by Nag Mani
“Abba!” Zoya screamed.
Razzak came running down the stairs. “Where are you going, Madam?”
“I cannot stay here! I thank you for helping me, but there is nothing more you can do.”
Salman came out and nodded at Razzak. Let her go!
“But where will you go? The first place they will march to is your house!”
The entire family was in the hall now, some on the stairs, some peeping from their rooms.
“I can handle that.” Aditi tried her best to keep her voice from quavering. She had no idea what she would do. Yes, her house would be the first place the men would vandalise.
“Go to the fields,” Salman said. “Hide there. In the morning I will arrange for a boat, cross the river and take you to Purnia. Till then, hide!”
Aditi noticed Laila standing on the landing of the first floor. Though she had put on a stern face, she didn’t speak a word now that Aditi was actually leaving.
Shielding her face against the wind, Aditi turned around and started walking. She didn’t know what to do, so she just kept on walking. She heard Zoya call out to her but she didn’t look back. She didn’t know for how long they watched her. Her eyes were set on the dark shape of her house. A little light came from the backyard. And a cornfield struggled with the winds in the front. She reached the veranda and stared at the door. A lock hung on the latch. The key was in Om Prakash Singh’s house, along with some other belongings. On her left was a window to her room. She had forgotten to latch it from inside. It lay wide open. She peeped in. The dark shape of her bed. Her clothes spattered across it. A chair. Piles of books on a table. A cupboard.
Two men carrying torches marched along the main road. She ducked behind a pillar on the veranda. They too seemed to be heading for the river. The cornfield ahead was alive and angry. Leaves rose and fell in waves. Dark and intimidating. She could hide there for the night. She stepped down the veranda. But what if the men searched for her in the field? The lands beyond were barren. She would be trapped then. Then came a big drop of water on her head. And before she knew, the clouds burst into a heavy rain.
Desperate to search for a safer place, she turned around to see mango trees rising from behind her house. The Aambari – the mango plantation no one dared to enter! If she took shelter under the trees, she could make her way to the river and the lands beyond if the men did chase her. She ran to the trees. The foliage provided respite against the rain. The world ahead was dark and threatening. Thick, gnarly trunks rose before her, blackness resting in between. She stopped and leaned against a trunk and slumped down on its roots. The clouds rumbled. Heavy raindrops pattered down over the open lands. A lone light far away somehow made its way thought the vast expanse of fields.
And then she saw him – a tall man. A very tall man. He appeared from behind her house and marched silently into the plantation, looking straight ahead. He was dressed in white. And in the relative darkness, even at this distance, she could somehow see his face. It was white. A dark beard ran down till his chest. He looked young, and strong. Attractive. Seductive. She saw his lips move. He was muttering something, chanting. Then two fragile figures appeared behind him. Two girls, following him silently.
Aditi let out a cry of surprise. She knew the girls very well.
And she also knew that they were dead.
The ground began to tremble!
No. Not an earthquake. Aditi felt vibrations travelling through the earth, emanating from somewhere deep in the forest, as if a heavy voice was saying something. Only that the source was monstrously big and was buried deep in the ground. She turned to look at the trees. The blackness had darkened. And something even darker lurked in it. The vibrations silenced everything else. The clouds swirled quietly. Raindrops hit whatever surface they could and shattered into a hundred droplets, ever so silently.
The man crossed Aditi at some distance, as if she did not exist, and continued to walk deeper into the plantation, towards the source of the tremors. Even though she couldn’t hear him speak, she somehow understood what was happening. He was calling out to someone. And that someone – the someone buried deep inside the earth – was replying. The girls stopped dead. Though their faces were impassive, they seemed to be resisting something. They turned back to look at her, their eyes completely white, as if pleading for help. The man raised both his hands. The girls were lifted off their feet. They hovered in the night sky, as if some invisible rope was lifting them from their waists, and as he moved his hands, they began to glide forward.
With a sudden jerk, the bearded man dropped his hands and the girls fell to the ground – Aditi shrieked – and then they rose. The vibration intensified. First they walked. Then their legs broke. They fell forward. Aditi covered her mouth and dropped to her knees. The girls rose again and began to move on their knees. Then their backs broke. So they pulled themselves with their hands. Not a hint of sorrow or pain on their faces. It was when their hands broke that everything happened all of a sudden.
The vibration stopped.
Lightning – darkness shattered.
Winds whistling. Rain pattering. Clouds rumbling.
Movements above.
And Aditi looked up…
She saw the Devi hunched on a branch.
Her screams were drowned by a ferocious thunder and she remembered no more.
II
CHAPTER 3
THE SUMMONS OF THE VILLAGE
In the September of ’99, a man presented a cheque worth Rs. 40,000 to the cashier at the Katihar Bazaar Branch of State Bank of India. It was forwarded to the then manager – Mr Manoj Prasad. Mr Prasad verified the signature and cleared the cheque. In a span of two days, the same man visited four different branches of the bank in the neighbouring cities of Purnia and Araria and withdrew cash amounting to 2.1 lakhs. A week later, a Purnia based doctor reported fraud. He claimed he had lost his cheque-book and someone had forged his signature to withdraw the money. He personally visited the Regional Business Office in Purnia and had tea with some men in closed cubicles. The outcome of the meeting was a phone call to Mr Prasad. His senior informally told him to arrange the amount cleared through the cheque and deposit it back into the doctor’s account. The matter should be taken care of before higher authorities caught the slightest wisp of it and initiated a probe.
