Exile

by Akhilesh

  Anyway, this story is about olden times and the lottery. When Suryakant grew up some more, golden coins of ten and twenty paisa were issued by the government. One day, while returning from school, he heard that the government was taking them back to melt and stow them as bullion in banks. People were on a binge to collect, melt and convert these coins into gold biscuits and get rich. Suryakant came home and smashed his earthen money box, occupied with the mission of collecting golden coins to exchange. When all his money had been converted into golden coins, he pressed his uncle for money in exchange. After every ten attempts, Chacha gave him some money, which he soon swapped for golden coins. But luck was against him once again. It finally came to light that the golden coins contained no gold at all.

  He never had any luck with prizes or any kind of lotteries even as he grew up. Sometimes, exhibitions were held in his town. These events would usually involve shops selling different wares and stalls set up for various games. Attractions like the Well of Death, House of Mirrors, the circus, magic shows and Bombay Dance Party pulled spectators by the hordes. He also used to go with his chacha, who visited the carnival day after day in the hope that his beloved Balwant Kaur might be there as well. The day she turned up was a grand one for Chacha. He trailed Balwant everywhere. But Suryakant was not interested in this nonsense. He was tempted only by the prize stall. A variety of objects were spread on a white bedsheet, to be snared with a ring. The shopkeeper handed over three rings for a rupee. Suryakant had thrown hundreds of rings during his childhood in Sultanpur, but he did not win even a cake of soap. As an adult, he bought lottery tickets occasionally, but he never won even a couple of rupees. Perhaps it was because of his failure at the lottery that the state government passed a court order prohibiting lottery.

  ‘What miracle do you think will occur today that Bahuguna is going on like this?’ he asked Gauri.

  ‘Why are you bothered about it? Simply think of this as a jaunt with Bahuguna Bhaisahib. Nothing more.’

  ‘But if he really comes to pick me up?’

  ‘Go with him. But don’t have expectations.’

  ‘Bahuguna never says anything without a reason, there must be something, or …’

  Just then he heard Bahuguna honking at the gate. Suryakant quickly left the house and got into the car.

  Along the way, Bahuguna said, ‘We are going to Hotel Taj.’

  ‘Do you take me for such a greedy fellow that I would consider dinner at the Taj as the dawn of my fortune?’

  ‘Look here, only I can put up with this kind of attitude. Mr Pandey won’t tolerate it for a moment.’ Bahuguna feigned seriousness. In all probability, he was enjoying himself.

  ‘Who is Mr Pandey?’

  ‘Your future papa – a person I struggled to make my sire but failed.’

  ‘Don’t talk in riddles – out with it!’

  The story in brief was that Ramajor Pandey was staying at the Taj Hotel. Bahuguna was visiting him to introduce Suryakant.

  Ramajor Pandey’s great-grandfather had gone to Surinam, as a girmitiya mazdoor, indentured labour and never returned. Now, Pandey wanted to trace the village of his ancestors – his roots – in order to do something for the place. But the only thing he knew about the village was that it was somewhere in Uttar Pradesh and that it was called Gosainganj. He not only wanted to locate Gosainganj, but also to author a biography of his great-grandfather and his family.

  ‘I have suggested your name for both assignments,’ Bahuguna told him.

  ‘What will I get paid?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Pandeyji lives in New York and, from the Indian perspective, is the master of zillions. You shouldn’t bother about your wages but about something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Becoming Pandey’s son.’ The car stopped at a signal, ‘Ramajor Pandey has no issue. No son, no daughter. There was a good lad in his firm. Pandey liked him a lot. He had decided he would declare him his heir on his next birthday, pass the business to him and occupy himself in social work. But he did not let the boy in on his plans. He had thought that he would astonish him by making the announcement at his grand birthday party. But before that could happen, the boy left the company for greener pastures in a rival firm.

  The signal turned green, and Bahuguna drove on in silence. He resumed speaking once the crossroads was behind them, ‘Pandeyji was shell-shocked. He revoked his will and started shutting the company down. After all, old age demands well-earned rest.’

