Our Favourite Indian Stories (33 page)

When Bahadur returned to the room, Bishambhar said to her, still with his eyes closed, 'You should go back tomorrow. Bahadur will see to that. You wouldn't last long in this misery. Thank you for coming. Take care of Peter.'

And then his head lolled back as if he was exhausted. When he made an inarticulate noise, waving his useless hand, Bahadur went to him and pried the cheque from it. He did manage to say, 'Bank...' clearly, but all his strength seemed to have left him.

Bahadur tidied his bed, gave him a shot and started to leave. By then Anita had checked on Peter in the other room and had come out. She said to him, 'Wait, I want to ask you something.'

He stopped, and then followed her out of the front door. He was short, she thought, much shorter than Sajan. Even with the turban he was just about her height.

'Where are the Doctor's daughters?

'They have passed away.'

'All?'

'Yes. One passed away during childbirth at about the time Sajan went to America. One had tuberculosis, she did not last much longer after that and the last one died last year of typhoid.'

'My God!'

He did not say anything.

'Did the Doctor disown his son for marrying me?'

'Not really. They did not write to each other a lot anyway. And when he decided to settle in America, the Doctor-sahib was disappointed. After that, what was the point in writing letters to him?'

'Why was he disappointed? Because Sajan did not come back to look after his father? But priorities shift, values change; why couldn't he understand that?'

'No, it's not that simple, and certainly not that selfish. I'd rather say it was because the son did not fulfil any of his obligations... to his family, to his country...Naturally, the Doctor-sahib was disappointed. Mrs Singh, all his life the Doctor-sahib has recognized the priority, the value only of the call of his duty; his duty to these people; he has rated his own life cheap before that, why should he try to understand any other values?'

Anita looked down. A line of ants was going somewhere in the dust. Her gaze followed it. Someone had finally pulled the carcass of the donkey away from the road into the bordering dust. Dogs, crows, ants, flies were raiding it. The vultures would come soon. No one could stand to live in its stench by tomorrow. But who knows, perhaps these people are used to stenches. Used to donkeys being crushed under trucks, used to people dying of disease, in accidents and floods and epidemics. It's all a question of how much one can get used to. She thought of Bishambhar on his cot. Even when he was so nearly dead, so incapacitated, when he could not even talk properly, his poor patients were still flocking to him, and he was still caring for them the best he could.

Sajan could not understand a father who would not put his children, his comfort, even his life ahead of paying his debt to these poor people; and his father could not understand Sajan who wanted to spend his short life in the warmth of a little love, a little luxury, paying his debt to himself in the world before leaving it. In the end there remained nothing between the two but this cheque...

And Peter Robert Singh, of course!' Suddenly she felt as though she held in her hand a thread that would lead her to the very centre of the maze, if only she would persevere. She went in and ate the thick
roti
with some boiled lentils and lay her stiff and aching body on the mat, and before falling asleep, said to Peter Robert Singh sleeping beside her, 'Remember Peter, children must look after their old parents. That debt has to be paid. One way or another.'

Translated by
Vidyut Aklujkar
and the
author

Manoj Kumar Goswami

A Motor Car!

It was Gonu who broke the news. He related how he had seen a motor car going by the road on the other side of the river. But Tutu, Rudra and Kon—no one believed him. Gonu was, after all, adept at playing an occasional prank. Then, some moments later Butu came gasping down—Yes, he also had seen a car moving by the other side of the river.

So, it must be true that a car was plying nearby. That meant another thing also—after several years a car had come near their village. For them the reality of seeing a car was something like a hazy dream. Once, at the time of the general elections a candidate had come down to their village on a motor car to canvass for votes. The car-borne men had resembled fat cows. Then also the car had stopped outside Butu's home. So there was no point disbelieving Butu this time.

It must be a car.

