by Tahir Shah
Not long after Bhalu and I had tramped off with the leaking container full of Mr. Jafar’s magic potion, another gasoline-making chemist hit the headlines. Scientists across India stepped forward to back the farmer and his process.
The man, named Poonaiah Pillai, from a village in Tamil Nadu, alleged that while on a picnic in the 1970s, he watched a spark from a stove ignite a low-lying bush. After years of primitive scientific testing, he refined a chemical process by which the herb could be transformed into gasoline.
First, the leaves of the mystery plant were boiled in water for about ten minutes. Salt and lemon juice were added, and the mixture – a kind of seasoned broth – was left to settle. As it cooled, certain chemicals were mixed in. Soon after, the herbal fuel rose to the surface and could be siphoned away.
Despite the similarities with Mr. Jafar’s process, Pillai’s product – which only cost about one rupee a liter to make – was in hot demand. So much so that Pillai was kidnapped by brigands and tortured. Even though the bandits burned him with cigarettes and suspended him from a ceiling fan, the farmer refused to reveal the secret formula.
In his native Tamil Nadu, Pillai became a folk hero overnight. Everyone, from rickshawallas to ministers, was discussing the mysterious chemical process, speculating what the secret herb might be. The state government awarded him a hefty grant with which to continue his research. Petro-chemical multinationals dispatched representatives to India to learn the secret. Diplomats were briefed by their governments to solve the mystery. The Nobel Foundation was put on alert for a possible candidate for their next chemistry award.
Then came the big demonstration. India’s most respected scientists filed into a hall in Delhi. A nervous anticipation filled the room. If the farmer could once again prove his process to be genuine, India might soon find itself to be an economic superpower.
Poonaiah Pillai arranged the apparatus. The audience waited with bated breath. The failure of an initial experiment was put down to the new apparatus. Before the second attempt, Pillai asked to use his own stirring rod. The request was granted. Moments later he turned a blend of herbs and water into a thin form of gasoline.
But as the audience applauded, someone noticed a key point, which had been overlooked. Pillai’s own large stirring rod was hollow. It appeared to have been filled with a gasoline solution and then plugged with beeswax. When immersed in the hot soupy, herbal water, the wax plug melted, releasing the motor fuel.
As red-faced experts scuttled back to their laboratories, skeptics suggested that the chicanery had been clearly visible all along; the most obvious indication being that Pillai had asked the audience whether they wanted him to make diesel or gasoline. A simple selection of the right stirring rod would guarantee either.
* * * *
Bhalu and I spent two more days at Rourkela. We poked about the steel mills and I wrote to Feroze with details of my journey. I told him of the godman’s illusions at Jamshedpur; of the Pykrete and the wigs from Tirumala; and about Mr. Jafar’s ability. Even the Master, I mused, could not fail to be impressed by these observations.
Next morning, before the sun had risen above the smoke stacks, Bhalu woke me with a loud cry.
“Leave me alone!” I protested, “I was planning on sleeping in.”
“But we have to go,” said the Trickster. “The truck’s leaving in twenty minutes.”
“What truck?”
Wheeling-dealing and, I suspected, picking pockets since dawn, the boy had negotiated a ride heading south, towards Tirupati. My decision to take the train had been overruled. For Bhalu had been struck by an idea. The five gallons of precious herbal-based gasoline could be part exchanged for passage as far as Sambalpur, about a hundred and fifty kilometers south-west of Rourkela.
As I struggled to lace up my shoes, I heard the screech of brakes outside the hotel. I peered from the window. A tangerine-orange Ashok Leyland truck, piled high with sugar cane, was waiting.
The driver grabbed the five-gallon jerrycan and stashed it away for later. He seemed more than pleased with the deal. Bhalu was also satisfied. Chance had found us an Ashok Leyland which ran on gasoline, rather than the more common diesel.
We ventured out into the web of potholes, the laden hulk huffing like a bloodhound in pursuit. Three hours passed, and the Ashok Leyland truck had fishtailed its way as far as Sundagarh, about halfway to Sambalpur.
