Legends of Pensam

by Mamang Dai

  It was the hills breaking our backs, I thought. The steep slopes offered little. In the towns, rice, lentils, oils, everything could be purchased, but in the far flung villages every stalk of grain, every root of tapioca and every extra luxury like beans and cabbages was raised with backbreaking toil.

  ‘Well, earning money is no joke either,’ said Dabo. It was no secret that he found no joy in his work, but his silent arena was filled with movement and thoughts of escape. And at least he had a roof over his head. In the villages it was quite different. Families clawed their way up black fields and lived with blackened hands and broken nails. Rigbi had fled from the village after the death of his wife and now they said he could marry again. He had a way with young women. No one protested, because everyone knew that all our days are like a small breeze that stirs briefly in the teeming green when the evening is filled with the cry of insects rising with desire before they die.

  Dabo was saying, ‘On the way to Rigbi’s village you pass the land of caves. There are big caves and rocks dotting the place and they’re full of bats. People say on our way south the tribes sheltered in these caves. The children grew up eating bats. Tapon, tapon, they cried. We want to eat bats!’

  Ah! The caves again. And with this, the echoing voice of my friend talking of ‘the golden chance’! I had heard about these caves in the hills far up to the north. The few people who had seen the place said it was a network of tunnels that opened into caverns wide enough to park five lorries side by side. They said when you turned off the torch the darkness inside was absolute, it was unlike anything in human experience. Perhaps the beginning of the world was something like that. Keyum. That is what we call that darkness beyond the reach of memory. And of course it was not god who created light; it was the spark of imagination that gave birth to light. This was the path of seeing. Now I pondered this. Maybe the film-makers would be interested in the caves, and in our stories of creation.

  It was important to record our stories. The old rhapsodists were a dying breed, and when they were gone, who would remember?

  What happens to the people and the places we forget? Where do they go?

  Hah, who knows about these things, I thought.

  Just then it was announced, ‘Food is ready!’

  A small feast was laid out before us. Chicken cooked in bamboo, turned on a slow fire. The delicate flavours of the petals of the plantain flower and Rigbi’s secret herbs. Aromatic bamboo rice, each grain glistening in its paper-thin skin. Crushed berries liberally mixed with dried chillies and ginger paste. Everything was perfect. The cold weather had whetted our appetite. A sense of well-being and happiness spread like a warm glow in our bones. Perhaps the ancients were right after all. Delicious food, like beautiful form and melodious sound, is certainly one of the five attributes of the realm of desire.

  Dabo, who was rummaging in the cupboard, whipped out a bottle containing a pale golden liquid. It was the distilled spirit of rice wine. ‘Today is the day!’ he said. It was heady stuff. The first sip was like a taste of nostalgia. Suddenly our youth glided past like a bright train at night, bearing the shining pieces of our lives like faces in the lighted windows. It is always like this; it is an intricate magic: we imagine the way to avoid regret is to do nothing, or try everything.

  ‘Here it comes!’ Now Rigbi came in holding the big pot of steaming, fabulous pork in front of him. He bent forward a little, and his boy ran up immediately and handed him a piece of cloth. Rigbi wedged it into the handle, and as we all looked eagerly, one end of the heavy pot lifted, and the other handle seemed to pull away and in an unbelievable, heart-stopping moment, slipped from his desperate grip. Then everything was flying through the air.

  ‘W-A-AHH!’ The pot clanged noisily, then shuddered into stillness. We had stopped breathing. No one moved. No one said anything. Dabo was holding his head and his eyes were shut tight.

  It was the boy who was the quickest of us all. In a flash he had found an empty basin and was rapidly picking up the scattered chunks of meat and throwing them into it. He was concentrating fiercely, brows in a tight knit, and he was breathing hard, as if he was choking.

  Omi rose, as if from a dream. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried. ‘How could you let such a thing happen? I don’t believe it!’

