by Dipika Rai
‘Lokend, you came.’
‘I told you not to forget the sweets.’
She looks at the box, a picture of Devi looks up at her. The goddess too is decked in a red wedding sari just like Mamta with a huge nose ring dangling down her cheek. The sweets have left a grease stain on the cardboard box. She doesn’t recognise the insouciant smell of saffron. Her father’s Hawaii slippers approach. He takes the box from her hands. ‘Sweeten your mouths,’ he says, passing the sweets around to other hands.
‘Oh no, I gave them to the bride to take to her new home. We can have sweets any time.’ The leather slippers bring the box back to Mamta, much lighter. ‘Be happy,’ he says.
Tears sting the back of her eyelids. I wonder if he knows about my birthmark. It’s not the city shoes she’s thinking of. She falls to the ground and touches the leather slippers, her fingers linger on the tips of the toes. Warm hands round her shoulders bring her back to standing.
Lata Bai brings her hands to her mouth, arresting her serrated tear-filled breath. ‘Amma! Amma!’ Mamta clings to her like she did in front of strangers as a little girl. The groom tugs at his bride, claiming what is his. For both mother and daughter it is more the end of something than the start of something new.
‘Go,’ says Lata Bai, knowing that this might be the final time they will see each other. She takes her daughter’s face in her palms, and wipes the tears from Mamta’s eyes, so her world will cease to tremble. Over her mother’s shoulder the new bride sees an unknown man with an unforgettable face, and eyes that lock with her own. All the peace of the world is instantly transferred in that quiet look. Her soul is confused yet comforted, and she is strangely calmed.
Chapter 4
LOKEND COULD NEVER HAVE DONE IT ALONE. He has convinced Daku Manmohan to surrender, even though the police have instructions from Delhi to pre-empt it with a capture and an execution.
All the secret meetings have been arranged with the help of one of his father’s indentured cowhands, Prem. The bandit chief, Daku Manmohan, recommended the boy for the job by name. He said that if anyone could help them it was Prem, Lata Bai’s son.
The boy works at the Big House because his father, Seeta Ram, has borrowed money from Singh Sahib. Each week he arrives with vegetables from his farm to add to the overflowing produce baskets in the Big House’s kitchen. At the end of the day he forages through the kitchen waste and gathers the discarded cauliflower stubs and potato peelings to take home to his mother.
Though Prem’s working at the Big House is a form of slavery, ironically he doesn’t have to work as hard as he would have at home. It is confounding how soft his life has become. Out in the farmlands, he had to use his faculties more in the space of an hour than most people at the Big House have to in their entire lives. He believes the zamindar’s fields stretch out to the limits of every horizon, all golden in the sun, more fertile and less weedy than his own.
All the jobs are neatly assigned to the others who, like him, have lost their liberty because of a family debt. When a job is done, it is done, and after that one can lounge, smoke a bidi, or go wait in the back of the kitchen for scraps. His training at home has made him quick. There he did every job: weeding, fencing, digging, planting, mending . . . when you have nothing it seems like all the labour in the world won’t help you get ahead. Only once has he seen men here work as solidly as he did in his father’s fields: when putting out a wildfire in the granary – without any instruction – just for the sake of survival.
Lokend had to do very little to convince Prem to accept the cause. For Prem, Lokend is an avatar, a man made of glory, a true representation of what a saintly being should be. He would go to hell and back if his Lokend Bhai asked him to. But still, the boy has to rationalise his conduct every day, because he knows that by some yardstick he has betrayed the village. He has heard the stories: rivers of blood, maiming, slaughter and rape. And he has seen the scars on men and women, now more than twice his age: a jagged piece of bone jutting out where the elbow should have been, eyes gouged out, tongues struck dumb, legless beggars at the temple steps . . . He has nightmares filled with writhing, shrieking bodies, blood mixing with blood of every caste, thrown on a pile higher than his head. And still he helps the bandits, those same demons who have terrorised his village since before he was born. All for his mentor Lokend Bhai.
Setting conviction aside, the boy’s situation becomes more tenuous every day.
