This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale

by Subimal Misra

  Quite naturally, it is people’s wealth that’s noticed, but look beyond the surface, there’s deprivation everywhere, cries of distress and suffocation…

  Ramakrishna

  ‘The issue is climbing to the roof … you can do that using the fine staircase, or by climbing up a rope, or even by going up an un-smoothed bamboo pole.’

  Naxalite youth

  ‘Our leaders get enraged with their nation when they don’t get the votes. But once they get the votes, their love for the nation returns immediately.’

  Lover

  ‘Whatever you may say, a woman’s skin, her figure and her heavenly mystique is more significant than any other truth.’

  Herbert Marcuse

  ‘Revolution does not mean merely a formal change in the social system, but a transformation of people’s thinking, outlook, their innate faculties, objectives and value system…’

  Youth

  ‘Shivlal Yadav’s spin is going to work, isn’t it…’

  Drunk officer, whose wife flirts with the boss

  ‘I swear on my mother, I don’t like anything … Believe me, I never wanted to be born.’

  Grandma

  ‘No! You shouldn’t let your feet touch the dog – his ancestor had accompanied Yudhishthira to heaven…’

  Diary

  When middle-class patriots come into contact with any Marxist thinking, their alienation from their roots has been seen to become steadily evident. Again, when they sought to maintain at least that connection, politically they kept pursuing only utmost confusion…

  Bharatchandra

  ‘Who thinks of tomorrow, everyone dies today

  Afraid of getting pregnant, yet does it with hubby’

  Naxalite youth whose body would be found in the drain

  ‘We never shy away from the responsibility of

  building revolutionary violence in response to

  retaliatory violence.’

  He wore deep green, a glittering star on the shoulder, an automatic rifle in his hands. The prohibited military camp was in one corner of the city, fenced off with barbed wire. Everything was enveloped in the unknown and the mysterious…

  – ‘Hey, want to come along to Calcutta in the procession? There’s a meeting in the Maidan…’

  – ‘Fuck the meeting. You just want to make us walk! Return by train, without tickets … and let the checker catch me and put me in the lock-up, isn’t it?’

  Samar Sen

  ‘I want to eat fruit but I cut the tree too – that’s not possible. I’ll be a communist and yet be afraid of bad omens – that’s not possible. It is not possible to manipulate the accounts of history. It is because it took us so long to learn this truth that we see the crushing of aspirations now, and our sons and daughters are beyond our control.’

  Charandas Baul

  ‘My body was like a crematorium

  Guru came and with a mantra

  made it a flower emporium’

  Tapasi, Mita, Krishna

  ‘First the prospective groom’s father and paternal uncle came, then the maternal uncles, and then the groom himself, together with his friends. All of them have to be offered sweets. And you know how expensive sweets are. After all, one can’t offer them the four-anna sweets.’

  Ghost voter

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

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

  Ashok Rudra

  ‘No, it isn’t there, it’s really not there, nowhere in the world is there a book lovers’ paradise like the books quarter of College Street. I sometimes get angry with the Bengali poets. Such ingrates they are – not a single poem has anyone written in praise of this beautiful and joyful books quarter…’

  Maidservant

  ‘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…’

  Diary

  All the problems of the whole country are tied up in knots and have reached such a stage that memorized incantations, yoga, hatha-yoga, karate, socialism, Gandhism, Marxism-Leninism, Jyoti Basu, Sai Baba – nothing’s going to come of all that. Day by day, the people … Just think about it … Getting agitated about everything, they want to get agitated…

  Naxalite youth

  ‘All this petit bourgeois whining and snivelling

  Do something … anything’

  Diary

  It is the human that touches humans the most, and nothing else … It is only by overcoming weaknesses through small battles that you can move ahead to fight the big battle … Yes, only humans…

