‘No sensation.’ Ruhiton shook his head.
‘It’s progressed a long way then,’ the doctor said. Stabbing Ruhiton’s finger with the pointed tip of the piece of iron, he asked, ‘Can you feel this?’
Ruhiton shook his head to indicate he couldn’t.
‘Shut your eyes for a bit and answer my questions,’ the doctor told him.
Ruhiton looked suspiciously at the doctor. Then he shut his eyes.
Poking the bulbous growths on his hands and face with his piece of iron, the doctor asked, ‘Does it hurt? Do you feel anything?’
‘No.’ Ruhiton shook his head.
‘Fully anaesthetized,’ the doctor muttered.
Ruhiton opened his eyes.
The doctor was looking at him. ‘Can’t you feel the mucus trickling from your nose?’
‘Not always,’ Ruhiton replied. He made to wipe it off with the back of his hand.
Before he could, the doctor wiped it off with the wad of cotton in his hand. Taking a piece of paper from his bag, he wrapped the cotton in it and put it away. Ruhiton watched with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.
‘No more doubt, there’s no more doubt,’ the doctor muttered, his expression troubled.
A convict appeared and came up to the bedstead. He held an aluminium bowl with muri, chickpeas and a banana in it. In his other hand he had a glass of tea.
‘What do you want?’ asked the doctor.
‘I’ve brought his breakfast, sir,’ said the convict in Hindi, pointing to Ruhiton. Ruhiton looked at him.
‘Your breakfast is here,’ said the doctor. ‘Eat up, please.’
Ruhiton accepted the bowl and the glass. Through the open door, he spotted Khelu Chowdhury in the kitchen area on the other side of the courtyard. Khelu Chowdhury and the other prisoners were looking at him. Ruhiton turned back to the doctor. An old table lay near the bed. Ruhiton put his bowl and glass on it.
‘Your illness has progressed,’ said the doctor. ‘I have no idea why you haven’t been examined all this time. You should have been treated much, much earlier. You should have been given medicines. Did anyone in your family have this illness? Have you seen any of them with it?’
‘Never.’ Ruhiton shook his head vehemently.
‘Your grandparents or parents or wife or anyone else?’ the doctor persisted.
‘No. No.’ Ruhiton shook his head violently again.
The doctor was flustered. ‘Have your breakfast,’ he said softly, looking at Ruhiton.
Popping a fistful of muri into his mouth, Ruhiton sipped his tea. The doctor handed his bag to the hospital boy. He was looking grim.
‘Is it a very bad disease, doctor?’ Ruhiton croaked.
The doctor tried to smile. ‘All illnesses are bad. But they’re all curable if treated properly. But it’s been left very late in your case. You need medicine quickly.’
‘How do you get this disease?’ Ruhiton seemed to stop breathing as he posed his question. His eyes widened. And without his knowing it, some muri dropped down from his mouth.
‘There could be many reasons,’ answered the doctor. ‘This isn’t a dangerously contagious disease. If at all, it’s children who are infected. That’s why I was asking you whether your parents had it. It can also be passed on by grandparents.’
‘But neither my parents nor my grandparents suffered from this disease,’ Ruhiton’s voice croaked hoarsely. His jaws were still moving like a cow chewing the cud, the half-chewed muri now trickling out of the corners of his mouth in a mush. ‘Do bad people get this disease?’ he asked.
The doctor looked probingly at Ruhiton. ‘Bad people? Not at all. Even good, innocent people suffer from this illness.’
Ruhiton’s inflamed, unblinking eyes were trained on the doctor. He popped in another fistful of muri, and his jaws started moving again. ‘Can you get this disease from sleeping with whores at fairgrounds?’ he asked plaintively.
The doctor frowned, then laughed unexpectedly. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘this isn’t the disease you’re thinking of. Now I see why you were asking about bad people. No, this isn’t an illness like that. This disease affects the surface of the skin, but it penetrates all the way to the bone, robs you of sensations. Anyone can get it. And children get it easily because it’s infectious. Adults aren’t usually affected if they’re careful.’
‘What illness is this?’ Ruhiton grunted. His face, the jaws still moving and the eyes bloodshot, looked swollen.
The doctor looked serious now. Running his eyes over Ruhiton, he said, ‘It’s true that it’s been left very late, but you’ll be cured. This disease is called leprosy.’
