Age of Frenzy

by Mahabaleshwar Sail

  Darkness had fallen when they reached Marcai, following the track beaten by the hooves of cows and oxen. A rivulet that had branched off from the main river cut across their path and disappeared into thick forests. There was not a living soul anywhere around. A small wooden raft was moored on the other bank, but no boatman responded to Annu’s call.

  Annu and Gorey sat down under a tree on the embankment. A strange fear settled coldly in their bellies and they huddled close together without saying a word. Foxes barked. Jackals howled. Swarms of insects buzzed about their heads. There was only the empty dome of the sky overhead and this strange wilderness that stretched boundlessly on all sides. Exhausted after the day’s exploits, they soon fell asleep.

  It was bright and sunny when they woke up the next morning. Two men, with dark, weather-beaten skins, were prodding at them with a long stick. ‘Who are you? Creatures of the forest? How did you get here?’ they asked.

  Annu was scared. ‘We worked as servants in a house in Goapattana. They were going to cut off our heads with a sword, so we ran away,’ he blurted.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They would molest this girl every day. I protested, so they beat me up. Then we ran away.’

  The men looked at them pityingly. They took Annu and Gorey across the river and when Annu offered them some money, they refused.

  ‘Go to Antu blacksmith’s forge in Marcai and buy a sickle and a spade. If you have these two implements you can rule the earth,’ one of them said.

  ‘Brahmins who have fled across the hills from Veling have set up orchards in Pirval. They give a measure of rice and a coconut as payment for working on their land. Build a small shack and stay there,’ the other man advised.

  The path before them was very steep and full of stones, but Gorey rushed ahead like an excitable calf with the wind whistling in its ears. She looked back at the distance they had travelled and yelled, ‘We’re free, Annu, we’re free! Wherever you go, I’ll follow.’

  The official of the Inquisition, accompanied by two soldiers, stood at Sukhdo’s door the day after Jana Nayak lodged his complaint. He was dressed in formal robes with tongues of fire etched on his chest.

  ‘Sukhdo Nayak has performed evil acts against the Christian faith. The senior officials of the Inquisition have ordered his arrest. He must come with me now. All his fields and orchards, his property and wealth now stand confiscated. If he is proved innocent, everything will be returned. If he tries to resist or to escape, he will lose everything,’ the man announced in loud, ringing tones.

  Everyone in the house collapsed in fear. Sukhdo’s wife, Mhalkum, wailed loudly, but there was no escape. Sukhdo wound a kerchief about his head and set off with the official. The two soldiers followed close behind.

  Jana Nayak came to his door. ‘I didn’t do anything. I didn’t complain. Their spies keep track of everything,’ he protested feverishly.

  No one lit a lamp in Sukhdo’s house that evening. The family remained in darkness as though they had just buried a loved one, so intense was the sorrow and despair that hung over them all. The main root that went deep into the earth had been pulled out.

  When it grew very dark, Ramkustha picked up a crowbar and slipped out of the house. He hid himself in the shadows by Jana Nayak’s door. Ramkustha could hear Jana Nayak taking the names of Hindu deities and praying in low tones. Jana’s son came to the door once, so did Jana’s wife. She stood there for a while as though checking on what was happening in the neighbouring house.

  Half an hour passed. Jana Nayak opened the door and stepped into the courtyard. Ramkustha brought the crowbar down on his head smashing his skull and the man fell to the ground with a loud thud. His wife ran to the door screaming. So did his sons. There were so many people in that settlement, yet no one rushed up to see what was wrong. They were scared after they saw Sukhdo being led away that afternoon, they didn’t want any problems. But they were neighbours and kinsmen of the dead man. How long could they stay away?

  Ramkustha flung the crowbar near Jana’s courtyard and went home. He poured five measures of rice on to a piece of cloth and tied it up in a bundle. He took some money, tossed a blanket over his shoulder and led his wife Parvati out of the house.

