Ruhiton opened his eyes again. The back of the jeep was covered. There was a rectangular window of some transparent material like polythene in the thick black fabric cover. If he raised his head and peeped, the scene outside would be visible through it. Ruhiton couldn’t see anything. His seat was distant from the window. He sat facing the back, leaning against the front seat. All he could see through the window of polythene was a red glow. Now and then, black shadows flashed past, covering the red glow. Were the flashing black shadows actually roadside trees? And did the red glow signal that dawn was about to break? Perhaps, but Ruhiton couldn’t keep bear to watch. With his tongue he flicked away the cigarette, now reduced to a butt. Then he shut his eyes. As soon as he did, the reddish brown colour swam up before his eyes, trembling in his line of sight. A choked sound emerged from him.
‘What is it, Ruhiton, did you say something?’ He heard the officer speak from the front seat.
‘The blanket’s slipped off my shoulders, it needs to be put back in place,’ Ruhiton said without opening his eyes.
‘Are you cold?’ He heard the officer’s surprised tone.
Ruhiton did not respond. Someone, either the officer or his companion, draped the blanket around his shoulders again. Ruhiton felt a little more comfortable.
‘Was your voice always like this, Ruhiton?’ He heard the officer speak again. ‘I haven’t really heard you speak much. I have no memory of your voice. Or have you caught a cold? Your voice is so hoarse, it’s almost a croak.’
He was right. Ruhiton’s voice did sound hoarse these days. He rasped, as though he had a constant cold. But it wasn’t as though his throat hurt. He felt no pain or congestion. Yet his voice sounded hoarse, like a croak, whenever he spoke. Why? Had he caught a cold?
No one knew. When had Ruhiton ever had the time to think of his own health? He had sometimes run up a fever after getting drenched in the rain or roaming about in winter without warm clothes. Both the monsoon and the winter in the Mirik hills in the north were unsparing. It may have been possible to withstand the rains, but not the winter. When he ran up a fever and his body ached, his mother would boil an extract from some obscure bark and vines and leaves and give it to him as medicine. After she developed cataracts, Mangala would do it. Mangala had learnt it all from his mother.
If he fell very ill, he would get pills from the dispensary and have them. But he didn’t need a doctor very often. The boiled extract from the bark and vines and leaves used to be good enough. How expensive the pills from the dispensary were! Very expensive! Nor were they available nearby. Besides, Mangala used to practise some kind of black magic… He was reminded of Mangala. Her face floated up before him. When Ruhiton had a headache, Mangala would draw strange patterns on his forehead with a twig. How Ruhiton wanted to laugh whenever she did this. Leaning on his chest, lowering her head, she would mutter incantations, while brushing his forehead with the twig in intricate patterns, starting near one ear and ending near the other. It was as though she were tracing the incantation on Ruhiton’s forehead. Did that ease the pain? Possibly not, but he still used to feel a certain comfort in her touch.
Mangala’s face floated up before Ruhiton’s eyes. Beads of perspiration lined her face. Her eyes were tranquil as always—quiet and affectionate, like a milch cow’s. Like mountain lakes, which they called manis, they overflowed with panic whenever she heard her children cry. This was the only way she knew to look at people. She used to look at Ruhiton in the same way. Her eyes probably held a trace of amusement too. When embarrassed, they dropped to the floor immediately. And yet, her eyes always seemed like calm, limpid pools.
‘You look different,’ Ruhiton heard the officer say again from the front seat.
His voice jolted him back. Had he been thinking of home, of Mangala? Had the officer been talking all this while? Ruhiton had noticed nothing. He didn’t respond to the officer; he did not want to talk with him about anything. Theirs was not that sort of a relationship.
But why had he been thinking of Mangala? Why, he even seemed to remember the feel of Mangala on his chest, the scent of her breath. But this should not be happening. Such thoughts were not for him. They only weakened the heart. He had not only staked his own life in this battle. He had staked everything and everyone else too. Mangala was no different from anyone else. No one was. If Mangala thought or acted differently on her own, it had nothing to do with Ruhiton. But Mangala had not displayed any such propensity. In fact, she had been one of them. Most people did not know about her courage. But still, of late—yes, only of late—Ruhiton’s state of mind had changed. Now he was often unexpectedly reminded of Mangala, of his children, and of his mother. They would appear before him, complete with their touch and their smells.