Mr Prasad cried foul. His job was to check if the signature matched with the one present in their database and not track down its origin. The signature had indeed been a match, for it had safely passed the scrutiny of four other branch managers. It was the duty of the doctor to report theft and invalidate all the cheques. That evening, Mr Prasad received a call from an even higher authority. He was again unofficially told to quietly settle the matter by the following morning. There was no time for unnecessary investigation given that the bank was already burdened with work. The other managers had already complied.
Mr Prasad consulted his wife, Aditi Prasad. “It’s okay,” she said. “Pay the money. It’s not going from your salary, after all.” Yes. Because after all, she knew, like others, that as a manager what sort of income he made with every loan he passed. The rates were fixed. He would take his share and pass on the rest to the divinities seated above. And that was the main reason the other four branch managers didn’t flinch depositing the money back into the doctor’s account. They were just giving back a percentage of what was never theirs to maintain regularity in the bank and continue receiving what was not theirs.
But Mr Prasad would not budge. He had done nothing wrong. He would not succumb to pressure. Eventually, the clerk who had actually handed the cash had to cough up the amount and return to the bank. Mr Prasad felt a tingling sense of pride for what he had done. He had stood for the right. He was a brave man.
One busy day in April, 2000, he received a transfer letter ordering him to take over a branch in one of the remotest villages of Araria near the Nepal border – Ufrail. No promotion. Just a transfer. The designated branch was a crumb
ling guest house built in the British era. There was no electricity. Mr Prasad found out that the village was on the other side of the Bakara River flowing southward from Nepal, which cut it off from the rest of the area. A makeshift bridge had been built across the river by the villagers. The bank ran on a generator puffing throughout the day.
He had been allotted another of those ancient guest houses on the edge of a mango plantation, more commonly referred to as the forest, or the Aambari. The branch was a mess. It was suffering from numerous bad loans. He sweated day and night working at his desk. Innumerable files lay in piles, dozens of accounts waiting to be opened, loan defaulters working their way up for more loans. The staff were most unpunctual. Most of the managers who ran the bank earlier did only so on paper. Though their attendance records were flawless, they were themselves touring the neighbouring cities of Nepal with their families. It was frightening in the beginning. But he managed to hold himself together, for some time.
Rs 40,000 was not a big amount, after all.
Aditi Prasad stayed back in Purnia. She was in love with their newly constructed house. Not because it was fancy or an envy-of-the-neighbour – just a three-room set with traditional kitchen and simple flooring and walls – but because it was her home. She had designed it, looked over its construction and even personally watered its budding walls. It didn’t turn out as beautiful as she had expected. There was shortage of cash now and then and labours were not easy to handle. The kitchen did not turn out as she had planned and… but it was fine. What you love need not be beautiful.
When her husband left for Ufrail, she was happy. Theirs was not a happy marriage, at least not for her. There was this initial fear that he would ask her to come along. He did throw hints once a while, and when he could no longer accept her silence, he even went ahead to pack some of her belongings. He did not ask or tell her to come along, just packed some of her clothes so that she would read between the lines and pack the rest on her own. It was in his farewell party that one of his colleagues asked if his wife was shifting with him. He told them that she was most eager to come along. It was then told to him that Ufrail was not a place for women. Though women themselves could never understand, as a husband it was his responsibility not to take her there, no matter how much she pleaded. It was for her own safety. Nevertheless, Manoj did not change his plan. But when Aditi heard about the condition the village was in and its infamous history of dacoits and murderers, she firmly refused to go. Manoj didn’t press her again. He settled 85 kilometres away in Ufrail, only to visit her on weekends.
Now that Aditi was alone, she took out her books and started her preparation. At 28, she was thin and frail, and still eligible to sit for UPSC exams. Her husband never approved of it. Initially, she could not understand why. It took a while to realise that women cannot hold a post – or even aspire – superior than her husband’s. He never said it openly, just that he never gave her time or resources for her preparation. Aditi had wanted to become an Indian Administrative Officer the moment she saw one enter her school when she was in Class XII. She was always good in academics. She was the eldest of her three sisters and a brother, but unlike them, she was not fair and pretty. She was rather dark skinned, with bushy hair which she always kept tied. She was of average height and average features. After completing college, she wanted to prepare for IAS. But Marriage is the ultimate destination of a girl’s life and she was married to Manoj in ’95.
And then Marriage happened.
While Manoj was away, Aditi tended to her garden. She loved roses, and was a proud owner of twenty different shades and colours. Then she would study. She had been able to apply for the exam twice earlier but never had her admit card been delivered to her. She often wondered if Manoj received them and threw them away. Now that he was away, she assumed this would not happen. She would even go to the post office regularly when the time came. She brought out all her packed books and started her preparation. She made a “Daily Routine” and pasted it on a wall. Then she made study plans. Plans were set into practice. She thought she would make it this time.