Ruhiton’s jaws stopped moving. The thickened, cracked skin on his face made it look like an ancient blood-hued slab of terracotta. ‘Kut!’ he said, using his dialect to refer to the disease.
‘Yes, leprosy,’ the doctor responded. ‘The disease is not as fearsome as people think. But people are afraid of it. And it’s already quite late in your case. You cannot be kept here any longer. You’ll probably be taken elsewhere before lunch.’
‘Elsewhere?’ Ruhiton asked, worried.
‘Yes, elsewhere within the jail,’ the doctor said. ‘Your treatment must be started without the slightest delay. I’m going to make arrangements now. Finish your breakfast.’
The young doctor’s eyes and voice still held a sort of deference. Now slightly tragic. Signalling to the hospital boy, he went towards the door. Ruhiton turned to look at him. He saw Khelu Chowdhury and the others surround the doctor as soon as he went outside. Ruhiton turned away. The field stretched out before him through the window. But he could see nothing. His bloodshot, unblinking eyes reflected a wounded, perplexed question, infinite in measure. His lips moved, and silently he muttered, ‘Kut! I have kut…’
Chapter Thirteen
A SEPARATE CELL had been earmarked for Ruhiton in the area for leprosy patients. He had been transferred there and his treatment had begun. Like the others, Ruhiton also moved about within the perimeter of the area for leprosy-afflicted prisoners. But he couldn’t have conversations with any of them. The other prisoners with leprosy belonged to worlds that had nothing in common with his. Some of them mocked him, teased him, tried to provoke him in different ways. Ruhiton was enraged by their crude language and behaviour. Fortunately not all of them were like this. Some held Ruhiton in high esteem even though they came from different worlds. They accorded him respect. As a result, squabbles often broke out, with people taking one side or the other. There were even fistfights. The alarm bell wasn’t rung when these incidents occurred. The warder and his mates threw themselves on the prisoners with their batons and belts. After both sides had received some random blows, things quietened down again.
The edict of time was absolute, however. Nothing remained unchanged in the world outside or, for that matter, inside this jail. Everything changed. Kept changing. Ruhiton knew this very well. Some of the prisoners who had tried to provoke him in the first few months had lost interest now. They no longer took any pleasure in baiting him.
He liked the young doctor. Although he was a prison doctor, his conversation and behaviour were different. He didn’t seem to be treating Ruhiton merely as an act of duty. Or discharging his responsibility only because he was paid for it. Whenever he looked at Ruhiton, it always seemed to be with curiosity. And that sense of deference. Yet he never asked a question beyond the limits of his position. Nor said anything.
Once he had realized that Ruhiton was not afraid of this disease, he had told him categorically that the parts of his nose and ears which had lost all sensation, along with some parts of his fingers and toes, would never be restored. Some permanent marks would remain on his forehead, cheek, chin, ankles, and elbows. But he had planted a question in Ruhiton’s mind. ‘Try to remember whether you used to visit anyone with leprosy when you were a child,’ he kept repeating. ‘Someone who would hug you, hold you in their arms, maybe your nose was running. Children don’t realize when their n
oses run. Leprosy germs can take that route into a person’s body. If there are sores or wounds on the skin, or insect bites, the germs can enter that way too. Try to remember. You must have been near a leprosy patient at some time or the other. Maybe you had wounds or sores on your skin at the time.’
‘Maybe I was poisoned with this disease through my meals in jail,’ Ruhiton had said one day, airing his suspicion.
Laughing uproariously, the young doctor had said, ‘Oh no, nothing like that. This is a skin disease, it can’t come from anything you eat. And if that were the case, they could have given you much more lethal poison. Besides, why would they poison you alone, they could have poisoned everyone from your party. It’s no use thinking along these lines.’
Ruhiton had accepted the doctor’s argument. To begin with, it was very difficult not to believe him. Besides, why would people who could easily get rid of him whenever they wanted to, take such a roundabout route?
For the first time in all his years in jail, he had been separated from his mates. Initially, except during interrogation, he had been kept in seclusion but close to them. A few years later, they had more or less allowed people from the same party to stay together. Of course, the prisoners had had to go on fasts and strikes for this.
