This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  Continuously, the sound of the black van

  Continuously, the newspapers full of reports about dalits burnt alive

  in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh

  and

  through the chimney of Kali Mata Rice Mill

  wisps of smoke emanate continuously

  His ashrams were spread across the world, the number of people outside India who knew him was ten times the number of those in India who knew him. His teachings were translated into twenty or twenty-five languages and printed, with pictures, in five-colour offset. If his picture was hung in a room, holy ash flowed from it. He had a massive Sunmica-top secretarial table, where beautiful women sat illuminating the room. As soon as I arrived, Baba told me the name of the book I had been reading on the train and put a pinch of dust in my hand, I saw it transformed into two huge Ganguram rossogollas. The foreign disciples were all seated, rows and rows of them, waiting for a bit of dust off his feet.

  Here a Bengali calendar, printed in five-colour,

  has to be imagined, with a picture of bathing gopinis,

  and Lord Krishna stealing their clothes. It could

  not be printed for lack of money.

  Baba’s sadhana practice was somewhat different. He didn’t say that the body was perishable, rather he had discovered that God dwelt within the body. His theory about the body was very interesting. A huge hall. The walls were sparkling white. Incense burned inside, in the dim light the entire hall was half lit and half in shadow. On the pretext of showing our devotion to the Divine, about a dozen of us male and female disciples entered the room. Opposite every male disciple was a female disciple. As soon as we entered the room, all of us disciples began pulling at the thin, saffron-coloured gowns of the female disciples. Tore at them. Baba had said, ‘Tear it away with all your strength. Tear away any undergarments inside.’ And so, with utmost haste, we tore away everything. And who doesn’t like to tear off women’s clothes? The girls became enraged. They too began tearing away our gowns. That’s just what we wanted. In delight, snippets of Bombay film songs erupted. And then the business began. Baba said, ‘Scratch and bite a little. That will enhance the pleasure.’ We did that. We groped, fondled and scuffled for as long as we could. We broke into perspiration, our bodies were drenched in sweat. We continued our sadhana practice thus, until we were exhausted.

  A difficult face, dark-skinned, savage-looking. The two eyes, grey like steel. The nose a lump of flesh. Thick lips. As he walked along, he did not budge an inch if anyone came in his way. His wife had been taken away at night by the babus who came to the bungalow for an outing. He had cut up and killed a babu with an axe. There was a murder trial against him.

  Drought. The earth gasping. Eleven-thousand-volt electric cables spanning the sky, floating like a net in the void. The loud screeches of a bird. A long road of black tar. Looking to the fields, as far as the eye could see were rugged, wretched faces, here and there were tiny patches of the dark green fields of the fortunate few – all the remaining ones, scattered everywhere, were grey and yellow –

  A pre-dawn moon in the sky. The temple lies in faint darkness. A peace flag at the top. Mother Lakshmi’s owl flies off the branch of a hibiscus bush.

  ‘… Forget about nation and suchlike, mister – wear silk clothes and recite the Gita every morning, especially the second chapter.’

  A boatman stands, wearing a netted vest over a green checked lungi. Near the bank, a hair-cutting saloon and a tea shop. Two long, thin planks are laid, a crowd of people clamber in. Brown, red, green and blue saris come most frequently to sight. A baby on someone’s shoulder, the older child held in the left arm. They climb aboard the steamer, walking hurriedly over the narrow gangway, shouting loudly at their respective folks to hurry … a people, an entire people, become refugees like this…

  A shining pair of steel handcuffs hangs on the wall, newly acquired, and a thirty-four-year-old portrait – quite unclear, faded…

  ‘What’s up, dada – shall we

  show our might?’

  A little sibling for Monu in the womb. Monu’s mother went from house to house in the village, doing the household chores and husking the grain. The affluent folk in the countryside still did not eat mill-polished rice. In her pregnant condition, Monu’s mother boils the paddy, dries it in the sun, stamps the husking pedal and wonders: ‘Why don’t I die, death will bring an end to all troubles…’

  Lord Ramakrishna said: ‘The world is a whole onion. Peel away the skin – all your life, peel away the skin – and until the end you’ll find nothing. The world is a veil of illusion.’

