This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  ‘It’s ten paise for four or five bundles…’

  ‘Are you crazy or what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know that she’s gathered these few bundles of spinach after standing all afternoon and evening in waist-deep water, braving snakes and such?’

  ‘We never shy away from the responsibility of building revolutionary violence in response to retaliatory violence.’

  The Mishirjis had rights over all fertile land. The Mishirjis had the right to the first crop from the orchards. The Mishirjis were also entitled to the beautiful maidens. According to the ‘dola’ system in Bhojpur, a married woman had to spend the first night with the zamindar. The Mishirjis were the zamindars in the villages. Even in the twentieth century, during the seventies, this system continued to exist in one form or another, perhaps in a slightly different way. The behaviour that the peasant was subject to from the brahmins and zamindars – when he got the opportunity, the peasant conducted himself in exactly the same way with the dalits. Exploitation and upper-caste nobility go, in this way, side by side, holding hands…

  Rape of women or caste oppression is only a pretext, the key question here is which class secures its economic rights, and how

  Tensions mounted, the Hindus wanted to build a temple there, and the Muslims a mosque. A specific class of people, on both sides, suddenly became very clever. God-fearing people removed themselves far away. On both sides, some ten people were killed furtively. Going to No. 3 basti, I saw the Hindus as well as the Muslims terrified. House after house was locked. They had left their homes and fled. Large tiled roofs had been smashed. Marks of bomb explosions on the walls of the huts. The women fell to weeping: ‘How can we live here, we’ll be killed!’ Some local progressive folk, from both communities, proposed that the green flag from the mosque and the idol from the temple both be removed. The situation became extremely tense. The police arrived. They came and took away people on the grounds of hurting religious sentiments. The police superintendent said: ‘These extremists are out to whip up communal tension. They are trying to introduce violent politics in this country of non-violence by violating temples and mosques.’

  In the very country in which the ideal of non-violence is propagated noisily – the violence and terror hidden at every level of society erupts powerfully…

  ‘It’s getting too political, Mr Writer, beware,

  Even the walls have ears…’

  Several films about the Ramayana had been made under Vijay Bhatt’s direction. The role of Lord Rama was played by Prem Adib, and Sita was played by Shobhana Samarth. The real India lies in villages … and the duo of Prem and Shobhana drove a particular class of people crazy in these villages. In some parts, Prem Adib was hailed as an incarnation of Lord Rama. Seeing his image, the audience threw flowers and coins in the direction of the screen. Some folks went on a fast before and then went for a ‘darshan’ of the film, dressed in saffron silk and with pious thoughts in mind. Once, during the shooting, a south Indian businessman arrived on the set, paid obeisance by prostrating himself in front of Lord Rama, and sought blessings for success in his line of business. He was expecting to be awarded a contract that day. On another day, Prem was leaving at the end of the day’s shooting, he was wearing trousers, and he had also had a bit to drink. Just then, an aristocratic Marathi gentleman came running frantically, requesting ‘Lord Rama’ to kindly visit his hovel, as his wife wouldn’t take no for an answer. Prem tried his best to explain, but the gentleman would not let him go, his car was waiting outside. He had to go to the dressing room, take off his shirt and trousers and don the costume and make-up of Lord Rama. Stepping down from the car at the house, the wig-and-costume-clad Prem saw it was no hovel but a huge palace, with some five hundred maidservants ready to garland him. He was made to sit on a throne. Incense and lamps were lit and an arati was performed. Priests performed a puja. Only after the whole assembled mass of people had touched his feet and received blessings of wealth and sons was Prem allowed to leave.

  ‘Hey, do hyenas like to eat jaggery? Why else do they run off with the jaggery pots?’

  They are chamar by caste, and that’s why seventy-year-old Jagdev has to pay obeisance to the child of the zamindar babu. And then the child, the two-year-old child, pisses gushingly on his face. He can’t say anything, he pretends that this thing, this zamindar-offspring-urine, is as good as sacred Ganga water. Or else he wouldn’t get work as a day labourer in the babu’s house. And the response is given by his son Ramayan: ‘The bomb-making business reaches even the village.’