They did not intend to disclose the news to anyone else. Of course Lalu must be told. So a search was launched for Lalu. Gonu ultimately found him in the backyard devouring a few unripe guavas. Lalu listened to Butu with eyes bulging. When Butu had finished, he muttered a torrent of meaningless, obscene words. Lalu's effortless ability at uttering obscene words at this age won respect for him from the others. His manner of speaking was also like grown-ups.

'Well we will have to go. We should see the car,' Lalu declared with the green guava in his mouth. After contemplating over his own proposal for a few seconds, he uttered as if to himself. 'But where will the car go? The road is broken at the streamside.'

'Maybe the police is coming to Naharani' suggested Rudra.

'Yes, maybe they will come to estimate the number of those killed.'

'I was listening to my parents this morning. Father said that not a single soul was alive at Naharani.'

They all knew about the incident by now. Some four days ago they had been awakened in the middle of the night by cries of men and women. They had seen the fire light up the sky on the south bank of the river. On the following morning they had come to know that an entire village had been gutted. Again, yesterday morning they had heard that people from the south bank had come to Naharani and butchered all of them. But the news could not create any reaction in them. They were yet to comprehend the horrors of death. They had only noticed that their fathers were not going to the market anymore. Rudra's elder brother had not returned from the south bank. One or two corpses came floating down the river. Food ran short. They got something to eat only in the morning to quell the overnight hunger. Scraping whatever they could get as supper, all went inside and bolted their doors. The village resembled a graveyard.

'Was the car big, Butu?' Lalu inquired again and went on to exhort 'Let's proceed. If we cross the river by the banyan tree, we shall reach the broken part of the road very soon.'

To resist such a tempting proposal was hard for the others. But then, even grown-ups were not venturing out-side the village limit—let alone kids.

'Gonu must not go. If somehow the police chase us, can he outrun them?' Rudra tried to dissuade Gonu. In reply, Gonu made such a face that they were forced to include him, fearing that more trouble would brew otherwise. Gonu had just completed his fourth year of life.

They started their journey walking over the dry bamboo leaves through the serpentine alley of a labyrinthine bamboo jungle. They were all around ten years old. Gonu was stark naked. Lalu wore a tattered vest that would be impossible to wear again if it were pulled off.

The entire road was engulfed by an eerie silence. They considered themselves fortunate not to have encountered anyone on the way.

Snatches of
Bihu
song sung by cowherds, a whistle blown by someone from the other bank, the sound of a boat piercing the calm river water—all these familiar sounds were missing. Pregnant silence engulfed everything.

The winter river was shallow. It was around mid-day. The river
ghat
was deserted.

There had been a slight drizzle overnight. The clear prints made by car tyres on the road were easily discernible. They were delighted and began to discuss matters just like grown-ups. How big the car must be and at what speed it must be running!

After that there was an all-pervading silence and an ominous calm. The chirping of birds was missing. They must have gone somewhere else. Not a single soul was to be found anywhere. Besides the thick row of the wild cane by the river, there stood an up-turned bullock-cart.

'A man!' Kon cried aloud suddenly. They saw a man lying facedown at the end of the cane thickets. A spear lodged in his back had pinned him down to the ground. Blood stains were visible on his back and in the nearby grass. His hands were spread out wide. It looked as if his dying wish had been to touch the river.

Lalu and his compatriots halted in silence and shuddered. Lifting their eyes from the man, they saw macabre deeds of man's cruelty littered all around. There were houses reduced to ashes, half-burnt trees, a recoiling mud-smeared corpse of a naked woman, a youth with his head missing, a child pinned to a banana tree with a spear.

They moved forward dumbly, eyes full of astonishment. They could not comprehend why these people had been killed. Probably those who were killed did not know why they had to die.

'That's the car there,' Tutu cried aloud in amazement. The broken road led to a small alley by the river, fit only for bullock-carts. A jeep was parked at an open space below. They approached the jeep at a trot. In the meantime—some people had disembarked from it.

In the front there was an open grassland and on it there lay some corpses of children. No serious injury could be noticed on their bodies.