‘You just have to say the word and I’ll find someone else,’ says Lokend. ‘Don’t think you must do this job just because Manmohan asked for you.’ Lokend is the only man in all Gopalpur who says the bandit’s name sans the condemning prefix daku, bandit. Daku, more than a label, is a part of the dreaded man’s name: Daku Manmohan, the words go together like chillies and chapattis.
The boy looks into Lokend’s face, unsure. No one has ever given him options before. He doesn’t know how to react. This man means more to him than his own father, but he dare not show his devotion. Why, Lokend Bhai probably has hundreds of people equally committed to him. Prem squirms, his bare toes biting into the damp soil of Asmara Didi’s rose bed.
‘Think about it.’ Lokend does not explain how dangerous the boy’s job is, that it might get him killed. For months the wily chap has managed to pass missives, rolled in leaves, in perishable chalk code under special rocks and milk pails, back and forth, back and forth between Lokend and the bandit. ‘By the way, that was a nice ceremony . . . Your sister’s marriage . . .’ he explains as the boy looks askance at him.
‘Oh, yes. The best part of it was that you came. My father liked that. I think she liked the sweets you brought.’
‘Yes, the sweets . . .’ Lokend suddenly realises that she has lingered with him. ‘I hope she will be happy. Do you know anything of her husband?’
‘No, Bapu accepted the first offer that came his way,’ he says cautiously. ‘My sister was too old for marriage. They said we had to be grateful. The dowry . . . the dowry . . .’
‘You needn’t be embarrassed; I know why you work here. She has a good marriage because of you. You must know that.’
‘I wish she could have had a different destiny. Found someone different.’
‘Found someone different?’
‘Yes, someone kind and gentle, someone like you maybe.’
The man and boy smile at each other.
‘Think about it,’ says Lokend again, ‘don’t tell me now. But you only have to hint . . .’
The last thing Prem will do is think over the one job he is so proud to have. He is relieved when the conversation is over. He turns back to the roses, weeding, pruning, grafting, coaxing them into flower.
At least Lokend has the weight of the Big House behind him, but Prem, he has nothing. If the police knew of his involvement in the whole affair, they would throw him in jail without filing any appropriate paperwork, that’s if the villagers didn’t lynch him first. The rage against the bandits is so high that the slightest hint of suspicion would be enough to dispatch the boy’s dismembered body to the dunghill the very next day.
Lokend cautiously tucks a roll of paper wrapped in a betel-leaf in Prem’s palm. The boy clutches it tight. Lokend is glad this whole business is coming to an end. A few more missives and then it’ll be done. The police and their jeeps will have to give up, throwing up their hands in the face of a job well finished. The boy hides the leaf in a secret pocket. Now that Mamta has gone, he has to give it to Sneha to leave under the rock by the well tonight. She won’t ask any questions. How many times has he been tempted to hide by that rock and wait and see who comes to claim the message for Daku Manmohan, but he dare not. Lokend has warned him, ‘The less information you have, the safer you will be.’
Tonight’s message might be the most important. It is the one that tells Daku Manmohan where the surrender will take place – in exactly twelve days in front of Lala Ram’s shop.
A senior officer and a city boy are there at the appointed crossroad
to guide Lokend to the jail meant for the bandit. For good measure, the city boy puts a blinking light on top of the jeep. Not that there is anyone to take note of it. The senior officer shows his displeasure by riding out in silence.
‘We Indians find the worst possible uses for our beautiful old buildings, turning them into prisons, post offices or municipal warehouses,’ says Lokend as they come round the bend face to face with the prison tucked in the lee of the Red Ruins.
Almost complete, pigeons are already roosting in all three of its rooms. It is farcical, standing comically against the Red Ruins whose stones have been appropriated for its retaining wall.
‘This is the cell and these two rooms are for the guards. One will double as an office. They forgot to put in the door to the cell, but it will be in this week . . .’ The senior officer explains the details with the uninspired pomposity of a man in uniform. The cell is tiny, any prisoner would have difficulty standing erect in it.
‘This is it?’ Lokend’s intonation saturates his words with disbelief.
