24
The Boy who’d Whispered a Resistance to
the
Sadhu’s Fusillade against the Gypsy
Girl
His little voice
of truth had symphonically tried to interfuse her innocence with the soft,
innocent beats of his little heart on that eventful day. It however was lost purposelessly
in the noise of the grown-ups’ frayed tempers. The religioner, but, felt some
ingrained prejudice against this mutineer revolting to cleanse the tainted
flower.
This little one
had bright teeth shining against the background of his swarthy cute face. He
bore a pair of circular, surprised eyes. His little nose was a bit round, while
his combed down hair was cut in a straight line across the middle of his forehead
making him appear coy and subdued.
Aha, the
unhindered bandwidth or spectrum of childhood panoramically bathed with
showering sprinklings! When the sunshine of unselfish emotions rains down,
drenching everything in humane warmth. The elders are, however, always on
craggy tenterhooks with their sharply unyielding and twitchy nerves; their hearts
too stony and cumbersome to have full view of the inscrutable wilderness sprawling
across a child’s heart.
The little boy’s
heart had leapt for the defence of that weeping, helpless girl when the
villainously bearded fellow slapped her. While the whole fee-faw was noisily
going on, he’d cried bitterly. Perhaps it was a piously true mourning for the
injustice being meted out to such a beautiful girl, which the yawningly big
eyes of the elders missed.
If we missed a
particular incidence among that swirling storm of happenings on that day, then
we can recall it now:
The boy had
pounded his little fists on the religioner’s lame leg, who whacked him onto the
ground.
The boy’d cried, “It’s
you who lifts children, not she! Why were you wandering in the streets that
night? Even Pa was with you.”
Amidst such noise
of war proportions even the Sadhu himself hadn’t heard the little one’s
counter-charge.
After a few weeks
of the happening, the guru was invited to a satsang, religious
discourse, at the community chaupal of Bhagte’s caste. Personal care
attendant-cum-disciple was the event manager.
A few religioners,
singers of Kabir’s poetry, local morality and ballad singers, and a group of
musicians (wielding tanpura,
dholak and harmonium) waited to open the flash-channels of religious
rivulet.
From the very
early age Bhagte’d grown up attending such musico-religious gatherings. Incense
smoke arising along with devotionally charged-up particles of God-lorn metres,
local folk-poetry, sermons encapsulating linguistic version of the ultimate
reality were the things which’d firmed up his faith to unflinching proportions.
Predominant themes
of these devotional songs and bhajans were the sayings and preachings of
medieval bhakti saints and very cryptically said factoids of social
conduct (which ended up giving a satirical little nudge) by the native religious
figures, whose luminant memories hadn’t yet faded away from people’s
guidance-seeking psyches.
Such was the
period of medieval India
Bhagte on his part
knew so many of these sayings that he never failed to put up one or two in any
context and situation. So much so that whenever a debate, argument or even an
idle talk was going around him, he kept the noble composure of his silence.
Then suddenly-–but without any disturbance-–a great couplet would escape from
his mouth as the prologue and epilogue of a beautiful God-fearing thought.
Other than this he won’t say anything else. They, however, termed it a lampoon’s
timidity.
Further, it was
his utter spellboundedness to the guru’s God-like lofty position so
soulfully eulogised in those sacred religious ballads, which made the Sadhu
a worshipable symbol of his faith in God.
These kinds of
gatherings meant so much to him. He took part in them as if the occasion was no
less than the greatest festival of India
Hidingly mixed up
in the motley crowd, his boy was staring at the villainous foe, the bearded
bulky fellow the likes of whom he’d seen in some Hindi movies watched with a
bated breath on a neighbour’s television. The seven-year-old was the only
brother of his sister siblings. His father put him to tentation.
“Deepu, go and
call your mother,” Bhagte’s morose and mopish tone failed to bring paternal
tartness in the order.
With some
uppishness the boy, in khaki knickers
and white shirt (oddly this was not his school dress, because mostly on such
occasions his school dress also served as the best piece of clothing), looked
at his father. His little twinklings eyes seemed to complain to his father for
his hob-knobbing with the bearded bad fellow. That’s how children define elders-–either
good or bad; no mixed up in between characterisation. To the boy’s
unstigmatised senses the religioner seemed the rakshasha, the demon, who’d
imprisoned a beautiful fairy in some folk tale.