  Yesterday was the third day of the disturbance. The group of rioting youths rained stones and bricks on the police. A second group began looting in other parts. Vandalism erupted. One warehouse after another was set on fire. The police fought a pitched battle with a few thousand youths all night. But yesterday, the police were fully prepared from the start. With their faces entirely masked and carrying riot shields, they confronted the rioters. Some policemen, wearing metal helmets on their heads, could be seen charging towards the youths. A press photographer reported that he had seen the rioters break down the door and enter the house of an affluent family. One hears that an unruly mob entered one house after another. The news spread like wildfire. The police officers were unable to restrain themselves … It was reported that to pacify the situation and to placate the rioters, a team of three MLAs got together and visited the disturbed area. The objective was to appeal for peace. The mob threw stones and broke the windshield of their jeep…

  Dog show, chrysanthemum exhibition, horse racing, the receptionist’s blood-red lipstick-bearing lips and plunging neckline, the half-domestic girl in front of the cinema hall, the share-broker, protest processions, Akashvani Calcutta: ‘I say to our farmer brothers, Sri Ramakrishna had said that after you have one or two children, you should live together like brother and sister.’

  Evaluating the gravity of the situation, a state of emergency was declared throughout the country. It was stated in the announcement that during the Emergency, all the rights of the citizens would be rescinded. Under these circumstances, the public should desist from going to court. Of course, in the announcement there was an assurance that the state of emergency was only a temporary arrangement. As soon as the rioters were suppressed, it would be lifted. Until then, everyone should act according to the law. Under no circumstances should Section 144 be violated or protest processions be taken out. Later, through radio broadcast, it was also clarified that declaration of Emergency did not mean imposition of martial law. The broadcast was immediately followed by military music.

  When the announcement was being broadcast over the radio, the army had already moved into all the important places, with assault rifles. Admittedly, in some places they faced stiff resistance, but in the very beginning the army and the police together were able to occupy the central offices of the agitating organizations, unanticipated.

  Arriving here, taken aback, our Panu – hey, it’s our Panu Mullick – screamed out: ‘I say, where did our cuntrymen go…’ Saying so, bitter and annoyed, he slipped out of the opening in the broken wall and went off to the fields to do his business, his red, half-dirty gamcha on his shoulder

  In an announcement, the home ministry declared that all trade union activities in the country were now prohibited. The spokesperson remonstrated that the enemies of democracy were pushing the country towards civil war. He said: ‘We are not carrying out a military coup. Neither do we wish to impose any undemocratic autocracy. No military council has been instituted in place of the constitutionally valid administrative apparatus. The only task of the emergency is to restore law and order in the country. It is only those persons who are endangering national security who have been taken into custody.’

  In the back projection will be a woman, standing, the one who wears a dirty sari and brings to
ddy from Canning in an earthen pitcher – that she has to lose her honour to the home guard and policemen, and even the ticket-checker, for not being able to pay the bribe asked for – she has accepted this as her normal fate

  Immediately after the declaration of the state of emergency, curfew was imposed for an indefinite period. Shoot-at-sight orders were put into effect. Normal life was turned upside-down. Shops and establishments were shut down. Military patrols were stationed at airports and in all the important places in the country. The whole country came under the control of the army in an orderly fashion. No one made the least noise anymore.

  O mind, ignorant of the grand plan

  Shyama’s no ordinary girl, you know

  Clad in the raiment of clouds

  Sometimes she appears as a fellow

  The monkey now climbs to the top of the arithmetical bamboo. The slippery bamboo and the funny monkey, who climbs up four feet, and then slides down five feet…

  – ‘I am Captain Nemo, I escaped midway from the enemy’s submarine and have now come to land. The funny thing is that my submarine runs not on oil but on seaweeds. My propeller too was made using three-and-a-half-thousand-year-old marine algae that I had collected. Take me to the one among you who is most organic. I don’t have any time to waste.’

  – ‘Some trouble with women or what, mister? If there’s a woman involved in this, then the matter can be understood using one’s brains, but if it’s got to do with politics then you are destined to be in great trouble.’

