The Kanod Meghwal elders wanted me to visit their community hall before heading out to the election office programme. There were quite a few of them there but they limited the engagement to a garlanding ceremony. When I reached the election office there was an awesome gathering. I had expected a fairly good turnout, but this one was big. And the pulse was just as positive. After the speeches I rushed to Negarda, but was stopped at Bhadkha. They knew I would be crossing at that particular time and had prepared the ambush on the National Highway 15 junction. I was irritated by the delay and did not do much to hide it.
By the time I reached Negarda, most of the so-called VIP guests had already left, but there was still a large number of people there. I had come back to Negarda despite having been there recently because Mubarak’s father had passed away. Haji Hamira had been ailing with a heart condition for quite a while, and the doctors had advised home care as being the best option for him. And just before taking his last breath, he had told all those around him to continue to stand by me. This had reached my ears even before I got to Negarda. I walked to the main tent for the customary, initial mourning formalities. In ArabianSands, Wilfred Thesiger has written about the desert greeting ritual and described a tradition strikingly similar to what we practise here. However important one may be in society, the first thing to do upon entering is to sit down in a deserted corner and maintain complete silence without even eye contact. After some minutes the hosts—in this case, Mubarak and his brothers—would have someone gesture to the visitors to come forward. That breaks the silence, after which the conversations are multiple and simultaneous. Thesiger found the combination of silence and cacophony distinctive in the desert dweller. It is not very different in this desert, and an effusive Mubarak confirmed to me the rumour about Haji Hamira’s last words. He repeated them so all could hear exactly what the fading Haji had said. Blessings from a Haji are, of course, as auspicious as those of someone who has done the four dhams.
After lunching at Negarda I took the long route to Lakha for their Akha Teej. Kishen Singh, the sarpanch, had been very efficient in getting together the whole lot, and they were very warm. Their optimism about the election was very heartening too. Ganpat Singh, the friend who was now with the Congress, met me at Lakshmanpura, near Mungeriya. There had been a Muslim wedding here recently and today was the feast day. Hussein Fakir had come down from Devikot, and he was seated with the respect that is owed a fakir.
When leaving Lakshmanpura, Ganpat Singh told me about a condolence programme at his village, Tanu. All he said was that some young Rajput boy had passed away. I did not ask any more until we parked our vehicles and were about to enter the hut. I needed to know what the young boy had been engaged in doing, so I asked Ganpat as I walked ahead. Nothing registered in my mind until he said IIT, and I froze in my tracks, with my hand cold on the slim wicker gate of the hut. ‘Don’t tell me it was Gyanji’s son,’ I whispered in shock. When he said yes, I felt as if my breath had been sucked out from the bottom of my stomach.
Gyan Singh had retired from the army as a subedar in the Para Commandos. Slim, with a bushy moustache that went up on both sides of his face, he had a reputation for being the most jovial man in his battalion. During a training jump, I had seen his parachute drift in the breeze and drop him squarely between two jeeps. It was a close shave, but he got up with his customary smile and dusted himself off as though it was the most routine jump. Behind that cool demeanour was an out-and-out commando, and young officers of the battalion once told me about how he had pushed a strike team over a forty-kilometre night-time march so as to hit the first camp of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-IM (NSCN-IM) from a direction and at a time that they least expected. He was the smiling commando, much like General, now Lord, Charles Guthrie is labelled by his SAS regiment. Gyan Singh was an extremely proud father when his son made it into IIT, especially given the circumstances of the family. But, negligent of his own health and treatment, he did not live long enough to see his son graduate. I sat in complete silence throughout, not even making routine conversation. When Gyan Singh’s younger son was called in, I opened up a bit. I told him all about his father, and what he had meant to me. When leaving, we exchanged our email IDs so as to keep in touch. I certainly will, with the last link to Gyanji. To imagine that someone from this village could make it into IIT defies belief, and then to be told about his sudden death completely defies logic. They told me he had died in a swimming-pool accident, slipping and falling backwards on his head as he walked from the pool. I think it was in Ranchi.
