16
The Caravan Leaves
And the ascetic would
watch her spanning a spectrum between the village and the caravan site.
Intriguing paradoxes between the clichés and conventions of his religiosity (on
the one hand) and the beguiling eerie of mundane passions (on the other)
created paranormal intrigues among different units constituting his
diasporically disjointed self. His susceptibility to the deadly transmutation
left the exorcist’s soul being possessed by some devil female as he irascibly
groped for some respite among those supernatural webs.
At each sight of hers
he felt defeated like a victim to her bewitching monstrosities. At one time
they came face to face on the way. Though fear-struck she managed to breeze
past that volcanically active cone inside which lava and cinders were furiously
knocking to burst out and fossilise that flower to perditional lifelessness.
Unbearably poignant
and psychedelic agony convulsing inside him constantly baited his looks as well
as thoughts to the caravan site illustriously engaged in some restful retrospection.
To the religioner it always struck as nothing less than whirring intrigues
whose cataclysmic rhythms went pulsating through his enraged self. One such
earthquakely shaking wave shook the memory chambers in his brain, which wryly reflected
over his own apprenticeship with an old gypsy, called old frog. Next thought
sent down an angry chill through his spine. His eyes became flagrantly fiery,
enough red that if somebody looked into them, sanguine callousness in them
would’ve given an ample hint about the macabrous conspiracy-theorist in him.
“Oh, chee!” huffing
and puffing hate flowing in his blood touched a new apex, “She’s the same one
who’d laughed at me, making a mockery of my hard penance!” intriguing paradoxes
among soul, spirit and body sounded hard
and harsh.
We need to move back
to the days of old frog, in order to understand the whole thing properly. Sum
and summation of it had gone like this:
When the young friar was
going through his pupilship with the old gypsy, who had been by then fully
convinced that he was a true black magic disciple, the superstitiously-lit-mentor
one day called him and said that the time had come when he must teach him the
greatest charm in his forte of tricks––hypnotism or overpowering mesmerism. The
guru in all his near death honesty and eagerness told him that with the
help of this power he could concentrate his paranormal faculties on a magical entity,
which’d bestow such spiritual power to him that will enable him to win over
enemies, defeat envious fellow men of the trade, control anyone’s senses in
such a way that they will see or fell what he dictates. And above all he’d be
able to call friendly spirits in the body of hypnotised person and ask any sort
of question from past or future.
Well, the guru
himself was stuck at the first stage of the above mentioned hypnotical power.
Despite lifelong furtive jockeying by his exorcist self, all he could accomplish
in the name of hypnotism was that he could somehow manipulate a fellow human
being’s senses. After that the lethargic lapse in the concentration would leave
him fretting and fuming, while the mesmerised body regained its subjective
cognitive power. By the instinct of it, the old gypsy knew that the continuance
of same outmanoeuvring spell required a greater control over his own mind-body
matrix. But unfortunately the rudely baroque life-style he was part of
nullified any such straightforward concentrative culturality by his torn and
tattered, homeless gypsy self.
The young man too
couldn’t understand this muddily vague reflection of his guru, because
more than self-control his mendicant spirit was almost dying with the hopes and
prospects of overpowering influence. His ever so impressionable senses galloped
with joy and appreciation after witnessing that piece of hypnotic artistry performed
by his guru on their clown partner. The buffoonery exuding from each and
every facial feature of the clown was eclipsed by a strange cloudy spell. He
became lifelessly sober as if his whole being of earlier had been masked. The
hypnotiser, walking on the tightrope of his sorcery, with the domineering look
gifted to him for being the chief author and architect of this obeying puppet,
fired some questions at the declowned face. In a paranormally crackling noise
their third partner spoke like a corpse from the coffin. It was really awesome
to the disciple, but this feeling later graduated to genuine appreciation and
he clapped, crying and hailing victory for his great guru.
The hypnotiser after
spending all his exorcist fuel fell from the tightrope, breaking the spell.
Ridiculousness surfaced over the clown’s face once again, while the hypnotism
performer sat there sulking and drained out. Oh, how earnestly he wished to
perpetuate the hypnotism over that little fuzzy fellow so as to make him obey
all sorts of orders through those masterfully twinkling eyes of his!
To his disciple,
however, his guru seemed in complicity with strong devil powers (because
we consider only devil to be powerful and overpowering). God is too generous
and pious for this astraying concept of power! So, he almost fell at old frog’s
feet requesting him to teach the very same to his devoted pupil also. And they
started the practice.
Drawing an appallingly
callous look over his face, the guru told his disciple that each person
has got a mysterious power in his eyes (which our learned readers can call
magnetic power). It’s brusquely assaulting and can be used to get the desired results.
To awaken the pupil’s eye-power, he drew a ‘Shakti Chakra’ (a kind of
cyclonic representation) on a wood board. The disciple was instructed to sit
three feet away from this circle in a meditative position and concentrate fully
at the centre, without any movement of eyes and without playing with any
thought.
Practising the same,
the young monk would leave his body as inactive as he could. Without fluttering
his eyelids he deadly stared into the centre of that circular pattern. Water
would come out of his souring eyes and as the days passed his capacity to sit
in that position gradually increased. And after a period he began to realise a
kind of mysterious sensation in those widely set big eyes of his. Fluid disillusions contouring superstitiously
along the lines on the board webbed glorious intrigues around his benumbed
senses. The looping mockery of reality taking serpentine curves on the board
left him with hallucinated vision of the surroundings, and he felt empowered in
a mysterious way.
Then one day the
tyrannizing circle made his skin crawl. He saw it moving, then whizzing
maliciously: the first sign that he was getting in groove with it. His
penancing self went brouhaha for a black-magical bravado. Quixotically he felt
that he was manipulating that hypnotically design on the wooden board. Lost in
that circumambulatory quagmire, he sensed his whole existence, the very life
force, lying in and around his eyes.
Sometimes, he would
stare at the circle long after it’d grown dark. And under one such spell of
hard concentration, when the night had grown ogreishly dark, he saw visuals at
the spot, like he was dreaming with eyes open. It was an absurdly dappled
spectacle. He couldn’t make it known what types of those shapes and figures
were. Some were ferocious in complete complicity with the devils. After much
turmoil before his eyes and inside his mind a limpid distinctness emerged out of
the chaos. As this figure emerged the sea storm in the frame subsided to let
the moon glow over the less turbulent waters. It was the fairy like face of a
girl which glowed with silver-lining prognoses. He just went on staring at it.
Completely mesmerised! Hypnotized!
In an innocently
mocking voice she laughed, “You want to control and overpower others,” her
laughter degraduated to a smile, “That ‘other’ lies inside you. First control
it,” even smile changed to sullenness, “You but can’t do that and I mourn over you,”
she gave a heart-wrenching cry.
He was catapulted out
of hypnotism. His first thought was of being a victim: that he had been
unholily kicked out of the sphere of great power. Rageful reality struck him
ruthlessly and he moaned in revengeful pain.
“You irreligiously,
unholily bewitching beauty! The perennial doomsayer to the asceticism!”
disorganised camp of immoralities inside him gnashed maliciously.
According to the
practice of hypnotism with Shakti Chakra, during the advanced stages of
superstitious-cum-spiritual toil, one may visualise something which might have
some profound connection with past, present or future.
