Making a great show of courage, Ravlu edged past the angry family and went inside. He came out a short while later saying, ‘I looked everywhere, he’s not there.’
‘We want Guna. We won’t spare him. We’ll show him what happens if anyone dares to beat up a Christian,’ the constable said to the family as the soldiers turned away.
Guna had gone to the forest to cut some bamboo to erect a canopy in the courtyard and was expected home soon. His wife Devki sent her young brother-in-law Mhadu to stop him from coming home. ‘Tell him to go to the shack in the field at Sadgali, we’ll take payz there,’ she said.
Mhadu was a simple youth, fifteen or sixteen years old. His body was bare except for the loincloth at his waist. Two fresh welts, bloody and bluish-black in colour, where the constable’s whip had landed, stood out on his back. He raced along the track till he reached the foot of the wooded slope. He waited there for a while and after some time saw Guna and Shabi emerge carrying loads of bamboo on their heads.
Mhadu told Guna all that had happened and Guna was beside himself with rage. Then his eyes fell on the bloody welts and he shouted, ‘Mhadu, did they strike you with the whip? They must have whipped Bappa as well…’ Guna threw down the load from his head and brandishing his sickle, rushed forth yelling, ‘I’ll teach them a lesson! I’ll chop them down like the bamboos in the forest!’
Mhadu quickly grabbed him from behind and held him back. Shabi reasoned with him too. ‘What use is that sickle before their might? Die, if you must, but teach them a lesson first,’ he said.
The tiny shack where Guna was hiding stood on a low hillock just outside the village in the shade of a huge mango tree that seemed to hide the sky. Guna’s father, brother and wife took turns at bringing him his meals. The soldiers had made two trips to his house in four days to look for him. The family was quite perplexed. Why were the soldiers making such a fuss about Guna beating up Sukhdo’s son?
The soldiers were out to prove a point. They wanted to tell the villagers that a Christian convert was a privileged person, that he received protection from the King. If anyone dared to meddle with a convert, he would be punished, and forced to become a Christian himself.
Guna was bored, sitting in the shack all day. One day he told his wife, ‘Pack some stuff and be ready, we might have to leave this village soon. We’ll knock off a couple of soldiers, pick up our stuff and escape. We’ll have to leave the village anyway.’
‘Which barren plateau will you take us to, once we abandon this village?’ his wife asked fearfully.
‘Why should it be barren? A farmer can eke out a living anywhere as long as he has a plough. We can settle in any open space and till the soil. Or we can clear the undergrowth in the forest and grow some hardy crop … anything is better than living amidst these selfish cowardly villagers who are too scared to retaliate.’
The light had begun to wane and the sun was slipping behind the hillock when Devki decided to return home. ‘It’ll be dark soon. I’ll come with you up to the tamarind grove,’ her husband said.
‘No further than that. They keep roaming about the village these days. Yesterday Sukhdo and his son built ridges in their new field. Two soldiers stood on guard with naked swords. The villagers watched everything from a distance, but no one stepped forward.’
As Guna turned back from the tamarind grove, he saw the last rays of the setting sun, like sharp arrows, fall on the large cross atop the hill. The newly white-washed structure stood out clearly even in the failing light. ‘Tell Raya and Shabi to come and see me,’ he called.
Devki’s heart was heavy in her chest as she crossed the stream. By the time she reached home, it was time to light the lamps. But barely had she stepped in when her mother-in-law asked, ‘Why are you so late?’
‘We were talking.’
‘What did he say? How long will he have to stay there? Haven’t been able to sleep or rest these past four days. Deva, what will happen to us?’ she wailed.
‘He didn’t say anything. Why are you crying? If it comes to that we will leave everything and go away.’
‘He must have said that to you. Deva, what sort of fate is this! Leaveour land, abandon our temples and our gods. Forsake everything that’s been ours for eighteen generations … where will we go then?’