  ‘I have never eaten such tasty meat before. Yes, rattlesnake meat – imported from abroad – tastes like manna from heaven if cooked well.’

  In the South Arcot district of Tamil Nadu, in the hilly Kalrayan area, the practice of mortgaging wives is still prevalent. When money is borrowed, the moneylender takes away the debtor’s wife in mortgage, and until the last penny of the loan and interest is repaid, he does not give his wife back. While in mortgage, she may bear the children of the owner – and that is common – and in that case, the recipient of the loan is responsible for the care and upbringing of the children. The wife cannot do anything, not even feed the baby milk from her breasts for that matter, she only has to serve her new lord, she has to shut her mind. That is the rule.

  The rose plant has to be pruned from time to time. It won’t grow unless the plant’s dry and dead branches are cut off. It’s also advisable to cut the branches near the base, a few inches above the soil. All kinds of insects, of various species, infest the rose plant and keep attacking it. Spray pesticide as soon as you spot any, or else they’ll finish off the whole rose garden – your precious rose garden.

  Drying her hair under the hair dryer after a shampoo, the missus moves towards the puja room to light incense. A huge lorry, overturned on the road, is visible from the window.

  ‘Tell me, what’s the most widely acceptable identity of the pro-people culture?

  Sandhya Roy, in a red-bordered sari, carrying water in the crook of her arm, going to Tarakeshwar, isn’t it?’

  The table itself is moving away, all the time, slowly,

  I fell with a bang,

  all activity stopped.

  No,

  Absolutely all right

  Normal food. Normal bath. No sugar.

  No-oh blood pressure.

  On that day, Ramayan Chamar and others had stopped working in protest against the tyranny of the owner of the Mediyabari Tea Estate. The owner had been a sympathizer of the undivided communist party at one time … There’s some basis for your economic demands, but why a ‘demand’, why not ‘prayer’, this egotism is not correct, brother … He arrived at a decision regarding their demands: he refused to yield. Ramayan and company were also obstinate: ‘Our right to strike – that must be accepted.’ Matters were tense. Bombs were thrown at the coolie quarters that night. One hut after another caught fire. The workers realized their plight and ran away. They tied up the two watchmen, and then they dragged out another suspect. Pandemonium ensued. The police arrived and arrested Ramayan. The disturbance spread to other tea gardens. People arrived with bows and arrows, with spears and rods, and fell upon the police to free Ramayan. Some carried axes. The police station was gheraoed. They didn’t even allow the officer-in-charge to go out to piss. The police wielded their lathis blindly. They fired tear-gas shells. They fired in the air. The people retreated a bit. But they did not flee. The police advanced once, and then the mob did. In the darkness of night – bows and arrows went into action. Then word got out that Ramayan Chamar had been beaten and killed inside the police station. The news spread. The mob was incensed. Breach of peace. Kerosene was splashed and fires were lit. Finally, the police received orders over the wireless to fire upon the violent mob.

  However progressive foreign policy is, the determiners of the destiny of developing countries, supported by the socialist powers, carry out the most feudal practices in their own countries. Here
, saying even a word against the current government’s undemocratic policies is prohibited. The funny thing is that the working class in socialist countries is also not allowed to know anything about all the oppressions happening within their own countries.

  But

  Ramayan Chamar’s tale is an

  even longer, even more complicated tale…

  Chewing the paan, he takes a lick of lime, takes out a matchstick and pokes his teeth, the tip of the stick bears the red of lime and catechu –

  – ‘You’ve come to find out about the neighbourhood, isn’t it?’

  – ‘Yes.’

  – ‘Then listen,’ he pokes his teeth again with the red-tipped matchstick, ‘you know, in our neighbourhood…’

  – ‘Yes?’

  – ‘There aren’t any lunatics.’

  – ‘Is that so?’