'That is the boy who was always seen with his fishing rod,' exclaimed Butu. The boy's face was very familiar to them. They had seen him sitting on the other side of the bank with his fishing rod from morning to dusk. He did not come to search for mangoes like other boys, nor did he swim much. He could never hook a fish but he had remarkable concentration and purposefulness, strong determination and tenacity. Even now on his dead face he wore an impassioned look—as if he would rise up at any moment, collect his familiar fishing rod and stroll towards the riverbank.

'Hey—where from the blue sky have these appeared? Maybe they are kid ghosts', one of the men who got down from the jeep joked on seeing Gonu and his partners. A tall and lean young man was minutely observing the scattered corpses of children on the grass. Three cameras of different makes were strapped to his shoulder.

'Horrible business, isn't it, Raghuda?'

'I've seen much more than this', the man wearing glasses called Raghu said nonchalantly. 'Do you remember Sanjay, that time in Maldah? People all over India were later amazed at the photos taken by me. Haradhan Babu became so excited that he even presented us two bottles of champagne.'

The wheat-complexioned man called Sanjay nodded in reply. Incessant streams of sweat trickled down his forehead. Even the act of bringing out his hanky to wipe off his sweat at regular intervals seemed to tire him.

'My God, what heat and humidity! How do people live in such heat? Isn't there a cold drinks shop nearby?' Sanjay muttered in frustration.

'You are saying fine things. It's not your Boston city. You can write in
The New York Times
that there are still places on earth twenty miles off from motorable roads. The nearest station is forty miles way and to see an electric light one has to go another fifty miles,' said the lean and tall young man.

Looking at those jeep-borne men one could easily understand that they belonged to a different world. Their talks, behaviour, laughter were completely strange for Gonu and his lot.

They wore vibrantly shaded clothes. They had put on coloured glasses on their eyes. Cameras and tape recorders hung from their shoulders, and sunlight reflected up glossy metallic parts.

'Well, well, take the shots soon. Shadows of these trees will soon creep up. No photo can be bright without uniform light,' cautioned Raghuda.

The men got down to their business rapidly. The tall lean young man focussed his camera with deft hands. The costly cameras shone in the daylight.

'It's our luck that we have reached here early. By tomorrow the stench of the rotten corpses will become unbearable. What do you say, Lima?'

'I am lucky to have escaped the stench. I can't bear it. I could not have food for two days in cyclone-ravaged Andhra Pradesh. Do you remember, Hamen?'

'Hamen,' Raghuda inquired loudly, 'the man crying in front of the dead child—did you talk to him?'

'The child before him was his son. His wife had also died, he told me....'

'Arun, have you taken a snap of the man?'

'Yes, Raghuda,' the tall young man replied.

'Wait a bit, one cannot ascertain whether the boy is dead or alive. How did the kid die? There is no injury mark on his body. Do one thing Arun. Drag that man near to the child whose belly has been pierced by an arrow. Be quick! Mr Bhatta promised to wait for us at Nagaon. He is also arranging some drinks for us.

'Raghuda,' the woman called Lima said. 'An incident exactly like this involving Harijans occurred in Khansiram. Do you remember?'

'No, no friend, so many incidents have gone past before this very camera of Sharma's. How many of them can you remember?'

It seemed the tall young man was facing some difficulty. He was trying to take a picture covering all the scattered corpses of children. The wrinkles on his forehead indicated his frustration. He could not find the correct angle for the photograph.

'Hamenda, can't we lift some corpses from the middle and place them here, this way? Now, there remains a vast open space from every angle. The entire photo should be littered with corpses, to show how dreadful this scene is. Corpses must lie all across the photo. Am I right, Raghuda?'

'No, never,' the man called Sanjay protested vociferously at the suggestion. 'It will be unethical to lift from the middle. But if gaps between the bodies remain, the photograph will not be able to horrify people.'

All the men began mulling over the problem in silence. Even the veteran Raghuda slung off his camera in exasperation.

Suddenly the woman named Lima who was staring hard in the direction of Gonu and his partners said, 'Listen Hamenda. An idea has occurred to me, but...'