by Pandey Kapil
‘Who stands there?’ Master’s loud gravelly voice shattered Mahendar’s stupor. Overcome with emotions, he ran to him, clamped his feet and prostrated himself in reverence. Ramnarayan Misir could feel the warm tear droplets falling on his feet. Worried at his disciple’s meltdown, he inquired anxiously, ‘What is all this, Mahendar? Is everything all right at home? Where are you coming from, son? What is the matter, dear boy?’
But Mahendar kept sobbing inconsolably. A little later, perhaps feeling somewhat unburdened after he had wept to his heart’s content, he replied, ‘Guru-ji, all these years you wearied yourselves trying to teach me music and help me grasp its essence. But I was so stubborn that I never learnt a thing. But today, after listening to your songs, for the first time in my life, I feel as if a lamp has been lit to dispel all that was dark in me. And in my heart, I can verily see its glow. I feel as if I have crossed over from the dominion of darkness to the sphere of light.’ Ramnarayan clutched Mahendar’s hands and looked at him fixedly. There was nothing left for him to say.
* * *
The evening congregation was in progress. Ramnarayan turned to Mahendar and said, ‘Mahendar, let us start today’s session with your recital.’
Mahendar picked up a tanpura and started singing; the first song led to a second, and the second was followed quickly by a third, but Ramnarayan didn’t quite like any of them.
‘Why do you appear so withdrawn, Mahendar? Are you feeling unwell?’ Ramnarayan asked.
‘Why, no, Guru-ji, I do feel alright,’ Mahendar replied nervously.
‘Then sing with gusto, my boy,’ said Ramnarayan and let out a gay laughter.
Mahendar was struggling to beat his own hesitation. However, the moment he started singing Dhelabai’s song, which has been stirring in his heart ever since the previous night, he somehow hit the right notes too.
‘O’ beloved, forfeit not my reminiscences.’
The song felt curiously familiar to Ramnarayan. As it progressed, its lyrics reverberated through his soul. He had a dreamlike sensation; clung to its melody, he had retreated into a past that was distant, yet surprisingly vivid. The song ended and the session came to a close. But Ramnarayan did not move. He remained seated, lost in a deep reverie. Mahendar’s song had taken him thirty years back into his own past. Back then, he must have been no more than twenty-five or twenty-six. At that young age, for the very first time in his life, he had felt the irresistible enchantment of music. He had come to conclude that of all things alluring in the world, only music could move his soul. Since he had no interest in household chores, and was bored at home, he had started working as an opium inspector with the hallowed Opium Bungalow of Revelgunj. And whenever he had a little time to spare, he was quick to pick up his tanpura. Every time he sang, his resonant voice would splash all around the place, like the waves of the flourishing Saryu. Revelgunj wasn’t too far away from Chhapra. Every now and then, he would sneak away to the city to train under Ustaad Najju Khan Sahib. Khan was a descendant of a prominent music family from Lucknow and had shifted permanently to Chhapra. Back in those days, Ramnarayan was brimming over with youthful vigor. His audacious heart, full of raw courage, had emboldened him to strive tirelessly and make a name for himself.
It was at the Opium Bungalow that he had first met Sahay, and almost immediately, formed a close friendship with him. In him, Ramnarayan had found his perfect match. The two were similar in more ways than one. To begin with, they had similar physiques. Like Ramnarayan, Sahay too, was a man with an enormous capacity for perseverance and daring. He too, loved music, although he wasn’t obsessively passionate about it. Together, they embarked on many an adventure, seeking pleasure and rasa. Was there any place worth a visit in the entire province those two hadn’t travelled to? Was there a song they hadn’t heard? Or a dancer whose mujra they hadn’t attended? However, in spite of all their indulgent exploits, Sahay did not surrender himself completely to a life of intemperance. Like the leaves of the lotus plant, he had the ability to stay afloat even as he traversed the deep muddy waters of tireless pleasure-seeking. Ramnarayan, by contrast, lost everything to his unbridled obsession with music and mujra. He lost his job at the Opium Bungalow, and like a determined rasik, led the life of an itinerant for years, enjoying mujras and music wherever he could. But when that feverish fixation simmered down, he found himself seeking shelter in Pakadi, his ancestral village. Meanwhile, Haliwant Sahay had ascended to the summit of his fortune.