Shaken by this tragic loss of a young man in his prime, I really was not in the mood for any further talking, but there was still Kotda to visit and the engagement ceremony of a friend’s son to attend. Since I was not very responsive to the conversation around me, somebody asked me what the matter was. I told them about Gyanji and his son’s death. Luckily for me, Ratan Singh Kunda had known Gyanji, and he took over the show from here, while I sat in shocked silence. My mood did not improve when I got back and wanted to catch yesterday’s football highlights: the local cable chap had taken off the ESPN channel to give the town an overdose of the wretched Indian Premier League (IPL).
28 April 2009
I rode a camel today for the first time, I think, since I left school. Before the camel ride, there were other programmes, too, and they began with a visit to a Chak Dholka dhani. There was once again a discussion about land acquisition, which became very heated. When a sparsely populated area like Barmer becomes so agitated about land acquisition, I wonder how much it must disturb people who live in densely inhabited areas.
The next meeting was at Bisala for a district-level gathering of the Rawna Rajputs. I do not particularly like these community-based election gatherings but they seem to have become the norm now. One really cannot say to any particular community, ‘You are the best,’ so I stuck to my line about the need to uplift every community so as to make India a truly developed country. It took inordinately long in Bisala, and I fretted about the big meeting to come later in the afternoon.
There was a brief halt at the ashram of Sevagiri, one of the most renowned saints of Barmer. Then, on the way to Ramsar, I was asked to visit some Bhil habitations, but most of the men there had already left for their daily labour. Meanwhile, Murad kept calling me to hurry things up since the crowd for the big meeting at Sehlau was swelling and it was hot. These delays en route irritated me, especially since I had told Allah Noor that I would be there on time.
I was to be regaled with a big feast at Sehlau today for all the help rendered to the family of Pir Sehlau in his daughter-in-law’s visa case. The programme had been long delayed as I had wanted Chitra to be there too, since it also involved the women of the Pir’s family. As I neared Sehlau, the frenzy of the crowd caught me by surprise. I had been warned that there would be a reception with a camel, but since I saw nothing I happily started walking towards the meeting venue. And then, I was led to a camel that was decked out in true traditional finery. The saddle was embedded with the typical inlay work in copper; the camel’s fur had been shaved to create floral patterns; its hump was covered with colourful patchwork covers; and much jewellery made out of shells was hanging from every possible spot. Dressing up a camel is an art form here called gorbandh, and there are many folk songs about it. Truck drivers, incidentally, have picked up the art of embellishment from camel caravans, though the Indian ones are no match for their Pakistani neighbours.
I had dreaded the idea of the camel ride when told about it earlier, but now they clearly expected me to mount the beast—I didn’t really have a choice. I gritted my teeth and got on, all the time trying to remember the sequence of movements with which a camel embarks on the process of getting up. It is a multi-movement process so I was on super alert when the camel prepared to get up. The hind legs lurch upwards without a warning, throwing the rider forward, and then the forelegs kick in, which makes the rider slide back. It all happens so suddenly that an unpr
epared rider can easily be thrown over. Once the camel gets into his stride, the gait is slow and langorous, with a swaying movement that can dull the senses if one is not alert. Thankfully, I managed to stay atop the camel, and only when the ride began did I notice the little BJP flags tied to my saddle. Children from the madrasa ran around me, also carrying flags. After every few paces, I had to lean down to shake hands. The frenzy here on the road was awesome and made me wonder what the meeting would be like.
