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Maratmok Jontu Aana Rakha Ebong Poshar Opor Bidhinished, 1972
By the Roots
One had to miss half a day's work to get from Madan's village to the post office. In order to reach the black tarred road where the motor bus plied, the village folk set out before daylight, packing some muri into the folds of their clothes. It would be close to noon by the time they arrived. In between lay a narrow creek, a tidal one. It didn't permit boats and boatmen all the time. During the rainy season the creek surged up. It brimmed over so much it reached the paddy fields on either side which stretched out as far as the eye could see. At such times, people reposed all their faith on the upland palm grove.
Steering a dugout through a half-submerged clump of babla, Madan took out the beedi tucked behind his ear, stubbed out earlier after two puffs. He asked for a light from the people in the dugout beside him. He closed his eyes and puffed, the borrowed light seeing the beedi through past the green, hand-spun string at its base – most of the time.
One day, as evening descended after a very hot day, a man from outside arrived in Madan's village. Bunches of bare-bodied people crowded around and gaped at the saffron punjabi he wore. There wasn't a single person in the village as soft-cheeked as him. He took out a colourful sheet of paper printed in three colours and stuck it carefully on the trunk of the banyan tree. Rubbing his glistening, well-oiled cheek with a finger, he said: You lot get me all the votes in the village and I'll get you jobs for the village boys.
The word job was a joyful one. They had heard of this gold zari-bordered word before. Two people from the village worked in the district headquarters. When they came to the village on various occasions, the skin on their well-oiled cheeks also glistened like this.
The villagers were rapt. They thought about it. As they thought, they gazed at those cheeks upon which even flies slipped.
So it's settled then. You lot will give all the votes and I'll give the jobs.
What could they do! When a man from a distant land muddied his feet and came so far and asked fervently for votes, could anyone refuse? Wouldn't that be sacrilege? Give it, give it, give all the votes only to this babu. There was no dearth of people who could convince them otherwise, yet they gave it, gave all the votes to him, for they greatly feared sacrilege. On his part, the man did not betray them. He selected three or four stout, well-built boys and took them along with him, at his own expense. Going to the tar road, they climbed onto a motor bus. The next day a sheet of paper was handed to each of them. They were going to get jobs in the police. Apparently there was a training period for some time. After that, a full-fledged job!
Even though it was a bit difficult at first, in a few days Madan got used to the ways and ethos of the police. He made friends. When he donned the uniform and strapped on a weapon to his waist, a completely different person seemed to occupy his body. He could feel a unique enthusiasm within himself. He was a soldier now, protecting the nation's law and order. The muddy roads of his village, Shampa Raypur … steering dugouts during the rainy season … setting out for farm work before dawn along the narrow paths, clad only in a gamchha tied at the waist … the sensation of going with a group of friends to watch a jatra all night long – it all seemed like a dream now.
Lighting a cheap cigarette, he gustily blew out smoke. Having got half a day's leave, his friends came and said, Come on, boy, there's a new Hindi movie running in the city, with lots of fighting and action, let's go see it. He gazed at the poster of a barely clad dancing girl standing with her hips stuck out before he entered the hall, shoulder-to-shoulder with his friends. He still wasn't used to emitting whistles, but when his companions whistled during the movie's fighting scenes, even he couldn't help feeling boisterous.
Thereafter, there was a steady improvement in Madan's life. He understood that if people like him smoked beedis openly they lost their prestige. Not wearing underpants beneath trousers was uncivilized; wearing shoes without socks was terribly rustic – he learnt practical things like that. He discovered quickly that to the police, ordinary peasant folk were no more than inconsequential members of the public, they had to be spoken to contemptuously. Besides, the villagers were too unsophisticated, they lacked culture – he became aware of things like that. When he went to the village, he steered clear of the cowshed. It stank too much. And being bare-bodied was now unthinkable. After getting the job, he had returned to the village only twice. Smartly attired, in crisp police uniform, with the bearing of a soldier, his boots shining, an urbane, clean-shaven face. He went to his house, walking with his chest thrust out, observing everything with an air of contempt. Before reaching his home, he remarked, Oh, what muddy roads, how on earth do people live in villages!
As soon as the training was over, he was sent to a small police station in a mofussil town. It was early December. The dew on paddy fields full of golden stalks of grain glistened like tiny pieces of glass. There was a dispute between sharecroppers and the landlord regarding cutting the grain. Madan and a few others had to go into the village, walking some three miles or so, rifles slung across their shoulders. A lot of people had gathered. All the peasants stood on one side, cleavers in hand, and on the other side a man with sideburns accompanied by a bunch of toughs armed with staffs – one of them also carried a gun – the landlord's gang. All the arrangements had been made in advance at the police station. The landlord's men had come at night and settled everything. As many as two whole chickens had been gifted, in addition to everything else. The landlord's gang would reach first. Brandishing their staffs, they would start cutting the base of the paddy stalks. The police wouldn't be there then. They would arrive after the paddy had been cut; they'd catch a few innocent peasants and bring them to the police lock-up on the charge of creating a disturbance. And that's exactly what happened. When they reached, the landlord's paddy had already been cut. Some people had their heads broken. The atmosphere was tense. Madan and his group apprehended two meek peasants. As soon as Madan's eyes fell on one of them, he felt a blow inside his chest. The man looked like his eldest uncle – bare-bodied, a shabby gamchha slung over his shoulder, a salt-and-pepper beard of bristles on his long-unshaved face. Seeing the police, he muttered an abuse and spat out in hatred. Criminal charges had to be made against him. Madan brushed aside his reservations. One couldn't do one's job in the police with this mentality. The officer-in-charge had explained things threadbare.