* * *
Meenabai of Muzaffarpur had come to Revelgunj. She had been called to entertain the baraat at the wedding of Kishan Sahu’s daughter. The residents of the Opium Bungalow were held in high esteem throughout the mofussil and their attendance was solicited at every social gathering. As expected, both Sahay and Ramnarayan were invited to Meenabai’s mehfil. When Ramnarayan saw Meenabai, he was hopelessly ensnared by her bewitching beauty. The luscious fulsomeness of her twenty-year-old body was brimming over with a seductive allure. Like the flooded Saryu, her intoxicating charm appeared illimitable and wild. When she danced, her delicately embroidered skirt rose and fell, like the waves of the Saryu during sawan, the season of incessant rain and unbounded longing. And whenever she swirled, her skirt spiralled like a whirlpool in a river.
‘O’ beloved, forfeit not my reminiscences.’
That evening, Meenabai sang her sensational love ballad. Such was the enchantment of her song that Ramnarayan surrendered his entire being to its melody. Even though he was completely spellbound and oblivious to his surroundings, yet he gathered an experience which he could never forget: it was vivid, luminous, colorful and surreal.
In spite of Sahay’s repeated attempts to awaken him out of that daydream and get him to leave the party, Ramnarayan remained resolutely unmoved. It was only after the mehfil came to a close, and the long sequence of songs ended, that he returned to his senses. As he ambled back to the bungalow, he was amazed to find Sahay engrossed in account-keeping. ‘This Kayasth has no appreciation for beauty, no heart,’ Ramnarayan thought to himself. When Sahay saw him, he laughed aloud and remarked, ‘Dear divine Brahman, if you persist with your reckless ways, you will soon find yourselves a pauper, in the esteemed company of Sudama, Krishna’s destitute friend.’
Incensed at the suggestion, Ramnarayan left his job at the Opium Bungalow and embraced a life of vagrancy. Although he drifted about in every direction, he never visited Muzaffarpur; his Brahmanical pride prevented him from seeking after Meenabai. Finally, when that feverish obsession abated, he sought refuge at Pakadi, his own village. What followed was a long period of extreme hardship.
Late in the nights, whenever his cousin’s wife toiled at the millstone, she let out a mournful jantsar, the grinder’s song. The haunting sadness of her complaints ached Ramnarayan’s heart. Years ago, in search of employment, his cousin had left for Morang. But he never returned to his wife. The tireless clatter of the whirring millstones and the woebegone tunes of jantsar that streamed forth night after night from the adjacent courtyard, pierced Ramnarayan’s heart and made it difficult for him to sleep in the hallway of his dilapidated ancestral house.
The pangs of separation, that he had both witnessed and suffered, metamorphosed into lyrics of poorvi songs. As years went by, he could no longer recall the lines of that famous song which Meenabai had sung at the wedding in Revelgunj. In fact, he had no recollection of Meenabai—the source of an agony which had both ennobled and ruined his life. Over the years, as he scraped a survival in Pakadi, the plaintive tunes of his sister in law’s jantsar drowned his personal sorrows.
* * *
But today, thirty years later, that old wound was sore again. The words of that old forgotten song had resurfaced and he could feel its sweltering ardor; it threatened to smolder whatever was of left of him down to a cinder. For a while, Ramnarayan remained speechless. He could see that his disciple was going through the same emotional tumult that he had himself suffered years ago. But how had Mahendar come to learn thi
s song?
‘Who taught you that ballad, Mahendar?’ Ramnarayan asked.
‘Gulzaribai—Meenabai’s daughter. It is her song,’
Ramnarayan drew a deep breath. That name carried his thoughts away to the days of his own youth. Back then, when he had sung Meenabai’s song, his own guru, Ustaad Najju Khan, had asked him the same question—the very same that he had asked Mahendar.
‘Ramnarayan, where did you learn this song?’
‘It is Meenabai’s song, master.’
Khan did not utter a word of praise, nor did he rebuke Ramnarayan; instead, he subjected his disciple to an unnerving cold stare. When Sahay learnt of the episode, he enjoyed a hearty laugh at the expense of his lovelorn friend.
‘Ramnarayan, men do not groan and sigh in vain. They rely on their prowess and seize the things they take a shine to.’