  ‘How do you know him and for how long?’ Suryakant inquired as they walked to the hotel lift.

  ‘Not long, only since last year. You would remember that the chief minister had gone to America to promote their investment in our state. I was one of the journalists accompanying him. The chief minister was scheduled to meet with various industrialists in New York. I bumped into Pandeyji for the first time there. A banquet was held in the evening after the programme, I got drunk rather fast. I was quite happy, and I unexpectedly recalled several Sanskrit shlokas that I thought I had clean forgotten. Recalling them in New York was nothing short of a miracle. It was a marvel also because after that night, they escaped my memory once again.

  ‘On the return journey, I tried to recite some of the shlokas to the chief minister but drew a blank. Anyway, when I recited the shlokas and translated them into English in New York, I immediately became the cynosure of the dinner party. My recitation secured a place for me in the hearts of many of the guests. Pandeyji was one of them. He came to me. Such an important business mogul was talking and shaking hands with me personally! I handed over my card which he examined intently, and then he gave me his own. He invited me to lunch the next day. But since I was tied to the chief minister’s programme, I turned him down. This was the beginning of my friendship with Pandeyji. Naturally, the first thing he did when he arrived in India was to call me.’

  5

  THE LIGHT WAS EITHER THE CREMATION GROUND OR THE MOON

  Ramajor Pandey opened the door. He had probably been watching TV since he held the remote in his hand. Heavy-set, tall, darkish, he welcomed them warmly and keeping Bahuguna by his side, escorted them in. After the initial formality of introductions, he inquired about their preferred liquor brand. When the two of them muttered inanities about having no preference, he ordered his favourite wine about which they had not the faintest idea. The food to go along with the wine was settled in the same manner. When he was ordering the food and wine, Suryakant wondered about the look and taste of the victuals. He also wondered if Bahuguna had already consumed these before. Finally, he concluded that, as an editor, Bahuguna had probably been to so many Indian and foreign formal dinners that he must have seen and tasted them all.

  Wine glasses stood ready. The three lifted their goblets, toasting each other’s health and swallowed. The bitterness of the liquor splashed on Suryakant’s brain with the first sip and he thought, will this crazy Pandey, obsessed with tracing his roots and writing the biography of his ancestors hand the job to me? A person who has been ostracized by his own family, by his own forebears. By his own father.

  ‘Tell me about your family?’ Pandey asked Suryakant, speaking in a mix of Awadhi and Bhojpuri.

  ‘A son and my wife and I.’

  ‘And your mother, father …?’

  ‘They are alive, but not with me … that is I am not with them.’ Suryakant broke into a sweat. He was not really telling the truth, and it meant he was unconsciously willing to work for Pandey. These were bad times for him and he was in search of work. He tried to correct himself. ‘I mean we live here in Lucknow and my mother, father, brother and sister – I have a large family – live in Sultanpur.’

  Pandey switched off the TV. ‘It is normal – people stay at different places but the family is one.’ Pandey took a sip of the wine. ‘I’ll tell you about my grandfather, whom I called Baba.’ He took another sip. As if trying to overcome his nervousness, or maybe he was trying to revive some anxiety inside him, he said, ‘One fami
ly of my Baba was left behind in the Gosainganj village of UP and he lived with us in Surinam. His mother, father, wife and two children were left here and he settled with his new family in Surinam.’

  ‘How and when did you discover this?’ The biographist in Suryakant stirred.

  ‘It happened like this,’ Pandey began. ‘Whenever a meal was served, Baba used to ask for an empty plate and put the food in five portions each from all the dishes. Three portions would be big and two, tiny. When he was asked who the portions were for, he would reply, “This one is for my brother and this one for my father.”

  ‘Then he would fall silent. He would not say anything in spite of all our nagging. When I grew up, a way was devised. We would ask him, “These small portions must be for your brothers?” Baba would say no. “Then for your uncles?” we would try again. Baba would still say no. When we finally asked if they were for his children, Baba did not say anything. We all realized that the two tiny portions were for his children in India. The third portion, obviously, was for the children’s mother.’