‘He’s a bandit, or have you forgotten? Some say you have thrown in your lot with these men. Some say you are one of them.’ The insinuation isn’t lost on Lokend, the senior officer is accusing him of taking bribes.
‘Boss . . .’ the city boy restrains his superior from saying another undignified word. He is spellbound by Lokend’s gnostic calm. For him Lokend represents all those amorphous beings of his childhood stories who tackled adversity with fortitude. He sees a miracle in Lokend, whereas his superior does not.
Lokend holds up his hand to the city boy and smiles. There is no anger or embarrassment in his face. ‘No, I am not one of them,’ he explains to the senior officer calmly.
‘Then how can you go against your father, against the village, and help these murderers? How have they won you over?’ The senior officer sees the situation very clearly in the context of his value system. It has to be a bribe.
‘Do you think something as worthless as a bribe made him do this?’ asks the city boy, suddenly unafraid for himself.
‘Leave it, my friend. We all suffer from the blindness of proximity. The closer something is to us, the less we are able to see it, like the lashes round our eyes.’ Lokend is willing to part only with riddles at this stage. He has had these conversations before. People will believe what they will.
The senior officer recovers his bureaucratic poise and prepares to deliver his own speech. But before he can do so, Lokend explains, ‘Don’t forget, Daku Manmohan is surrendering of his own accord. He doesn’t have to. He is doing it because I asked.’ From someone else’s lips the words might have sounded arrogant, but the delivery leaves no room for mistake: it is merely a statement of fact. The exposed sincerity in Lokend’s face sends a shiver of shame through his accuser’s frame. There aren’t many who can withstand the force of Lokend’s gentleness.
The senior officer debates the case internally. After a while he says, ‘What can we do about it now?’ Slowly he is crossing over to Lokend’s camp. ‘It is too late to build something else, and the daku insists on being jailed here.’
‘If this jail cell holds him in, it will be only because he has given me his word that he won’t try to escape. Build the door. We will keep him here for a few months and when the frenzy dies down, we will transfer him to New Delhi. That’s where he belongs anyway.’
‘The surrender will be difficult. You cannot rely on the police,’ the senior officer warns Lokend. ‘After all, it will be a crowd . . . a crowd of the wronged.’
‘We will face it.’
‘But why didn’t you do it somewhere else, in secret? Or in a place like New Delhi, where we could have put the collective shoulder of the police force behind you?’ Both men know this is just talk.
‘I tried, but Manmohan wouldn’t hear of it. He said he didn’t want to cheat his victims any longer. It was agreed in our final meeting. Anyway, he’ll be paraded by politicians in every important city, right up to New Delhi. Why start sooner than we have to?’ he says to the policemen.
‘That’s if he survives. Does no one read the papers? Gopalpur is described as Daku Manmohan’s playground. Delhi doesn’t understand that this event needs at least two hundred policemen to see it through safely. And how many are we getting? Thirty, if we are lucky. I just hope it won’t be the innocent who will die,’ the senior officer adds earnestly. ‘The safety of Daku Manmohan and his gang rests with you. You shouldn’t depend on police guns. Your speech will have to be convincing.’
All this time Lokend has managed to dodge the reporters, but not today. Today they will find him, which is just as well. They are his best armour. If their photographs will be in the papers the next day, the villagers wouldn’t dare harm Lokend or take down any unarmed bandits for fear of reprisals.
‘Lokend Sahib?’
‘Yes.’ Lokend has returned to the Big House, the appointed meeting place for the interview.
‘Rajiv, from the Times of India.’ The reporter is glad for this assignment. It was either the dusty back of beyond or answering more irate reader letters about the Rajasthan nuclear weapon tests. ‘So, sir, tell me what attracted you to the bandit’s cause?’ Lokend has been judged a soft shell. He will be an easy one to interview, even manipulate.
‘Well, let’s see. Ever since I was a boy the talk was always of bandits in our lands. When I became a man, the talk was still of bandits in our lands. I think I’d like to grow old and not have to listen to the same stale talk of bandits in our lands.’
‘Ha, ha, well put. But why Daku Manmohan? Do you think you are serving the cause of justice? I mean, if he were tried and convicted in a court of law, wouldn’t that be more fitting than this surrender? After all, there is a death penalty hanging over his head.’