“Why’re you
staring at me like this? Go and call your mother. And you too come with her!”
the father pitched up some tartness.
“No, I won’t,” the
boy seemed adamant.
“Now do’u need a
little slap for that!” while saying this with feigned aggressiveness, the
father seemed more perturbed than the boy himself.
The boy at once
ran out on his spiky legs to avoid any such eventuality. His backside showed a
very neatly washed up rumpled shirt, explicitly telling he’d worn it only this
morning after it’d lain crumpled up in some old trunk, waiting for some special
occasion to arrive. His cheap plastic slippers drummed-up his pace as they
struck musically against his heels.
The boy returned
with a cowering figure that followed the little man as if he was her sole
protector. The disciple’s little wife was shyly draped in a red sari tucked
a couple of inches above her ankles. Its colour had lost the charm despite
retaining some redness. Her large silver anklets prominently displayed their
trinketish garnet-garishment against the background of red socks and black
sandals. Below the lower edges of her sari,
pleated ends of a plain, faded petticoat were visible. Only her blouse had some
mundane ornamentation, but most of it was hidden under the dexterously drawn pallu of her sari which also served as her purdah.
All it displayed
was the cake and ale of countryside fashion prevalent among these poor ladies
with nice, hardworking hearts; though it might seem ragged, emaciated and sun-bleached
to the knuckle-rapping city sentimentality. Still, an odd emotional resonance
in these bucolic hearts tries to chalk down a bright fashion statement on a few
special occasions: extreme coloured wares; black sandals over red socks;
anklets which jingle disproportionately to their tiny, trivial existence; too
much oil in the braided hair, which makes head appear like a bald scalp painted
dark black; lipstick missing the feminine edges making them appear funnily
simple dummies; their hesitating dabbling into the glitters and shimmers of mascara, kohl, lipstick, bindi and
nail-polish; dupattas and chunnis salvaged from some neighbour’s
long obsolete wedding dress. Such are the crooning vital stats of folk-fashion.
In his simple
unauthoritative voice Bhagte ordered his wife from the upper ladder in the
harmonious hierarchy of lopsided relationship between husband and wife in a
traditional, conservative society:
“Go, touch the
feet of guruji and ask for blessings!”
The big, hairy and
bare-chested religioner was enjoying his time with a thin old man wearing a big
garland of flowers. Whatever might have been the nature of their conversation,
but by the look of it one would’ve wondered if they were bantering away jokes.
A slobbery peel of laughter culminated in a loud pat on his thigh as if he was
a commoner just like any other person in the chaupal.
“Guruji, here’re
your children!” Bhagte gave a little nudge at the shoulder of his shy, hesitant
wife. “Turn their life successful by your blessings,” he almost pleaded.
She went forward
and put her head on the Sadhu’s feet with the meekness of a goat.
“Shiva Shambhu
bless you the best of a fortune, daughter!” the fiery-eyed God’s confidante
showered a blessing in his dry and depersonalized tone. His firm upper body
became religiously taut.
“Now you, Deepu!”
head disciple felt a sensation of nervous energy as he smelt particles of
defiance above the kid’s head.
With horror in his
little twinkling eyes, the boy didn’t budge from his ground. His childish, willowy
figure seemed stuck up like a peg in the ground.
“Yes, yes! What’re
you waiting for? Get blessings from mahatmaji for your well being in
life,” the father repeated, shoveling the son forward.
The boy’s face
contorted in a firm resolution.
“No... no Pa no, I
won’t! He beat that girl and... and his friends killed her brother who came to
save her!” he almost fainted in the effort.
Aha, what big
sympathetic space in children’s hearts for the wrongs committed to fellow human
beings! Why then it goes on narrowing as we grow up, and finally take part in
those very same wrongs?
The religioner’s
coarse, craggy and cross face turned diabolically adversarial. There was a hell-raising
flashback and flashforward of her memory. His large temples under those
staggeringly big locks and curls of graying hair throbbed with stormy agitation.
