‘It’s no use crying, Jiva dada. We are the culprits. Why should you suffer because of us? We could go and give ourselves up, let them do what they will.’
‘No, no! Don’t do that!’ the three old men exclaimed in alarm. ‘We can’t live without you. We’ll die every day, bit by bit…’
‘We’ll round up the cattle tomorrow. The three of you must bring bedding and tools for field work. Each family must also carry a khandi of rice and a khandi of paddy seeds. We’ll leave tomorrow at dusk.’
‘Which way shall we go?’
‘I’ve heard that there’s a lot of fallow land in Antruz and Sange. Don’t worry, Bappa. If we have the plough and other implements we can grow enough food to fill our bellies. Someone, somewhere, will appear, like god, and come to our aid. We must have faith and set out.’
The three elders returned home. They were in their fifties, but were strong and able-bodied and each man could erect more than ten feet of earthen ridges bordering the fields without pausing for rest. They weren’t worried about setting up a new village in an unknown place. What seemed to devastate them was the thought of leaving their homes, of uprooting the deep ties that bound them to the soil and to the extended clan.
When they reached home, the men began to gather coils of rope, baskets, reed mats, farming tools, setting aside as much as they could carry on their heads. They stacked the rest neatly in their houses. The other families in the settlement realized that something was up, but no one asked any questions. Some felt that once these families moved away, their own houses and the rest of the village would be safe. It was a strange kind of selfishness that raged all around. As each bond that tied each man to the soil began to snap, an ocean of sorrow gathered in his heart.
Every one of them clung to this overwhelming hope, in the midst of all the turbulent emotions that raged like the Great Flood, within their breasts. ‘We shall not stay away forever. We shall return some day. Take care of what we leave behind,’ they told their kinsfolk. These were people who came to blows over a strip of land no larger than a reed mat. And now an entire village was slipping out of their grasp.
The neighbours merely nodded in silence. They had carried corpses from each other’s families to the cremation ground, wept bitterly, shared grief and joy. Why didn’t they fall into each other’s arms as they took leave, loosening the ties that had bound them for generations? Each man was embroiled in the same set of troubles as his neighbour was, so he took care to strengthen his own defences. Like passengers, who desperately toss their belongings into the water to lighten the load in a leaking boat, each man was obsessed with saving himself.
They set off at dusk and reached the shack in the fields. The cattle that belonged to the three households had been gathered together and each one had its halter and rope looped about its neck. Twenty-one persons in all – herding thirteen heads of cattle through the darkness, to some unknown destination!
They had travelled only a short distance when Jiva’s father Devu flopped down on a boulder, ‘What am I doing here, how much time do I have left? Jiva, my son! Shabi, my dear grandson! I’m going back. Let them do what they will, I’m going back to my village. If I die, some family member will cremate my body, they won’t let my corpse lie there and rot.’ The old man rushed away at a fast pace and was soon lost amongst the trees.
It was around midnight when they descended the slope of the Palem hillock and set their bundles down. They built a small fire out of leaves and twigs and as they drew on its warmth and one by one, they fell asleep. The cattle were herded close together, for now these would be a measure of their wealth. When Raya woke in the morning, he realized that the pair of oxen that drew his plough, were missing.
‘They must have set off for the village early this morning. Can’t have gone very far. Let’s go and get them,’ Guna declared.
They were tired after travelling all night, yet they set off at a great speed. It was on the final slope that led down to the village that they caught up with the oxen. Raya called out to the animals and stopped them in their tracks. He grabbed the ropes trailing from their halters and tied them to a tree.
Guna and Raya sat there for a while gazing on the village which seemed so calm and quiet. Suddenly two soldiers emerged from the direction of the Betaal shrine and moved down the track that led to Nilu Nayak’s house. Nilu was a member of the Nayak community who owned a small orchard and hired labour to work in his fields. The soldiers often visited his house to buy rice and vegetables and coconuts.