  ‘I sent my thirteen-year-old girl to the babu’s house to work. For food to eat. The youngest son of the house made her pregnant. And then he shows us money. Don’t the bastards have mothers and sisters at home…’

  The gentleman drank a gulp from the glass in his hand, one could observe the descent of the drink down his gullet…

  Refugees hoped for assistance. There shouldn’t be a clamour for relief until an all-India committee is constituted – they hadn’t been taught that

  The paunch juts out half an arm’s length. It bounces like a balloon filled with water

  Some boys and girls were spotted in the casuarina grove, entwined in unbecoming conduct, and when the local administration was informed about the incident, they knocked their hand to the forehead – ‘What can we do, sir – everything’s God’s wish – call Him…’

  He was a very good boy. Obeyed his parents. Whenever he travelled by bus and passed Kalighat, he knocked his knuckles on his forehead in obeisance and said a prayer addressed to the Goddess Kali. He never squandered his money on cigarettes, and he knew, he came to know, that everything, everything about our life, is contained in the Vedas.

  Swearing-in of ministry delayed on

  astrologer’s advice

  Barun Sengupta: New Delhi, 10 January 1980

  Friday, 11 January, was not a suitable date for all concerned. Consequently, the ministry will not be sworn-in on Friday. The swearing-in will take place as soon as an auspicious date is determined. It is believed that it was on the advice of a highly respected astrologer that, at the last minute, the Indian democracy’s date of swearing-in was delayed.

  The wife of a very senior civil servant, she had terrific influence in the neighbourhood. She used to phone and ask for a car to be sent from Writers’ Building so she could go shopping in New Market in the afternoon. A theft had supposedly taken place in her house and her zarda box of inlaid silver was missing. Standing in front of an audience of a few female neighbours, she grabbed the right hand of the servant girl and shoved it into a pan of boiling oil. The thirteen-year-old girl screamed in pain and fainted. No one uttered a word. The servants and maidservants have gone just too far, they’ll steal but never admit it…

  Whose mother? You don’t know the mother? She’s each and everyone’s mother – the thief’s mother, the ruffian’s mother, the black-marketeer’s mother, the goonda’s mother, the gentleman’s mother. There – the sattu-wallah who sits under the shirish tree, sattu basket and shiny washed brass plates arranged in a little bit of cleaned-up space, around whom is a crowd of rickshaw-wallahs under the blazing noon sun – she’s his mother too, and again, also J.J. Birla’s. An old bakul tree. Flowered through the night. Fresh bakul flowers and poisonous ant colonies all around the roots.

  Bedana Dasi

  ‘I don’t-want don’t-want don’t-want, dear

  This measured-out love of yours.’

  Calcutta at dawn: the first tram. A widow, attired in silk – her son was an officer of substance – is on her way to bathe in the Ganga, the sacred stainless steel water-pot in her hand. Near the steps of the Jagannath Ghat, a paunchy, non-Bengali businessman, his two hands joined at his chest, eyes shut in pious worship of Rama–Sita. A band of scruffy looking urchin kids surrounds him, he throws a rupee coin towards Mother Ganga … a whole rupee coin.

  On 12 February 1978, this age’
s most noteworthy sacred fire ceremony was conducted at the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. Only four million rupees were spent on it. The organizer was the former queen mother of Baroda, Shanta Devi. For sacred fire offerings, 32,000 kilos of pure ghee, 500,000 litres of pure milk, 250 quintals of fine-grade rice, 200 sacks of sugar, 60 bags of daal and 300 sacks of wheat were used. The purpose of the sacred fire ceremony: (1) increase in wealth and power; (2) removal of scarcities in commodities of daily necessity; (3) increase in food production; (4) bringing back peace and love into the minds of people. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Raj Narain left important meetings in order to participate in the ceremony, they flew there.