“Didn’t I tell you
that bitch’d cast an evil charm on this little pigeon of yours!” with inherent deceit
and destructiveness he stared at his disciple.
“Now you little
foolish haunted one, come here!” he raised his hairy hand towards the boy.
“Now, I won’t!”
completely fear-frozen, the boy started to weep.
As was to be
expected, Bhagte gave a whack with his moderately thick, veiny and hairy hand
at the boy’s back for perpetrating insult to his revered guruji. The boy
let out a fluminous cry.
“No... no... Pa.
“Shut up you fool!
What filth are you shouting?” with an emaciated look Bhagte lost the divine
equanimity of his flawlessly cool temper.
His boy was
publicly unspooling sacrilege against the symbol of his faith. With shaking
hands he put his palm over the kid’s mouth to stop the unholy voice. The boy
writhed under his grasp. In desperation, his freckled cheeks twitching with
fear, the father gave many kicks at the boy’s bare, callused knees.
“Seems he’s still
under the black charm of that filthy nomad,” the predator preyed upon the
suffocated prey. “Didn’t I tell you how witchy these homeless wanderers are?
Now see with your own eyes. She wasn’t able to take him with her, but left an
evil spell on him. Look, how he speaks from her side as if his own father doesn’t
mean anything to him!” he sermonized his accusation against the tiny reality-knower.
Bhagte almost
shivered under the impact of his dark prophecy.
The little valiant
bit his father’s hand and stood his ground, “She knew one, two, three and a, b,
c, d so well. And... and didn’t pull my ears like masterji when I forgot
the count. She knew all of them. Even then you beat her! Why?”
He threatened the
religioner with his innocent eyes. Bhagte gave another merciless thwack at the
back of his head.
“A girl of those
illiterate lampoons knows all that lies in fat books! Ha... Ha... Haa! What a
powerful black magic!” the sermoneer strengthened his position.
His disciple took
it from where the guru’d left, “You... you... fool! How could’u be
haunted this much without my knowledge? Oh, God! Why’s this happened to me? Me!
Me, who has always followed your path. Oh, this little bewitched fool haunted
by the cursed ill magic of that devil spirit hiding inside that pretty faced
girl!” his faith was dangerously taking up the contours of webby superstition
from which it’s so difficult to get out.
He couldn’t speak
anymore. His lips quivered in a violent commotion. His tongue choked.
Aggrieveness was then worded by the salty stream of tears. Glimpsing through
the diluvial lenses, the purblind view of his guru seemed magically
aglow. Words once again welled up in his throat; this time in the form of a
prayer.
“O Lord, he’s my
only son…the latest step in our continuance on the path of goodness. Why in thy
name he’s been ensnared in this danger? Please Lord, please... save my child!” with
sad, teary he was staring heavenwards.
With his hands
clasped together he looked at the boy’s face so intensely as if to see the effect
of his prayer. His belief in God was so close-grained that had there been an
oracle from above, it won’t have surprised him even a bit. But then we no
longer get surprised by miracles. Rather, the hard facts of real life are
becoming manifold surprising. And beyond this, God’s ways and means are so
implicitly indirect that it’s hard to differentiate between a commonly known
reality and a miracle.
The voice of
course came from the religioner’s mouth, “Don’t be too worried Bhagte. Why’re
you giving trouble to the God who’s too far and has too many works at His disposal?
He’s deputed people like me for such simple and easy tasks. Don’t trouble Him
for such little things. I’ve handled most dangerous of evil spirits. I assure
you that I’ll very easily bury this one in earth.” Hawk-fierce tone of the
thick-set religioner now mellowed down to religious proportions.
The Sadhu’s heavy, sly eye-lids stopped
their work for a moment and he peeped into the honest and ardent eyes of his disciple.
With the air of a saviour he signaled Bhagte to bring the boy to him. An
obedient Bhagte shoved the boy towards the clutch-lorn hand of the religioner.
Displaying the quickness of a bird of prey, his spiritual mentor’s inexorably
hard fingers caught hold of the boy’s seraphically soft tissue-–his earlobe.
Acting on the nocent reflection of his soul’s instinct of mercilessly preying
upon soft targets, he twisted it with full force.
