Exile

by Akhilesh

  Two people sat on either side of Jagdamba, on the cot’s edge, and one was the pradhan. He was still afraid that Jagdamba might start prattling about his skulduggery. He asked Jagdamba simperingly, ‘Kaka, would you like to taste something nice?’

  In reply, Jagdamba farted loudly and nodded. The pradhan handed a few notes to a fellow standing there, ‘Run and bring a watermelon for Kaka.’

  Jagdamba was famous for three traits – hunger, amnesia and farting. His appetite was not small even at this age, he had been a voracious eater during youth. Things were so bad that he avoided visiting his relatives because he was unable to eat to his heart’s fill out of embarrassment. His in-laws’ house was an exception because his wife had revealed his weakness to her family. It had a superb effect: Jagdamba’s in-laws would challenge people proudly – was there anyone who could fart louder than their son-in-law and eat more than him?

  As he had grown old, he was more troubled by his forgetfulness than hunger. He often forgot the names of his sons. And anyway, he never recalled the names of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He would call out the name that flashed in his mind when he was calling out to them. For example, if the word ‘thief’ came to mind while calling his grandson, he would say, ‘Hey, thief, check whether the door is closed properly or not!’

  Sometimes, he would call his great-grandson Loha Singh and sometimes ‘Chana jor garam’. One of his daughter’s granddaughters was called by strange names including Vishtuiya, Khurpi, Sushila, Kamali, Vimli, Sarauta, Aina, Teepa, Matkoli, and so on. Sometimes, he absolutely refused to recognize someone. When his daughter came from her in-laws’ house with her husband, he bellowed, ‘Hey, who are you, rushing into the house?’ She told him, ‘I’m your daughter.’ He roared, ‘Are you trying to hoodwink me, girl?’

  However, the worst times were when he suffered bouts of complete memory loss. For instance, his daughter-in-law would feed him, but when his son would ask whether he had eaten or not, he would deny it point-blank. ‘I have not had a single grain of food since cockcrow.’ He would bathe and then bathe again. He would mistake morning for afternoon and shout at the children, ‘You in-laws of mine, why are you not in school?’ One day, he mistook the morning for the night and hit out furiously, ‘Should I sleep now or enjoy your bloody tea?’ This habit had played havoc for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He would refuse any help extended by them. And then he would accuse them of neglecting him. Moreover, Jagdamba would demand that his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons punish the daughters-in-law for their lapses. Obviously, they would be livid and scream, ‘Old man, you forget everything we do for you! O God, when will he leave us?’

  But the same womenfolk grew extremely sympathetic, concerned and afraid when Jagdamba moved past the frontiers of reality and stepped into mysticism and the cosmos of fantasy. It usually happened during his bouts of sickness. He would proclaim that five king cobras were swaying in the courtyard with their hoods erect. Sometimes, he was convinced that all the trees in the village were laden with fruit, and sometimes, that all the gods from heaven were relieving themselves by the pond in the west. Once he asked his son, ‘Why do your in-laws keep bears as pets?’

  Some of the villagers interpreted his problem as his receiving divine epiphanies, or seeing spirits that were not visible to everyone – they came to him in an altered form or were perceptible only to him. The gossip spun so fast that people were convinced that the spirits were Jagdamba’s friends. They thought of him as a divine soul owned by the preternatural world and believed that its powers guided him. The main reason for this conviction to flourish was his being a centenarian. It was believed that when one crossed a hundred years of age, one travelled beyond the realm of normal humans and develops an amicable relationship with gods.

  The community held this belief with several instances as proof. Once, Jagdamba, burning with fever, had mumbled, ‘The goddesses are pissing from the heavens.’ That year it rained cats and dogs. When he proclaimed that rats were dangling from trees instead of mangoes, the village was gripped by a severe drought. He was afflicted with severe cough and cold during the Phaguwa festival, and naturally, he ran short of breath. His rumbling voice was heard, ‘Today, bloody donkey in-laws play with blood-filled pichkaris.’ Five murders were committed in the village that month.

