25
Myths, Legends, Folk-tales: History
Apart from the
common Gods of a particular socio-cultural and religious section there’re smaller
local Gods, deities and deified family and clan ancestors who firm up the faith
of smaller constituent settlements. Similarly, there’s a parallel (or
constituent) unit of local legends, myths, folk and fairy-tales alongside the
overarching hierarchy of common cultural and historical milieu.
This village too
basked in the luminous solitude of its own little myths, legends and historical
tales. As far as history is concerned who can give a historically confident
account of nearly six lakh human settlements across the length and breadth of India
In earlier times,
practically every settlement did boast of one such unofficially recognised
historian, who in his books kept the family names across generations, their
charities and donations to the bhat
ancestors. From sandiest of remoteness they still arrive with their books
probably once or twice in a year. Give then the host a few anxious moments by
parroting the monotonous chronology of unknown names from an indistinct past.
But a slipshod present rambling along the flungs and flumps of modern life is
grossly short of time to have even a single look at the subtle shades of an unfacetious
past. So in order to get rid of this time waste the host ends up doling out a
little charity to the redundant lineage record-keeper. So a bhat is just worth some wheat and some
money for the pacification and appeasement of ancestral souls still trying to
pull at the physical sinews through those words in the fat books cover-bound
with a ragged red cloth.
If someone’d the
patience to look at the first page in the village bhat’s book, he would’ve
learnt the village of our tale came into being in 1285or 1286.
“People from
Prithviraj Chauhan’s clan!” the genealogist’d have tried to varnish a glow of
molten gold over the lacklustre past.
Isn’t it
surprising that these innocuously unsophisticated and simple villagers of today
draw their lineage from the clan of mightiest arm of Rajput resistance against
the Muslim attackers?
“Yes, your
forefathers, the ancestors of whole village, belonged to that great warrior
clan and migrated from Rajasthan.”
But, why an
emigration out of the land of the proud sword-bearing arms of India
“Perhaps, Islam’s
sustained campaign slowly won over them... they, who were ever ready to die for
a cause, left the sandy wastes for better pastures. If there was no external
cause, they finished it up among themselves. For pride, women, clan, ethnicity,
etc., etc.”
Oh, is’t so! But,
why do they look so unwarrior type now? Of course, except the roughly
enthusiastic cynicism of their dialect.
“Time’s rust eats
away most of the things. Might and bravery are no exception to that.”
Still, it’s
sensible enough not to get killed at the mere drop of a pin!
“Very sensible your
excellency! I go off from here. If you’ve anything to give, then give or burn
my burden as the Islamic zealots did with our scriptures during the medieval
times!”
Now after history,
a bit of talk about the native legends from the hollow-cheeked grandpas, who
make them sound characters from not so popular folk-tales. For sure, within a
decade or two all these’ll be lost in the anonymous bibliography of greater history.
Eldest surviving members most of whom would be finishing their journey within
the decade to come sometimes pull at the memory cords of these native legends
now on the verge of extinction. Chapters of ‘might is right’, robberies,
wrestlers, saviours, mighty great bets (which sometimes ended with a loss of
life) hesitatingly flow out of the time’s culvert beneath the road of ‘present’
clogged with a heavy traffic of events and happenings.
If someone has the
time to listen to the robust old man who still gulps a lot of milk, butter-milk
and butter (although, winning it in a fight with the daughter-in-law, who
mutters with each mouthful of his, “Bloated oldie, we’ve no more of it! Now,
eat us!”) then the conversation would take such a shape:
“You people, the
strongest of youths among you! Even the weakest of our times would’ve killed
you in wrestling. Have’u heard about Bagha? No! Oh my poor youngling, he was that
pahalvan from our village who was known in the whole state for his
wrestling powers. Never, ever lost a fight in his life!”
“But he did once!”
“Haa... even your
father wasn’t born by that time. And here you’re trying to stigmatise the
strong man.”
“Isn’t it a truth
that he was defeated by a dead weight?”
“Oh, you fool! You
people of today call it a defeat. Then you people don’t know what victory
means. It was in fact a most memorable victory. Greatest victory I ever saw!
You know, the stone was at least two hundred kilogram. Get all your pahalvans
of today to lift it. All of you, I challenge! Go, it’s still lying there!”
“But he died under
that, dadaji.”