Bhalu selected one of the poles of sugar cane and chewed its end. As he did so, the Ashok Leyland spluttered to a halt. It had run out of gasoline. The driver emerged from his cab and, wasting no time, funneled the freshly brewed herbal gasoline into the vehicle’s tank. Bhalu sucked at the sweet-tasting stem. I stretched out on the bed of sugar cane, soaking up the sun. Things could not have been better, thanks to Mr. Jafar and his miracle mix.
The driver fired up his wagon. But no longer was it huffing merrily. The engine was groaning like a great tusker run through with a lance. No petty growl induced by wear and tear: this was the last wail of a dying beast. Like a mahout whose elephant was expiring before him, the driver leapt, howling from his cockpit. Half-paralyzed by shock, he comforted his beloved Ashok Leyland in its dying moment. When it had wheezed its last grim sigh, the driver turned his attentions to Bhalu and me. Accusing us of administering a lethal potion to his beloved steed, he climbed up on to the crest of sugar cane and routed us from the back of its carcass.
FIFTEEN
Witch
Marooned at the side of the road, Bhalu and I waited for a fresh tangerine-orange Ashok Leyland truck. But nothing came. The driver of the defunct cane-laden vehicle had chased us away, swearing that he would cut off our ears if he caught us. We walked a couple of miles southward and waited. Well, I reflected quietly to myself as we dug in for a long wait, although the price was exacting, at least we now knew that Mr. Jafar’s preparation was an expensive imitation of the real thing.
Two hours had passed. Every so often a jalopy would clatter by in the opposite direction. But there was no traffic heading south. Another three hours went by.
Bhalu befriended a girl his own age who was selling wicker baskets at the side of the road. Her face was young and innocent, its complexion a soft amber brown. An embroidered headscarf veiled her plaited hair; a profusion of hefty silver bangles and anklets weighed down her limbs. For now the jewelry was no more than an encumbrance; but one day, not far off, it would form her dowry.
When it came to philandering with local maidens, the Trickster was an expert. One flutter of his eyelashes and any girl was putty in his hands. I watched as, turning his back to the girl, he slid a dark object from his pocket and slipped it up his left sleeve. Meanwhile, the lass had seen a vehicle approaching. She picked up a wicker basket and stepped towards the road. Bhalu took advantage of her distraction. He tossed the henna-colored object on the ground between him and the road. When the vehicle had driven into the distance, the girl walked solemnly back towards us. As she did so, Bhalu yelled at her not to move. Drawing the hunting knife from its sheath on his belt, he strode over to where his belle was standing. With dramatic flair, he plunged the blade into the back of a toffee-brown scorpion lying at her feet. The girl may have been overjoyed at having her life saved to gallantly. I, on the other hand, was enraged. Unlike her, I had seen the stunt before. Only the most devious scam-artist would stoop to carrying a dead scorpion around, ready to be deployed for the purpose of endearing himself to others. After castigating Bhalu for his dishonesty, I told the basket girl all about the deception. But as she didn’t speak English, she had no idea what I was going on about.
Fifteen minutes after saving her from certain death, Bhalu was serenading the child with a distorted rendition of Elton John’s song “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. She masked her mouth with the palm of her hand to hide her laughter.
Edging closer, he took her hand in his and kissed the knuckles as suavely as he could. He may have only been twelve or so, but the Trickster was a fast operator. Moving with the se
rpentine determination of a python, his right hand slunk its way up across the girl’s nubile form. Her giggles turned to wonder as she realized that the stranger was moving in for the kill. The maiden leapt up, declaring she had to return home. Her parents would be wondering where she was. Offering to accompany her, Bhalu said he would go in search of sustenance. I feared that a hurried liaison with a local lass was inviting disaster.