  ‘Why did Baba keep it a secret?’

  ‘I believe it was fear,’ Pandey said. ‘Please eat.’ He picked up some food from a plate and dropped it in his mouth, ‘Yes, it was fear. Baba married my grandmother in Surinam. He and my grandmother left India on the same ship. Dadi was also from UP, from Babhnan village. The amusing thing is that neither of them was aware of any country, state or district save their own village.’

  ‘How are you so sure that Gosainganj is in UP?’

  ‘Because it is not in Bihar. Men were sent as girmitiya mazdoor from either UP or Bihar. Baba used to tell us that he had gone on foot from his village to Ayodhya. He reached there next morning and bathed in the Saryu. It was on Ram Navami. I have calculated that it was not possible to walk from Bihar to Ayodhya in such a short time.’

  ‘Your grandmother could be from Bihar,’ Bahuguna said, finally breaking his silence.

  ‘No, neither was she. She used to say that they had crossed the Gomti on their way. This river, so far as I know, does not flow through Bihar. But I’m digressing! I wanted to say that Baba was afraid of my dadi. The reason was that when they married, he had not told her anything about his other family. He kept it secret from my grandmother, from my father, from my mother and even from me. It was like a weight on his chest. After the death of my grandmother and my father, only Baba, my mother and I were in the house. I was young then, but not so young as to not grasp things. I could sense Baba’s grief. He was distraught from the death of his wife and son, but these deaths had also released him somehow. He was hesitant about recalling his Gosainganj family now. When I asked him about the three shares in the platter this time, the question sort of gladdened him. The curtain lifted soon enough. He untied a bundle of lingering stories. At night, after dinner, my mother and I would sit by his side. We would switch off the radio and Baba’s stories would begin. Baba told us that he was born in a Brahmin family in Gosainganj …’

  In this narrative, the characters themselves appear several times to speak about themselves and dispel the ignorance, inabilities, unworthiness and inadequacies of the author. That’s fine. Let alone an author, when God too starts making mistakes of injustice and other inequities, the main characters of his creation, human beings, intervene and correct the aberrations. Thus, the characters of any narrative have the liberty to unearth the truth, to make the truth exquisite and artistic. But sometimes they are lost in the labyrinth of their stories, and start creating confusions and even stoop to telling lies. Then, the author has to intervene and take the reins of the story in his hands once again.

  For example, Ramajor Pandey lied when he said that his Baba was born in a Brahmin family. This is not Pandey’s fault because this is what his Baba had told him. It was not Baba’s fault either since he had spent about seven decades of his life as a Pandey, a Brahmin. And he died as one.

  Baba had passed on another lie to his grandson, conveyed as the truth by Ramajor to Suryakant and Bahuguna in the Taj Hotel suite. Baba’s lie was that five years after coming to Surinam, he had the option to officially return to India. But he did not go back because he fell in love with Dadi. However, the fact was that he was not in love with Dadi before they married. Even when the hour to return to his own country arrived, he was neither in love with Dadi, and nor was he married to her.

  Dadi’s father had committed suicide by jumping into a well in the Babhnan village. A few years later, her mother hauled her to Surinam. When they arrived there, mother and daughter treated each other like foes. They kept grumbling that the other was responsible for their exile. They would frequently not talk to each other for three to four days in a row. However, after some time, there would burst forth such a fountain of intimacy between them that people started citing them as an example of familial love. If one was miserable, the other would become exceptionally chirpy to chase away her depression. If one was tired, the other would act unusually nimble. They cut jokes even while working in the cane fields. It filled them with energy.

  God knows what sickness struck the mother when she stepped out of the barracks one day – she collapsed. The daughter, panic-stricken, splashed water on her mother’s face but when she remained motionless, she screamed so loudly that the girmitiya mazdoor, who had already gone to the fields, sprinted back and started feeling for her pulse and checking her breathing. Finally, they shut her open eyelids and declared that she was dead.