“No! He’d won. In
the bet it was just to be lifted above the head. What happened after that, it’s
nobody’s business. No such thing as dead or alive after accomplishing the feat.
He was as mighty as Hanuman holding a mountain above his head. His hands were
trembling. And we children were celebrating because the respect of the whole
village had been saved. Then the elders realised the great victor was holding
his trophy for too long. Too long to fatality! His eyes were glazing wider and wide
to match the effort. Hugely anxious they shouted at him to throw away the
stone. Aaah... he won’t! They ran to push the death hovering over his head to
one side. The mountain fell with a bang; near his feet. Only then he toppled
over the defeated stone lying at his feet. The victor, the greatest victor! From
that day they started saying, ‘Never play with the weight, stone or iron, for
who could do it is no more!’ Such were the pahalvans of our times!”
There’re so many
other such lower heroes forming the unknown lower leitmotif of the commonly
known microcosm of graceful columns and fine facade of the palace of higher
folk-tales. Time’s poignancy and penetration cut them down to still smaller and
smaller size with the passage of each generation. Most probably the grandpas of
our tale’d be the last ones to vivaciously think about them; bringing them back
from time’s abditory. So, while the din of life continues unabated, the elders
still whisper homage to these unsung heroes.
Further, there’re
so many other still smaller heroes in the small shelves of little local
abditories in the universal archives of cosmic history. Figures who lived believing
might is stronger than mind: animally eating unbelievable (to create unofficial
records) quantities of butter, chapattis, milk, butter-milk, raw
vegetables and lumps of jaggery. One fellow like a mini elephant ended up
uprooting a grown-up acacian tree. His arms gripping it like an elephant’s
trunk. One used to run so fast that the British collector came to hold a darbar
in the village to see and award him. Another one had the might to try his hand on
a buffalo. They say he made a successful attempt at lifting a grown-up buffalo.
Growing skeptic, yes? Well, the old eyes which once saw the spectacular feat
still try to convince that it indeed happened. ‘How was it possible?’ the skeptical
present generation might still insist. Some worldly-wise spirit can put up an
effort:
“Man’s will power
when extends to the extreme horizons, it enters the realm of God. Then
everything becomes possible. The man started lifting the animal right from the
time it was born and went on doing it everyday thinking he was lifting the
same, almost weightless, little calf. Thus, even if each day added a little
weight to the animal, the cosmic constant of his will-power nullified that. His
resolve stood rock firm. The actual weight isn’t the amount of mass lying in a
stone. It’s what it seems to one’s mind. So in the end the man ended up lifting
a whole of buffalo!”
Well, what a fellow!
Shining like a celestial truth at the fringe of the world of myth, legends and
folk-tales.
Then, another was
from the world of shooting-–marksmanship, we mean. Yes, don’t you believe it?
Buddy, heavily stands a skeptic’s head because it wears the crown of
overpossessive logic. Still, you’re justified a bit in your disbelief. After
all, in that era of purest rural-rusticity, when they’d few things to eat, same
wares to wear and almost the same work of ploughing, how could someone from the
village be expected to possess the guts and time to excel in this sport of
cribbling and trickily demanding specialisation. Hoom, well... if someone is
driven by dreams and determination then walking on one’s own chosen path
becomes possible.
The above
mentioned person was a simpleton farmer. Now, talents in most of the cases are
inborn. His sun-bleached face betrayed an excellent sense of distance,
marksmanship, force to be put behind the throw and the likes. Had it not been
the case, how could he hit so many birds in his attempts to shoo them away from
his bajra fields. That too with the help of such a crude throwing instrument
called gopia. It was just a double rope whose
both ends were held in the hand. The other end consisted of a woven loop to
hold a pebble or earthen clod. Operating methodology required it to be swung
around the body and then release one end of the rope with all expertise, inborn
and learnt judgments at the bird-drove eating the crop. What an instrument!
Swinging it around one’s head to hit the target! Littlest of a delay or snag
threatened to bust the aim’s ceiling. When it came to the gulail (the
sling-shot) he showed the exact accuracy of his art. This instrument consisted
of a rubber tied at the upper ends of a V-shaped wood. Stretch the rubber with
a pebble pinched between your fingers and go with a bang.
As talent is no
slave to either temper or tongue. Such people when get the refined tools of
their interest they don’t miss the target. They always put behind those who
from cradle to coffin have the opportunity to see, smell and feel those very
equipments in and around their houses. Similar was the case with this rough diamond
lying in the bucolic countryside mine.