Chapter Four
‘BUT WHY SHOULD you allow that to happen?’ The officer’s voice came from the front seat once more. ‘If you don’t feel well, you must tell the jail doctor. Get yourself treated properly. You have the right. Things are no longer as they were seven years ago, you see. It would have been different if they’d hanged you to death. Of course, you could still be hanged, the charge against you hasn’t changed. But if you’re ill you have to be treated. I have noticed that your entire appearance has changed. As though you’ve aged suddenly. The skin on your face—yes, the eyebrows are almost gone too. I remember how brawny you used to look. Like Hidimba or Kichak or someone like that—although you weren’t as dark as night…’ The officer’s tone changed suddenly in mid-sentence. ‘Turn your head this way, Ruhiton. To your left. Do you recognize this thing that’s passing?’
The officer was talking a great deal this morning, for the first time in the past three days. He was much more comfortable today than he had been in the previous days, as if he was much more confident now. But what was he asking Ruhiton to take a look at? A rumbling and rattling could be heard close to the jeep. It was the sound of something big and heavy. He looked to his left and saw what looked like a small train passing. But there was no steam rising from it. Part of the train was visible. It couldn’t keep up with the jeep. Some of the people sitting by the windows of the carriage were looking at the jeep. It was lit up inside as well as in front. Just like in a train, here too, the driver stood up front, wearing a cap.
Large buildings lined the road, their lights still on. The red glow that he had seen through the rectangular polythene window at the back of the jeep actually signalled imminent sunrise. Which meant that the sky was clear today; it must have turned red to the east, its glow spreading.
But what was this vehicle that was running alongside the jeep? This place looked different too, with its large buildings. Ah! In a flash he recalled that this was Calcutta. The vehicle resembled a long tram. A tram! Of course it was a tram! Fourteen or fifteen years ago, or, who knew, maybe a few years this way or that, Ruhiton had been to Calcutta. There was a huge gathering beneath the Ochterlony Monument. A gathering of workers and farmers. This was Calcutta, wasn’t it? It had to be Calcutta.
The jeep left the tram further behind. Ruhiton turned his head from left to right. The jeep seemed to have taken a bend in a different direction. It was moving away from the tram. But all these roads, all these large buildings either side of the road, a lamp post at the centre of every crossroad, could only mean he was in Calcutta. This city simply couldn’t be Siliguri or Jalpaiguri or Malbazar. Nor Kishenganj or Katihar or Purnea. The tram now lost to his view was the biggest proof that this was Calcutta.
Ruhiton had been to Calcutta just once. It had been a different time back then, the party had been in better shape. He had led a group of tea estate workers and landless farmers. Not that he knew anything about Calcutta at the time. He had looked up to people like Diba (Dibakar) Bagchi, Bhabani Roy, and a few others. They were the leaders who organized the people in the tea gardens and farms in the Terai. Ruhiton had been inducted into the party by Diba Bagchi. He had been entrusted with the responsibility of choosing the people who would join the gathering in Calcutta
. Bhadua had also been with him—Bhadua Munda, a formidable fighting force at the tea estates. They had all boarded the train together. They had got off at Bardhaman station the next day. All of them had arrived in a procession at Calcutta. Not just them alone. They had joined many factory and mine workers at Bardhaman. All of them were headed towards the Monument in Calcutta.
It had been a new experience for Ruhiton. There were thousands of women and men. He had been carried away. A sort of heroic happiness had filled his heart. He was certain that something big was happening. It was visible every step of the way. In the raised arms and shouts and joyous laugher of the people lined up on both sides of the road. Arrangements had been made for their meals at different places along the way. Chapattis, vegetables, muri.4 None of them had worried about food. The excitement had run so high that the thought of eating hadn’t even occurred to them. They had reached Calcutta on the afternoon of the fourth day.