Now, after so many
years the memory of that face struck him with such clarity as if all that
happened just a day back.
Frothing angst and
exploding rage seized him, “You bitch, I know it was you that night! Aah, how
well I can recognise that face after such a long, long period of time! It was
you who spoilt my tapasya that night, otherwise I’d have controlled the
whole world!” this memory from the past came in a cataclysmic collision with
his present.
Her voice under the
moonlight a few days ago sounded an exact echo of the same mocking laughter
which stabbed his passion thousands of nights ago.
“You’re still a girl
even after such a long time! The ever youthful haunting spirit! I can well
understand who you’re! And now you have come here to haunt my hard-penanced
religiosity!” his bulky self choked off, as it struggled to liberate itself of
overpowering strong, slenderous chains hooked to that mesmerising spikelet.
“Oh God, I pray to
thee! Give me a chance to dispossess that evil spirit sinisterly hiding inside
that beautiful body of hers!” revengeful sorcerer in him greedily lopped its
treacherous tongue.
He knew it was only a
wishful thinking. Aware as he was of the gypsies’ protective feelings for her.
Even giving a few refined words to his ruthlessly boiling thoughts was simply
out of question, because these wouldn’t even enter their savagely irreligious
ears. Inadvertently loitering fellows, after all, never cup out their ears for
such petty noises. Once again he felt hugely disempowered.
We can’t precisely
understand his paranormal dementia, which made him think all those ghostly
things about that angel-faced girl, after whom the whole village was bee-toeing
for a scour to their eyes. But one thing is for sure. He was hauntingly disillusioned
to take the poor girl as the cause for not achieving what he wanted to the core
of his religious passion. And once one falls prey to such misguided missiles,
his moaning reasoning---futilely pacifying those long held and time-worn myths
of self-centred convictions and pretensions---vehemently blames some soft
target.
In contrast to the
helplessly cowering and superstitious village womenfolk (who were becoming his
initial clients) this freely perfusive gypsy pergola seemed sanctimoniously
unbuckling. So far the perfunctory-perfusion of his black magic tricks had been
successful, to an extent, in creating a kind of tantric aura around him,
which the sick old women from the village––though led by an awful
suspicion––respected. As destiny has so many ways of playing with us mortals
through her numerous unseen, inexplicable and even unreasonable games, there
were enough loopholes and chinks in the understanding of life in the minds of
these predominantly illiterate, ageing women; and here in this space
uninstutionalised belief about the paranormal filled in with its superstitiously
lit gloomy light.
But, this girl played
with destiny in her own courtyards where there was no settled, sick air to
attack those cultural relativities as a big question mark. To her he was just a
fearsome and ugly-looking black magician about whom even a single reflection
shouldn’t be allowed to linger in her spring-like budding mind. She, however,
weighed scornfully over the Sadhu’s psyche––a prognosticating
inevitability which laughed and wept out of the Shakti Chakra,
forewarning doomed farce and tragedy. But the poor girl was unaware that fate
had made her a player in the monk’s material success and spiritual destruction.
Her reaction at the
sight of the frail saviour of that night, however, was a complete antithesis of
her eyes’ glassy freeze at the appearance of the big bearded face before them.
They would just brighten up daughterly, as if they had witnessed a fatherly
spring on that pathetically brooding face of his. In all humility his face too
would unshackle its corpse like impassivity, and a very, very feeble
acquainting emotion brought life over its primordial sulk.
If love never dies,
and just the like immortal soul takes different forms, then by the very look of
it one could feel that his only love for the Muslim girl in his boyhood had
mystically metamorphosed (had taken a new body and shape) into a parental affection
for this gypsy girl, who was made to conquer hearts.
She would say some
pascuous phrases to him whenever they happened to meet. On these little grassy
tufts of words her gypsy emotions lurked like daughterly dew drops. He too on
his part broke his tyrannizing silence, and a word or two interjected fatherly.
Rejuvenated by the smell of this wild flower, the lifeless dry twig scribbled
down a codicil according to which this celestial trivia got some more gifts from
the old father’s torn and tattered bag. He would, thus, give her some fish and
she reciprocated with Sindhi salt, black salt and other exotic dry
fruits from the lands he’d never been to. His dog too got this beautiful gift.
It was a low rimmed metal bowl which got a warm welcome in the animal’s
unfurnished kennel. For a canine’s dignity no other thing would’ve been better
than this eating vessel, because it’ll save him the humiliation of eating dust-laden
crumbs. Old and understanding senses inside his broad skull must’ve made him
realise the real value of this gift. Before he smelt the fragrance of any food
in it, maybe the scented smell of humanity and care, immortally imprinted on the
iron by those donating fingers, must’ve struck his smelling power. Without
doubt we’re right up to the surety of our assessment, because the old dog
wagged its cumbersomely hanging bushy tail whenever it saw her.
To the religioner,
standing helplessly at the mound, these filial parleys between his foes seemed
a conspiracy being hatched against him. He thought he was the sole centre of
consonance between that free roaming jill and this statically chained neighbour
of his. So, standing at a distance from them, he’d snuff out mocking scorn
against him from their inaudible conversation.
One morning when the
sun had been successful in penetrating the foggy darn, unflaggingly raging
magnet in the Sadhu’s senses sniffed out the attracting and pulling prey
standing by the road. Yes, it was she! He was sure. To confirm his surety he concentrated
his revulsive gaze on the street’s opening between the two schools. His tormented
heart took a pathetic somersault, which almost sent him toppling down.
At the same time, a
gleety jibe peremptorily protruded its loathfully lopping tongue, as a shrill
humorous cry reached his hairy ears from the western side. Devilishly it
sounded similar. Vulgar! It had the entire propensity in the world to jettison
goodness and humanity from the face of earth. On earlier occasions too their
farcical proximity to the evil’s chuckle had sounded soothingly likeable to his
worldly ears. First occasion was that Ramleela day when despite best
efforts of Ram Singh (who was trying to play up the symbolic victory of good
over the bad) they were pandering the evil’s effigy seeming so impregnable
during these evil times. Second was that enjoyment and mirth-making when the
lone election boycott personnel had been humiliated by the political funsters on
that polling day. Apart from these, on many other occasions too he’d witnessed
the fag end of their temperamental fireworks in the form of lewd humour,
occasional fistwork (even among themselves) and drinking brawls. Seeing the
appalling callousness of their behaviour, he was surprised whether they cared
for any social norm or not. Their devilish negligence of the culturalities of a
village, which itself was basking bucolically in criminally complete
obliviousness to the kick at his religiosity, seemed a fitting reply to his
aggrieved senses. As it’s been long said that an enemy’s enemy is a natural
friend, he at once fell into a liking for them.
Warming themselves in
the bonfire of callous buffoonery they were coming by the road from the western
side. The Sadhu saw them crossing the Muslim cemetery mound. Revenge,
the grand sire of his primordial hate, flashed a bulb of sinister design in the
dark dungeons of his heart frothing in the gloom of impotent anger. Circumambulatory
calibration buzzed in each pore of his skin like the destructive notes of a
mountainous conch-shell.
“I need them as
disciples... if not disciples, then friendship will do!” was the torrential
decree shouted by his revenge seeking soul.
Yes! He needed their
company on this treacherous road of life which passed through these worldly
settlements suppurating with stagnated stench.