  Rigbi’s face was all crinkled up. He was about to burst into laughter, and looking at the bright yellow gravy and the steam rising up off the floor, we were all beginning to feel the same way. Dabo was already spluttering helplessly. Now Omi looked up from the floor and threw up both her hands to her face and started howling with laughter. Rigbi was doubled over, slapping his thighs and laughing and laughing.

  ‘Hah! Ha! Where’s the broom? Ah, curse it! Curse you, you rotten fellow. Hah ha ha!’

  ‘Rotten pot!’ said Rigbi, keeling over with mirth. His trousers were splattered with meat and his little boy was kneeling close to his feet, blowing hard and scooping up handfuls of the hot gravy into the basin.

  ‘Here, here…Leave it,’ his father said, bending down now and throwing some more pieces of meat into the basin. ‘Leave the rest, eh? We’ll sweep it up.’

  The boy stared at him. Rigbi had stopped laughing and for a moment father and son were locked in an intense exchange of shock, disappointment, apology. Then the boy stood up and rushed out with his small face set and inscrutable.

  More bottles of wine materialized. I couldn’t stop drinking and eating the belladonna berries. It was like a secret addiction. When I finally made my way home, the sky was cold and pale, like a shell. In the west a strange glow seemed to creep in through the gaps in the hills. For no reason I was thinking how wonderful everything was. The golden chance!

  Suddenly I remembered the face of the small boy, so sad and set; so attentive, staring at his father, and I thought, Everywhere you go, sons follow in the footsteps of their fathers, whether worthy or not, trying to earn money, find a shelter, make a life.

  The golden chance? Who gets it?

  Perhaps that is not even the question. It is simply about doing something, and getting the chance to make your own luck.

  on stage

  In the village all the youngsters were grouped around the TV. The picture was just clear enough to make out a glittering stage and a group of men and women smiling and singing.

  ‘How lucky they are!’ sighed Mimum. ‘In another life, perhaps, we will be happy like them!’

  ‘How do you know they are happy?’ said Omum.

  ‘Well, just look at them. They are shining and receiving awards.’

  Indeed, the singers were bowing left and right and through the static they could hear the sound of cheering and clapping. One of the singers was holding up something and turning and bowing in all directions.

  ‘How clever they are!’ sighed Mimum again. ‘Really, these ayings have everything. They are too much!’

  ‘In my next life I would like to own a horse and live like a queen!’ said Omum.

  Mimum burst into laughter. ‘Just try it,’ she said. ‘A fine queen you will make with your short nose and small eyes!’

  Omum stared at her, then she said, ‘My eyes are my eyes. I may not be a great beauty but at least my eyes are where they should be, and my nose hangs in its rightful place. What more does a human being need?’

  Now her eyes were completely shut as her round, childish face puffed out with suppressed laughter.

  Suddenly Yayo started intoning, ‘What is luck and happiness? Every human being shares the same lot. They may have soft hair and pretty eyes, these plains people, but how happy are they? Who knows, perhaps they are just pretending because they are on TV…’

  ‘How can anyone pretend so much, especially in front of a camera?’ said Mimum smartly.

  ‘They can pretend more in front of a camera—why not? Everyone can pretend in front of an audience, everyone knows that,’ retorted Yayo. ‘That’s the whole game. Where you can’t pretend is to yourself.’

  ‘Well I don’t think so. T
hey do look rich! If I had money I would be so happy,’ insisted Mimum stubbornly, causing Yayo to snort and say, ‘How do you know? You might have all the money in the world but from whom would you buy your happiness, eh? Who has so much happiness that they can afford to sell it to anybody, can you tell me that?’

  The TV hissed and spat and the singers started jumping up and down as bands of black and white wavered on the spotty screen.

  ‘Well, there goes,’ said Mimum. ‘What a place!’

  The younger children did not move. Instead they stared harder at the screen as though their concentrated gaze would correct the signals and restore enough power to revive a clear, sharp picture. The dark clouds looming over the hills were of another world. The sound of chickens, dogs, the squealing of the pigs as they trotted around the houses, all these things were far, far away. A large sow came up and stood looking at them, grunting and twitching her tail. Her beady eyes had a hurt and querying look.