Ruhiton was trying to dissect his past. It was like a search for husks amidst a pile of clean, fresh rice. But he hadn’t succeeded in unearthing even a single victim of leprosy. This solitary life, separated from his friends in the party, was as dim as deepening dusk. Only his past seemed bathed in bright sunlight. Especially the period when they had planned to encircle cities with villages. As part of that, they had begun to build a Liberated Zone of their own, free of enemies. You could call it full-fledged war.
The landowners and traders had become furious at the arrogance of the poor and the landless. So furious that they had singled out targets of their own accord and started killing them. Mohan Chhetri, Ruknuddin Ahmed, Shanilal, even Shuku Pongani, had begun to move around with guns. Ruhiton had got himself a gun licence too. Every landowner and trader, small or large, had had a gun. They had been given arms to keep robbers at bay. Members of the ferocious Murang tribe from Nepal used to attack them in autumn and winter. They used guns and daggers and large sickles. But those attacks took place once or twice, at specific times of the year. That was the reason the border police and army authorities maintained camps round the year at Naxalbari, Raniganj, Panighat, Mirik, and Tanglu. In reality, the landowners and traders used their guns more on the impoverished sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Besides, there was poaching in the Khashmahal area and the reserved forests.
Ruhiton and his group had not relinquished a single one of their guns. They had snatched guns from every landowner and trader in the huge area between Tukariajhar in the south and east, the Mechi in the north, and the Dalkajhar forest in the north.
And Barka Chhetri. The formidable son of the large landowner Mohan Chhetri. Yes, Ruhiton and he had remained friends well after his wedding. Did his heart skip a beat at the thought? Not at all. He had drenched the crazed, notorious murderer in blood with bare-handed blows. Yet Barka had been his childhood friend. Ruhiton would carry a bow and arrows. Barka would carry a gun. The gun was probably heavier than him. But he could lift it with ease and, supporting the butt with this chest, squeeze the trigger. How good his aim was! He wouldn’t miss even by a whisker. Ruhiton’s own aim with the bow and arrow wasn’t bad either. They had hunted plenty of big game.
They had killed tigers, deer, and pythons. Not to mention peacocks, roosters, and rabbits. Peacocks were rare in the jungles of the Terai. Ruhiton had often shot down flying wild roosters with his bow and arrow, more often than Barka had with his gun. And that golden leopard cat? Ruhiton had shot it with an arrow and captured it alive. Barka had taken it home as a pet. But he hadn’t managed to keep the beautiful creature alive very long. They went trout fishing together in the Mechi as well. Sometimes they went to the Balashon, even all the way to the Tista in the west. Besides, there was always the fishing in the mountain streams flowing out of the waterfalls, or in the lakes. Also, hunting of fish-eating wildcats.
At that time, in Ruhiton’s youth, the forest department had not been very strict about enforcing hunting laws. Besides, the landowners and the forest department babus perpetually scratched each other’s backs and avoided fights over hunting. The Englishmen at the tea estates used to hunt with impunity too.
Every time Ruhiton thought of Barka he was reminded of what Khelu babu had said. Oh yes, you’re right, Khelu babu, Barka Chhetri was my friend. We used to go to the fairs together. We used to listen to the songs and the music. Yes, we used to gamble too. I got married. Soon afterwards, so did he. His father had actually got his eldest son a bride from Nepal. His wife’s name was Maya. Mine was Mangala, his was Maya. We used to take our wives to the fairs together. We would listen to music, watch the bioscope, gamble, and drink. And our wives would hurry us back home. Those were happy days for us when we were young.
Yes, Barka’s larder was full. Not mine. We would go out hunting at night. We never worried about running into a herd of elephants, or having a leopard pounce on us from a tree. He would be well fed. I wouldn’t always. If Barka got to know, he would sometimes get me some food from home. But whores? On Barka’s money? I am a Kurmi Mahato, Khelu babu. You’ve seen many Santhals, Kurmis, Oraons, and Mundas on the tea estates. We never pay to sleep with our women. Don’t you know people actually want to buy our poor, deprived women?
Chapter Fourteen
BUT BARKA WAS Mohan Chhetri’s son. Once he had realized that Ruhiton belonged to a different world, he had ended their friendship. He stopped spending time with Ruhiton; he even began to threaten him. Suspicious of Ruhiton and his group, he had taken to carrying his gun.