In a couple of minutes
they were to cross the point where the pond’s embankment met the road. Pricked
by this realisation his wood gave a kick start to his bulk. Lumbering down the
slope, he didn’t have the time to run circuitously––like his asceticism’s
lifelong avoiding journey––so hurriedly tucking up his loin-cloth, he decided
to have an uninhibited straightforward go at it. Taking his leather papoosh (he
used only one from the pair) in his hand he entered the chilly water of the
moat-like intervention between the mound and the embankment. Both his legs were
maulingly frozen, but without caring for that he torridly limped and lurched
through the water.
Very strangely this
gypsy girl had a riantly soft corner for some of the villagers’ methods and
means. Who knows where this floating flower got that little syllabic knowledge––of
the level of a second standard student––of elementary letters and counting?
Drawn by the genially bustling educative air at this time a little before the
school’s opening, when the children were swarming into it, the florid girl––in
all her mannerisms she looked like a girlish flower grown taller in the orchard
of child flowers––got into a little naughtily playful chit-chat with a boy. It
was while talking to this little boy the exorcist’s rabidly focused look had fallen
almost huntingly upon her from the mound.
Like a sweetly strict
elder sister she was testing his knowledge of letters and numerals. He was a
very shy little student. But sweet, elderly authority in her voice forced him
to unshackle his shy-shell. With his eyes fixed on earth––as if he was trying
to see the other end of the globe through earth––he was thus responding
hesitatingly to her queries.
Floriformly
contouring figure of hers, sisterly bent over the little boy, suddenly got a clutching
shove from behind. Her bottom felt a pinch.
“Wouldn’t you teach
something to us also, Rani?” came the verbal indecency, which in the
preceding moment had terribly started as a physical one.
As a natural
corollary to the infringement upon her modesty’s territory, she swirled like a
tigress and slapped the cheek grinning maliciously over her back. It was all
done with the swiftness of typical gypsy manoeuvre against any misdemeanour.
Gazelle stare of her large eyes––angry, fearful, teary, prideful and whole lot
of feminine matrix of emotions––focused its innocent beam on the offender. A quick
movement of her eyeballs showed that there were a few others of his ilk as
well. Despite the slap the young monster was grinning calmly as if he’d no
civilized self to feel the hurt of a slap. Those around him, meanwhile, gave a
volcanic thud of laughter, taunting him for the befitting reply by the little
houri. This cloud of molesting laughter showed only one thing, that is, their
diseased misdemeanour had gone immune to all and any sort of social medication.
Otherwise, how could they fall into jinks, while the very air was mourning
around and above them after witnessing that deflowering rage, pain,
helplessness and silent sobbing prevail over that primordially spring-like face
of hers?
He was broad-built
and wore his hair long over the back of his neck. Ebullient features on his
reddish, round face contorted ragefully.
“You stray bitch,” he
started very softly; his voice mocking with some feigned-softness for this
flower, “So you dare to slap me!” libidinous tinge in his tone sluggishly came
out of its slumber. “What worth do you possess except this beautiful face of
yours!” he cried a gargantuan muscularity against her petalous existence.
Further instigated by
the feverish pitch of hooliganism, he caught hold of her beautifully entangled
wild hair. Clutching them with the evil force of some dark, nocturnal force he
gave skull-rattling jerks to her head. He could do it with so much ease that
she seemed an airy, feathery nymph in the strong claws of a vulture. She sobbed
with the painful fury of a flooded river. Trying to free herself, her
physically ineffective fist work fell on his heartless chest and he let out a
clarion cry of victory.
Standing behind the
devil’s protégées, the revenge-seeker of the mound felt it was his cry of
revenge. Watching her struggle in the ruffian’s ruthless hold, his heart gave
hailing cries for these fit-to-have-an-acquaintance folks, who seemed to be mauling
critics of each and everything these negligent villagers felt proud of. Finding
her ensorcelling beauty victimised by those rude and crude hands, his
revengeful exorcist self sipped down long draughts of pacification.
The little boy, his
doe-like innocent eyes parted wide with fear, meanwhile ran into the school,
perhaps to call the teachers, because it’s the habit of small school children
to dash for their teachers whenever there was a quarrel. The poor boy, however,
didn’t know that this matter was outside the jurisdiction of powerless primary
school teachers.
The goons were about
six or seven in number. Each and every voice escaping their mouths was nothing
sort of an ego-massage to the devil. Disorganised chaotic commotion in the
group was equivalent to an organised perpetration of immoralities. The ease
with which they were participating in this criminal incidence validated the irretraceable
degradation of their character, which made them blind to any
conscience-pricking thought against harming or violating any type of social norm.
The girl, after all, didn’t belong to their society, so she’d no claim to any
protective social right against their savagery.
The teachers indeed
came running, thinking the quarrel might have occurred among the school
children. But the dispute-resolving urgency was instantly lost when they came
to face the nasty reality. They were fully aware of the guru’s lost
position during contemporary times. Gone were the golden old times when a
teacher commanded such a comprehensive reputation and grandiosely lofty position
in the society that his jurisdiction effectively extended to such outside
school matters as well. Also, they knew the offenders as the ones who were
definitely ignorant of the mace-like authoritative dignity lying implicitly
inside that gleety twig in a teacher’s hand. So, precogitating with the help of
educative logic they held back.
The lonesome
crusader, however, wasn’t to be bound down by such nastily narrowing down
circles of responsibility. He raised his head over the crowd gathered around the
arena where the spectacle of evil was flashing its teeth. This man who dared to
protect the dignity of the gypsy girl was none other than Ram Singh, and the
young devil perpetrating the crime had been a former student of his. Thanks
God, his furtively kicking and astraying young senses could remember that! His
clawy fingers loosened as the teacher pleadingly implored him to do so.
Poorly priceless
princess appeared a flower just about to be crushed amidst brusquely assaultive
vegetable behemoths like pumpkin, gourd, cauliflower and brinjal.
As if pushed and
pulled by her panegyrical cry a few gypsies too arrived at the scene. By their
looks one could make it out very easily that they were ready to fight till
their death for her honour. Ram Singh, his unflinching character draped in a
ditto for the cause of goodness, tried to prevent any evil disharmony arising
due to the atrophy’s chaotic wand of accidental or incidental coordinates. The
peaceful-faced teacher tried to pacify the angry gypsies fortressly encircling
their priceless jewel.
All this settlers’
social misdemeanour was too much for this soft bud blossoming amidst fluidly
pascuous terrain. She was thus turned inanely dumb due to this shocking
incident.
Her shocked and
suppressed senses, however, yawned daughterly, sisterly as she (shrouded in
frozen vacuosity) felt the warmth of familiar words spoken by her fellow
gypsies. A complainingly sobbing storm mistily engulfed her and inspite of best
of her efforts to the contrary, sonorous strains of a weeping sea came audible
to all those gathered around her.
It was delusionally
piteous, and like all good hearts which’re so wispily light–-almost weightless–-Ram
Singh’s ever flying, floating emotions were swept away by the gushing riverine
of tears gliding down her rosy cheeks.
The teacher’s rein
over his tongue gave in, and as a tart teacher chiding an errant and spoilt
brat, his voice boomeranged punishingly over the offender’s head, “You idiot,
your pot of wrongs has bulged to such an extent that you’ve started doing whatever
that dullard, devil mind of your prompts you to do! What this poor girl has
done to you?”