The platform put up for the meeting was ad hoc and when I got close, I was taken aback for there was no place to sit. It was packed with people, including notables who had come from as far as Barmer, Chohtan and other parts of the district. I squeezed myself in and stood for a long time simply returning everyone’s greetings with folded hands. Allah Noor kept shrieking at the crowd to sit down, make space or leave the platform. It was proving an impossible task and, in the midst of it all, the welcome greetings began. After standing for a bit, bending down to receive the garlands, I jumped down from the platform. It made things much easier, both for my back and for those who had been called to garland me. In his speech, Maulvi Abdul Karim simply said he hoped and prayed that today’s meeting would not bring me nazar (the evil eye). I was surprised by that remark. Then Then Maulvi Taj Mohammed took off on politicians who treat life like a kabaddi pitch. He used the word ‘anadi’, and the reference was to Amin Khan who had made a statement criticizing maulvis, syeds and pirs who were becoming active in politics. I spoke about democracy, saying that, to me, it meant individual choice, with everybody free to exercise it as they deemed fit.
While we were having lunch, a couple of distinctly journalist-looking types came in. I realized they must be from Rediff for I had been told to expect their arrival. They wanted to do the interview then and there, so we sat on the hot sands around the mosque and had our discussion. On the way back to Barmer, I stopped near Hathma where Maulvi Taj Mohammed introduced me to a bright-eyed young lawyer and said, ‘This is my nephew and you have to look after him.’ I took an instant liking to him and I think we can work together in future. It was very late when I reached the Rabari wedding at Gehu. I had been expected there much earlier and I offered my profuse apologies for the delay.
29 April 2009
Today, I learnt to avoid the heat by the simplest method possible. All my life I have driven with the windows fully down and the hot air blasting into the vehicle. Not wanting to use the air conditioning, but still wanting some respite from the heat, I put up the window partially. I have seen almost everybody avoid the heat this way, but I had always thought it would get stuffy. I tried it today, and it felt okay. Actually, it was more than okay. Wonder why I never tried this before?
There was a double wedding dose at Sawaniyala. Receptions actually, for the weddings had taken place on Akha Teej. The first one I visited was for Sri Ram Gaud’s niece. He had been sulking with me for some time over the matter of a cremation-ground boundary. It had been sanctioned for a neighbouring village through MPLADS, which he thought was wrong since, as he put it, ‘they had not voted for you’. I had tried to calm him down by telling him that those who require the cremation ground are, in any case, nobody’s voters. He did not think it was funny and had remained aloof for a long time, until he called to invite me for his niece’s wedding reception. A fair amount of guests were present, some from as far as Jodhpur. Sri Ram then suggested we carry on to the Meghwal wedding reception in the village. It was a long, gradual climb up a sand dune, and the dhani fit the classic image of huts on dunes. It was only when I looked down from the dhani that I realized that the height of the dune was enormous.
There was not much by way of tents like there had been at Sri Ram’s dhani, but the thatched cover was more than adequate. We were ushered into one of the bigger ones. After the formalities, the matter of the elections came up and I was asked to make a speech. I stood up to say that, since this was not a political gathering, I could not talk politics here but that I simply wished the couple a happy and prosperous life. A local teacher took the cue from there and got up to make his speech. He said, ‘You all know that I am a BSP supporter, and I have explained to you a number of times how the Congress has slowly been sucking our blood, and this time I request you to vote kamal because the candidate has always been good to our people.’ I thanked him with an eye-contact gesture.
We headed towards Baytu, stopping along the way at Ramsaria for another Meghwal wedding function. As we got up to leave from there, a BSP group walked in with a large poster-sized paper. There were photographs all over it of a disfigured body lying alongside a road that was under construction. I had heard about this case, and the allegation was that the boy had been murdered by somebody’s henchmen. There had been no proper investigation because the dead boy was a Meghwal, the BSP group said.
I had been invited to a temple investiture the following day at Akdara, but as I had to be in the Jaisalmer district, they said I should come today. The tents and all other arrangements were already in place. I spent a little time with them, but that was enough to be completely scandalized by how the panchayat was functioning. There had been so many buildings constructed over what was meant to be oran land that I really could not believe my eyes. Oran is an inviolable category of land, where even a branch of the smallest shrub cannot be broken. The area of an oran can stretch for hundreds of acres, and it is always reserved in the name of a deity. In this case all this construction had been done fairly recently, and it could not have been done without the connivance of the bureaucracy. I told them I would certainly have the matter looked into after the elections. There was another Meghwal wedding in Akdara, and the oran-land story continued here as well. Shocking!