‘Haliwant, I have done the same. Seized the things I love: agony, suffering and the unforgettable experience of that evening, everything.’
He remembered how Sahay had burst into a thunderous guffaw at that declaration.
6
The Pet and the Patron
Bulakna Dom had come to live in the village of Bagoeyan with his entire army of clansmen and aides. Across the bamboo orchard, a little further from Bagoeyan’s settlement area, a campsite was chosen, and poles and pegs were driven into the ground. In no time the makeshift tents evolved into dozens of shacks and mud houses. Gradually, the Magahiya Doms acquired a little arable tract. Whatever little they owned, the plot of land included, was earned through rewards and grants. Just as pet cheetahs and hawks are rewarded by their owners when they seize a prey, the Doms got these endowments for the services they had rendered: a morsel of desiccated flesh for every fresh and meaty quarry they fetched. Content with that crumb, the Doms never thought much of themselves, or of their toil.
Generations ago, at a time unknown, this group of Magahiya Doms had come to live in Danapur, on the other side of the river Ganga—revered across the region as the Ganga-ji. Later, when the sepoy outposts were being established in the town, the Company administration decided to uproot their entire colony. Thereafter, for a very long time, they simply buzzed around those military camps. Letting go of the land they had lived on for generations was a deeply traumatic experience. Every now and then, whenever they sniffed an opportunity, they would promptly set up tents in the adjoining areas. However, there was nothing certain about those crude dwellings—neither their longevity, nor their location. Life was harsh. At times, sheltered under some tree, they were forced to brave the marrow-piercing cold waves of Maagh and Pausa—the bitter chill that sweeps the region from December to February.
The confluence of the Ganga-ji and the river Son provided for several necessities of life. During the floods, whenever they had the good fortune to retrieve chattels drifting amidst the deluge, they experienced consummate contentment. Sometimes, they collected honey from combs that sagged under shady canopies of trees; at other times, they chopped down entire trees to sell their timber. However, neither the honey-collection nor the occasional timber-trade was enough to make ends meet. Understandably, survival took more than such irregular activities. Throughout this far-flung territory, the Doms were known to carry out brazen thefts and robberies. And when they conducted those dreaded raids, each one of them participated with the same intrepid zeal—men and women alike.
A few among them had found employment as cleaners and scavengers in the sepoy camps. However, their earnings weren’t sufficient to fill their stomachs. Naturally, to supplement their meagre incomes, the men would be on the lookout for the remotest opportunity for stealing, while the women took to seducing the young recruits and extorting money. As expected, every now and then, a ruckus would erupt in that colony of Doms. But no sooner had people drowned themselves in a pour of toddy than all was forgiven and forgotten. By the next dawn, the community sprung back to its old and wonted ways of living.
The Magahiya Doms were blessed with imposing built, shapely physiques and matchless nonchalance. It was for these reasons that Sahay had developed a great fondness for the tribe. When he had seen them for the first time, he was completely awestruck. On the other side of the Saryu, along Chhapra’s sizeable river delta, a tent had been put up. With a clean loincloth swathed about his waist, and brandishing a bamboo log with a sharpened end, or maybe a spear, Bulakna had set out on a wild boar hunt. Having tired the boar out after a long pursuit, he impaled its breast with his weapon. The fatally wounded beast dragged itself for some distance, then it dropped dead right in front on Sahay. When Bulakna arrived at the spot to claim the carcass, exhausted and soaked in sweat, each muscle of his shredded body aroused Sahay’s awed admiration.
Sahay wasted no time in spinning schemes to trap the Doms into his service. He had read somewhere of the practice of taming cheetahs for hunting purposes; once tamed, even the ferocious animal of prey hunts meekly for its master. Sahay wanted to lure the Doms into becoming his pet cheetahs. Using promise of riches and employment in his opium trade as baits, he whetted their avarice. The itinerant Magahiya Doms, forever adrift like a river current, found a foothold in his promises. Rootless since many monsoons, this group of Doms, after years of bewildered wandering, had arrived at this place for good.