  ‘Tell everyone that I killed Jana Nayak. The crowbar lies somewhere near that courtyard. Blame me for everything, don’t take any responsibility. I’m going out of Goa now, if we meet again … so be it. I’ll take a boat and sail along the coast to the Canara region,’ he said to his brother.

  People were wailing loudly and Jana’s relatives were bustling about in the courtyard when Ramkustha set off. He was taking his family and going away forever, but no one in his house had the courage to express their sorrow or to step out and see him off.

  It was very dark when they set out. Parvati slung a bundle of clothes on her shoulder and held her infant in her arms. Ramkustha had the bundle of rice on his head, a blanket was tossed over his shoulder and a sickle hung from his waistband. Suddenly they heard footsteps behind them.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Vasu. Your brother. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘But why? We have a house here. And fields.’

  ‘Bappa has been taken away. None of this will remain. They’ll grab everything.’

  ‘What about our mother?’

  ‘She won’t live very long. Dado will bury her, she can’t be cremated, can she?’

  ‘And what about our Dado?’

  ‘There’s poison spreading all over this village. Dado won’t stay here after he’s buried our mother, he’ll also move away.’

  Ramkustha was amazed at Vasu’s train of thought.

  ‘Let him come along,’ Parvati said, and the three set off into the darkness. They would cut through unfamiliar regions, moving to an unfamiliar destination. Home would now be the spot where their boat finally touched the shore.

  Rudra Shenai returned to the village with his two young sons, four months after they had left it. His wife, Sumitra, had been with them at that time, but she wasn’t with them now. They had left the village hoping to protect their gods and their faith. Why had they returned?

  He got home at sunset and squatted on the verandah along with his sons. Rudra, who had always been plump and flushed of face was stooped and emaciated. The skin on his face had turned dark and hung in loose folds, and he had a straggly beard. The boys had become like sticks, and threatened to topple over at the slightest push. The elder boy, sixteen-year-old Sada, and the younger one, twelve-year-old Nanda, had been such robust youngsters. They now looked as though their flesh and blood had melted away.

  Devrai Shenai came up to them, dragging his lame foot. ‘Rudra, what a state you’re in! Where’s Sumitri?’ he asked.

  Rudra’s eyes welled with tears.

  ‘Gone. Freed of all troubles. Believed that the flowers she placed on her gods would remain fresh, always. How would she have accepted this?’

  Devrai couldn’t bear to ask anything more. He realized that Rudra had been duped and deceived and was now in a pathetic state. He’d been cheated there where he had gone, and here in his home as well. During the last four months, Krishna Shenai on the one hand and Mungru Shenai on the other had shifted the boundary stones of his orchard so that only a narrow strip was left. His fields had also been taken over by others. If he tried to protest, they would fight with him.

  ‘I would get you some food from my house, but I’m a Christian now. My hands and feet are the same, so are the pupils of my eyes. Now that I’m a Christian, has my lame foot become whole, or have those who didn’t convert, become lame? Nothing has changed. Yet we’ve stopped sitting side by side and sharing each other’s food. Our touch will defile a Hindu’s meal now. Madness!’ he exclaimed.

  Devrai called his son and asked him to pluck some tender coconuts from the palm near Rudra’s house. Rudra’s elder son removed the husk from the nuts and made a hole in the shell. The two boys drank the water. Rudra remembered that there was some liquid ja
ggery in an earthen pot in the house. He opened the door, but it was very dark and the smell of cobwebs and cockroaches filled the air.

  ‘Devrai, will you give me a little light?’ he asked.

  Devrai sent his son home to fetch a live coal. Rudra lit some palm fronds to make a torch and carried it into the house. The farming tools and implements that they had stored in the house were missing. So were the wicker baskets, storage jars and reed mats, but the earthen pots in the kitchen were in place. Sumitri used to smear dung on the floor and walls and keep the house neat and clean, what a mess it was now. This house would never be the same again.