As we left Akdara, my stomach began to rumble and it worried me a bit. But there was still the Chirdiya meeting to be done. When we reached the under-construction hall that was doubling as the venue today, I was told we would have to wait as more people were expected. They came soon enough in overcrowded jeeps, and among them was an old man in a mood to heckle me. He went on about payments pending under NREGS and said that if it goes on like this, they will not vote. I told him it was a panchayat matter and it had to be sorted out from within. Using votes as a blackmail tool is a typical election-time stunt.
I thought we would finally get the long-awaited lunch at Kolu, but after the turning, we were directed to a Kumbhar dhani where the wedding guests were waiting for us. There was no option but to go there. When we returned and were about to sit down to eat, someone suggested that we should finish the Kolu meeting and have lunch after that. I did not say a word to him, just glared at him. The lunch came soon thereafter.
The first thing I did on reaching Jaisalmer that evening was to visit Gorakhnathji. He is the mahant of the most striking math in the constituency, and he has a vision about doing something there. His dream includes a boarding school where children would also learn English. During more frustrating moments, I had thought it would be a great place to spend a couple of years teaching—a spiritual journey in more than just the literal sense. Gorakhnathji had someone with him who brought up the Marudi issue all over again, about me harassing a bureaucrat of that village. I told the mahant off in no uncertain words, and he turned to the man and said, ‘See, I told you so.’
Later that day, by the time Ranvir called to say that he and Shambhu Dan, the former a cousin and the latter a super-intelligent sarpanch, wanted to visit, I told him I was already in my nightclothes and would meet them in the morning. He then called back to say that I should speak with Sumer Singh, the pradhan, who is dodgy as hell.
30 April 2009
Since I was in Jaisalmer, and at my brother’s hotel, I woke up from my first air-conditioned sleep in a long while, feeling very rested. I had slept really well. It made my mood buoyant until I spoiled it for myself—someone suggested we leave earlier than scheduled, and I ticked him off. That reaction of mine nagged me for a long while after we left Jaisalmer—I should have controlled my te
mper and my nerves better. The relentless pace of the past few weeks was beginning to take its toll on me.
I had been asked to come to the Jaisalmer election office and then leave in a convoy. I do not particularly fancy convoys, but it makes some people happy so I played along.
The first halt produced a great darshan at Kala Dungar. It is among the seven striking devi temples of Jaisalmer, each as spectacular as the other. This one is located in a surreal lunar landscape, and this is where the Bollywood movie Road was filmed. As we entered Mohangarh I was relieved to see Sang Singh, the former MLA and someone I’m very fond of, coming along a different road. I stopped the convoy and got into his Safari to drive him there. It was an old joke amongst us, as I would drive him sometimes during his 2003 Assembly election campaign and answer the phone by saying I was Sang Singh’s driver speaking. He was the undisputed king of the canal, and as Mohangarh has developed because of the Rajasthan Canal, I had wanted him there at the meeting. The meeting was larger than I thought, and I was presented with a beautiful safa that I instantly decided would have to be taken to Delhi.
Under an acacia tree, we had lunch which Sang Singh tucked into, after initially saying he had already eaten. After a couple of short hops, we drove to a wild reception party at Bhagu ka Ganv. It took Sang Singh by surprise, and he said in all his political life he had never seen BJP flags flying in this village, forget about having a meeting here. The young boys were in a boisterous mood and Ghazi Fakir later called Murad to complain that some person had made rude slogans about him. It was a false complaint. Unfortunately Sang Singh did not stay very long with me, as he also had responsibility for the Jodhpur elections.
Campaign Diary Page 16