The young devil
stared into earth. His astoundingly astraying senses were tonking at the evil’s
anvil. Their chuff and guff prompted him to humiliate this nuisant former
teacher of his. But the last time he’d tasted the reforming rap of the teacher’s
stick was just nine or ten years back when as a fifth class student all those
bad buds were trying to sprout their uneducative hoods in the hard-working
teacher’s class. The criminal in him hadn’t yet ripened to dare to completely
dejuicify a teacher’s reputation. And then there were many villagers around
too. So, with a big effort he controlled the antisocial animal in him.
“She slapped me first,”
the handsome rascal said quixotically.
By the look of it, intelligence
could never have been expected of him. But the answer wasn’t even mundanely
assuring, because why would a girl slap anyone without a reason. The teacher’s
blood boiled for the sheer arbitrariness of the sleaze laundering inside that
vagrant brain of this dirty former student of his. He could remember it well
how this monster came out with ‘out of world’ (funnily) answers during his
school days. But then he could thrash him for all those deliberate misquotes of
his. And now what? Isn’t it a fact that since those days lots and lots of water
had vapourised from the pond.
“She slapped you!”
the teacher gnashed the ineffective rage of modern guru’s helpless
tutorship. “But why on earth, would this poor girl dare to slap you?” he forced
down as much skepticism in his voice as he could.
The kind teacher
looked at the pale lilaciousness lurking cloudily over the girl’s face. A long
wave of pity swept over the longish beach of his heart.
“She isn’t a ruffian
like you. Tell me, why are you misbehaving with her like this?” stinginess in
his tutoring voice bit the wrong-doer.
Spoilt young man
fumbled with words, which prompted the onlookers to think in terms of the oft-usual
carnalic instinct of an unsocially barbaric male savagely preying upon a
helpless female in broad daylight. For a few moments, the cause of righteousness
seemed to win over the rowdy freakishness, as all eyes ogled accusatively at
the molester.
“Because she was
performing witchcraft on this little boy!” torrentially garrulous voice of the
monk stepped into the arena from the wrong’s side.
The tormentor of her
soft soul lurched forward as the stout defender of this most evident offence.
“I’ve seen it with my
own eyes,” his precariously hanging religious equilibrium plummeted down with
clip-clop to the wrong side. “She was giving something dangerously black-magical
to him. Yes, yes believe me!” he made his appearance look as if he was swearing
by all his hard-penanced religiosity. “You people can’t even imagine how
uncivilized these people are. By playing black magic tricks on little children,
they bewitch them and steal them away to sell at unknown places.”
Painfully lynched by
this flagrantly false charge her flowery heart shook destructibly. In those
illustriously dreamy eyes of hers a fear descended like a blinding desert
storm. Intensity of that awe could pass anyone’s comprehension.
At least in hearing
the word ‘black magic’ creates a sense of loathfulness in the settlers’
society. So, the momentous sympathy, which’d glinted in the onlookers’ eyes,
now rolled in an arc over that paranormally suspicious circle which always
looms large in the unknown sky.
“For God’s sake maharajji,
don’t condemn such a fate to this innocent child!” searching into the
ensorcelling innocence written epically all over her face, the teacher defended
this girl of the outsiders.
More than her susceptibility
to be involved in any superstitious goof-up, his conscience was convinced of
the immoral impulses pulsing through the veins of this rowdy group, which in
turn forced his heart to vouchsafe the innocence of this girl. Most of them had
been his students in the primary classes, after which they’d randomly dropped
out of various classes before matriculation, as their illogical fondness for hooliganism
disposed off all educative efforts proposed by the school authorities.
Righteous rhythms
pulsing through his mind, body and soul continuum encouraged him to come out
openly and outrightly in opposition to the allegation against her.
“Falsity of this
allegation can be gauged by a single glance at her face shining with spotless innocence,”
he said it mildly with perfect gentlemanness, but the truth in it pierced
through the thick, stony walls of falsehood erected by the religioner’s tongue.
“My dear
bookworm masterji!” the
monk cunningly kept his cool, even though his inner self was cursing
obscenities at the teacher, “Your senses seem to have gone haywire. All those
mountainous tomes of books can’t explain even a single word in the invisible
big book of the black magic and witchcraft. After all what’s the distance between
a paper and that... that pen of yours when put to writing. It’s none!” he
smiled and donned a paranormally understanding smile over his exorcist face. “But
the space between actuality and the perceptiblities appearing illusioningly to
your limited, ordinary mind is too large… unconquerably large in fact. And
crippled by that weakness you see this bewitching face’s outer shell. Master
you can’t see the dark hiding behind that shiny face of hers!”
Pedantically, the religioner tried to make
it an issue beyond the comprehension of teacher’s pedagogically normal senses.
“Sometimes
the evil clothes up in the most beautiful of an appearance,” he voiced the
supernaturally inexplicable loath damnatorily writhing inside him.
Two
dreamful diamonds adoring her plenilunar face got blurred by sorrowful waters
once again. The fluid of her girlish pain dripped down those artistically
arching eyelids of hers, and flew down those teary little trajectories drawn
over her cheeks.
“But,
how can you be so sure about her sorcery on the boy?” the majestic mellow of
her sobbing spirit tugged at the human cords in the teacher’s reformative
heart.
“My
God, masterji! What
else a girl of these wanderers is expected to do if one finds her stooping over
a little boy from the village. I saw her doing this for at least five minutes. She
was casting a spell on him. You don’t know how tricky these people are. Their
homeless brains are bulging with foul schemes,” revengeful distortionist drew
up a dreggy scheme. Suspicion loomed invidiously large in the eyes of those
gathered around. Her flowery existence shivered to its feminine core. The obstreperous
menagerie despotically caging around her seemed to narrow down with the
proclivity of chucking-up the charming multiversity of her existence.
The
Mussalman had joined the crowd just
when his neighbour started damnatory tirade against the daisy damsel to
distitle her innocent beauty’s self-evident claim to righteousness.
“Bastard!” The obscenity created irritated ripples in
the nonchalantly silent waters inanely puddled in immurement inside his
metaphorically reticent self. “Accuses her of witchcraft! Now if I’m to tell all
those absurd nocturnalities of his. How he torments those feverishly helpless
females with those fearsome rituals!” to his silently boiling thoughts the
religioner seemed a dreadnaughtly murderous sniper bearer, getting ready to
behead this bud.
Her
daintily tear-drowned eyes got a glimpse of his fatherly figure. Instantly
there swam hopeful pearls in the deep little seas on her face. Such a flash of
hope hadn’t raised its protective hood even when she saw her fellow gypsies. In
this frail saviour of that night she searched a rescuer again .Empowered by a
strange emotion mixing mystically munificent mammary of mother and father’s
protective homilies, his cumbersomely weak figure appeared to her worthy of
putting some stout defence from her side.
The
first incident, however, was a crystal-pure psycho-physical instinct commanded
by a good human heart to save a hapless girl. Now it required a debate to invalidate
the Sadhu’s sanctimonious propaganda against her, which his moronically
reticent self was certainly not capable of. After all, he was just as alien and
outsider as the girl and her tribe. He thus, kept standing mute and her optimistic
eyes once again reverted back to their former sepulchral despair, fully
realising and understanding the ineffective social position of this old man.
