No religious sermon could ever bring the belief among them that the society can change and come out of basket case.
“So often it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key.” – Lyrics Already Gone
Chapter Three
“In today’s world, someone is always waiting for your neck to come under his axe.”
The world is very restless today. Hindu Holy Scripture is banned in Russia, riots take place in England, financial crisis has weakened the backbone of common-wealth countries, people are creating chaos in Libya and Egypt and Syria, earthquakes are devastating Japan and middle Asia, civil war is bubbling up in China, and people go on hunger strike from the very next day of the commemoration of Independence Day in India. Bomb blasts are so common as if they are crackers. Some more natural calamities are doing naked dance on earth.
In this mayhem, I have brought out this book not with the expectation of monetary benefit or absurd publicity or dragging you abrasively down to know the abbevillian culture I was born in, but I just want to let you know that whatever happened in my life in the name of marriage, is really condemnable and nefarious in human society of the entire world. The narration of this book is so strong that I believe taking it as news rather than story will be more sensible.
It’s advisable that people with weak heart should not read this as it may turn them hyper-tensed because it contains some chapters which may be too severe for some people. It is as poisonous as cyanide and as powerful as dynamite! Perhaps God made me resilient enough to survive and write this book; otherwise it was just not possible. The fastest volcano-size international publicity, which no other novel has ever received, is ready to stun you with naked, cruelest and shocking truth of my life. Neither I am experiencing a déjà vu, nor dreaming in a dream, nor making a subterfuge attempt to giving you a fallacious impression, but I am writing a real blunt truth that no writer has ever dared in the writing history.
Taking you back to my village I let you know what happened next.
‘How much fee do you charge sir?’
I was asked the question by the person Bahadur Yadav whose son I was brought to teach. An illiterate man with rude behavior could not convince me with his tone that he really wanted his son to be tutored. My hesitation was obvious to come seeing his family environment because that was not supportive in any sense to a child’s academic future. I had to reply to him, but before I could say anything he uttered again.
‘I can pay you anything. You just teach him,’ he said in a verbal disorder.
‘Yes,’ I had to say this time.
The roughness of his voice did not allow me to say no to him but I still couldn’t believe he really wanted an instructor for his son. I noticed that he started confusing me when he realized his failure to convince. After a few minutes, he went away leaving me to think about two things. First, the way he asked me the question was showing that he was making a fun of me. And second, after I told him the fee I would charge, the grimace coming on his face was absolutely awkward.
I figured out something being cooked up against me but that was unclear. Within a minute, I was surrounded by his kith and kin and the village-folk who wanted me to get involved in talking. But very soon I realized that they weren’t the people who could ever agree to the significance of education but they could discuss only immaterial things in detail. I saw that Vinay had already left the place and gone behind the house to platform something unusual. I had to continue talking with my broken language to the people standing around. A shallow perception that I had been enclosed was instinctively making me nervous. I was waiting for Vinay because I didn’t want to stay there any longer. As I wanted to go but I knew if I made any stupid attempt, it would damage my reputation in the society which I was earning my living from. The broken-mirror stress I was born with made me keep silence and try to understand the reality of the scene.
Finally I saw Vinay at a distance and tried to call him up but I saw him communicating with a new hooligan. He was hiding his face from me so that I could not figure out anything from his lips. My doubt was increasing and I was trying to find out the way to run to the main road without letting them know anything.
Ten minutes passed but there was no chance to run away, and if I would make any faux pas, that would bring disaster for sure. After a while, some more Tarzan-size men started coming closer to the room which I was sitting in, and made fake efforts to keep me engaged in some irrelevance. Talking about education was left behind because they had never received education and never ever seen the walls of schools. By the time half an hour had passed, and then I saw that they brought me fruit-juice. As I was hungry since morning, so I drank that. Suddenly, the people standing in the room went out and they locked the door from outside. I was perplexed as not being able to understand anything. The room was completely dark with no window.
The solemnity sojourned with silence tearing the layers of the darkness leapt out at my face and whispered something to my sense.
I realized that I was kidnapped. Kidnapping was and still is quite common in the state. Many producers have made movies on this. Even today, the people in the state are being kidnapped for marriage, extortion, and enmity, in which some are killed without being granted a second thought. I was consoling myself with the belief that whatever worst they had planned but they would not kill me for sure.