‘Get up, Raya,’ Guna said suddenly. ‘We’re going into the village.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ll hide in that thick grove and wait for those soldiers.’
They drew their sickles out of their sheaths as they descended the slope and Guna told Raya what he planned to do.
‘Let’s cover our heads with our blankets,’ Raya suggested.
‘No. They must know that Guna is the culprit, or they’ll harass the villagers yet again. Don’t you remember what they did when the cross was destroyed?’
They waited there for about half an hour. A cock crowed somewhere near Nilu’s house. Two men emerged. One was a white-skinned soldier and the other was a native from these parts. The foreigner dangled a pair of roosters with their legs tied together from one hand and held a couple of eggs in the other. Some vegetables, wrapped in a plantain leaf, were tucked under his arm. The native soldier carried a large basket on his head.
Raya and Guna sprang up as soon as they got to the bush and before anyone could bat an eyelid, they had struck at the soldier’s legs with their sickles. The blows were so forceful that they cut through the flesh between the calf and the foot and each soldier hobbled a few steps before collapsing in pain. Guna grabbed the soldier’s sword and they rushed off to untie the oxen. Raining blows on the animals, they drove them on at a terrific pace. Sweat poured from their bodies as they caught up with the rest of their group. It had taken them three hours to travel this distance the previous day. They had covered it in just an hour and a half now.
Everyone was aghast to see them in this state. ‘I brought this sword with me,’ Guna declared, as he recounted what they had done. ‘It shall be worshipped in a shrine, once we set up a new settlement. Your old ceremonial sword is rusty with disuse.’
Hari Patkar’s married daughter, Jani, came down from Chimbal with her four-year-old son. She came down the hillock and when she got to the temple, she burst into loud sobs.
‘What do I do now? My husband’s family will not let him into the house. Leave him at the door of some church, they say, or go and commit suicide. How can I push him into some river or well?’ she sobbed, dumping the squalling child in her parents’ courtyard.
The whole family gathered around her as the customers in her father’s shop looked on.
‘That Christian woman fed my child something … he’s an outcaste now. What will I do with him?’ she wailed.
Jani was married to a landlord in Chimbal village who also owned an oil mill. One day Jani set off for the market in Goapattana with a neighbour. She wanted to buy some combs, bangles and other trinkets.
It was a huge market with separate sections for clothes and trinkets and copper vessels. Some shops sold meat products, others sold bread and there were bars where liquor was on sale. People from different regions mingled in the marketplace, there were dark-skinned Siddhis and white Portuguese soldiers as well as local folk. A group of unkempt men, women and children were tied to each other with thick ropes which cut into their flesh and made them bleed.
‘People will bid for them. They will strike them with their fists to see if they are strong enough. The women will have to carry large stones on their heads to show their strength, only then will they be bought as slaves,’ the neighbour explained.
The two young women were on their way home when it struck Jani that she had forgotten to buy a pair of earrings for her son. ‘Stay here with the child. I’ll be back very soon,’ Jani said to h
er neighbour, Subi, as she rushed back to the marketplace.
There was a seat outside a large stone house by the road, and Subi and the child sat down on it. Suddenly Subi remembered that her mother-in-law had asked for some red sandalwood paste for her swollen knees. She would be very angry if Subi returned without it, but what could she do, now? She couldn’t carry the child all the way back to the market … Suddenly, the woman of the house emerged smiling broadly. She was very fat and fair and wore a long dress.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in strangely accented Konkani.
‘We’d come to the market. Let this boy sit here for a while, I’ll be back very soon.’ Subi ignored the child’s weak protests and sped away.
The child began to cry loudly and the woman led him inside. It was lunchtime and when the child wailed even more loudly, the woman decided to feed him lunch. When the young women returned and called out to the child, he rushed out his face smeared with food. Jani was taken aback, ‘What did you feed my son?’ she asked.
‘It’s Sunday, so I’d cooked beef. He enjoyed the meal. Ate a handful of beef chunks,’ the woman replied.