  – ‘There aren’t any drunkards.’

  – ‘How’s that?’

  – ‘No beggars here.’

  – ‘Amazing!’

  – ‘No one ever committed suicide.’

  – ‘Incredible!’

  – ‘Nothing involving women, no wife poured kerosene over herself, no virgin or widow got pregnant.’

  – ‘It’s simply Ramrajya!’

  – ‘Yes, there are no Naxalites…’

  – ‘No CPI(M) either, definitely!’

  – ‘No.’

  – ‘Tell me more.’

  – ‘We don’t spread rumours, we don’t heed gossip either…’

  Just then, in the middle of the questions and answers, with the recitation of Sukanta’s poem ‘Rebellion and Rebellion Everywhere’ playing in the puja pandal, the bell-bottoms-clad folk began pop-dancing –

  To the rhythm of swaying hips

  Is the mighty environment for action prepared

  ‘We are all confirmed progeny of slaves, cent per cent slaves – no mark on the throat, but the voting mark remains on the thumb.’

  The washerwoman washes clothes

  On the date palm she splays her toes

  – ‘I too have to figure out what to eat with rice, brother-in-law. All of you are only concerned about television, fridge, safe-deposit locker and bank balance … We too are deprived, have a sense of deprivation…’

  – ‘Sure, you people too need to think, but you think about whether to eat mutton or chicken, about when you’ll have a new car instead of the Ambassador … while we worry about whether we can get by with vegetarian fare for five days in the week, with fried potatoes and daal … And so it is…’

  – ‘You exaggerate!’

  – ‘Absolutely not, boudi, just try to find out how many times a week a middle-class family with children eats fish. But you know what’s funny – our maidservant, she comes from Canning, taking the 5:10 train every morning, she has an eighteen-day-old baby at home, she has to get by cooking once a day, if that. Have to fill their stomachs with whatever they can get – pumpkin, taro, spinach. And don’t think those things are very cheap in the village. Can’t feed the son, no milk in her breasts, but she has to sell her own cow’s milk to the sweet shop, that’s the money with which she’ll buy flour to feed six or seven mouths. She envies babus like us who eat rice and daal twice a day. She also despises us for not providing her with even a piece of stale bread with the morning tea – she thinks that if she found work with better-off folk, she would get a piece or two of fish and meat once in a while, a few handfuls of leftovers on the plate from Sunday’s biryani, and could ask for some of the babu’s children’s clothes which they’d outgrown…’

  In between, from the kitchen, the wife says excitedly, ‘Mister, even rice and daal is now only for the affluent – daal is six rupees a kilo. You’re not being practical, change your thinking!’

  Last Saturday, in the afternoon

  The taxi bearing the number WBT 9999 mysteriously disappeared after a hoodlum with a cleaver boarded it on Chittaranjan Avenue

  Apparently, the detective department of the police is doing its best to find the taxi

  G. Agarwala, the Assistant Commissioner of the detective department, announced

  Did the taxi passenger really kill someone in Chittaranjan Avenue with a cleaver?

  Was the blood-covered person taken to Medical College?

  Did the taxi driver cross Lenin Sarani and escape down Jawaharlal Nehru Road, instead of handing the hoodlum over to the police?

  ‘All these angles are being investigated in dee-taaa-il…’

  A witness’s complaint:

  Despite having contacted the control room in Lalbazar, the police did not pay any heed…

  Was he pouring his heart out to his lover then, at that time … He was advised to phone the relevant police station himself and inform them … ‘I don’t have the time now…’ he was told

  When Mr Agarwala’s attention was drawn to this matter, he said –

  ‘The rule is that the control room itself shall immediately inform the local police station, and put out the information to everyone.’

  ‘But on the day of the incident, did the control room inform the concerned police station about the disappearance of the rogue taxi?’

  ‘The matter is being investiga-a-a-a-a-a-a-ted…’

  ‘Questions please!’

  ‘Why did the taxi-driver escape with the hoodlum, and not hand him over to the police, when he had been threatened with the knife?’