  He picked up the pot of jaggery and returned to the verandah. They scooped out the tender flesh of the coconuts and ate it with the liquid jaggery. Devrai stared at them closely. They are like three hungry ghosts, he thought. He was overcome with pity, but he was angry too.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us what happened? You’re a Brahmin, from a respected family. How did you get to this miserable state?’ he asked.

  Rudra looked at Devrai with tears in his eyes, and began his tale—

  Rudra Shenai and Subrai Shenai moved from village to village in bullock carts or on foot. Whenever they stopped to rest awhile, they would be confronted by strangers who would silently wave them on.

  ‘Your village is so cool and fertile. Let us have a small patch of land so that we may stay here with our gods,’ they pleaded with an old Brahmin when they got to Borye village.

  ‘Why did you bring your gods? You should have immersed them in some river or lake. There’s no place for people in these parts, where will you find space for them?’

  ‘Don’t say that. We left our village to save our gods.’

  ‘The villagers have decided that no new gods and no strangers will be allowed to settle here. Take pity on a man and offer him a seat and soon enough he picks up the wooden seat and knocks you down! Give a stranger a foot of land, and then he wants a yard and soon he wants to take over the whole village!’

  The old man pointed to four houses on the hill. ‘Three years ago they came here like beggars. The villagers took pity on them and let them stay. Now they’ve sprouted horns! The lake dries up in Chaitra and we don’t have enough water for our orchards. We tell them not to use this water but they’re ready to fight. They refuse to do any work in the village, yet they want to use our facilities!’ he ranted.

  ‘We are Saraswat Brahmins from Adolshi village. We enjoyed honour and prestige and owned fertile fields and orchards, but now we’re reduced to this state. Who knows, we might be descendants of some common ancestor…’ Subrai Shenai suggested.

  ‘These are difficult times. A brother doesn’t recognize a brother,’ the old man turned away.

  Rudra and Subrai Shenai hired two Kunbi porters and the little group set off on foot through the forest towards Shirvade. They spent the night in someone’s outhouse where they cooked a meal. It was eighteen days since they’d left home, but they had not found a place to stay. They had a bit of money and some gold ornaments, but they needed a place for their gods, to build a home for themselves, to settle down.

  The Kunbi porters took them to Giri Kamat’s house in Shirvade. ‘People say that Giri Bhatkar has fed so many people and given away so much land that his property, which was as extensive as a kingdom, has disappeared,’ the porters told them.

  Subrai Shenai and Rudra Shenai told Giri Kamat their story and begged for a plot of land for themselves and their gods.

  ‘You have come here with your gods. I’ve given so much land to people, how can I refuse the gods? I give you thirty feet of land on the eastern flank, near the mango tree,’ he declared.

  Suddenly his wife emerged from behind the door. She was a tall, slim and beautiful woman, like a golden goddess. ‘I want half that land,’ she said.

  ‘But Narmada, I have just given them that stretch.’

  ‘I want half that stretch.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘If you don’t give it to me I will go out and beg on the street,’ she threatened.

  Kamat remained silent for a while. He called a labourer and told him, ‘Take these people to the eastern flank of the orchard near the mango tree and measure out thirty feet of land. Let them use fifteen feet and mark out fifteen feet to be given as alms to my wife.’

  The worker seemed quite amused as he led the group into the orchard. He was a short man and his hands and legs were like small plantain stems. He cut off a length of stick as long as his arm to serve as a measure of length and marked out thirty feet of land from the mango tree. He turned around at that point and walked back fifteen feet. He stuck a pole into the ground and told them that this strip of land was theirs. He would return the next day and set boundary stones into the ground.

  Rudra Shenai looked at the narrow strip with four coconut palms, two mango trees and a bhinna tree with its sweet and sour berries, wondering how they would all live there with their gods.

  ‘We asked for a meal and we’ve been given such a small portion that no one can fill his stomach. How can two families live here after building a shrine for the gods? We had such large orchards in our village, yet we weren’t satisfied. Two families can’t stay here,’ Subrai declared finally.