Tortured by this
demonic interjection into his softly mellifluous childhood, the boy gave a
loudly abusive cry.
“Leave me... leave
me... you sister-fucker... leave me!” amongst the painful shaking of his round
head, the obscenity sounded clear.
Oh, those jocosely
jousting urchins, whose tongues grow up believing that obscenities and foul
words are just name-sake common things of usage! Bhagte’s son was no exception.
He poured out his whole knowledge in the matter. In fact, some of them were
hair-raising in their offensiveness.
From top to tail,
every ounce of the religioner’s soul baulked a separate harangue.
“Pretty foul
mouthed evil spirit, you see,” his nostrils quivering, the godhead tried to
control the blatantly open show of his rage. “If not done away with very soon,
it’ll drink all his sweet blood. See... see how it comes? The blood!” he but failed
to put reins to his anger. His broad cheek-bones and that grizzled look
bestowed him some strange, savage handsomeness. The veins on his hairy temples
were sending repercussions through whole of his head.
In broad day light
it was turning a bloody, paranormal thing. With preterhuman gumption, fear
psychosis fell upon the gathering. Earlobe was cut at the corner. “The blood of
evil spirit, which she drank from him!” having a quick glance at the father on
the verge of fainting, he added, “Don’t worry Bhagte. I’ll protect your boy
from this gory spirit. Take my word on this!” The pious guest-of honour’s
thickly bearded jaw was drawn like a pincer.
Staring at the
spawn, once again he started his ritualistic thuggery, “Om ...
Om. .. Om. .. Go
away you child’s blood sucker!”
The exorcist’s
soul went for a perilous stoop. His fingertips were tainted with the sanguine
symbol of his inner paradoxical fury volcanically smouldering inside the stony
fortress of his religionhood. Sole worldly chink in the walls of earlier had by
now acquired a few more worldly siblings. Now he was fully determined to brave
up the worldly, materialistic fusillade. His utilitarian religious armoury,
thus, was naturally bound to get some more cleavages.
Like a predator
gearing up for another strike he rolled his fingertips laced with the mire of
unholy deed. Seeing a tiny unit of his existence dead and dried-up on the
insensitively dying flakes on his foe’s fingertips, the child was drawn into a
mysteriously chimerical world of childhood inquisitions. A severely hard lesson
churned out of it. Don’t mess up with this monster; otherwise consequences’ll
be more punitive.
Defeatedly the kid
dropped his gaze onto the ground. His silently suffering sobs bearing a
testimony to the treacherous lesson learnt from the mutinous episode. From his kamandla
the fearsome, barrel-chested exorcist splashed water over the boy’s face. A
serenely swelling-up sob was disharmonically captured by a chilly hiccup. Once
again he stared in those bulging blood-red eyes, which devilishly ordained, ‘Never
put up a revolt against me in the future!’
And he---a mere
seven-year-old---understood the message very well. A further splash of water
carried once chirpy kid into a sea of unplayful gloom. It was his initiation
into the glum world of fear and unchildish imagination. The religioner became
the sole symbol of jaw-clenching fee-faw and unknown inhibitions. Afraid that
any mischief of his would throw him into the devil’s tentacles, he put
unnaturally hasty breaks to his childhood manoeuvres. A mysterious sorrow and
fear blanketed the flower.
His father, who
used to have nightmares watching the son’s naughtiness, was now chanting the
name of his guru with every breath, servilely thankful for bringing the
harbinger of his pedigree on the right track. In a society where a father
visiting his children’s teachers is able to muster up just this one reformative
phrase ‘Sir, give him hardest of a beating!’, so we should’ve no problem in
estimating this father’s obligedness to his guru for the mighty lesson
taught to his son.
Still, there was a
mildly nagging worry. Only to keep the grain of paranormal insecurity alive
inside his disciple, the exorcist’d closed the religious discourse that day
with these words:
“See... See! Didn’t
I assure you I’ll handle it! See, the evil’s withdrawn into its shell. But, it
still exists in some littlest of point inside the body and can invigorate itself
if this little fool gives it an opportune time!”
The boy from that
day did his best not to let it happen. A miraculously reformed boy, indeed!
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.