Another time Madan had a different kind of experience. There was a pavement-clearing operation going on in Calcutta. Madan had been transferred to the Tollygunge police station so he had to participate in the operation. It was really strange. The shelters of those who slung gunny sacks and torn tarpaulin sheets to somehow be able to lay their heads on the pavement had to be demolished. All the clay utensils they possessed had to be dragged out and crushed. They were the refuse of the city; if they were not removed, the city – what was it they said -Calcutta could not become a Cleopatra of a city. He gazed long at them – torn, patched clothes, emaciated faces, bare feet, skinny children in their arms and on their shoulders. Here too, he received a jolt – the man who looked like his uncle had reached this place as well. Looking wide-eyed at them, wringing his hands, he said: You tell us where we should go when you drive us away like this. Madan saw a woman his mother's age lift a torn gunny sack to her head with sick, bony arms, a baby in the crook of her arm and another one at her shoulder. He didn't look too long – if he did he wouldn't be able to perform his duties. He had come on orders, so it was best to follow the instructions blindly.
Madan's third experience was when he had gone to combat striking workers of a jute mill in Howrah. The millworkers had begun an agitation demanding their rightful wages. As soon as the police squad reached the place, they dragged the workers out of their homes and arrested them. Apparently they had resorted to violence, attacking the owners with iron rods. Here too was a man who looked like his uncle. He wore a torn lungi and stood arguing
with the police:
–The mill owners have stolen the money from the rightful wages for our labour and amassed piles of money, so we …
–Since you know so well what's good for you, get into the black van quickly.
Each one of them had a rifle barrel pointed at his chest. No one spoke further, but their faces were like quarried stone. The man who looked like his uncle climbed in too. A police lathi had landed on his head by now and he was bleeding. Madan suppressed a deep sigh. The officer-in-charge had told them not to get embroiled in political complications under any circumstances. They were to remain neutral at all times, for they were soldiers following orders. Otherwise, they would lose their jobs at once. The law-and-order machinery of a sovereign nation had to be extremely strict.
Our Madan grew through a string of such experiences. If he was in a rural locality, the relevant people brought chickens and ducks. When he walked down the street, people automatically made way, even strangers offered salutes. Influential people established a good rapport with him in advance, just in case they needed police help some day. If he was based in the city, send-ups were obtained regularly. Naturally, the share of the collection from shops and pavement vendors was fixed. Those who sold soda and lemonade during the day and booze at night sent across special offerings from time to time – even women. By now he was well-versed in the pleasures of a police job. His neighbours' eyes danced when they saw his foreign watch and foreign transistor radio. But he knew that in this job, fetching even tiger's milk was not impossible.
Madan was married now; he had three children. He had built a house near Garia. But he hadn't severed his links with the village. He had expanded his paddy fields by a few acres. He went to the village at least twice a year, at the time of planting and during the harvest. His wife was a city girl. She disliked the village. But Madan could not sever his attachment to the rural soil. In the beginning, he went donning his police uniform, swaggering along, puffing a cigarette. Now he was getting older. People from twenty or twenty-five neighbouring villages knew him well. When he visited he wore a ghee-coloured terry-cot punjabi over a dhuti, with shiny gold buttons. He didn't even mind smoking beedis in public now. Rather, he always lit a beedi to go with his tea, though he was well aware that smoking was harmful. Seated in the ramshackle village teashop, he talked about the existing rural situation and prevailing conditions. He discussed politics. He spoke about unemployment. There was almost nobody in the village who had not sought his help for a son or brother or some relative. He would say politely: Do jobs come easy? Times are difficult … But despite his disavowals, he had managed to place quite a few people here and there. He had brought Dinabandhu Maity's widowed sister to live with him. She cooked, cleaned and looked after the children and received a salary of ten rupees. Who else in the village, apart from him, had the means to help others like that?
For a while now he had been nurturing a fond wish in his heart. He wore four rings on four fingers, to harness the powers of all the planets for his personal advancement. Looking absent-mindedly at his fingers, he recalled the famous astrologer telling him: Success in politics is clearly visible in your hand! The statement had struck him to the core of his heart. He would retire soon – his two daughters had been married off, his son had got a job at a bank. Shouldn't he try to get into politics now? What was the harm in trying it out when it was written in his hand?