‘What! He ate beef!’
‘Why? Don’t you eat meat?’
Jani was terrified. Subi was staring at them with a strange expression. She didn’t touch the child, merely stood some distance away. Jani washed the boy’s face and they set off home.
‘What do we do now, Subi akka? I beg of you, don’t say anything to anyone.’
‘If you hide this fact, your whole family will be ruined. They’ll be contaminated by this sin,’ Subi declared.
‘They can only know if you tell them.’
‘Why should I drag this sin on to my head by not telling them?’
‘What he has eaten today will come out tomorrow. Why should anyone be contaminated by it?’
‘He has eaten cow flesh. Our house is next to yours. We worship the same tulsi and take part in each other’s festivities!’
‘He’s just an infant. An innocent child.’
‘What does it matter, child or adult! When he grows up, he will perform the religious ceremonies in your household,’ Subi said and moved away.
When Jani got home, she realized that Subi had broken the news because an uneasy sense of apprehension had descended on the house. It was as though someone had died, but the inmates were too scared to give vent to their grief. Her husband stared at them intently before moving away. Her sister-in-law stood in the doorway with her three young sons, but even the children didn’t approach them.
After a while Jani’s father-in-law emerged from the house. ‘Why did you leave him there? You should have taken him with you.’ He said with tears in his eyes.
‘He’s an innocent child, what does it matter whether he eats food or a piece of filth?’
‘No one is interested in your philosophy. We will be cast out of Hindu society and the villagers will break all ties with our family. You have seen nothing yet. Hindu families who have cooked food on the same hearth as Christians have been cast out of the village.’
Jani broke down again. People had begun to gather in courtyards and doorways, straining their ears to hear what was being said. Jani’s father-in-law got dressed and set off to consult the joish on what had to be done. The child woke up and began to cry. Jani’s sister-in-law set a plate of rice and some curry before them.
‘Why do you dump this earthen saucer before us, as though you are feeding a dog?’ Jani screeched. The sister-in-law didn’t say a word. As the child’s wails grew louder Jani mixed the rice and curry and began to feed him. Her hands trembled as she did so, it was as though he had become a stranger all of a sudden. Her sister-in-law asked her to bathe and come into the house for lunch, but Jani continued to sit there silently with the child on her lap.
‘My aunt in Karmal has become a Christian. The whole family has converted to that faith. Let’s leave the boy with them,’ her husband said, after a while.
‘No. I won’t send him away. I can’t live without him,’ Jani began to cry.
Her father-in-law returned home after a long while.
‘What do we do with these people and their scriptures!’ he muttered to himself. ‘The ancestors will not be gratified by the food he sets out for them, the gods will not accept his offerings. This house will remain unclean for the next seven generations if he remains here … The joish says he should be let loose in the forest, let him go where he will…’
Jani grabbed the child and held him close, ‘O my child, my little one!’ she cried.
‘He’s one of their’s now. He must be sent to them,’ her father-in-law sobbed.
‘You mean he must become a Christian and worship their gods?’
‘What else can be done, Daughter-in-law? It’s better than letting him hang between two faiths.’
Jani had no answer to that. She lay on a reed mat on the floor with the child by her side.
The next day she declared that she was going to her parents’ home.
All the grief pent up within Jani burst forth as she reached her father’s village. She spent the next four days out on the porch, along with her young son. Although everyone showed that they were very concerned about the situation, in reality the atmosphere was quite strained.
Padre Paulo Colaso was delighted by the turn of events. Jani and her son were baptized at the Kalapur church and though she was very upset as she removed the galsari and wiped the kumkum off her forehead she bore it for the sake of her son. Her father, Hari Patkar, engaged four workmen to build a little shack close to their home. Jani took a mud pot, a ladle, a couple of earthen dishes and a reed mat and moved into the shack. A new convert to Christianity had set up home in the village. No one from her father’s house entered her shack, they merely stood outside and asked her what she needed. They wouldn’t eat what she cooked, even the parents were afraid they would be defiled by their daughter’s touch.