Calcutta provided more excitement. Everyone seemed to become more charged as they neared the city. The might of the tea estate owners or of the landowners in the Terai had seemed insignificant. He had felt a strength so immense and powerful that it could have ground any other force in the dust. A certain recklessness possessed him. He was distracted too, by the curiosities around him. This was the marvel of Calcutta. That was when he had seen a tram, with wonder in his eyes. A pole connected the roof of the tram to electric wires. He had heard about it, but he was seeing a tram for the first time. Why should there be steam if it ran on electricity?
The image from his past flashed before his eyes in an instant. He was unprepared for it. This was a tram. So they were transporting Ruhiton across Calcutta? There was no more doubt that this was Calcutta. But he was no longer as excited about Calcutta as he had once been.
The gathering beneath the Monument had been massive. People, people, and more people everywhere. But Ruhiton had not been aware of his expectations. He had been filled with a sort of despair as soon as the meeting had ended. Many speeches had been made at the meeting. There had been plenty of applause and loud cries of approval, but after all that it had seemed just like the last day of a fair. On their way back, Calcutta had not appeared remotely interested in them. The night had been spent on the Maidan, on pavements in front of closed shops and at the station. Nobody had stopped them with questions on the way back. No one had shouted out encouragement or offered food either.
Mangala was supposed to have come. She hadn’t only because she was pregnant. Ruhiton remembered this now. Diba Bagchi had always been sickly. Along with a few others, he had been permitted to take the train all the way to Calcutta instead of marching with the rest. They had met him in Calcutta. On the way back it was Diba Bagchi who had made them accompany him on the train. One shouldn’t say it, but you had to consider whose son he was. He was the son of Dinu Bagchi of Siliguri, famous for his wealth as well as stature. He was an even more powerful landowner than Mohan Chhetri. Dinu Bagchi had a huge farm in Phanshideowa; he was a shareholder in several tea estates.
Ruhiton had himself seen him. He didn’t appear to be any more important than a half-naked landless cultivator. For all that he might dress up in a dhoti and kurta, he still plucked at his teeth with a bidi, spat noisily and frequently on the road. His eyes were always bloodshot. He stared at people. He had no relationship with Diba Bagchi, his only son. The rich and famous father had planned to get his son educated and then send him off to supervise the tea estates. Turn him into an Englishman. Pouring cold water over the old man’s plans, Diba Bagchi had chosen the opposite path.
Not that Dinu Bagchi could be called an old man. From that point of view the father was more virile than the son. Was this the problem with education, Ruhiton asked himself in surprise. Why else was Diba Bagchi so sickly? As though he were marked by the devil. The father had the strength of ten people. The son was like a frail twig. A thousand illnesses had taken root in his body. But he burst into flames like a meteorite every now and then. Diba Bagchi’s strength lay in the fire in his eyes and the things he would say. He had travelled around the tea estates and farms while a student. The police had clapped him in jail within two years of Independence. When he was released after three years, Dinu Bagchi had had his son married with great hope in his heart.
The hope had proved futile. Diba Bagchi had stayed at home for some time. He was a male. The father may have arranged the marriage but the wife was the son’s. Just like the soil, a wife was an attraction too. Diba Bagchi had felt this attraction as well. But after presenting about three grandchildren to Dinu Bagchi, he had returned to his old ways. A son of the soil, he had gone back to it. That was when Ruhiton had become acquainted with him. Father and son had not seen eye to eye. He hadn’t been able to adjust to the luxury of life in his father’s house. Actually, he hadn’t wanted to. He had started travelling around the tea estates and farms again. He would never visit his father’s farmland in Phanshideowa. Khelu Chowdhury, another leader in the party, did that. Diba Bagchi was older than all of them, however. Those in the know were aware that Diba Bagchi was Dinu Bagchi’s son. Workers in the tea estates and farms didn’t know this.