  Ghosts

  Jagadalpur, Bastar, 11 March 1980: UNI News

  Recently, a youth from the Muria Adivasi community here was taking his pregnant wife to hospital. Two nurses from the hospital had already been to the village and examined the girl and told her that there were twin babies in the womb, and that one baby was dead. Unless she was operated upon to remove the dead foetus, she would die. Her husband was therefore taking her to hospital. On the way, he encountered a group of people from his own village. After hearing about the matter, they said: ‘Good heavens! In that case, the dead child in the womb has become a ghost by now. It will kill you too at any moment. You must kill the ghost before it leaves the womb. If you burn your wife, the ghost too will burn to death.’ So the man did just that. He burnt his wife to death. No one heeded the wails and screams of the unfortunate woman.

  In this part of the manuscript, there’s a statement by the boy who died after being beaten for being a pickpocket, the one whom we thrashed until his balls burst, he died in hospital that very evening –

  ‘From the time I was a child, I grew up just like the cows, goats, ducks and hens. Until I was ten years old, I had never eaten my fill – do you know that? Like the dogs on the streets – the kids on the pavement grow up like that, and so we too grew up. How they grow up, what they eat and how they survive – you babu folk will never be able to understand all that.’

  Morning descends on Calcutta. Sunlight hits Howrah Bridge. The streets awaken. The two banks of the river become visible.

  It’s very cold in Darjeeling. Tourists arrive in droves to savour and relish the cold.

  ‘Do you know that a large number of refugees who came around 1947 have not been able to make anything of their lives…’

  He wears saffron silk. Wears a turban on his head, in the style of Vivekananda. A watch on his wrist. The shiny-faced aristocratic sadhu said:

  ‘Our ideology is Vedic communism. We too refer to Marx, to communism, we ask people to read Karl Marx. We say, where Marx ends, that’s where we begin. We have said what Marx was unable to say. And Marxism is not something new. All of it is contained in our Vedas. Our ideology is Vedic communism.’

  Kasim Ali roams the countryside with a bamboo-shearing knife, for two and a half rupees, he castrates bulls.

  Soliloquy

  ‘Our goal is Vedic communism. Where Marx ends, that’s where we begin … And if we carry on like this, even Mao’s dad won’t be capable of making revolution in this country … what … why … isn’t it correct…’

  Bangladesh will supply shoe uppers worth 40.50 million rupees to India. An agreement to this effect was signed in New Delhi today. The tall and hefty Punjabi refugee of military appearance, who settled in Bhowanipur, wears a dark-coloured shirt, and lounges on a string cot, sipping milky tea and shaking his legs

  ‘Oye, dil mein chakku maar diya…’

  The engine of the car parked right in front roars

  Soundtrack completely mute

  The silent rats of midnight. The silent rats of midnight chewed and destroyed everything.

  Who eats these rats…

  Time. Time consumes paper. And insects. For that matter, it even consumes the sun.

  They eat whatever’s left over after the meal. The blood sample’s been taken, it has to be tested, got to know what’s wrong. Actually, his blood is their food. They need his blood in order to survive.

  They are not content with just the blood. They also eat the brains in his head. Scrape it out and eat it. Bones, marrow, fingers – the heel of the pen.

  However much they attempted to finish him off, he kept preparing for the future. Staying up night after night, refusing to be used. The human face parallels the way the mind functions. Yes, doctor, I have found my future, which is inextricably linked to the past. As long as people are continuously told exactly what they want to hear, on and on, no one will know that beneath this mask, under the skull, are all the hidden things, all the forbidden doors. People will ask, why do you express your views in this way? Every person consumes what he loves. Pressing it with the fingers … the neck, blood. His temperament was thus – either fraudulent, or support against fraud. Those who have openly protested against your lot’s social system and been punished – those who you say do not deserve to live in society, are sick and depraved, supporting all of them,

  protesting against the severe injustice done to them,

  we wish to declare:

  Be prepared … a sticky future is on its way

  Ghost voter

  ‘I’ll eat the bones, the flesh too I’ll eat

  And with the skin I’ll make the drum beat.’

  The witches’ dance of Macbeth begins everywhere

  All the way to the bait, the line and the bobber, at first flat, and then slowly slanting, became immersed in the water. A colourful dragonfly appeared and began hovering near the float.