  – ‘It’s not about a woman, it has to do with a three-and-a-half-thousand-year-old seabed, a bit like the chaotic justice undersea. I’ve been drawn to marine botany for a long time. I love to sprinkle fresh green algae on my food too.’

  – ‘The man’s stark mad!’

  – ‘Yes, before setting off into orbit I’d like to chew a piece of green algae. Take me to your nearest launching pad.’

  After that, the man would be compelled to re-enact Christ’s death. As he’s about to die, a woman wearing a blue cloak would hold the Christ, whom he actually wanted to create, but for poverty of imagination couldn’t, and over the mic, one would keep hearing the final gasps of the companionless man on the journey to death. This would be relayed by microphone and the whole country would be made to hear it, on and on, which was the punishment for thinking without limits. The final gasps would go on getting transformed into the horrible mechanical sound of a crane, the horrible noise would grow louder and louder until it exploded with a horrendous bang at the edge of the audience’s hearing, and the curtain would come down slowly, as was meant to be. In the final scene, he would be seen together with the terrifying black creature, the zombie, which he had wanted again and again to poison and kill.

  Ramayan Chamar’s final words to the writer:

  ‘Mister, even the dog on the street bares its fangs when it’s kicked,

  And you’re a human being…’

  After a time, everything would turn cold. No one would utter even a word that might be considered politically wayward. Only one kind of politics would be in operation then – one nation – one leader. Bombs would rain on the neighbourhood in broad daylight. Satta dens would emerge in rawk after rawk. The bomb-making business would reach even the village. The progressive bureaucrat would sit on his chair and shake his legs: ‘What’s it to me – I shall pledge complete allegiance to whichever government comes at any time. After all, I have to retain my job.’ He’ll keep laughing – like the knight laughs in The Seventh Seal.

  The monkey will then keep climbing to the top of the arithmetical bamboo – the slippery bamboo and the funny monkey.

  The moon will cast light upon earth. Everywhere, drops of dew will rain down. The temperature will drop far below the freezing point. The streets will become dangerously slippery. Nothing else on earth will be awake except for crickets. But the headless bodies of youths will continue to be found in the drains of Calcutta.

  When Colour Is A Waring Sign

  BI-COLOUR ON THE COVER

  Lantern in hand, Manthara enters the women’s inner quarters, which lie in darkness. She will entice Kaikeyi. Instigate her. And then, right then, one sees in the hazy light, a thin, dark-skinned home guard stop a lorry and take money. On the book’s cover, printed using a zinc-block, is an exact reproduction of the photograph in the way it was printed in the newspaper – if you observe carefully, you’ll notice a kind of weary look, a vague sign of poverty in the face and eyes – the man was the kind who had difficulty providing for his family. Below that is printed in 18-point type: ‘The victim of this social system, undivided, has been apprehended in a divided way’ – again, he is also the means to perpetuate this social system, this creature, a sacrificial lamb – perhaps he will have to be finished off somewhere in this text … somewhere, perhaps…

  No Sex Please

  We are Indian

  Because

  India Has No Sex

  India has charaibeti

  Although nowadays

  boys attain puberty

  by the time they are eight or ten years old

  and naked women’s pictures are printed

  even on the packets of fire-crackers and sparklers meant for children

  Nonetheless

  NO SEX PLEASE

  WE ARE INDIAN

  INDIA HAS NO SEX

  INDIA HAS CHARAIBETI

  Choo-kitkit choo-kitkit choo-kitkit

  NO

  SEX

  Newspapers have been chewed up and eaten alive in this text. A lot of visible and invisible debt, both national and international. Parallel to Gautam Buddha is Ramram Basu and the André Bretons become one with Rupchand Pokkhi, with and without admixture. Many contemporary writings in Bangla and English have been used, with a tendency to twist, crush pitilessly, harshly too, as if ripping the skin off the body. Donning various forms, they have arrived, and on the plaster of colour and lines, straight and topsy-turvy, the bits and pieces of the gilded border have become an inseparable part of this collective collage. For this variegated feast, I acknowledge my debt with gratitude. They are flesh and blood. And my pranam for the flesh and blood … Yes, pranam.