Emboldened
by the crowd’s suspicious silence and taking full advantage of this tricky
set-up of a situation, the revenge seeker lurched forward and caught her by the
hair. To this her fellow gypsies-–there were four or five of them-–reacted sharply
for the honour of their sister. But the young goons were even more perniciously
sharp in counter attack. Their precocious, rough-shod irascibility came
glyceriding over their criminal tendencies .A real battle thus started on the
scene. Firstly, some onlookers tried to defuse the quarrel, but realising that
they were getting thrashed up from both sides, they regained their
spectatorship, which winkingly tucked at their pantaloons and pyjamas from
behind and whispered, “Wait for some consequence to emerge out of this
internecine scuffle, which will immediately put an end to this chaotic clamour!”
The
monk held her mortifyingly buzzing head by his left hand, and balancing his
right armpit over his support he hit his hammer-crude right hand on her face. Paranormal
preponderance hissed a volcano-burst of hate against this nymphet and he gave
blow after blow to her head and hair. She cried to the exquisite finesse of her
throat, but there was too much dissonant noise for her sonorously sorrowful
notes to sound distinct. Also, the
dreggy happenings around her didn’t allow any sympathetic eye-–except the
watchman’s-–to stop magnanimously over the jasmine jill’s almost death-defying
struggle in the clawy clutch of the exorcising predator, who was hitting and shaking
her so forcefully as if he was hell bent upon dispossessing her soul of her
beautifully budding body.
Merciless
waters of the ghastly gushing immorality broke the dam of the watchman’s outworldish
reservation. His eyes had a peremptory look at the offender. The old man, thus,
once again ran for her rescue. But now it was broad day-light and he came from the
front. The religioner’s powerfully hurtling right hand fist punched him down in
a single swipe.
Then
there was a loud cry. It sounded authoritatively final: that consequential
force which was required to stop the fight. It tonked its judgmental hammer.
The cry was irksomely circumambulatory. All stopped fighting. Even the tormentor’s
hand involuntarily loosened its predatory clutch on her hair.
A
gypsy was seen writhing in pain on the ground, blood oozing profusely from his
abdomen. He had been stabbed by one of the rowdyists, who used his knife after finding
that these furtively fist-fireworking tribesmen couldn’t be overpowered by using
just physiologically available weapons with a human being. Till the metallic
blade’s strike, the village hooligans had been severely beaten. But this single
strike changed the whole situation.
Buckling
under the colossal blow by ruffian time’s mace, the gypsies bent down on their
knees. Resigned to fate and tears in their eyes, they took his valiantly fallen
head in their lap. Fatally wounded gypsy’s face convulsed in painful suspense
as baroquely assaultive pseudo reality of death wrote its introductory lines on
his young, bearded, brotherly face.
Clasping
his dying body in her sisterly lap, she wept hoarsely for this caravan-brother
who’d fallen bravely for the caravan-sister’s dignity and pride. She cried for
help, which of course came like a moral exercise in futility. Ram Singh and
others took him to the village primary health centre. It was the littlest of a
symbolic medication room, dungeonically evident as a tiny dot on the healthcare
map of the country, and grossly incapable to handle such emergencies. As it was
to inevitably happen, his soul finally did manage to escape out of its
painfully cut clothing; the primary reason of death being the stabbing of his
heart.
At
the caravan site there were heard cries and wails entwining gypsy mourning for
the young lad, whose death for the cause of caravan-daughter had set free their
undemonstrative unity and some strange unidentifiable affection among them,
which is missed by the roving senses of stagnant settlers. But, nobody from the
village had died. So, the incident wasn’t big enough to hit the headlines as a
news column. The police won’t have even cared to come, had it not been for the
justice spirit in the teacher. He had failed many times in the past for a good cause
but still firmly believed that the victim being stateless didn’t dilute the law’s
ink in this particular case, because the perpetrators of this crime belonged to
a section of society so showily defined as an administrative unit on the law
and order map of the country.
The
justice-monger’s parleys right from lodging a FIR, meeting the district officials,
to his sensitizing efforts in the local media did ruffle some leaves. In the present
times, a mere sway of some leaves (read it as the timelessly whiplashed
judicial clauses which serve nothing except making lawyership more and more
lucrative) is grossly insufficient to get the fruit of justice from the big, bulky and mightily branched out tree
of justice, which’s so many opportunities for all the litigants, so many in
fact that if one party gets fruit on one twig, the other one promptly protrudes
its victimised hand to get a nullifying one from another one hanging nearby on
a higher hierarchy.
In
the colossally pallid mid section of a local newspaper there appeared a single
column news item. Its dull newsworthiness was clouded by big layouts of
advertisements. But there too the news sense indicated that the gist of the
story was gypsy witchcraft and sorcery, not the killing.
It’s
for sure that Ram Singh had ruffled some feathers. Poor gypsies would’ve left
the village on the day of incident itself, were it not for the helping hand
held out by the kind teacher. His assurance of justice to these homeless,
stateless, assetless roamers gave them some hope of justice-–perhaps for the
first time. Possibly, the caravan did feel that it too belonged to some
socio-governmental administration. So, hoping against hope they extended their
stay. After all, there arises an inborn natural instinct to get justice, once
wronged by our fellow human beings.
In
a state where the police does most of the work in judiciary’s domain (except
the hugely delayed pronouncement of judgment and that too in rarest of rare
cases) frequent arrivals and interrogation by the police was inevitable. But
here too the sufferers suffered more, because, once their altar of criminality
had bathed itself in blood, the young goons vanished from the scene. Of all the
rest of those concerned the caravan princess found it most difficult to handle
and bear such ‘crude interrogation’-cum-’presumption of her guilt beforehand’. Appallingly
callous and foolish questioning brought the teary sea upswelling to her beach-like
eyelashes and salty rivers came out, making it seem sorrowfully reversed
naturality, because rivers according to the law enter into the sea, not come
out of it. All in all, it gave the piteous inkling that a soft flower was
unnecessarily being caned for the pinches committed by the prickles. Giving a
prime example of their dullardness, the police missed the most important
version. At last, Ram Singh convinced them that truth must be heard from the
boy itself.
“Yes
son, tell us what kind of a bad thing she was doing to you?” the sho’s---his bulging waistline squeezed
tartly by the service belt---bemusedly jousting tone croaked.
More
than anything else, it was laden with a conviction that she was guilty of
witchcraft until proved not so. It was thus becoming a mockery in the name of
policing, because the main crime was the killing of the gypsy. And the police
instead of pulling the main rope, which would’ve drawn the bucket of justice
out of the abysmally dark well, tugged at the sideways sinews in the name of
completing its duty.
The
shy boy stammered. He first stared at the fearsomely bearded man of God, then
at his personal care attendant and dropped his gaze to the ground. Again he
raised his eyes and looked at the girl’s beautiful face symbiosisly spanning a
spectrum between hope and despair.
Again
the policeman’s blubbered notes sluggishly floated in his ill-tempered waters, “Come
on boy, just tell us what was she doing or saying to you?”
“Be
a good boy and tell us everything without fear,” the nimble tactician broke his
worryingly brooding silence. “Yes, yes kid why don’t you tell them what she was
doing? Tell them that she was speaking some mysterious words to you,” the
religioner shifted his stern look to his visiting-cottage-maker, as if ordering
him to ask the little witness to speak the same thing.