Devki’s father-in-law came up to them. ‘I’d gone to Raigali to see if the Brahmins had any advice. But they’re terrified. Subrai Shenai said that those people would forgive Guna if he became a Christian,’ he said in a low voice.
‘He’ll die first,’ Devki snapped at her father-in-law. ‘He won’t become a Christian. He has the courage to make barren land turn into fertile fields.’
‘He has courage, his blood boils, we all know that. But what of us, old people? How can we climb those hilly tracts?’
‘If you can’t, he’ll seat you in baskets and carry you on his shoulders.’
‘Daughter-in-law, if you say such things he’ll get more adamant. We won’t leave this village, we’ll die here. Take the younger boy with you. Once you settle down somewhere come and see if we’re still alive.’
When Guna emerged from the shack the next day, his eyes were drawn to the cross which gleamed like silver in the morning sunlight. Though it stood on a hill about two miles away, it seemed as if it was only an arm’s length away. There it stands striking a pickaxe deep into our hearts, he thought.
A little shrine dedicated to god Khetrapal stood just beyond Shirvaddo. Its roof was thatched with wild grass, not hay or palm fronds. So, when the month of Poush began, all the villagers went up into the hills to gather wild grass. Re-thatching the roof of the shrine was a community event and each man wanted to be involved in the auspicious work. Once it was done, the jagar was held over three consecutive nights.
Guna used to play the ghumot drum at the temple festival every year. So when the strains of music carried to his ears he got up and rushed towards the village as though possessed by a demon. What sort of vile celebrations are these? When these foreigners set fire to the shrine’s roof in the days to come, not one man will rise to protect it. If only the tempo of the music would rise to a crescendo filling the skies, if only the villagers would come together with cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev! ’ and pounce upon these trespassers … such a death would be preferable to this slow passive one, he thought.
Guna stood in the shadows trying to locate Raya and Shabi in the crowd. It was quite cold and the men were wrapped in blankets. Guna wound his kambal tightly about his face and head and moved closer to establish contact with his friends. Who knows if anyone noticed them slipping away, only one head turned as they edged into the darkness.
The three friends walked up the Gholi hillock, lit faintly by starlight carrying a large crowbar that they had stolen from mason Dhaku’s porch. Dhaku had laid the bricks and built the cross on the hill. The sound of music and singing wafted up to their ears. Soon the cross loomed before them, gleaming dully. They stared at it like devils, with bloodshot eyes. Hatred and violence, the most base of human emotions, bubbled out of their hearts. The desire for revenge blew away all traces of decency and humanity from their souls.
Guna struck the first blow with the crowbar as though he were striking at the enemy’s heart, but the cross didn’t get dislodged. It merely shook a bit. In any case they didn’t have the strength to destroy the cross, they were mere individuals spurred by an impotent fury, all they could do was to chip away bits of stone. The ones who erected the cross and the ones who sought to destroy it were guided by high moral principles. Each man believed that what he was doing was for his religion, for his God. Perhaps both sides were right. Or maybe, both were wrong. This mighty confusion had been created by that demon that goes by the name of religion. It draws power from God, and breeds injustice and cruelty as a result of that power. God, Himself, was the author of this confusion, perhaps.
They chipped away chunks of the laterite that had been used to erect the cross. ‘This is where they plan to kill tho
se who refuse to accept their faith,’ Shabi said with profound relief.
‘What do they need a cross for? If they want, they can hang two hundred people from the branches of this tree. All we can do is express our rage by breaking this cross like cowards! Anyway, let’s get away now,’ Guna declared.
The first visible emblem of Christianity in the village was thus destroyed. They flung the crowbar into a thicket and came down the hill. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll have to leave this village sooner or later. Talk to the elders in the settlement, tell them not to cling to their possessions, to be ready to leave…’ Saying so, Guna disappeared into the darkness.
When Shef Camil Ribeir turned to pray to the cross on the horizon early the next morning he was distraught. There was no pall of smoke, the hill was bathed in bright sunlight, but where was the cross? His eyes darted about in trepidation and a deep sadness filled his soul. Then he began to tremble with rage. ‘Go! Find that cross. Set fire to the village. The culprits must die! Drag the corpses here and lay them at the padre’s feet!’ he yelled.