* * *
During the Rebellion of 1857, when the rebel sepoys of Danapur outpost crossed the Son and started marching towards Arrah, the Doms followed them too. It was downright dangerous to stick around an abandoned camp. Since the Doms were accustomed to live off theft and robbery, conducting surprise raids at distant locations had become their forte. Once they reached Arrah along with the sepoys, they joined Babu Kunwar Singh’s army and got deputed as messengers and locators. The indomitable Doms were relentless in completing tasks assigned to them. Stormy weather, dense darkness or impassable terrain, they remained undaunted by all hostile circumstances; they could run barefoot through fields covered with prickly stubble; they could slither through slippery riverbanks. Rivers, canals, thorns or sharp-edged wild grass, nothing could stop them.
Marching beside Babu Kunwar Singh, they scouted all the way till Banaras. However, after Kunwar Singh’s death, when the English succeeded in suppressing the uprising and a reign of merciless persecution was unleashed, they dispersed. Committing random thefts and robberies, and making merry whenever they could, they entered Balia through Gazipur, before finally setting up a camp along the bank of the Saryu. And then, blinded by the promise of riches, they came under Mukhtar Haliwant Sahay’s aegis. Very soon, the wild cheetahs found themselves completely domesticated.
It was this same group of Doms which, obeying Sahay’s orders, had invaded the inn in Chhapra and adducted Dhelabai—Meenabai’s darling daughter. That breathtakingly beautiful girl, whom Meenabai considered dearer than her own life, was scooped away from the midst of a packed jamboree. To get to Dhelabai, Sahay had tempted the Doms with another lump of flesh: a plot of arable land in Bagoeyan village.
Dawood Khan, the kotwal of the Manjhi police station, remained perennially annoyed by the fact that each night, he had to patrol all the way to Bagoeyan to check on the Doms. Could one think of another drill to restrain this criminal tribe? For the safety of the people in adjoining villages, it was necessary to inspect and count them every single night.
Dawood Khan had once cautioned Sahay against patronising them, ‘Mukhtar Sahib, these Magahiya Doms are like mercury, that vilely enigmatic substance. In a split second, they can disperse and disappear, and with the same speed, they can regroup into a scary unit. When mercury enters our body, it resurfaces as leprosy and boils. Could one ever be certain that these Doms would not make lepers out of us?’
Sahay had brushed the warning aside saying, ‘Kotwal Sahib, medics produce medicines from mercury and use it to cure several dreaded diseases. My intentions are no different. I wish to transform this treacherous substance into life-giving ambrosia. Please help me with this task.’
When that piec
e of land was being transferred to the Magahiya Doms, Prasad had laughed and said, ‘Mukhtar Sahib, what good is land to them? Will they ever take to farming? They will sell it off and drink away all the proceeds. And after that, like a wandering whirlwind, they will drift to a new place.’
Once again, Babu Haliwant Sahay greeted that suggestion with his irreverent laughter and arrogantly held his view, ‘Registrar Sahib, I am the Mukhtar, am I not? All this land will remain registered with this Kaiser-e-Hind—this sovereign of a man. What is there for them to sell? They will remain merely chained to the land. Please, let us get on with the registration.’
Indeed, that piece of land was like a rotten lump of flesh. It had succeeded in blinding the cheetahs. The Doms had risked their lives to abduct the gold-like Dhelabai. After delivering her safely to Haliwant Sahay, they were too ecstatic over their new possession and remained utterly contented.
7
An Unexpected Guest
Ever since Dhelabai’s arrival at the Red Mansion, extravagant soirées had become an everyday affair. Typically, these soirees commenced late in the evening and went on till early dawn. The finest of artists and the most famous of tawaifs performed at these carnivals of dance and music. All through the night, tablas clopped, sarangis rasped, matchless vocal acrobatics were executed, and the resonant anklet bells tinkled on the Iranian carpet, chhoom-chhanan. Cups of wine clunked and fell silent; the seductive effervescence of these parties tested the sobriety of Sahay’s friends and the reverentially invited local patricians—affluent zamindars, high-ranking officers and prominent judges. At dawn, when the revellers dispersed, remnants of the night-long gala would lie strewn all over the carpet; shrivelled wreathes of jasmine, haphazardly thrown around bolsters, wheeling empty bottles and broken cups bore witness to the profligacy of the merrymaking. Sometimes, standing quietly by the door that connected the nautch-house to the rest of the mansion, Gulzaribai would look through the drapery and brood over the sight of debauchery.