In
pre-independence India
The village pond,
as was the case at the time of our tale, was the favourite spot for migratory
birds. To earn a sporty dinner their rifles would go through a fiery and furious
drudgery. The bird-hunters lay in the shrubbery and tried their marksmanship.
Their ladies, standing like fairies draped in those neo-classical pleats,
frills, folds, silken laces and flimsy and wispy gauze, clapped at each hit.
Whenever a bird
failed to take off with the flock flying for life and flapped in the water
instead, either their dogs or the native servants ran to get it out with all
humility and obedience. The village boys too vied with each other to collect
the empty bullet shells-–an object of hilarious satisfaction whenever they got
one.
Now, it so happened
that on a fine wintry sunlit noon
the Britishers were having a bad day. Several shots had been fired since
morning, but the groups of ducks flew unharmed (not to be seen for almost half
an hour after the noise). Waiting game was thus becoming treacherously long
drawn. The ladies in lace caps were getting bored. (Even with their perennially
rejuvenating habit of checking their make-up and dress!) More serious was the
failure before the subjects’ eyes. And then someone from the village, who had
been a soldier in the British army and a veteran of world war first, felt his
arms itching for an aim. He strugglingly smattered across a sentence or two in
English; was lucky to convey the message; was luckier in getting the sahib’s
nod. He, but, had grown old; quite strangely with great speed; could, thus,
smell the looming failure. So the old man tucked forward the young farmer (who
never missed a mark in his fields) as an alternative shooter. The proposal
stirred up a hornet’s nest of laughter among the sahibs and mems.
At one point of time the laughter even reached to the extent of a seeming
irritation and a bit of anger, for they were too desperate that day. But one of
the many good things about the Britishers (as is the case with the people of
many nationalities) is that they want a perfect laugh, but before that they’ve
the patience to offer a chance to the target of their laugh.
“Take this and
shoot!” they stiffened up their lips. One of them kicked a tuft of gray grass
with his sharp-toed boot. Out of eagerness one lady adjusted her lace cap.
The situation
might have been warlike for the simpleton, but not for the old soldier. Deftly
he told him the preliminary nitty-gritties of rifle and aim. With a war cry he urged
him to the mission. Most of those present were expecting the boy to fall back
due to the shock and the bullet going to the skies putting angels on their
heels to escape from the hunting piece of metal. But they were wrong. Tools are
the slaves of talent and will, not vice-versa. Inside him were the qualities of
a fine marksman. He’d never depended on the nozzle and trigger of a rifle for
the perfection of a shot. Rather, it was the stillness and aimful instinct in some
concretised corridor of his brain. He pulled the trigger. Perhaps, for the
first time his shot went precisely in harmony with what was inside him. It
killed as many ducks as a single shot could.
All and sundry
human fragilities apart, let’s have a look at another simple good thing about
the Britishers. They react decently in such situations, in place of becoming
belligerent due to ego hurts. In a fluminously mellifluous gesture, they
heartfully congratulated him. From then onwards they saved themselves from all
the dusty creepings of earlier times. With artful pleats of authority over
their faces they watched comfortably, while the new-found, bolt-upright shooter
did the job. He became a local hero, because his farmer fans thought that even
the Britishers depended upon him. As it was to happen-–another good thing about
the Britishers-–they deemed it prudent to have him in the army: a British way
of making full use of the dependable subjects, so that both parties were happy
in their respective roles as ‘authority’ and ‘efficient workers’!
In punctilious
reserves of the village’s small history book, there were heroically voracious
eaters-–another parameter of measuring might, pride and achievement. Someone
could drink a whole pitcher of butter-milk; someone could eat chapattis
whose number dangerously progressed towards three figures; someone could eat a
mini mountain of butter; someone ate as much jaggery as an oxen; someone could
eat as much sugar as the depth up to which five kilograms of melted butter
reached in a sugar sack; someone could plough as much area as would put a tractor
to shame.
Such
were the laconic halts of time in its journey through these goat-tracks of
small history. These were the moments which fell somewhat heavily from the time’s
flow: just like a small pebble dropped into a pond, creating ripples for a
while before vanishing again in the same monotony. Others meanwhile flew
featherily, smoothly-smoothly... without creating turbulence of any sort.
No comments:
Post a Comment