As the last rays of light dissipated around us, I made out the rumbling of a truck. By the grating sounds of its bodywork writhing on a battle-worn chassis, I suspected it was a trusty Ashok Leyland. Sure enough, a great pumpkin-orange truck was veering around the bend and heading straight for us. Bhalu and I leapt up and waved our arms, screaming as loudly as we could. The vehicle slowed to walking pace. Then it stopped. We hurried over. But just as we about to clamber aboard, it accelerated at high speed. This was no ordinary truck: it was a vehicle which had returned from the dead. At the wheel, tormenting us, the driver gnashed his teeth. He had resurrected his charger.
If the Trickster was going to kill me and plunder my belongings, he would have done it on that inglorious night, spent in an Orissan ditch. Even a veteran Thug would have given his front teeth to be alone with his quarry in such a remote spot. Bhalu was eager to track down the basket girl’s village. He filled my mind with fantasies of food, silk bed sheets … and loose women.
“Come with me to the village,” he whined, “and I’ll teach you the secret to get Orissan girls.”
“You mean kiss their knuckles and choke out a couple of old Elton John songs?”
“No … no, that was just the start …”
“What comes next?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“You don’t have to … I wouldn’t trust your advice for a second!”
“OK,” retorted the Trickster, “ I’ll tell you … but only if you promise not to tell a soul.”
“It’s a deal: I won’t tell.”
“The way to get any woman is simple … You have to rub honey into their toes, of course.””
After a night fighting off red ants and scorpions, I woke to the smell of roasted manioc. A smell I had known while traveling in eastern Zaire, manioc, or cassava as it’s known in Africa, is a staple. Bhalu had unearthed several of the roots and toasted them until they were charred. Preparing breakfast had taken his mind off the basket weaver’s daughter. I was surprised by the boy’s aptitude for survival in the countryside. Until now, he had struck me as an urban creature.
At six-thirty a works employee from the nearby Hirakud Dam made an emergency stop when Bhalu threw himself at the bonnet of his vehicle. Recovering from the severity of the deceleration, the driver agreed reluctantly to take us all the way to Sambalpur, located at the southern edge of the Hirakud Reservoir.
A few miles before reaching the destination, we caught a glimpse of the Hirakud Dam. One of the largest of its kind, it’s formed from the damming of the Mahanadi River. Illuminated by the morning sunshine, the reservoir stretched westward likes an unending silver blanket. With the car’s windows wide open, I closed my eyes and filled my lungs with wonderful undefiled air. At that moment, it seemed as if Orissa was the richest, most fertile spot in all India. Yet nothing, as we were soon to find, could have been farther from the truth.
At Sambalpur I checked into the extravagant Hotel Uphar. Having cut costs the night before I was ready to splash out. I made straight for the bazaar to look at the famous ikat weaving. Bhalu, who had heard tall tales of the diamonds washed up in the Mahanadi River, hurried off in search of card sharps. By midnight, with no sign of Bhalu, I went to bed. An hour later, the window was pulled open from outside, sending a draft of cool nocturnal air through the room.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” I called out, as the curtains ruffled about.
“It’s me, it’s Bhalu. I’m back!”
As in Rourkela, the Trickster had climbed into my single hotel room in an effort to avoid paying the bill. In any case, he preferred to sleep on the bathroom floor. He said the cool tiled surface reminded him of his dormitory at the orphanage.
“Go to sleep, Bhalu … I’m planning on heading on to Tirupati tomorrow.”
“No chance of that,” said the Trickster, in a loud whisper.
“I’ll go where I like, “ I said sharply.
“A woman’s being tried as a witch near Bolangir.”
“Where’s that? Where is Bolangir?”
“Three hours away by train,” replied Bhalu, shuffling through the darkness to the bathroom, “don’t worry … leave it all to me.”
The second-class carriage heading south was brimming with chickens, chickens and more chickens. With their feet manacled together, trussed up as if the birds were convicts, they filled all the luggage racks, the aisles, and every inch of corridor. The Trickster watched me as I thumbed a copy of Houdini’s Miracle Mongers and their Methods. He seemed especially agitated. He couldn’t still be thinking of the basket seller. Girls were a quaint frivolity to him. Only one thing could give a con man such an expression – as sour as rhubarb. Money. I suspected he had been devoured in the low-life gambling den, the wrong side of Sambalpur’s railway tracks.