The manipulation to shift to Ufrail came in stages, one small piece at a time, so that she was taken off-guard. First came small complains. Manoj would visit her on weekends and blabber about the work conditions. There were only two other official staffs in the branch. One was on leave and the other was a year away from retirement and took it for granted, as no one wanted to spoil the work record of a colleague so close to the end of his career. Manoj practically ran the branch by himself.
Then there was this unofficial assistant – Arvind. He was large and black and was in charge of maintaining and operating the bank’s generator that huffed and puffed throughout the day. He also cooked food for the managers and took care of their needs. Owing to his bulky size, he even accompanied them on field trips. He had been hired by some manager about eight-nine years ago and had stuck to the bank ever since. Other than procuring diesel, he also brought along villagers on promises of granting loans – instant approval, no hassle. Most of them didn’t have the required documents and when Manoj turned them away, Arvind would spend the entire day pleading him to accept their application. Due to lack of documents or securities, loan applications were rarely accepted and the villagers would leave abusing the banking system.
Aditi spent her weekends listening to the various problems the village had in store. No electricity, because of which Manoj stayed back in the bank till as long as midnight. It at least had a fan and lots of work to do. The thin and old guard didn’t mind staying back so late, for he was seldom seen in the bank during daytime. Manoj’s house was far from comfortable. It was old and moist and suffocating. No one bothered to have it painted. It just had a bedroom, a hall, a kitchen and a small bathroom. The toilet was built in the back courtyard along with a cemented platform for a hand-pump and a room in one of the corners of the boundary wall. The room was locked and Manoj never bothered to tell her why.
Weeks turned into months, and grumbles transformed into frustration. Manoj could not adjust to his new environment. His mother came to visit them during the onset of winter. He had turned weak and thin – something Aditi had failed to notice as the transformation had been gradual. Due to his irregular banking hours, Arvind had stopped cooking meals for him altogether. Manoj would hurriedly cook rice and pulses on a cheap kerosene stove and leave for the bank. Many a day he went without lunch. He would come late at night and eat the leftovers of the morning. The utensils were always dirty. The house needed thorough cleaning.
Manoj managed to put up with the village because of his helpful neighbour Razzak. Razzak was a loan agent in the bank. Before working for Manoj, he and his two younger brothers used to drive rental vehicles. Their major income came from city dwellers who hired taxis to go to Nepal in search for exotic and cheap markets. He came in touch with Manoj when an auditor, sent to inspect the branch, put forward his desire to tour the neighbouring cities of Nepal in return for a commendable report. And ever since, Razzak gave up his driving job and started working for the bank. He brought loan-seekers to the office, cajoled Manoj into accepting their applications and helped them with the process on commission basis.
One night, while serving dinner to Manoj and her mother-in-law, Aditi told him to hire a maid. Razzak could definitely arrange for one. Her mother-in-law dropped her jaw, shocked. “Maid? Hire a maid?” Then she clapped her palm over her head. “Mercy, oh god! Why do you not call me home? Do I have to live to see this day? All alone, my son… hire a maid? While this queen sits in her palace! And he can’t speak, oh, my son…”
Manoj cleared his throat and gestured at his plate. He needed more rice. Like always, he didn’t say a word. And the conversation ended.
A year after his transfer, he came home and told her he would commit suicide when he went back. Aditi had assumed that he would take time, but eventually, he would settle. But the problems were serious now. He had fresh bruises every time he came home, mostly on his shi
ns and elbows. He had stopped using public transport to go to Ufrail and now rode his motorcycle – a blue Rajdoot. The road was rubble for the major part of the 42 kilometres stretch to Araria, but at least, it existed. The road then left the main city and cut through farms and fields and brick-kilns for a dozen kilometre or so and then it was all mud and treachery for another 30 kilometres through Forbesganj. Manoj often lost balance and fell, sometimes due to his own inexperience, but mostly due to a stray goat or a buffalo.
Villagers would flock his house in the morning to withdraw cash or ask for loan or even write a letter or two to their sons in the foreign state of Punjab. And Razzak would come with his brothers to drive them away. Then there was this problem of electricity theft. The bank was near the main market of the village, and every evening, villagers swarmed around to buy fresh vegetable and gasping fish and blood-coated meat. Manoj had had a bulb installed in the market which was connected to the bank’s generator. Soon, the hawkers stripped naked its wire and began to connect their own bulbs. The money the bank gave for diesel began to fall short and when Manoj went out to have their connections removed, a rude mob encircled him. Frightened, he returned to his bank. The problem was sorted out when the Mukhiya, the head of the village, visited the bank for some work and was made aware of the fact that Manoj was considering cutting the line to market. No Bulb = No Tension. It was then that the Mukhiya ordered his men to beat up anyone seen using the connection to the bulb. He even went ahead to announce that no one would visit the manager’s house for office work. To make sure his words were taken seriously, he randomly pointed at a customer watching the scene from the bank and asked Razzak if he had ever seen him near their house. Turned out he had been standing in the queue just that morning. The men roughened him up and sent him home.