  Rudra was filled with worry, what was Subrai trying to say? The Kunbi porters cleared the undergrowth and erected a small shack. Subrai Shenai took a dip in the lake and prayed aloud. He turned the idol around so that it faced east and set it down on the ground. But there was no sense of joy in it. Only, a pall of worry and gloom hung over them.

  Rudra and Subrai seemed to have fallen out after reaching this spot. They didn’t speak freely to each other and when they did, their words were strained and terse. They’d stood by each other during the troubles faced over the last eighteen days, what had happened to them now?

  ‘Let us build two small shacks in the space that remains and get on with our lives. We’ll have problems of space. But we can accept that, like oxen who live side by side in their sheds,’ Rudra suggested.

  ‘It’s such a tiny strip of land. A corpse can’t be laid out crosswise and cremated on this patch of land, how can two families live here?’ Subrai demanded.

  ‘But Giri Kamat gave the land to both of us.’

  ‘He didn’t give it to us. He gave it to the gods. And it isn’t enough for the gods, either.’

  ‘Where else can we go? Do we even have the strength to move on?’

  ‘What strength are you talking about? I’m ten years older than you are, yet I travelled all this way. I’ll stay here with the gods and perform all the rituals. I’ll invite those of you who move on as well as those who’ve stayed behind in our village to attend the Lord’s festivals.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Subrai tato, the deity belongs to both of us. We both have a stake on this land. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Our families and our descendants will fight over this strip of land if you stay here. Move on, Rudra. Settle down somewhere else.’

  ‘Where will I go with my wife and children? This is the last stop. God will solve our problem,’ Rudra said.

  Subrai raised his voice. ‘I tell you, there isn’t enough space. We’ll be quarrelling over the gods too, at this rate.’

  Rudra was taken aback. Subrai tato was a good-natured man, why was he talking like this today? Rudra himself was rather diffident by nature. He took care not to get into arguments or fights. His wife, too, was a soft-hearted, calm and god-fearing woman and he became more mild and quiet in her company.

  Rudra went into the forest the next morning and cut four long bamboo poles which he set down on one side of the strip of land. Subrai rushed there in an agitated state and tossed the bamboo poles away, ‘Didn’t I say two shacks can’t be built on this strip? Go away! At once! Or I’ll beat you with a stick and drive you away,’ he shouted.

  Suddenly Rudra’s wife, Sumitra, jumped into the fray. She didn’t bother about Subrai’s age and used the choicest abuses that she cou
ld think of as she cursed him and prayed for his death. Subrai responded by casting aspersions on her character and her devotion to her gods. The curses and foul words that flew back and forth filled the air with fear. It was as though the gods had forsaken the world and the great Flood would destroy the earth!

  Rudra was overcome with rage. He picked up their belongings and set off with his family. ‘May your children die, may you be reduced to ashes,’ he cursed. ‘I shall never set eyes on your face again. Nor will I pray to the gods you worship!’

  Rudra hired a bullock cart and set off with his family for Sange, which lay on the road to Panchvadi. The cart driver was an old man, but he knew all the routes and was familiar with the region.

  ‘Take us to some clearing in the forest where we can find water, and we’ll settle there,’ Rudra said.

  ‘A man cannot live alone in the forest. These are difficult times and each village guards its borders, no strangers can move in.’

  ‘When your own kinsman turns on you with a stick and drives you away, what can you expect from strangers?’ Rudra’s voice choked and tears ran down his cheeks.

  ‘We’ll look for a clearing amongst the trees. Once you set stakes into the ground and build a shack, the villagers will begin to accept you,’ the cart driver said as he listened to Rudra’s story.

  It was late in the evening when they stopped by a broken temple that lay open to the sky. There was an old well close by. They carried the box and bundles into the temple. Rudra set up a hearth with three stones and lit a fire and Sumitra cooked some payz.

  There was an upright stone idol amongst the ruins where the family settled down for the night. The children lay in the middle with their parents on either side. The driver tied the bullocks to a tree and lay down outside. Rudra was full of despair, and worries about the future kept him awake for a long while.