“So, how did you do?” I asked from behind my book. “Show me the bag of diamonds!”
Bhalu remained taciturn. He didn’t need to say a word. His miserable expression said it all. The diamonds had not materialized. Neither had the good hand of cards he had planned on acquiring. The Trickster had been cleaned out. They say there’s no one more doleful than a bankrupted millionaire. That may be true. But take a Bengali scam-artist, swindle him of his cash, and he soon bounces back. To survive in Calcutta, a con-merchant has to get back on his feet … fast.
As I returned to Houdini’s wisdom, Bhalu sprang up and hurried off to the next carriage. For him, a train journey was not a time to relax, or immerse oneself in a good book; it was a time to get down to the big sale.
Fifteen minutes went by, and the carriage door slipped open. Ignoring me, the Trickster called out for the passengers to view his remarkable wares. I glanced over to see what he had on offer. Bhalu had stripped down my hotel room while I had been settling the bill. Curtain rings and bed springs, miniature bars of soap, mothballs and hotel stationery. The entire stock was on sale at knockdown prices.
At Bolangir we wasted no time. Bhalu had heard that the witch trial was taking place in a village off the main road running west between Bolangir and Patnagarh. As we took a series of rides on passing vehicles, I began to wonder if we would actually find the witch’s village. It seemed unlikely.
About twenty miles out of Bolangir, Bhalu and I first witnessed the severe drought that was crippling Orissa. Crops were almost nonexistent: the remains of dry plants, blanched by the relentless sun. The local people had largely deserted the area – heading for Bolangir and other towns in the region. Their children looked thin and sickly. Their mothers, veiled in the bright tie-dye for which Orissa is famous, nursed the infants listlessly, as if waiting for the end to come.
The authorities had done their bit to counter the mass migration. But with their efforts hardly leading to a tangible improvement, it was easier to deny that the drought existed. Curbing the panic of frightened, thirsty people is an insurmountable task. As we waited for the next, infrequent vehicle to edge us a little closer towards Patnagarh, I questioned whether we ought not to follow the evacuees – and return to the town.
Bhalu spotted a group of figures working in the open, a little less than a mile north of the main road. I suspected that they were over-zealous farmers who had refused to leave their lands. The Trickster led me over to where they were toiling. He said they would have water to share with us. Rather than tending crops, the group, of three men, two women and a child, were making coarse bricks from the chutney-brown soil.
Bhalu greeted them. As soon as he heard their voices he seemed troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
“They aren’t farmers,” he sa
id. “They are bonded laborers.”
Straining to understand their dialect, which must have been related to Oriya, Bhalu asked the youngest of the men where everyone else had gone.
“They left about two months ago,” was the reply. “There’s no water here and the crops have failed. All the animals are dying. We would leave, but we have nowhere to go. We haven’t got any money or food.”
“What about your master?”
“Well, he went away,” retorted the man, whisking a fly from a sore near his eye. “He told us not to leave. So we are continuing to work.”
“How long have you been working for the master?”
The man’s mouth twitched, and for a moment I expected him to smile. He was obviously not used to discussing with strangers the details of his arrangement.
“My father …” he said softly, “it was my father who was in debt. He borrowed five hundred rupees, for his sister’s dowry. When he died I had to start work to pay off the loan.”
“When was the money borrowed?”
The man shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he intoned forlornly. “A long time ago.”
“Are the rest of them bonded as well?”
“Yes, all.”
“Why don’t you run off? Now’s your chance, the master has gone away.”
The laborers looked up together. Their eyes spoke of fear, a great and unknown fear. Their expressions told of the terror: that their master would hunt them. Their features hinted at the indescribable pain they would endure once caught. When he had made examples of them, he would surely sell each one on to an even more despicable lord.
“Why are you bonded?” Bhalu asked the child, who must have been about ten or eleven.
The lad blinked nervously.
“I was caught on the train without a ticket,” he explained. “A policeman at the station took me home to work at his house. He said he would send me to prison if I did not obey him.”
“What happened then?”