‘You know my friend, I believe in connections.’ The reporter purses his lips. ‘Yes, you never know when and under what circumstances you might meet someone again. Always keep that in mind before you toss anyone in the rubbish dump.’
‘You mean give them a second chance?’
‘I mean keep an open mind. Action and reaction, that’s what it’s all about. Killing will only spawn more killing. We have to let the life out of this movement.’
‘There is talk about a following among the women here. Has he really protected them from rape? Bandits are notorious rapists, but in this case it seems he is their saviour.’
‘He is an extraordinary man. If you met him under any other circumstances, you would put your faith in him. He lives by a strict code of conduct. Often stricter than our community’s. I can’t tell you if he has or hasn’t protected girls from rape, but that is just the kind of thing he would do.’
‘And what about you? Why have you given away your lands? What do you stand for?’ Might as well cover two stories in one go.
‘This is not about me. It is about Daku Manmohan.’ Lokend will not be lured into saying more than he has to.
‘So where is the surrender?’
‘At Lala Ram’s shop. In twelve days. Be there.’
‘I still think that he should be judged in a court. He should not be allowed to surrender here after what he’s done to these people.’
‘You mean we should be like the priest who bars a man from praying at the temple because he isn’t worthy of God?’ Lokend laughs loudly.
Something awakens in the reporter’s memory, ‘I know you . . . Do I not know you from somewhere?’
‘We’ve never met before.’
The reporter shakes his head to loosen the garrotte of disquieting thought. He recognises Lokend, he’s sure of it. And then he isn’t as sure. His mother would have immediately explained it as a karmic connection, a meeting in a past life.
‘We are building a cell here, just for him. He wants it to become a place of pilgrimage where people might come to relinquish their hate.’
‘Yes, and there is so much to hate.’
‘When the world is done and gone there will still be hate. People think t
hat not hating is a conscious decision, whereas hating is spontaneous. But I tell you, to love is just as easy as to hate . . .’
‘I wish you spoke for the whole village, Lokend Sahib, but unfortunately you don’t. The bones and cuts may have healed, but their hearts still bear raw wounds.’
‘Depends on how far away you stand . . . in time, I mean. Look at events from the distance of time and hatred becomes benign. They may hate tomorrow, may hate even for five, ten years, or a hundred . . . a thousand, even two thousand . . . What then?’
‘What are you two huddled over? Here, drink some tea.’ Asmara Didi carries the tray herself.
‘So, Mataji, as a resident of Gopalpur and so close to Lokend Sahib, what do you think about the whole affair?’ The difference in their ages is much too vast for him to think of addressing her as Didi.
Of course Asmara Didi is against the whole project, but she will never say so. She assiduously avoids the issue, except when she has to defend Lokend against Singh Sahib. Would he do the same for her? No, he wouldn’t. Love and loyalty would never alter his plans. He is that sort of man, a soul that can only live in the realm of Truth, somewhere on a lofty ascetic plane, unattached; and to some, pitiless, even callous.
But Lokend is neither pitiless nor callous. He isn’t sapped by some internal fight, or spent by someone else’s code of ethics. He is one of those so unconcerned with the outcome of his action that he can participate in it fully.
‘What does it matter what I think? I am old. I have lived with this bandit business for most of my life.’ Asmara Didi puts down the tea. ‘I just hope and pray that peace is in our destiny.’
‘I don’t believe in destiny. For me, destiny is one’s private plan, it is much too narrow-minded, it is personal, egoistic . . .’ says Rajiv of the Times. ‘Give me a divine plan for samsara any day.’
‘I don’t care if there is or there isn’t a divine plan,’ says Asmara Didi. ‘All I know is that this man might die for what he is doing. The surrender will not be accepted by the village. There has been too much blood spilt. But who can tell him to stop?’ She turns from Rajiv of the Times of India to Lokend. ‘Now give this old woman a hug,’ she commands, ‘and remember I still want grandchildren!’ The mongoose safely out of the way, Asmara Didi opens her arms to embrace her surrogate son.