A Romancer of Loads

 

This one again dates back to the eighties of the last century. They gave him the name deplume of Bhunda Nai. Bhunda derived from his features, which stood as pompous adversaries to any sense of symmetry. There was a gross inaccuracy in their alignment with a sense of normalcy. They shouldn’t have named him Bhunda, ugly. To me he looked pretty interesting with his strange features. Nai was derived from his caste, barber.

Bhunde Nai ka bharota, Bhunda Nai’s fodder bundle, was part of local fables. He had spun a dynamic legend about it. Apart from his customary job of cutting hair, shaving beards and filling hookahs during weddings, he worked as an agricultural laborer. During those times, in the harvesting season, a laborer would be paid in fixed maunds of wheat and fixed number of fodder bales. He couldn’t do anything about the wheat because it would be measured. But the equation was open in terms of the number of fodder bales. A bundle could be as big as per the carrying capacity of the bearer. He made it the largest in the area.

He was a small man but very strong in bones. He had sewn himself a huge piece of sackcloth in order to accommodate maximum amount of fodder chaff in a bundle. The people comfortably agreed that his huge piece of cloth could easily accommodate a quintal and half of wheat chaff. Then he would walk like an ant carrying a huge grain of sugar. He was technically entitled to it. As per the norms, the farmer couldn’t say no to his load as long as Bhunda could carry it.

Then one day he fell while carrying his load from the farm to his house. They measured the load. It was dangerously near to two quintals. The village headman, a wise old man, had to intervene. ‘We have to fix the amount in measurable terms for fodder also, otherwise he would break his neck some day,’ he said. So the rule was changed and fodder chaff also came to be fixed in weight so that Bhunda won’t put his life at risk by carrying the heaviest load as per the old rule that allowed specified number of bales irrespective of their weight.

Bhunda was disgruntled. ‘You higher caste people make rules as per your advantage. What business is it yours if I break my neck while carrying my load,’ he cribbed while shaving the beard of a very old farmer. ‘We have all the business in doing so and save your life. Don’t we take care of our strong bulls who plough the maximum furrows for us?’ the old farmer asked in a gentle tone. Bhunda Nai had to agree to the logic. Strong laborers were as much indispensable as the strong bulls in agriculture during those days.