The soldiers rushed towards the hillock, lashing out at people with their whips. The padre held the shef responsible for this incident. ‘You are responsible for our safety in this village and for the well-being of the Christian religion. They’ve broken the cross today, tomorrow they might decide to kill us. We’ll tell the King that you failed to protect our religion. They break the cross, they beat up new converts. Nothing of this sort has happened in any other village. Anyone who dares to go against our faith has been severely punished,’ the priest declared.
The shef leapt on to his horse and galloped towards the hill. Tears flowed out of his eyes as he knelt before the broken cross and begged forgiveness. He moved down the hill towards Suba Telu’s little shack.
‘Are you the village watchman?’ the shef asked.
‘Yes, deva.’
‘Did you go on your round last night?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Do you know who broke the cross on the hill?’
‘No, deva, I know nothing.’
The shef pulled out his whip. Old man Suba was so terrified that words failed him at first. ‘The jagar celebrations were on all night. Loud music. I was alone. Someone called out … no, no. They just passed this way. Wrapped in blankets in the darkness.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Don’t know their names. I don’t know them, deva.’
The shef cracked his whip and the old man fell to the ground, his bruised back brushing the earth. Blinded with rage and a desire for revenge, the shef ordered his men to set fire to the shack. Five or six soldiers went in and grabbed the sticks burning in the hearth. The daughter-in-law, whose tattered clothes barely covered her upper body, rushed out screaming in terror. Suba dragged himself along the ground and clung to the shef’s feet, but no one paid attention. The thatched roof caught fire at once and in a few minutes, the whole shack was a mass of flames. The six khandis of paddy that Suba received as payment for his duties as village watchman, which would have lasted them the year, were reduced to ashes.
The soldiers questioned whoever they met over the next two days and if the answers were not to their liking, they beat them up. They arrested Dhaku the mason, who didn’t dare tell them about the crowbar that was missing from his porch. ‘If I build something, whether it’s a platform for the sacred tulsi plant or a cross, it’s like my child. How can I destroy it myself? This is the work of some strong, young man,’ was all he chose to say. He was the only one who escaped their whips.
Padre Simao Peres kept away from controversy and continued with his work. His mission was to propagate his religion, not to work for social change. But any form of injustice filled him with sorrow and remorse. He believed that priesthood would give him a golden chance to serve the poor and the downtrodden and lead them to Jesus, but his experience in Goa had shattered this illusion. He was deeply upset, but he didn’t let himself lose hope.
Dugga Mhar’s son, Ghungo, came to meet the padre early one morning. Ghungo was a tall, well-built young man with large eyes that glittered brightly against his dark skin. He wore a tiny loincloth and his bare body was covered with bloody welts. The priest rose up in alarm and passed a gentle hand over the welts, ‘Who did this to you, brother?’ he asked.
The youth burst into tears. ‘There was this cow’s carcass in someone’s shed in Shirvaddo. By the time they called us the stomach had bloated and it was stinking. The cow’s leg would have broken off if I touched it,’ he sobbed.
‘So?’
‘They told me to drag the carcass away. “It’s your job. Go fetch your father,” they said. I refused. “Dig a trench in the ground and bury it here,” I told them.’
‘Then?’
‘They pushed a spade into my hands and told me to dig the trench. I refused. How can a low caste Mhar use these implements to strike the earth? I told them to dig the trench, and I would push the carcass in. They got very angry and three or four men grabbed sticks and beat me up.’
‘You are a young man, brother. You’re also very strong. Why didn’t you defend yourself?’
‘Oh no, Padre! They’d have set fire to our shack with us inside!’
‘Why have you come here?’
‘Padre bappa, I’ve heard that all men are equal in your faith. Everyone prays together and eats together.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I want to join your faith. Make me a Christian.’
‘I will. Are your parents alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring the other members of your family. Let me talk to them first.’