‘Then why have they kidnapped me?’
I asked the question to myself. Perhaps for marriage, I thought, because the way they were treating me was showing their utmost politeness which they never showed in the time of killing their enemies. Though I was not a babe magnet or matinee idol, and had never expected babia-majora, Backy Fiona or voluptuous girls with bazookas coming into my life, yet the back-stabbing for marriage was not giving me any solace except embarrassment. The culture I was born in, having big-mouth sisters for illicit liaison could invite death at any moment. So I was never involved in adultery and till the date I was virgin.
I was left with the only chance that I would cry for help if they brought me to the main road.
Alas! That also never happened.
The very next thing that shocked me was the car that came in to doorstep of the room taking all possible narrow turns. I could hear the sound only. Then the door was opened and I heard a commanding voice from behind…a little rough, a little torturous…
‘Sit inside teacher.’
I turned behind and saw that it was Bahadur who said that.
‘You are not doing good to me,’ I could murmur that much only.
Taking the benefit of my Achilles’ heel and leaving me at Hobson’s choice, they made my life a matter of ridicule that I could never rinse off in my entire life. From beginning till end, this story revolves around the cruelty of the world my life suffered at several occasions. If you are expecting this book to be a piece of entertainment, believe me, I re-define entertainment and promise to give you truth of thrilling sensation. This is not a sneak-peek bonkbuster craft of a novice imagination, but an original blunt truth. Whether you feel it sarcastic or metaphoric, b
ut it is true that while reading this, you will understand how the legalized injustice and systematic disorder is rusting out human society in the state I was born. It is not a buffoonery or hocus-pocus piece of literature, and that is why it invited flak from all quarters in the very beginning of writing. Be it the sanctum of scholars or the cerebrum of researchers, this book has imprinted its enigmatic success in a very short period of time.
This ground-zero reality which discloses catastrophic and catalyzing snares to mankind, is definitely strong enough to crackle the silence. This terrible truth will have you come across the chapters in which I have written how I was literally raped by a woman and left astray. Having had the journey from Pandora of monkeys to the sanctuary of monks, and from the cubicle of prostitutes to the altar of nuns, I have portrayed almost everything in its true sense. The circumstances never stopped wreaking havoc on me and I also never knelt down in submission. At times, you will find my writing rule-breaking, and not stereotyped conventional one because at the time of writing truth I cannot think of giving literacy animation to this story. Since I started writing, many people asked me the question that why I am writing the book on my own life. And my answer was that I am giving the same to the world what the world gave me. A clear-cut justification! Only the wearer knows where his shoe pinches.
“Every self-made rich pretending to be decent today was the great reactionary in his past.”
Chapter Four
“There are no classes in life for beginners: right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.” –Lord Osho
They took my words to their deaf ears and forced me to sit inside the car as quiet as a goat sits in a butcher’s shop. I felt a sudden searing pain slice into my head. I opened my mouth to scream, but the air forced itself into my lungs with such a painful pressure that I thought my chest would explode. The eyes felt like they were being rammed backward into my skull and a deafening fumble tore through my eardrums, pushing me toward unconsciousness. I had never expected my life to be so miserable. I cursed Bihar so many times to be my birthplace. I cursed my own innocence and credulousness for falling into their trap. I never expected that they would stoop down to that level.
This is a matter of clear knowledge from experience that matters, and I must openly proclaim that the world should be brought to listen to what happened with me in the name of the marriage. To give up the truth on account of the fear of men is the most despicable from of cowardice. The perversity of men is such that as soon as ever a glimpse of truth becomes manifest, men fall into mischievous controversies about it. This story may not satisfy the greed of vulgarity, but it will alarm you the absurdity that is considered a core culture at some corner of the world.
The lack of economic opportunity among the people of Bihar, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to earn the living for their families, contributed to the erosion of their crime-maniac involvement and a cycle of violence. They couldn’t amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations and the income gap between poor and rich still persists in the rural communities. The people in India are now instigating civil war in the matter of caste, creed and provincialism, as the country is not able to make the way of progress, and the people are running backward with the ill-belief of advancement. They fight among each other considering fight an essential element to survive. Indians are not better than Pakistanis. Every month a bomb explodes at some corner of the country, which is done either by the terrorists or by radicalists in the name of Muslim, but the fact is that the new generation of terror-outfit is from Hindu community. Who says the British rule over India was bad? They were better than these bastard Indian politicians.