Ruhiton had smelt trouble on the way back from Calcutta. How could he respond with the truth if Diba Bagchi were to ask him whether he had enjoyed this huge carnival of theirs in Calcutta? Had Bhadua enjoyed it? Bhadua Munda, the militant leader from the tea estates. Ruhiton hadn’t asked any questions. He had observed that no one was looking happy. Everyone’s crestfallen expression and eyes had held an anxious desperation to go home. Practically none of them had eaten anything all night.
He remembered that there had been eleven women in the group. Women, meaning wives. They had come with their men. All of them had come from the tea estates. Two of them had had children in their arms. Not all of them had depended on others for money. A few did have some money of their own. Just as well that they did. They had at least managed to feed the women and children at night. But it had to be admitted that even in the dying excitement over the celebrations, many in the group had been curious to see Calcutta. Ruhiton too. And his thoughts had immediately gone back to Mangala.
4 Puffy rice flakes, made by heating rice grains at high pressure.
Chapter Five
MANGALA. IT WAS like the sudden cascade of a monsoon waterfall. All the faces floated up before his eyes—Budhua, Karma, Dudhi. His blind, aged mother. The doctor at Kharibari had said she had developed cataracts in her eyes, which would need surgery. She had no idea what a cataract was, and had never accepted that it could be operated on. Ruhiton did not have enough money either.
His daughter had been named Dudhi, for milk, because her complexion was like her father’s. The father had inherited his mother’s complexion.
Poshpat Kurmi had married Ganga, daughter of Gajen Santhal from the tea estate. This was unusual—a Kurmi man marrying a Santhal girl.5 But this was neither Dhalbhum or Manbhumgarh, nor Santhal Pargana. The foothills were occupied by the tea estates of the Terai and the farms. Society and its norms were different here, with caste discrimination being much less. Besides, Pashupati Kurmi had more or less abducted Ganga. Abductions did not take place without cause. When a cow loved a calf she took it into the forest to feed it. His mother had loved his father the same way before they were married.
Ruhiton’s grandfather had been alive then. Pashupati was still a labourer at a tea estate in eastern Naxalbari. There had been a furore in the tenements over this business of Ruhiton’s parents. He used to enjoy all the stories his mother had told him. His father had apparently decided to elope with his mother to Gayabari or some other tea estate in the upper regions of Mirik if they weren’t allowed to get married. It hadn’t come to that eventually. Ruhiton’s grandfather had been an important and venerable figure. He used to mingle freely with other tribes like the Santhals and Oraons and Mahatos, and had very good relations with them. They had come to a compromise. Gajen Santhal had had to pay a slightly higher dowry than usual. Although
it sounds unbelievable, he had had to offer two Sikkim cocks. Nobody except the managers at the tea estates and rich landowners or traders could dream of buying Sikkim cocks. Of course, it was different for Marwari traders. They didn’t even eat fish.
Pashupati Kurmi had made a big break with the past by abandoning the tea estate. He had been drawn towards land and agriculture. This was a primal desire for a Kurmi. A home of one’s own, ploughs and a pair of bullocks, some land to cultivate. Ruhiton’s grandfather had harboured the same dream. But he hadn’t been able to fulfill it. Even returning to his family home on the border of Bihar and Orissa would not have helped.
But how had an ordinary labourer like Poshpat Kurmi dared to dream of land in an area where every bit of land was already in the possession of officers, landowners, henchmen, and contractors? How much money had he saved? A single officer—a Chowdhury—could have gobbled up Ruhiton’s father with ease. The Chowdhurys were Bengali officers who divided and distributed the land, collected taxes, and governed and sat in judgement over everyone. Once upon a time the very name caused palpitations in the Terai region, like a mad elephant would. The Mandals were the right-hand men of the landowners and contractors, worse than even the bloodsucking leeches that clung to the bodies of dogs and sharecroppers.
Ruhiton was filled with wonder at the thought of how much money his father must have saved. Actually Poshpat Kurmi had got into a Chowdhury’s good books. No, his father had not even been given the rights of a regular contractor on his land. He had only been given limited rights, the kind accorded to ryots. They lived on the land, they tilled it, but they never acquired rights over it. They had to give it up when asked, had to scram when told to disappear.
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