When the youth went away the priest turned to Tomas, ‘Do you think he’ll return?’ he asked.
‘Can’t tell, Padre bappa, they’re cowards. The poison has sunk into their bodies.’
‘I want him to return with his whole family. I’m so angry with the Hindu religion, I want to convert them all.’
‘I’m glad, Padre bappa. Ever since I heard the bad news I’ve wanted you to convert them by force.’
‘What bad news, Tomas?’
Tears rushed into the man’s eyes. ‘My wife has taken our children and moved out of Goa with her parents. For two years, she kept saying she’d become a Christian. She lied to me. Now I’ll serve you for the rest of my life. I’ll even die for you, Padre bappa.’
Ghungo, his wife, his parents and two young sisters came to the priest’s shack on the third day.
‘Dugga, do you recognize me?’ the priest asked, going up to him.
‘Yes, vhadda mansha. You touched me once.’
‘Did you become impure? Did you go home and bathe, sprinkling dung water over yourself?’
‘How can we become impure? It’s other people who become impure by our touch.’
‘Would you like other people to touch you?’
‘No, ga. If someone touches me accidently, I can’t sleep all night.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘He forced us to come. Said he’d kill himself if we didn’t.’
‘So you’re not happy about becoming a Christian?’
‘What does it matter, we’ll burn if we’re thrown into the fire, or boil if we’re thrown into hot oil. Either way we will die.’
‘So, what’s the problem?’
‘We have to fill our bellies. We get a portion of the harvest from the council’s fields. They toss food into our baskets on festivals and give us three measures of paddy for dragging away dead cattle.’
‘We have to beg at their doors and get beaten up sometimes,’ Ghungo burst out angrily.
‘That’s our fate. No matter where you go, you’ll still be a Mhar, you’ll still have to handle dead cattle. You want to be treated like a Brahmin by becoming a Christian? Forget it. All that will happen is that we’ll lose our rights, we’ll not get the income that our forefathers received.’
‘Now look
here, Dugga,’ the priest tried to explain, ‘no one will tamper with your caste or your work. If they don’t give you a share of the harvest, they’ll have to pay you for each task that you perform.’
‘Do what you will, Padre bappa, I’ll keep quiet. He’s the one who’s struck by this madness. Tomorrow, when the villagers beat us for converting, we’ll just have to suffer their blows.’
‘Don’t be afraid, Dugga. The shef and his soldiers will protect you and your family. No one can raise a finger against a Christian in Goa. You are now protected by the King,’ Simao Peres said, silently begging forgiveness from Jesus. ‘Tomorrow is Sunday. Come here at daybreak. You’ll be baptized at the Kalapur church.’
Just twelve days after this family was baptized the padre found himself in another difficult situation. The Solankhes were the only families that practised sati in the village and the he had witnessed first-hand how cruel and inhuman these people could be. Viceroy Constantin Braganza had tried to ban sati on humanitarian grounds, but until the King of Portugal issued such a decree the practice would continue in different parts of Goa.
It was well past midnight when someone called out softly in front of the padre’s shack. A man stood there, accompanied by a young girl who seemed very scared and weighed down by some immense sorrow. The girl’s manner of draping her sari showed that she was a married woman, but her face radiated a childlike innocence.
‘Padre bappa, it’s Marto Nayak of Shirvaddo,’ Tomas said as he led the two into the shack.
‘This is my daughter, Gunai, she’s just turned thirteen. Two years ago she was married to Bhanvar Solankhe’s son and two months back, after performing all the rituals, I took her to her husband’s house. Her husband had cut his foot on a spade some time back, but the wound didn’t heal. Yesterday, he had convulsions and fell to the ground foaming at the mouth. His body turned stiff and he died,’ the man said, trying to hold back his tears. ‘The husband’s family insists that my innocent daughter should be burnt to death on her husband’s pyre. Padre bappa, this is my only child, I love her very much, I will not let her die!’
Age of Frenzy Page 10