It was the last Monday in Kartick and the temple bells had been ringing without a pause. It was the only temple that stood intact in the region. The temples in Nevre, Kalapur and Karanjali had been razed while the Palem temple had been locked up. The worshippers, who had flocked here from the surrounding villages, waited patiently to offer prayers and to participate in the ritual bathing of the Lord.
Shef Ribeir was fed up of the incessant peal of bells and the drone of prayers. He set off, with constable Noronha and three soldiers, and was soon standing on the temple steps. When the devotees noticed the soldiers, they were terrified.
‘Bhat Rayanna! If there is any temple administrator in there, bring him out at once!’ announced the shef, as he strode up to the priest.
Rayanna had grown old but he was still selfish and stubborn and quick to take offence. He was quaking deep inside, but he stood there, proud and haughty, before the soldiers.
‘The King of Portugal, the Viceroy and the Archbishop have declared that Hindus must not perform any rituals or worship idols in Goa. Idols are worshipped and religious ceremonies are performed in this temple. All of this must stop!’ the shef declared.
‘What work will we do if the temple rituals are stopped?’
‘Do whatever you choose.’
‘What about the gods? This is our livelihood, how will our families survive? Don’t do this to us. This is an ancient temple with a very powerful deity.’
‘Your god is powerful! What about the hundreds of temples in Bardez and Tiswadi that have been destroyed? Were those gods powerless or dead? There is nothing exceptional about your god, Bhatto. Look at our God. One cross was broken, so two houses got burnt. And so many people have swollen backs after being flogged.’
‘Don’t say such things at the threshold of the temple…’ the priest protested feebly.
‘I brought down the Devi temple at Panel, Bhatto,’ the shef boasted. ‘At first I thought the goddess would grab my crowbar and throw me on the ground, but nothing happened. The idol was smashed like any other block of stone.’
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‘You will suffer for this someday.’
‘We’ve found a way out of this, Bhatto, we’ve become Christians. We just have to confess our sins, and at once they’re burnt to ashes. We can go to Heaven.’
‘So you are free to sin again.’
‘Why don’t you convert to Christianity, Bhatto? It’ll solve your problem of earning a living.’
‘What about the temple? And our god?’
‘We’ll turn the temple into a church. We won’t destroy this idol. The villagers can take it away and dispose of it.’
The priest began slapping himself on both cheeks as a mark of atonement while muttering ‘Shiva, Shiva, Shiva…’
The shef went on, raising his voice, ‘The temple rituals have to stop. We will seal this building.’
The priest was ready to collapse as dark, threatening clouds seemed to hover above his head. ‘The temple belongs to the villagers, I am only a priest here. They will tell you what they decide. Just let the palanquin ceremony in Kartick and the temple festival in Magh pass peacefully,’ he begged.
‘You have twenty-four hours to decide.’ The soldiers moved away.
The priest rushed through his duties in a distracted manner that day.
‘They will stop the puja and destroy the temple. Tell the villagers to call a meeting and discuss the matter,’ he urged everyone who came before him. He sent his brother, Timanna Bhat, to speak to the village headman.
Timanna, who was much younger than Rayanna, was well versed in the Vedas and the Puranas and adept at chanting mantras. He went up to Ghana Shenai who was confined to his bed and told him all that had happened. His words, as serious and portentous as some ancient chant, filled Ghana Shenai with foreboding.
‘Gather all the men in the village, never mind their social standing … go up to those evil wretches and tell them not to lay hands on our gods! Stop them! Let each god be honoured at the annual festival, then they can do what they want. Tell them to wait till the Shigmo festival is over, if the Holiye Naas, the terrible spirit of this festival, is enraged, all their children will die! Tell them this. What happens after this is their responsibility,’ Ghana Shenai advised.
Age of Frenzy Page 12