One day he had begun beating up Gobra Santhal with the butt of his gun, in Ruhiton’s presence. Gobra used to be a labourer on Barka’s family farm, a servant in his home. Barka had suspected Gobra of joining the group intent on killing landowners. He was beating him to make him talk. Beat? What he was doing wasn’t beating. He seemed intent on killing him. Barka had blood on his hands already. Once he considered someone an enemy, he had no qualms about killing him.
Diba babu had not personally instructed Ruhiton to kill Barka. Ruhiton had attacked Barka on his own. Yes, it was true that Barka had been surprised. He had not expected to be attacked by Ruhiton. Then, breaking into a fury, he had tried to cock his gun and fire. Ruhiton had not allowed that to happen. He had known that once Barka had his gun in position, there would be no escape. So, with all his strength he had grabbed the gun first and thrown it away. Gobra Santhal had picked the gun up. Ruhiton had begun to hit Barka. As he hit him…No, his heart didn’t leap into his mouth when he recalled all this, as he was doing now.
During their revolution, Gobra Santhal had laid siege to Mohan Chhetri’s two-storeyed tin-roofed wooden farmhouse with a group of people. Old man Mohan Chhetri had died, along with his two sons. The work for the enemy-free Liberated Zone had begun.
Was Barka his friend? Yes, Barka had been his friend. And then his enemy. Life was like that. If every creature on earth had its own principles, so did the landless cultivator Ruhiton Kurmi. The enemy could be dealt with in only one way under those principles. Kill, or be killed.
The landowners were mainly Bengali Hindus, some Bihari Muslims, and a handful of Nepalis. The traders were mostly Marwaris. They owned all the shops, godowns, and high interest moneylending businesses. They were also gradually becoming the owners of the tea estates. Their paw prints were everywhere—from the tea gardens to the forests and agricultural resources of the Terai. These traders and landowners were the targets of the first wave of attacks when Ruhiton and his group were creating their Liberated Zone. Many of them had escaped with their lives to Siliguri. Those who had wanted to fight, like Barka, had had the fight taken out of them forever. The border police and the army had not been prepared for this unexpected armed upri
sing. Not surprisingly, their forces had initially scattered in different directions. Later, they had quickly mounted a counter-attack by surrounding the hills in the northwest from the southern plains of Siliguri and the Bihar border.
But the soldiers of the uprising had been unable to put up a resistance to the thugs and vultures from the cities. Just as vultures swoop down on the corpse after being intimated by flies that a cow has died, these ruffians too had pounced. Taking advantage of the uprising, they had looted goods worth lakhs of rupees in their trucks. None of the revolutionaries had had any experience of how things turn out after an uprising. And those thugs and hoodlums, many of them disguised as members of political parties, were poised to exploit any situation.
Ruhiton could not forget the incredible enthusiasm and courage of the people in every village in the Terai. He had personally toured all the villages and habitations. From boys to old men, from men to women, everyone had seemed transformed. Had they really gained a new life? Many of them had even given up drinking and beating their wives. Unlike many others, Ruhiton was not in the habit of taking out his frustrations on his wife by beating her. Did that mean he had never beaten her up? But yes, he too had been beaten up by Mangala once or twice. Was there a Kurmi Mahato in the world who had not received a few blows from his wife after a grievous crime? At least to rid them of their drunkenness? Especially if the man had got drunk on hooch exchanged for the family’s food, which he had stolen? But when Ruhiton had stopped drinking, his mother had questioned his decision, asking how this could be allowed. For Santhals and Kurmis and Mundas and Mahatos, to not drink deyong was to go against their principles.
We still have a Karam puja, we pray for Marangburu’s grace, he was the one who had given deyong to the people. We still go to the Shirua—rolling in the mud—and Kisua—hunting—festivals of the Rajvanshis. This was what his mother would say. Mangala would agree. But a different wind was blowing through the Liberated Zone created by Ruhiton and his group. There was no ban on deyong or instruction about other things. Still a wave of change had swept over everyone. Everyone had become self-aware and disciplined. Disciplined, because they had become keen on performing their duty with dedication. They guarded the Liberated Zone like sentries who never slept.
Fever Page 10