The
handyman appealingly looked at the boy, but finding some peculiar defiance over
those little features withdrew his look and fixed it on the holy man’s feet as
if asking forgiveness for not fulfilling his wish.
“Idiotic
little thing! Seems he’s already gone under the spell cast by her!” the religioner
groused.
He
said this while staring at his caretaker’s flunkey face.
These
words hit the boy’s lips like a repulsive fluke, and they twitched for the truth’s
talisman. He stared at the Sadhu-devotee pair.
“No!
She was asking me to count up to hundred,” the little boy said, fearlessly looking
straight in the policeman’s eyes.
“Anything
other than this?”
“And
A, B, C, D.…”
“And?”
“a, aa,
ee, oo…”
“Psst...
aarrr!” the ritualist let out an unhinged baulk.
Even
the die-hard skeptics about superstition and witchcraft scratched their head in
surprise. A gypsy girl talking about English and Hindi letters to a little
village student! It sounded anomalously strange indeed.
It
made her disdainer’s skin crawl, and casting an accursing look at his servile
disciple, he croaked harshly, “Damn it! How can you civilized people believe
such type of vagabonds to be educated? That proves it!” he slapped his thigh
like a wrestler. “Sure, it’s witchcraft! This tiny one has turned a little
devil after being possessed by her evil, haunting spirit!”
Some
heads did turn suspiciously, as the perniciously pivotal balance between normal
and the paranormal tilted towards the latter under the impact of his weirdly
forced words.
“It
isn’t something ghostly. How you people come to believe it? It’s just a simple
matter of little elementary knowledge of the kids’ level,” the teacher’s bust
of righteousness once again activated its aseptic spirit.
According
to his soul’s-–caught in the snares of physical and spiritual transmutation-–vogue
platitudes, the monk would’ve thrown an obscenity as an antidote to the teacher’s
remark. But, he somehow controlled it.
“By
saying that she knows these literate things of we civilized villagers, this man
is trying to prove that we all are no better than these uncultured wanderers.
Given his gypsy advocacy, either this man has gone mad, or the haunting spirit
is spreading its tentacles,” his religiously chauvinised voice was once again
falling in the trap of sermonizing. “These people don’t stop at a place for
more than a week. Then how can she know about education? It’s nothing but sheer
black magic. Believe me… for I’m the one who’s spent his life in countering
such evils!”
“But…
but, by saying just so doesn’t prove it!” maybe the teacher had some notion
about mathematical provenance while saying this.
“Oh,
you poor teacher! Surely it’s just like this. And I can prove it too. But, the
thing is so clear that one doesn’t need a proof. It’s, however, completely
different with you, because your beauty-bewitched senses see Goddess of
knowledge, Ma Saraswati in her.”
This
was a clear sixer from the witty lame man. There was applauding laughter in
appreciation of this farcical hit to the fence. A weird defeatedness dawned
over the teacher’s face, because in this part of India
Once
these countryside punk revelers laugh from the side of one party their loyalty
naturally tilts towards the comedic charmer. After that it becomes very easy
for this big horde, running amuck with nonsense fun and frolics, to gauntly
slay the hapless opposition. They just whiplash the opposition to such an
extent that it becomes virtually impossible to recognise its original shape and
size. The buffoons would bust with crying laughters even on remarks which count
zero on even the most serious humour scale.
Same
thing happened in this case. The interrogation turned into a hilarious anomaly
in which even the policemen followed the public’s suit and rallied behind the
ritualist. Hammered down by innumerable pranks, nonsensical tongue pebbles, and
mimicking, jousting cries, the teacher seemed a worthless minnow, whose fate had
been fortuitously placed among their feet like a football. And a wanton game of
football they played with it, kicking him around the corners.
Urgency
for a cause is the first casualty when the tongues start lolling limitlessly
for platitudinous laughter (in place of conversationist words) and heads take
dissembling dives (instead of logical little rhythmic nods in synchronism with
decently serious thoughts) in response to notorious, mischievous ticklings by
uncontrolled buffoonery.
At
long last the sarpanch spoke in a grave voice of sanity, “Sir, I don’t
think the matter should be stretched further than this. It doesn’t matter
whether she’s done this or not. And even if she’s committed the wrong, she can
be spared, because they’ve lost a man.”
It
was a cawingly harsh judgment, because, even in all his kindness, the crow-head
foolishly forgot the main angle to the misdeed, that is, the killing of the
gypsy! Witchcraft part of the case had almost hijacked the whole interrogation,
so they’d forgotten the criminal gang of young ruffians.
“Then,
I think we mustn’t create more noise out of it,” the policeman said with
Supreme Court’s authority. “And you...” it was a semi-opaquely filthy gesture towards
the girl, “keep yourself to your work of selling those petty things and begging.
This time I’m sparing you…” he brandished his policing index finger as if he
held her responsible for all this.
The
poor teacher was left twiddling his thumbs. He found himself incapable of
speaking against such a broad consensus. Still, he tried to raise a feeble
opposition.
The
police officer, standing in his dress like a ramshackle roadside eatery, got
irritated, “I’m sorry masterji!
You’ve this fatal habit of criticising and going against social and
administrative norms. You don’t even believe in democracy. I remember it well
what hullabaloo you made on that Election Day. And yes, one more thing! We’ve
got stern orders that if someone blocks the road protesting against the
unavailability of electricity, drinking water or anything else, he’ll be handled
by our own free ways,” he rolled his fingers over the baton.
The
policeman seemed to hold personal grudge against the teacher for giving him unnecessary
trouble by making an issue of this neglectable incident.
“Now,
that you’ve done it quite a few times in the past and got scot-free. But, from
now onwards we won’t allow you to disturb the traffic,” he struck the policing
cane on his palm, showing that he meant it.
Even
the timelessly kicking clichés would vouch for the irony of this spectacle: a
genuine protestor against injustice being taught the virtues of justice!
Earlier,
the caravan had cremated the dead at the cremation site of the lowest caste in
the village, the bhangis (scavengers). These people, one of the lowest
in Hindu caste hierarchy, didn’t protest against this. So, at least the
lifeless body got some after-death justice; at least got a place where its
ashes lay sprinkled. It was possible because such discrimination is least
prevalent at the base of caste hierarchy. The top, however, standing proudly
(but still laden like a donkey under the grandstanding dregs) would’ve
pretended a storm in its tea cup, in response to such a thing.
There’s
a penpal relationship between the knowledge of justice (or injustice) and the
desire to get it (or reparation). And till the justice is unknown, there never arises
a feeling of injustice. But once the person has been shown the glimpse of this
great thing, the heart crazily pines for it. So, these poor gypsies (the
stateless, religionless and assetless subjects of India) who rightlessly
followed the arduously long path, taking consolations in pricelessly meandering
resurrections, when came to know this wretched ordeal of suffering injustice
without getting remunerative justice, their hearts suffered in assonance with
the echoing desolations of a crime against them; which, otherwise, would’ve
slipped over their ignorant nobs just as an accident.