  BI-COLOUR ON THE COVER

  Lantern in hand, Manthara enters the women’s inner quarters, which lie in darkness. She will entice Kaikeyi. Instigate her. And then, right then, one sees in the hazy light, a thin, dark-skinned home guard stop a lorry and take money. On the book’s cover, printed using a zinc-block, is an exact reproduction of the photograph in the way it was printed in the newspaper – if you observe carefully, you’ll notice a kind of weary look, a vague sign of poverty in the face and eyes – the man was the sort who had difficulty providing for his family. Below that is printed in 18-point type: ‘The victim of this social system, undivided, has been apprehended in a divided way’ – again, he is also the means to perpetuate this social system, this creature, a sacrificial lamb – perhaps he will have to be finished off somewhere in this text … somewhere, perhaps…

  The writer held out a test tube. Look at this dust. This is cinnabar. A brilliant red is made from this. But in the light, the colour takes on a blackish hue. I’m trying to make a kind of red that won’t turn black even when brought to light. I don’t know whether it can be done, nevertheless I’m trying. And what’s the harm in hanging on to the belief that it can be done?

  Prostrated before the factory

  village and city conjoined

  after this

  boys will be made in the factory

  The man’s a donkey. The man

  doesn’t dream

  While being offered to the flames, an extremely beautiful maiden’s knees, bones and middle region – they had to be quite fatty – used to be laid out on the altar. A square altar, and on that, pieces of flesh and clippings of hair. On top of that, a layer of skin, stiff, sometimes thin. The interior of the altar used to be decorated with the deep-red liver, the yellow brain inside the head and the intestines. Fat, tha
t’s why the knees used to burn so fiercely ... sometimes they would burn deep, to the bone. And these flames were considered an auspicious sign. We received the term ‘petit bourgeois morality’.

  Once there was an argument between the king of the gods, Zeus, and his wife Hera, about whether it was man or woman who enjoyed the pleasure of sexual union more. Hera’s view was that it was man. Zeus held that it was woman. They gave the responsibility of deciding to Tiresias. He explained logically that the woman’s enjoyment was nine times greater than the man’s. Hera became angry when she heard this and turned him blind. Rocking in joy, Zeus granted him a boon of long life. He now roams around in this text, pronouncing prophecies about the future. He has a hand in the genetic tests and experiments that are conducted to make the people of the Third World impotent.

  One night, when a husband and wife were seated in bed, a camel made a sound. Hearing it, the girl asked the husband, ‘Who made that sound?’ The husband said, ‘A camil.’ ‘What was that?’ asked the girl. The husband replied, ‘Camil.’ Hearing this, hitting her head with her hand, the wife recited the following shloka: ‘King na karoti virdhiyadi rooshtah, king na karoti sa eb hi tushtah. Ooshtre loompati ramba yamba tasmayi dutta vipulanitamba.’ The meaning of the shloka was that proof that the Almighty can do anything when enraged – and do anything when pleased – lies in the fact that such an illiterate idiot, who mispronounces even the word camel, is granted to me, while I, beautiful and full of fine qualities, am granted to him. As soon as he heard his wife’s statement, his conscience awakened, he was seized with self-hate, shame and self-condemnation. He resolved to give up his life and left for the forest that very night. Entering the immense forest, full of wild animals and wrapped in dense darkness, Kalidas, who was running hither and thither, utterly at a loss, became endowed with divine knowledge, by virtue of the merits of many lives, upon hearing the mantra of Blue Saraswati chanted, even as he slept, by a self-realized sage who lived in this forest in a hut made of leaves, and then not being able to see on account of the darkness, he sat on the corpse of a menstruating Chandal girl who had hung herself, and in that deep night began chanting the mantra with great devotion, with a resolve not to rise until he attained sadhana, even if he perished in the process.