  ‘Look at her, shameless!’ shouted Omum, and immediately hurled a stone at the heaving side of the pig. She kicked up dust and moved back a few paces, scraping the earth with her trotters.

  ‘Hai! Go away. You’ve had enough for one day,’ shouted Omum again, resolutely turning away. But after a while the silence and bulk of the sow got to her and she rose angrily, ‘Come on then, you greedy!’

  The pig twitched her snout and grunted good-naturedly to let her pass.

  The singers on TV continued their programme, and the group gazed in silence at the distant world of the plains. They stood awed, and faintly envious, on the bamboo floor, by the jackfruit tree, under the rustling thatch, turning their heads only once when the loud singing voices of some boys coming up the hill distracted them.

  Mona and her film-maker friend came to survey the place, and I travelled around with them, telling them our stories, till I was tired of words and yearned to sit back and only listen. When they left, I was full of energy again and eager to share in the busy rhythm of life in our village.

  It was sowing time, and everyone had set to work for the annual fencing of the fields for cultivation. It was a major operation. A vast tract of jungle was cleared and grass and bamboo were set ablaze. The fires burned for many days and nights. Excitement mounted with the leaping flames. The air crackled and the burning debris covered the land with fertile ash. Young men prepared wood and bamboo stakes and fenced the new fields to protect them from grazing cattle and wild animals, making a line of demarcation that could run for miles. It was a great and necessary feat. Everyone looked forward to the end of work and the fairs and festivities that would follow.

  Traditionally, the evening after the fence was ready, the party of young men returned home dancing. Dressed in the costumes of warriors they leapt high into the air, slashing and whirling with swords in mock fights. According to the oldtimers this tapu dance had originated as a performance to drive away the spirit of fear that sometimes preyed on men. At such times friends and elders gathered and put on their war dress. They fastened tufts of the thorn-wood stem on their shields and spears and made frightening sounds and gestures to scare off the invisible enemy and impart courage to a friend who was wasting away with fear or some sad sickness.

  At night the men would dance in the longhouse. If you were absent your friends could steal a cooking vessel or wring the neck of one of your chickens as a fine! The men danced until daybreak and this would be repeated for three nights. On the last night they would dance into all the houses and would be welcomed with food and drink. Everyone agreed that in the old days everything was tastier and the flavour of meat and food more mouthwatering. But it wasn’t as if all that fun and flavour was permanently lost. There were still moments of magic and laughter, and every now and then someone would exclaim, ‘See, even old woman Neku who never smiles is smiling tonight!’

  While the earth slept and nurtured the planted seed, the villages grew animated and sparkled with stories and songs.

  This year a crowd was already milling around for the celebrations in Pigo. In the open field near the old market people were talking loudly and settling into the rows of plastic chairs. Some boys were climbing over the new fencing on one side and jumping into the narrow space where their friends were already huddled together, determined to catch the show without tickets. A number of important visitors had arrived, and the stage was being set to showcase traditional culture through the festival that would go on for three days. Yesterday and today would be presented on the same platform; a mingling of old-style presentations and new, modern talent.

  Sirsiri, the great singer, was somewhere in-between, I thought. She was neither old nor very young. She had come down from Gurdum, representing Duyang. As usual, she was dressed in a tight, traditional outfit and took great pride in her role as local bride, wife, and mother of sons. Yes, she was intolerable, but the gods had gifted her such a voice that no such celebration would be complete till she had sung her songs. Even her beaten-down husband came back from his wanderings to be with her at such times.

  Now we saw her wipe the mildew off her shoes and challenge the bright day as she applied a little powder before stepping out of the Maruti van they had driven down in.

  ‘Is that a new dress?’ here husband enquired lazily.

  ‘I bought it two years ago. I just haven’t had a chance to wear it yet.’