But he couldn't tell anyone about his heart's desire. The nation's politics was deteriorating by the day. The Naxalite movement had touched him too. The country's youth were becoming wilder. And he felt he too ought to set aside everything else and do something for the country's poor folk. Or else who would think about the people of this region – who else had the means? And if he got the votes once, he would be able to get all the unemployed youth of this region some work or the other – come to think of it, after a lifetime in the police force, he didn't lack resourceful contacts.
When a meeting was convened regarding the proposal to upgrade the village's eighth standard school into a high school and he was elected to chair the meeting, he decided to air his proposal. When the business of the meeting was concluded, he said with an air of humility – in the same way that politicians delivered speeches, he placed the matter artfully before the assembled people: Brothers, I say, in the coming elections, if you people fetch me the votes, I'll get jobs for all of you – that's it, isn't it. Yes! Yes! Yes! The response came from beyond the span of the lantern's light, where a bunch of adolescent youths stood leaning against a bicycle like a forbidden bundle, from where they shot forward, trembling.
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Shekhodshuddhu, 1977
Only God's Alive Now
The credo of the French Revolution was liberty, equality, fraternity. Three powerful words. I plucked these words from the dictionary and popped them into my shirt pocket. And thus my journey commenced. I had amazing strength of mind, waves of zeal surged from every pore of my body. But before I could advance even a little, I had to stop. A taro forest lay ahead. A huge taro forest. The road was covered in jungle. Giant-sized taros had borne fruit. The way ahead was completely blocked.
I found a relatively clean taro tree and sat under it. I sat down and began to think. The taro tree had fairly large leaves, so with the sunlight blocked the place was nice and shady. Lounging in that shade, I began to ponder.
I didn't have to think too long. Thoughts began to enter my head very smoothly, by themselves. They had to come. Because I had as many as three fresh words in my pocket. And they were considered the most progressive words of this age. By attaching these three words to any legal or illegal act, I could forage a pocketful of acclaim, I could obtain many clinking coins. After that, who could catch me! I thought:
In this country, when something's for free
Even for donkey's shit, a stampede there'll be
So hey, what's a taro forest!
And so I issued a call. I did that on behalf of the unfed and the homeless.
People came in droves. The peasant came, plough in hand (or perhaps it was a sickle in his hand). The clerk came with pen in hand. One or two people came on scooters, their wives riding pillion, tummy, midriff and armpits exposed, who, in order to keep the outward glitter intact, were barely able to feed themselves. They came and ate. Ate and shat. Ate, shat and filled that black-as-death taro forest. Within a few minutes the taro forest had vanished. There was only shit, it was full of shit.
Let there be shit, at least the taro forest was gone. The shit didn't affect me. I plucked a taro fruit from the tree. Like a performer, I juggled with it for a while. And thus with the French Revolution's – what do they call it? – profound three words in one pocket and a taro fruit in the other, kerchief held to nose, I crossed the shit and journeyed towards the wide world.
As I walked along the path, I met a frog. Frog-baba went cock-a-doodle-doo, and calling out to me, he said:
Where are you going, my child, what's that in your pocket I see?
I replied, matching his tune:
I've filled my pocket with liberty, equality and fraternity.
The frog said: What are those? Insects of some kind? Can one eat them to one's fill?
Oh, what a stupid idiot – don't you know liberty, equality and fraternity? What a waste that you were born on this earth!
I passed by the frog. It was not to the lot of frogs and such to grasp the significance of these things. That required awareness. It needed brains, knowledge. Travelling through mountains and forests, I came across a savage, a wild bird's feather stuck in his hair, animal skin on his hip, bow and arrows slung across his back. He brought me liquor in a bamboo mug. He roasted a wild boar he had hunted and set it down before me. At night he sent his wife to me, asking her to serve the guest. His conduct made me very happy. I took out the three words from my pocket and showed them to him. He toyed with them for a while. Holding them to his nose, he examined whether they had any smell. He knocked them against stone to see
if they broke. He tried to melt them by putting them inside the wood stove. Then, not knowing what to do with them, he returned them to me. I grew thoughtful. The unfortunate savages could not really understand the value of these three words.
I came away in sadness. When my back itched, I scratched my back. When I was thirsty I gulped and drank water. There were no limits and frontiers to my grief. In such a state of mind, I came across Hitler. Yes, Hitler. He was running around organizing an anti-fascist movement. This Hitler was unrecognizable. Moustache removed, he was well-attired in dhuti-khaddar worn over the military garb. He had managed to get Mussolini with him. He was conducting public meetings all over India as part of an anti-fascist movement. Oh, the way he spoke – what magnificent gestures! He explained, clear as water, that Subhas Bose was no patriot but in fact a fascist stooge.
I stopped. Netaji Subhas Chandra a fascist stooge! I was amazed. Seeing me, he smiled mischievously. He said: You're puzzled to hear all this, aren't you? But don't worry. To each age its rites. Even I must be anti-fascist. I have to survive, don't I? Looking at my pocket, he asked: What's that in your pocket, bulging like a camel's hump?
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