  People went to the extent of claiming that he also had received omens of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the tsunami and of Manmohan Singh becoming prime minister. It was a different matter that he never stated these things directly, but only in metaphors. In fact, the conviction behind all this gossip had risen primarily from his crossing the hundred-year mark. Was it possible for anyone to survive for so many years? Such a huge appetite and such ear-splitting farts at this age! It was explained through the logic that Jagdamba ate not only for himself, but also for the spirits and that he did not fart alone, it was the chorus fart of the spirits.

  Men visited Jagdamba in their spare time, listening intently to what he mumbled and strove to discover the real implications or messages or indications or the insinuation of his statements.

  Jagdamba did not blabber rationally. His sentences were not methodical like flowers in a garland, but like beads scattered from a broken necklace. There was a lack of continuity, composition and synchrony, as if the links of his thoughts had broken apart and tumbled down in the absence of mutual support. Or, as if they have lost their way home all of a sudden. For example, Jagdamba would say, ‘The day before yesterday, Barku brought two pumpkins from the market. Lord Hanuman is an influential god. If you drink, you will not live for long. What is the use of casting one’s vote? Vibhishan was not Ravan’s elder brother, but younger. I have heard that the eunuchs now go to their performances in new Bolero vehicles.’

  Jagdamba’s sentences were perhaps disjointed because he forgot the previous sentence while speaking the next one and did not remember the succeeding one. Therefore, the pradhan was not at all worried that Jagdamba would make any substantial charges against him or reveal his secrets. However, he was afraid that Jagdamba, during his disjointed speech, might utter a sentence that would expose his corruption. Jagdamba’s statements were meaningless, but the real power lay in the belief that he had attained divine powers and that his statements were direct correspondence from gods. It was quite possible that one of the pradhan’s foes might present an interpretation of non-sequitur conversation, a commentary, an analysis that would prove him guilty. Hence, he cocked his ears to the conversation between the Chacha-nephew duo and Jagdamba.

  Suryakant said to Jagdamba, ‘You are the oldest person in the village. I have come here to find out something from you. Please, tell me something about your childhood, especially about the things your father, uncle, mother, grandfather or aunt might have done.’ Jagdamba remained silent. He stared idiotically at Suryakant.

  Realizing that they were after information from a time long gone, the pradhan relaxed. He also thought, ‘These two are definitely chasing some idiotic task, and they can’t touch a single pubic hair of mine!’ He fumed silently and challenged his enemies in his mind, especially the leader who had departed a little while ago, ‘Baba’s balls that you can harm me!’ He gathered up courage and addressed Suryakant, ‘Why don’t you offer him something first? Perhaps then will he utter a word!’

  Suryakant stuffed five one-hundred-rupee notes in the front pocket of Jagdamba’s kurta. However, he soon realized that it was not easy to extract anything of worth from him because he would fall silent after speaking a sentence, and he often dozed off. He was unable to speak the subsequent sentence and if he spoke after much insistence, it would have no relation with the previous one. His expression was unsystematic and chaotic. But Suryakant did not need Jagdamba’s entire story. He simply needed a stepping stone that would help him track Pandey’s ancestors.

  Another problem with Jagdamba was that as he spoke, he farted deafeningly, and the people present would break into equally loud laughter. When they
shut up, they would start narrating tales about his legendary farts. For instance, once, dacoits came to rob a trader’s house in the village. When they were collecting cash and the jewellery, Jagdamba farted in his own house. There was such a raucous noise that the robbers thought that the police had arrived and had started firing – they abandoned the bag and fled. Jagdamba smiled when Chacha asked him to confirm it, ‘I was much younger, I don’t have the same strength now.’ And then he fell asleep.