  ‘Why why why?’

  ‘Why why wh-yyy?’

  That means on Saturday afternoon

  The driver of taxi number 9999 is also a rogue

  A bloody cleaver

  flashing at his back

  Let these inconsistencies be investigated

  In broad daylight … in the afternoon … in the open

  Brandishing a cleaver, in front of so many people…

  ………………………………

  The gentleman was dressed … like a gentleman

  His hair was well-combed, back-brushed

  Sparkling clean-shaven jaw

  And above all, a gentleman

  Meaning, it was definitely a gentleman

  Then…

  Then what?

  Unseen

  In the early afternoon, in front of Metro cinema

  A knife brandished, ornaments snatched

  Car stolen

  A knock at the door at midnight

  The schoolmaster’s lovely wife

  Taken away

  Bank robbery train robbery

  ‘Mister, simply removing the train fish-plate and selling these for two or three rupees –

  If you venture into the interior, you’ll understand the plight of the cuntry –

  Everyone’s out to fend for themselves, in one way or another

  It’s utter anarchy, mister…’

  We are in danger

  we babus

  who are neither here nor there…

  That means we are really not safe anymore, boudi!

  Our lives and possessions, our youthful desires, wife-and-children, the chastity of mothers and sisters … everything … everything whatsoever…

  Speak, Madam,

  do say something –

  Unseen, the public

  ‘Where’s the police – your police?’

  Bombs drop on the courtyard. Bombs drop on the bedroom. Bombs drop on the bed. Three bull-like zombies dragged his wife and laid her on the dining table.

  Unseen, Leader No. 1 cries out: ‘Beware – don’t arouse the masses unnecessarily!’

  Unseen, Leader No. 2 cries out: ‘Everything’s going to ruin. The red sun’s not risen! No kingdom of heaven in the future! Beware! Ruin! Beware!’

  Unseen, the editor cries out: ‘Beware! Stand guard at the fence against obscenity. So that we can read together with our mothers and sisters…’

  Amidst all those cries, his wife lay supine, and then, right on top of the table, they get into action…

  ‘It’s a real incident, mister in
my own house my wife

  I’m journalist Patra from Orissa I’m Patra, the journalist…’

  Unseen, the intellectuals, with loud voices

  ‘Set everything aside and speak

  Speak like a gentleman

  Even protest has to be

  Expressed in proper language,

  Isn’t it?’

  ‘Setting everything aside – what shall I say, mister

  In front of my very eyes

  My own wife was…’

  ‘Oh, this habit of you lot

  Becoming agitated at the drop of a hat!’

  He was stabbed in broad daylight for not giving an adequate puja donation, under the papaya tree outside his own house. He’s in hospital

  At dawn on Saturday, on Hyde Road, six or seven youths, dragged a fifty-year-old gentleman belonging to a rival political party out of bed, threatening him with a sharp dagger. At 10 a.m. in the morning … ‘You’ve come to cast your vote haven’t you? Your vote has already been cast, you can go home. There, at the kerb of the lane on the left, next to the milk depot, look – we’re treating everyone to Limca, do have some, sir.’ Jumping off from the fifth floor of PG Hospital, Harimohan Das, retired headmaster, committed suicide. He had five sons and three daughters, but after he was admitted to the hospital no one came to enquire about him, no one at all.

  A gang of mastaans. All of them entered the house, one after another. The girl – a case of rape. After that, her private parts were burnt, little by little, using burning cigarettes, to their great delight. The girl passed out and remained that way for sixteen days. The complaint stated that they did this after being incited by the leaders of a political party. At first, the police were unwilling to register the complaint.

  The youth charged with murder was released very soon, for lack of evidence. No one came forward to testify against him. And there was such a carnival of bomb explosions to celebrate his release that the people in the locality were unable to stir out of their homes for three days and three nights. Bomb splinters hit the eye of a seventy-year-old man. A few splinters could be removed from the left eye, the right eye is still…