And how would the country get better also? The states like Manipur, Maharashtra, Kashmir and Tamil Nadu are burning with the heat of separatism. They emphasize their own culture and language, which is why India remained destitute for centuries. Now it is human pollution that is replicating likes viruses in the country. Necessity is the mother of invention but father of crime as well. In India, many times politically framed-up massacres take place, and in a recent one a terrorist was caught bloody handed and put into prison. The interrogation is going on for last four years but he isn’t yet punished. In addition to that, he is getting royal treatment as if he is going to be the son-in-law of all of us. You, an Indian, kill a pigeon in Pakistan and they will cut you into pieces and roast up keeping your eyeball above the oven to let you witness your punishment. But in India, those who killed so many innocent people in bright street-lights of Mumbai are roaming like bulls. Now people understand who is protecting the fella and how Mumbai terror attack was orchestrated by Indian politicians.
The scamster politicians, scandalous artists, illusionist leaders, demagogue parties, plutomaniac saints, perjurer culprits, and corrupt fourth-estate, they are all contributing to make India doom to failure. Whether social workers or soldiers or lawmakers – all are sold! All are sold!! For the greed of money, for the greed of power, for the greed of religious uplift – all are sold! The wise people of the county are still not taking any initiative to reform the nation as if they are waiting for the annihilation to bring justice upon Indians. The system of the country is worse than slavery. Indians would feel better if Obama starts ruling over India.
“Profit without risk, experience without danger and reward without hard-work, is as impossible as life without being born.” –Gouthey
Chapter Five
“Two thirds of human existence is wasted in hesitation and the last third in repentance.” –Emile Souvestre
Taking a California roll, the car accelerated to its full speed. They three, two of them on the either side and one at the front seat, securing their country-guns in loincloth looked at me as if they were taking me to an abattoir. The boss Bahadur was capturing the front seat. Though I wasn’t a dewy-eyed or an easy-cry, but the brainstorm was making weep binding my head to the knees.
That was really a tear-jerking moment. Till that day, I was very meek and simple, and had never even thought of doing anything wrong to anyone. Even thinking so was considered a sin to me. I hadn’t even killed an insect without its fault. But the failure that was smiting me was not from the lack of effort but the lack of cleverness which I was not taught. My mind was still reeling. I looked at the face of the driver. He was a friend of my elder brother. He also looked at me but I understood as if he was trying to say that he was doing his job only. A white hope increased in my heart that he might stop the car somewhere in the way so that I could run away, but that never happened. The engine was signaling the wheels to tear out the air and run faster and faster. I didn’t know where they were taking me and where was their cesspool. I only knew that I had become the victim of the confidence-trick. They continued conversation with the input of absurd jokes that was making them laugh every now and again. There were so many vehicles passing from the opposite side and I was seeing the entire world passing through the window. There was no one and almost nothing to stop the car and set me free. Being seized, I promised to myself that when my time would come, I would make them cry till death whoever had hired the kidnappers. An insult definitely takes a longer time than an injury to be forgotten. I was thinking and thinking only, suddenly a voice tore my brainwave…
‘Don’t worry teacher, you are going to marry a girl,’ Vinay said, ‘It is your time to laugh.’
‘You would sit in the same kind of car if your parents had arranged the marriage.’
The third one said assuming he was going to add some humor.
And then, they started giggling and continued the conversation in which Bahadur also said something that I didn’t hear and nor I wanted to. The laws are dumb amid arms. My scream was not going to make the slaughterers set me free. Either they had beaten me up or beheaded.
Almost fifteen minutes passed, and then, one thing I saw seemingly happening in my favor as a result of divine telepathy. A heavy rainfall! It started raining the moment the car touc
hed National Highway 31. Though it brought them rapture because they assumed rain was a good omen to marriage, yet for me, it was a panacea to solve the problem. They took me to a road-side hotel where no customers could be seen around. They had me eat sweet and while coming back to the car I heard one of them saying…
‘Not to worry. We will let you see the girl before marriage.’
‘After you say yes, only then we will…”
Before he could complete the sentence, he was stopped with a big shout by his boss and told to keep his mouth shut. A little I already knew, and the rest I understood from his shouting that in a gun-marriage, a girl is never shown to the boy. If they were to do so, then they would not kidnap me.