  When Jagdamba’s statements were being recorded by Suryakant and transcribed by Chacha, an eleven-year-old lad in the village was listening. Later, in the year 2048, the boy wrote a novel with the title 2048 in which an entire chapter was based on this incident in Jagdamba’s life. So, when these sentences are being written today, why should not one note down the summary of this particular chapter of 2048? Is it only the liability of the present to travel to the future, again and again? Sometimes, the future too should take the trouble to visit the past. Creative ethics demand that it should be revealed at this point that the following sentences are not a paraphrase of the aforementioned novel, but a kind of rewriting because if it were copied verbatim, it would be a muddle. It was a novel in two hundred and seventy-five pages without a single full stop or comma, running into twenty-two chapters. Two blank pages preceded and followed each chapter with the comment ‘Please reread these pages several times’. On the last seven pages in one of the chapters only the words ‘primeval song’ had been replicated. In all the chapters, poetry dominated over prose and at the beginning of each chapter the words ‘Blood Soaked’ were printed. Another feature of the novel was that the word ‘khilkhil’ was reiterated in every sixth line. A CD too was distributed with the novel and there was talk that people did not get the CD free with the novel, but were buying the novel for the CD. It carried a film of a nude opera performed by two celebrated models of the country. It goes without saying that the novel and the particular chapter were so ahead of their times that they had no consonance with today’s prose narratives. (This is why it has been rewritten and edited.) Rather, it is necessary to inform that the fictitious parts of the novel have been relinquished (although there was little narration in the novel). Moreover, only those portions of the novel, dismissing its characters, incidents, etc, are being presented that throw light on Gosainganj’s geography, history and sociology. It is only for the convenience of the readers that the names of the characters are after real persons. For example, Jagdamba’s name in the novel 2048 was Danny, but here it is still Jagdamba.

  17

  HE ALWAYS SLEPT HALF-HUNGRY AND STAYED AWAKE HALF-HUNGRY

  The novel 2048 is about a village in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh – Gosainganj. Sultanpur district in which Gosainganj was located was lush green once. There was nothing but trees all around, a tapestry of mangoes, blackberries and neem. There were also amla, goolar, jackfruit, bel, kaitha, peepul, acacia, banyan, chilbil, shisham and other trees standing aloft, bearing the heat, the cold and the rains. However, it would be prudent to pause here and acknowledge that this is not a story of the present times. Nowadays trees are a rare sight here. People say the condition of roads has become a vital factor for defeat or victory in elections and consequently, it was the trees that had the worst luck. People also say that in the past few years, millions of trees were ruthlessly cut down.

  Anyway, we were talking of the days when villages were filled with gardens and orchards. Be it a town or a village, trees were visible far and wide. Whether you went to Prayag for a holy dip or to Nakhlow (Lucknow), the roads were flanked by trees. The trees on either side were so luxuriant that their branches embraced one another in the middle. An endless canopy of greenery extended on all sides. Innumerable birds perched on these trees – so many that if one saw the trees from a distance, it appeared as if they were covered in fruit. Sometimes, the fruit and the birds were so copious that the tree looked artificial. If a child hurled a clod to fell a fruit, birds would soar, fluttering their wings and then the tree seemed real. Some of the birds nibbled at the fruit before taking off. When the tree was shaken vigorously, the fruit would fall down and vanish in a jiffy because people were always hunting for fruit nibbled by birds. In fact, the villagers believed that birds knew more about the ripeness and flavour of fruit.

  During these times, Jagdamba in Gosainganj, who, it is obvious, was not the old man he was now, lived with his father Balesar in a mud hut with a thatched roof. An ox was tied in front of the hut. Balesar would borrow another ox from someone during the ploughing season and yoke them to the ploughshare – he also lent his own ox to someone in need. There were a few in the village who owned only one animal. Everyone managed to get a pair of oxen through mutual cooperation.

  Balesar was content that he had an animal and God willing, someday, his own two cattle would be yoked to his plough. But in spite of his best efforts, he was unable to afford a second. On the contrary, sometimes his financial condition was so dire that he was afraid he would have to sell his only ox.

  Whenever Balesar was depressed, he would cast a glance at the community huts at the south end of the village, huts that were not of mud but of mere grass. A couple of bricks weighed down each wattle roof to prevent it from being blown away in a wind. Balesar explained away his grief and penury by thinking that God had sent people worse off than him on this earth. But when he was not being so contemplative, he gazed at the three grand houses of the village. They had such huge rooms and such huge doors! A person would be exhausted by simply sweeping them. Not to talk of men, the cattle of these houses also had rich luck.