The
girl’s sorrow was truly epitomising. Can the treacherous trap of circumstances
can separate melody from the music, beauty and smell from the rose, or rob the primordial
righteousness of its humanity-scenting emotions? Never! Her mourning girlish
emotions, however, listening to the slowly tapering rhythm of the song of justice,
sweetly protested against the above discussed mystique ordeal of divinity. She
held herself responsible for whatever had happened. But they were always found
sitting around her, trying to pacify and console her gently votive and
potent-pure self harbouring a mysterious guilty apprehension. Their love for
her was too much and high to be affected in any way by even a death in the
caravan. She was after all the diamond of their crystallised gypsy passions,
whose daughterly lilting twinklings anointed their parental figures walking on
the wearily desolate path of life with happiness.
To
overcome the shock and to muster up courage and energy for onward march, the
caravan stayed at the place for two or three more days. During this period
nobody from it entered the village as the epochal whistle of their
protest. For their daily survival they
visited the neighbouring villages. In their stylised frailties and frivolities,
the villagers too forgivingly forgot the past, because they never put these
wandering gypsies, tribals and nomadic herders in the hen coop of their
memories.
One
fine morning when the sun was shining brightly for the sake of unwavering
instinct of life and forward march, they were seen decamping from the site.
But, enthusiastically cluttering chaos one witnesses while a caravan starts to
move from a place was missing this time. Anarchic and subversive memory of the
incident still heavily possessed the elders’ minds. Children were, but, hopping
around cheerily and chattily, symbolising the bright hope that new buds always
wait in future’s wings, completely unfazed by the burden of the past.
Standing
on the mound, the religioner saw them preparing to go. His ebullient rage had
been gastronomically soothed down and was burping after covetously eating the
consequential food baked in the incident.
The
caravan had arrived in the dark without his knowledge, creating many doubts in
his insecure mind. But now it was leaving, one man less and almost defeated, on
this clear morning without leaving back any wily affect on his profession. The
evil spirit (whose dark chuckle spewed scorn at his religiosity from behind the
beauty, charm and vibrancy of the girl) had been viciously beaten. His viciously
witch-hunting self, at least, thought so. Looking at her deflowered, shaken and
stirred facial aura, his imprisoned soul beat its chest letting out
make-believe victorious calls.
“Now,
she’s all right and free from the evil spirit!” a flash of her discharmed face
sauntered up an adrenalin rush to the prison cells inside his heart, and they
echoed with the engrossing recital of the wily song of hate for the angelic
purity of her beauty.
When
they’d collected all which they could turn into chattel, they set out on the
journey across the southern side fields. They were going somewhere, just as
they’d arrived from somewhere.
What
was left of the caravan at the village? ‘Nothing!’ Oh, don’t be so forgetful of
such recent past! Wasn’t the ash of their dead now an inseparable part of the village
soil?
Anything
else?
‘Oh
ya, now I remember there are quite a few things! Dung of their cattle and sheep
scattered around the caravan site. Rags picked up from all types of places lying
as if windblown from far, far lands. Shoes and wares of all type and hues, torn
and tattered, which they picked up during their journey and left here when
these’d fulfilled the last bit of their remaining duty, which couldn’t be
fulfilled under the feet of civilized settled persons.’
Such
are the gypsies: pick up so many things from so many places, and draw out last
utilities lying on death bed inside the discarded things found on the settlers’
fringes. Leave them then at the end of their journey. The homeless wanderers
thus, at least, help these inanimate consumer durables in completing their
journey, while moving on an endless path of their own.
* * * *
Our
readers might’ve some introspective seizures about Phulva, the gypsy girl,
resurrecting and refreshing aroma of whose not yet fully blossomed beauty and
oodles of charm vibrantly caught the attention of the villagers.
It
might be surprising to know that her family was a new entrant on the gypsy
path. Intangibles of life were such that they were forced to join this motley
mix of banjaras, tribals and nomadic herders-–all embaled in a distinct
cultural unit of the gypsies-–for survival.
Phulva
had a native village! Yes, it was Rupamgarh in Ajmer
But,
the crippling snarls and besieging exigencies of a fatally derivating fate had
chalked out a different story for the present generation. Helplessly driven by
this pauperising command of the destiny they had to adopt this
nomadic-cum-gypsy profession for survival, which we settlers call idle wandering.
Be
it the descendants of the nawabs who now pull rickshaws, or the Bhats
from Rajasthan who proudly pick up good lines from the past and say they’re the
progenies of Chand Bardai, the legendary court poet of great Rajput
ruler, Prithviraj Chauhan; history seems to have hit its whiplash pretty hard.
Her
grandfather was the head genealogist of a local chieftain holding a
sub-infeudation in a small princely state of Rajasthan. Indian independence
meant the loss of ruling status of such local dynasties which in turn meant a
tight string on their princely purses. It was almost equivalent to a loss of
job for the keeper of pedigree records. So, the decently wealthy man of just a
few years ago could very well see the not so bright future of his own lineage.
Tomes
of archaically old genealogical books, filled with endless lines of mountainous
praise for the patrons’ singlest and trivialest acts of bravery and kindness,
were now just cumbersomely fat records whose lines were not left with any
remunerative, cajoling prowess to impress upon the princely-vaunting crowned
heads of the past; who were now gathering up pieces of life in a new democratic
set-up where all subjects were alike as per the Indian constitution.
Money
collected by past eulogies was spent to silent down the covetously disharmonic
murmurs of a poor present. The old man thus died as wretchedly poor, leaving
behind just heaps of those obsolete books. And with this another chapter in
their family’s history started. They were now homeless wanderers. Title of this
new chapter was tireless migration: a migration where history has so few facts
to gather up or even care about. Roll as they along ,almost aimlessly, this
target-escaping path without taking potshots at the vacant pages of history, to
fill whom the settlers fight it out fortressly fixed up at particular places .
The
girl who wandered sprinkling historical fairness on this unhistorical nomadic
path, however, had a little settled history too. Till the death of her
grandfather theirs was a settled household-–though it was harbouring dire
apprehensions about how long it would be able to clutch at the settlement
sinews. And now when they went on (swathed in the motley mix of gypsy caravan)
those interprovincial migrations, one could sneak a peek at some canorous
historical sadness in those epitomisingly bright eyes of hers, which made her
look grandiosely aloof amidst the gypsies.
Her
family comprised of parents, two young brothers and an infant sister, born
somewhere in the middle of their journey. Their chattel consisted of a mule-driven
little cart, a couple of donkeys and a few goats and sheep. She was, but, the
virtual princess of this medium sized caravan. So what if the people thought or
felt nothing of these wanderers? Her mesmeric charm wasn’t fazed down by such
things. The little houri had dreamy eyes-–eyes that dreamt of their lustrous
history-–which shone with unrasped dignity, wild pride and self-respect, like a
female ancestor of hers would’ve felt while praising the dignified beauty of
her celestially charming Rajput princess.
If
not an outright history, some roughly hewn cultural base these gypsies do
possess (even though it’s nimbly subtle, which might be missed by the settlers’
upholstered eyes). But this excitingly derivated variant of culture does exist
certainly. Slowly tapering rhythm of ceaseless migration is possibly the
genesis of their mystically pulsating culture, which the readers can feel only
if they forget cultural relativism for some time. This particular culture of
these homeless wanderers revels in its own absolutism like the beauty ingrained
in an unmetred verse and a wild flower. This gypsy cultural matrix has many
elements chosen and picked up from the eclectic panorama of different places
falling along their migratory path. Up against any type of social or cultural
form they are able to smell some fragrance of survivability, and when fed up
with that they just move ahead without any grudges tethering to their free
roaming conscience. And that is why they survive without the backload of history.