  At about a quarter past nine at night, in the vicinity of Jorabagan police station, near Posta Bazar, four youths, with daggers, razor-blades and revolvers concealed under shawls, set out to extort money. They entered a fancy restaurant by the roadside. It doubled as a country-liquor den at night. The boss tried to satisfy them with two bottles and an honorarium of hundred rupees in cash. They did not create any disturbance, but while leaving, they picked up some large denomination notes from the cash till. Stepping outside, they caught hold of a woman. She was young, and was going by on a rickshaw. Brandishing a dagger, they removed her earrings, necklace and bracelet. A long-haired youth, who was laughing loudly, apparently also openly groped and fondled her. The girl began to scream. A Nepali driver was passing by along the road at that moment. When he tried to fight them with his bare hands, one of them shot him in the head. He fell right there, his brains spilled out. The girl screamed even louder, with one tug they undid her sari. At that moment, two police constables were grinding chewing-tobacco in their palms and chatting about their joys and sorrows. They suddenly saw a woman clad in only a blouse and petticoat running along the road in terror, screaming for help. Chasing her were the mastaans, cleavers and revolvers in hand. Stunned, they moved to the side of the road. The miscreant youths fired two shots in the air and slipped away into an alley. Ten minutes later, after things became quiet, people from the neighbourhood came out one by one and began talking loudly about the incident. Some of them lit cigarettes.

  The kingfisher perched precariously on a thin bamboo, it was bent down like a bow, the shadow of the jamrul trees fell on the ghat, a lot, a lot of it

  Nepal Nag

  Sushil Das, a peon in Calcutta University, was sacked for concealing his educational qualifications while applying for his job. When corruption and fraud is spreading rapidly all over the country, in such a situation, for sheer survival, was it such an unforgivable crime to obtain a peon’s job by concealing his BA degree? Have the authorities thought even once about dire poverty and the trauma of unemployment – in this country – as a result of which a youth was compelled to deny his own hard-earned qualification?

  Sushil Das

  ‘Punish me, but I beg you not to sack me.’

  University

  ‘The matter is indeed unfortunate, nevertheless

  action has to be taken according to the law.’

  Amit, Partha, Moloy

  ‘Shivlal Yadav will be
able to make the ball spin, won’t he…’

  Ramayan Chamar

  ‘We mete out the punishment that the law is unable to deliver. We make the ruling class aware that they do not have impunity.’

  Panu Mallick

  ‘Mister, you’ve advanced greatly towards revolution, instead of all that, come now, make balls of flour and sit at the pond with a rod to catch punti fish, it’ll be useful.’

  The area near Udaypur, in Tripura. They work in a brick kiln. Fourteen to eighteen hours of work, the wages two or three rupees. Tiny huts to live in. Eight or nine people stay in each one. Twenty-year-old Taru Munda and her husband, and nearby, eighteen-year-old Dhuniya Oraon and her father and brother. As per the agreement, after nine at night, the labour recruiting boss turns up, together with his sidekicks. In front of the husband, father and brother scissors No means of protest, they would lose their jobs.

  Giant ants were swarming on the packet of bait laid down near the fishing rod. There was nothing that these huge black ants did not eat. They ate dead cows and goats, they wouldn’t even spare a dead man if they found one.

  The peasant’s wife sits beside the tarred road with figs, banana flowers, banana stems and a few bundles of spinach. She has not yet got rid of the habit of putting the ghomta over her head. A pair of doe-like eyes, a loose purple blouse full of grease stains, a coarse white nine-yard sari, which looks like a jute sack, wound around her. Dirty, long unwashed. It’s clear that she has been driven to the roadside by hunger. When customers haggle over her prices, she becomes nervous and shrinks into herself. And you, the most junior sahib in the office, in the morning, after the cup of hot tea made by your wife, wearing a punjabi of fine cotton over a batik lungi and combing your hair, you set out for the market. Hearing that a bundle of spinach is for ten paise, you think she’s asking for too much.