  She meant to taunt him: You don’t take me out. You don’t entertain. You don’t do anything! Other people are doing everything and flying off to the cities and making money and buying cars and gold chains and whatnot!

  She stared at their old white van parked in the garden and looked sick with loathing.

  ‘Why can’t we have a new dinner set?’ she wailed at him suddenly, apropos of nothing, but Pesso was used to this sort of thing.

  ‘Why not? Of course we can! Why don’t you get it, but what’s wrong with the one we’ve got, is it broken, eh?’

  Sirsiri brushed past him without another word.

  She knew it would be different on stage. The crowd awaited her. We saw her step out, swinging her hips and shimmering in the glare of the floodlights. So bold! So confident! She was the one, the woman who knew what she wanted, and how to get it.

  This was the thing about Sirsiri. No matter how gossipy and malicious she could be, when she opened her mouth to sing, everything changed. Her brow relaxed. Her beady eyes softened and closed. The abrasive texture of the voice that slandered and whined changed utterly and unexpectedly and became full of whispers, clear and melodious. A note would stretch into a distant wail and tear your heart out as it rose and fell, sometimes a little flawed and faltering but always full of all the pain and longing of the world. At her best she was spellbinding.

  How did this strange alchemy take place, I wondered, watching her caught in the pool of light, controlling every trembling strand of music confidently with her thin body swaying slightly, the still hands, the lifted chin, the barely moving lips.

  Oh, one that I have never seen,

  The one that I have never heard,

  Who are you?

  I send you my name,

  In wind-songs I send you my name,

  If you do not know it

  It is your own fault…

  ‘More! More!’ The crowd shouted.

  It was always the same. At this point Sirsiri would gasp and say, ‘I can’t sing any more. After all, what do you expect? Waah! My children laugh at my voice!’

  She had a girl and two boys. The girl was already of marriageable age. ‘I had them early, you see. Oh, what a life!’

  And she would revert to her mean, scathing self as if there had never been any songs in her life.

  When Sirsiri left the stage and the spell she had cast was broken, I noticed there was animated conversation going on in the front rows as the officials in charge nodded and answered the questions of the guests. Then the curtains were drawn back again and the audience saw a woman seated at her loom. She represented the earth. A wide, blue veil was he
r husband, the sky. Against this backdrop the silhouette of bamboo and giant leaves covering the stage swayed from side to side. Suddenly, there was a sharp crack simulating a shocking thunderclap and a huge, black mithun trotted in.

  The angry animal looks around ferociously, his horns catching the sunlight. It is the beginning of the world. He is the firstborn of the earth and sky, and they are still so close to each other that the child of their union is restless, determined to find his own space. While the drums pound and the lights flash on and off across the stage, he tosses the sky away with his horns, high above the earth. The blue cloth is whisked off the stage and all is darkness. Then a pale light grows and spreads and the hushed crowds see the woman standing up now with her hands outstretched to the distant sky. At this point two elaborately costumed figures wearing large discs of the sun and moon appear silently and stand beside her. The earth woman is ashamed and remains standing where she is. A voice, backstage, says: ‘… and that part of her that was reaching out towards her lord and master, the sky, became fixed forever as the great mountains…’

  Everyone in the field clapped and shouted. They knew who was playing the earth woman and the mithun, and they called out the names of the sun and moon and cheered them. It was becoming very lively. After many calls for silence and order the curtain lifted again. It was Menga X, the legendary performer of yesteryear.

  The crowd had been waiting. Thousands of people, young and old, were waiting to hear his voice again. He knew this, but his famed lightning energy seemed to be failing him. The stage flooded with light. He looked at the microphone as if it was a strange, alien object that he had not seen before, and when he held it, I could tell that to him it did not feel good to the touch anymore, and he was uncertain if any true emotion could be communicated through the cold metal pitted with holes and fitted to so many cables and wires. ‘It is frightening sometimes. Those deep, booming boxes seem to mock me,’ he had told me once. ‘This is what happens when you let go, when you are out of touch. I must change with the times or shut up and be quiet for ever!’