This historical voidness or constant march over the unhistorical path (because
only a historical path has the tendency of disillusioning drift) puts away any chances
of adversarial stagnation of their footsteps to beat the same dust at a single
place in the name and game of creating history.
It
was, however, not completely the case with that daughter of pedigree keepers.
If we leave apart the traumatising ordeals of recent past, they’d a few lines
in some little chapter in Indian history. She was, thus, not completely
(gypsily) immune in her reaction to those lusty ogles, crude jokes, vulgar
remarks and sometimes even filthy offers. Thus, if we come to notice her reaction
or words about the things unexpected of a gypsy, then it shouldn’t come as a
surprise.
“Do
you know, who helped Prithviraj Chauhan in escaping from Ajmer
To
the same question she might’ve replied, without even waiting for the answer, “He
was a Bhat, our ancestor!”
If
one searched the exceptionality defining her verdant beauty, some zephyr from
the high cultural past of her community would possibly have reverted from the
time’s dusty lanes to prove that she was the golden grain mixed incidentally in
the gypsy sand.
In
those happy times, a Bhat with his fat book bound in red cloth was most
welcome. But in such a population explosion, as it’s today, who’s got the time
or intention to peep into the great... grandfather series. It used to be a
favourite past-time of their ruler patrons who fought with valiant volition,
and during leisure-time listened to the Bhats’ poetically frilled
recitations of their pedigree-cum-history. While the witty genealogist was busy
in expunging the dirt from the royal lineage’s monumental past (if it was not
so, they made it look so by their creative prowess) the lilting cynosure of its
glitter reflected in the patron’s pleased eyes, who almost hypnotized burst
volleys of wealth over the eulogiser’s bent head.
Now,
but, the paradoxist time had completely turned the table on this community. In
the furtively kicking present––without caring a fig for the past––they found
themselves incapable of even keeping track and record of their own movements.
But, she at least was a keen observer of things and had a sharp memory––a Bhat
blood was she, after all––which made her shine multihuedly resplendent high
above other gypsies, with whom this volant flower was being windblown.
There
were a few traces of fluttering desperation in the petals of this flower, because
the gypsy caravan tip-toeing around unhappeningly, shrinking parsimoniously
from the time’s ‘occurrence’ trove, still failed to cut off the cords of
memories between the rememberable past linked to a particular place and the
detachedly roaming present. It was the only bit of nongypsy shred in her
character. In all other ways and means she’d adapted herself to gypsyism with
the help of that vibrantly collaborative good heart of hers.
Without
any support (or burden) of history, the gypsies live in glinting intonation of
the present. This voidance of historical dregs upon their carts facilitates
their endless journey. But, the strifening vibrancy of the past, whose
beautiful picture she’d envisioned through the words of her old grandfather in
her early childhood, very often approached her in stirring surges. It was thus
an extraordinary juxtaposition over her angelic purity: resonant gaiety of
gypsyism of the present (with its anesthesia effect to forget all woes of fate
and circumstances) on the one hand, and the circling memories of the past
(dragging an inflection out of her young heart, virtually as an antithesis of
gypsyism) at the other. She was, thus, a few steps short of complete gypsyism.
Her
grandfather had died about eight years ago, and thence onwards they were the wayfarers
of this peregrinatory path. Back in her village then she’d the opportunity to
attend school for a year. Stormy enthusiasm of her ever-eager-to-learn mind
seemed to foretell a bright academic future for the poor kid. Overstating
excitement of her curious little self would find her cramming letters and
numerals with such a childishly majestic gusto that in just one year her hold
over them left children of third standard racking up their brains in dismay.
But then the circumstances pulled dissentingly at her little school bag, and
she’d to drop out as her family chose to constantly move for life, fearing
death would hammer down its doomed judgment if it found them any more at a
single place, immobile, impassive and surrendered to the diktats of a particular
place’s exasperating circumstances.
Traces
of that educational past were still visible. That prematurely cut swath of
little, little literary plantlets still evinced its systematised, instructional
existence amidst the gypsily riff-raff thickets and bushes lavishly ravishing
in their wildly overgrowing instincts. And this cherubic little stalwart of
those settlers’ educative furrows in the gypsies’ wildly self-referral,
illiterate jungle, tried to teach those safely crammed little elementary things
in the heart of her hearts to the caravan children. Watching those little
classes of hers in the open, even the angels might’ve felt the fun and gaiety
with aplomb.
Hearing
these intangible things from her proud lips, a shyly affable grin sprouted on
the tangibly placid and unknowing gypsy faces. When they hurried past schools,
she sprayed the meteor shower and stardust of her confidence:
“I
can read all those books in their bags, only if the caravan stops here for a month
and you people allow me to sit in the school!”
As
a non-forgetter of great happenings in one’s past, she still kept safely that educative
symbol. It was none other than her school bag. Parlous parleys of time had
snatched most of the proud things of the once kid student. All that was left in
it was a dog-eared pamphlet of nursery letters, syllables and numerals, and a
writing slate which’d borne uncountable writes and rewrites by those slanderous
fingers of the caravan teacheress.
For
the greatest proof of her historical identity, she’d her grandfather’s pedigree
book, monumentally holding records of local chieftain’s lineage, important
happenings of their past and the valiant tales of their forefathers. The time-wearied
book was tetchily getting dog-eared. Its red cover-cloth was gradually getting
dark layers of dirt: the upcoming gypsy layers over the cultural phrases of a
settled history. At many a times, she would open the book and her fishily
holographic eyes stared at her forefathers’ handwritten lineage of the
established families in some native script which she didn’t understand. These
lines drawn by the floral flow of her ancestors’ hands, obsoletely stared back
at her. Twists and turns in those words still tried to vaunt their curves
and corners, but they were-–at the most-–just
laurel wreaths over the entombed past.
Reading
the sad meaning of those words with some language of heart, the frilling
flamboyance of her exquisite features would get embroidered with sorrowful and
teary silk finery. At those moments it appeared the flower was tired of
constant move and migration. During such moments of sorrow in her eyes, it gave
the feeling that her childhood couldn’t get a chance to blossom to perfection.
And now when youth in all its vacillating dilly-dally was knocking at the door,
though it was successful in penetrating those chiseled features of hers, but at
the same time it failed to enlighten and brighten up her eyes to their full
potential, or even in proportion to the beauty of her face.
She
was not a suitable child for such fast changing scenarios; such flowers blossom
fully only in primordially wild orchards resting in perfect isolation. Rough
and gruff of a gypsy path suppresses the naturality in them. Still, her
features were so beautiful that it would take a long, long aesthetically
searching look into those deep eyes of hers to draw out the missing link
between the worldly beauty of hers and the perfect face of feminine divinity.
She
talked with a nongypsy wit. One could be deceived if he didn’t follow what he
heard with the movement of her filling up fishy lips. What she talked about, or
even more importantly the way she put it, is even rare among the breeds of settled
persons. In a conversation, her part of words came out with the natural agility
of a brook. Alas! There was something which got her lost in a dumb world. It
was a question, at the mere mention of which our children in the cosy confines
of homes spring in the air get impulsive and fly high in the clouds of fancy.
Yes, it was the question of future. She kept silent on this, because only fate
knew it.