  Then Dadi was alone in the foreign country, worried about her future. Once, she even considered suicide by drowning in a river or a well like her father to escape her troubles. But she did not do anything of the sort and went back to her routine of working in the fields and resting in the barracks. The customary year of mourning passed; auspicious, propitious functions could be performed now. Dadi’s shipmates started a hunt for a husband for her. This was the time when Baba’s five-year indentured labourer’s permit was on the verge of expiry, and he had to decide whether he should return to his native country or settle down here. Baba did not return to his country. There were several reasons for it.

  One of the reasons to not go back was that he nursed the misconception that he had done something illegal and against the British rule in India by coming to Surinam. Had he realized that he was being taken away to a distant country, he never would have come. He was duped, and told that he was being taken to Calcutta where he would get a job in a jute mill. However, his fate flung him in this remote country. Now, he was afraid that the Angrez Bahadur government of India would arrest and punish him. In fact, the memory of 1857 also contributed to this fear.

  When the rebellion broke out in Awadh in 1857, twelve men from Gosainganj had joined the rebels. After crushing the rebellion, the English shot forty-five people and hung their corpses from trees. Gosainganj folk used to think that their village had seen the most victims but the story in the adjacent villages was that as many men were butchered there as there were trees. A body dangled from every tree. The sight created such terror in the hearts of the villagers that they were able neither to speak nor shriek despite their colossal agony. They were incapable of uttering words. They would walk aimlessly, demented, plopping down in desperation.

  There was a rumour in Gosainganj that the forty-five trees from which the bodies had been strung up would not produce fruit and had become haunted. They started worshipping the trees from fear or maybe out of devotion. Baba had not been born then, but he had heard the 1857 story many times while lying by his father at night. He had been raised on these stories and had started worshipping, not all the trees, but surely the neem tree from which his grandfather’s body had been suspended. It convinced Baba that the Gora Sahib’s retribution was vile. This dread did not desert him even when he reached Surinam. Baba was also afraid of the English because he was a potter by caste, but had registered himself at the depot as a Pandey. He had uttered his name, Bhagelu Pandey, almost in whispers. There was such a humongous crowd at the depot at the time of regi
stration that nobody had the time to verify the truth. Moreover, it was not their caste but their efficiency and strength that mattered for the work for which they were being hustled.

  Another reason behind not returning to India was the natural disasters. The year Baba had come to Surinam, his village had suffered from a terrible drought. It was the third year of the drought that had spread mortally to several neighbouring districts too. At first, the villagers in Baba’s village thought that this plight had struck only their land because of the demise of Harhu Ram two years ago. Harhu Ram was a man who, in his middle years, had a religious awakening. He renounced non-vegetarian food and began to bathe daily. Since he was an untouchable, the villagers did not revere him, but he was put on the elevated throne of piety among the untouchables. He was regarded as the reincarnation of Saint Raidas and his advice was respected. Only God is the true Endower.

  He did backbreaking labour to take care of his six-member family – his wife, two sons, one daughter and his old mother. He did not accept the offerings, but he used to receive tremendous respect and trust from the other untouchables. This made him all the more generous and that became the cause of his death. One afternoon, Harhu was sitting down to a meal in the shade of a tree after finishing his work in the fields. He had just taken out the roti, onion and salt from his pouch when he saw Purohit Maharaj approaching. Purohit Maharaj had finished propitiations at a host’s house, and his cloth bag, filled with alms, was hanging on his back. When Harhu saw him, he prostrated himself to express his respect.

  Purohitji said, ‘Harhu, it’s terribly hot today.’

  ‘It is all the doing of the Almighty,’ Harhu said and pointed at the sky.

  Purohit Maharaj thought that Harhu was trying to appear more religious and was peeved. ‘If I thrash you with my shoes and stuff you with straw, will that be His doing too?’