  Each animal had a large trough filled with straw, choker, khalli, grass and the best fodder. Balesar brooded: this is why their animals are so brawny, glossy and beefy. What burly horns they have! Just look at their neck and shoulder muscles! On the other hand, there was his single ox: scrawny. However, Balesar was not envious of the grand houses because it was almost impossible to dream of such a life, let alone think of it. His loftiest dream of prosperity was that he should possess a pair of oxen as well as a cow tethered at the door. He was often occupied in the hunt of a wolf to fulfil his dream. He was convinced only this could unfasten the locks of his fate.

  This conviction was related to an incident in the past when Jagdamba was quite young. One day, when Balesar was returning after relieving himself in the fields, he saw a wolf escaping with his nephew in his jaws. He did not waste a moment and snatching the trowel from the wall and holding the lota he used to clean himself with in the other hand, the valiant warrior Balesar confronted the wolf with his matchless sword and shield. The fact was that he was also armed with the celestial weapon of love for his nephew. The wolf was no match for him and Balesar killed it. It was a coincidence that wolves were a terror in the district of Sultanpur at the time and the British government had proclaimed a seven-rupee award for anyone who exterminated a wolf.

  Balesar purchased a calf for six rupees, but he still had a rupee left. The price for earthen roof tiles those days was a thousand tiles for a rupee. There appeared a possibility that Balesar’s roof could be covered with earthen tiles, but his wish remained unfulfilled. Just then, the zamindar imposed a brick tax and Balesar had to part with eight annas. It was beyond Balesar’s financial capacity, but who dared cross the zamindar! He had imposed the brick tax two months ago. He wanted to build a home in the district headquarters – a brick house with twenty rooms and a large hall, and bricks were five rupees a thousand.

  Anyway, eight annas were forfeited, but Balesar became a passionate wolf hunter. Every time he went to relieve himself in the fields, he carried a trowel. Those were the times when the cheapest and the finest cattle were sold not in Sultanpur, but in Bahraich and Khiri. You could buy a good cow for thirty rupees, a buffalo for thirty-five and native oxen for ten or twenty rupees. Goats and lambs were a rupee each. Balesar accounted his dreams on these rates. For example, when he felt like owning a buffalo, he would kill six wolves in his imagination. Sometimes it wou
ld be five, and sometimes four. There were a total of 2,77,396 cattle in the district and of these, Balesar thought of getting hold of two oxen, one cow and one buffalo at his door, the desire now flourishing, now receding. There were the normal ups and downs as time went by. The only constant factor was that Balesar did not have a single opportunity to kill another wolf ever again. On the contrary, the calf he had bought with the prize money died foaming at the mouth. Gradually, he stepped into the years when he realized that he had grown old. He had neither his former strength nor the swiftness or the daring. He got breathless and exhausted if he imagined too many cattle. During all these ominous portents, another unanticipated crisis loomed over him.

  Jagdamba was betrothed. No sooner had the wife come into the house than Jagadamba’s food habits changed explosively, from starving to gluttonous. He remained hungry all the time. No matter how much dough was kneaded, Jagdamba wolfed down all the rotis. Whatever the amount of rice was boiled, he would eat all of it. Jagdamba’s mother and father did not say anything for a few days out of their fondness for their son, and then for three or four days out of concern for their new daughter-in-law. The rest of the family remained hungry. Only the daughter-in-law was given roti and chokha. However, it was not possible to endure it forever.

  The intensity of his hunger can be determined from the fact that the youthful Jagdamba waited impatiently for weddings, community and last rite feasts. He would rush and take his place in the first batch and go on eating until the last batch had finished. At first, his enormous appetite was entertainment for others; they enjoyed the sight of him eating and it led to a sort of competition to serve Jagdamba. People served him with both hands and tittered. Once, all the pooris at an event were placed before him and he devoured all ninety. However, in time, the novelty and thrill of his gargantuan hunger wore off and things finally came to such a pass that hosts frowned and grimaced as soon as they saw him. He was driven away from some of the feasts. And if he was invited somewhere, Balesar was implored with folded hands that anyone from his family or even his entire family was welcome to the feast but Jagdamba.