The Story of a Aaam Family

 

This is October end. There is a ceremonial frenzy of the season through falling leaves, almost a rain of dew at nights, fleecy mist at dawn, dew-drenched flowers at sunrise, paling sunrays, cool breeze, lots of festivals and much welcomed freshness in social mood. The air carries some floating salubrious emotions. Rashe and his younger brother Karne are sitting under a tree. It’s day off from work. Well, their case needs a mention here. They have a smalltime, ambling past, a little history of their household.

Rashe’s brother Karne went missing at the age of ten. He was spotted last time at the nearest railway station at Sonipat. Everyone accepted that he boarded a train but whether he went north or south nobody had any clue. Well, his parents had three sons and a daughter, so he wasn’t missed much in the one-room house of a poor landless family lying almost at the base of the socio-economic hierarchy. The most popular version about him was that his organs had been harnessed by the medical mafia and he had completed his purpose on earth.

His father had one leg afflicted with polio. So they christened him Langda, the lame one. Langda was very hardworking and would give a tough challenge to any two-legged human around in completing tough labor tasks. He loved drinking after the day’s hard work. And once he was fully sloshed, he would give a test to his lungs by shouting so loudly as to be heard even in a neighboring village on clear, silent nights. He didn’t say too offensive things. He just targeted an ex village head who had denied his request for a below poverty line card that would have made him eligible for free ration and some help for repairing his one-room house. Langda wasn’t in the sarpanch’s good books, so his name didn’t enter the beneficiaries, while people far richer than him got their cards that entitled them to receive government subsidies. So Langda would shout ‘Dalbir sarpanch mar gaya!’ throughout the night. It meant the sarpanch is dead. The ex village head stayed at the farthest end of the village but he would regularly hear the declaration of his death because Langda shouted better than a big loudspeaker. Finally, they had to give him a few slaps. Langda simply brought down the volume a bit but continued with his declaration nonetheless.

One night a fully drunk Langda was hit by a high-speed car while crossing the road outside the village. The family received ten lakh rupees in compensation from the party in their out of court settlement. That helped them in making a better house. His widow would acknowledge God’s help as she saw their better home. ‘Thank God their father’s bones sold well!’ she would say.

Then Karne returned after ten years. He had grown tall like a giraffe. He had actually boarded a train heading north to reach Punjab. There a good-natured Sikh farmer kept him as a helper on his farm. As a goodwill gesture, I gifted them a big speaker lying sullenly in the store. Karne and his brother, Rashe, the gentle giant, loved music. They must have really liked the gift because they played songs at a riotous volume throughout nights. The soul of their father must have felt propitiated, hearing his legacy being carried forward in a nice manner. Rashe and Karne would work on the farms and construction sites and would enjoy ganja whenever possible.

Well, ganja has been quite a popular choice in this part to forget the hardships of life. During the good old days, people would smoke ganja sitting on the last seat of the last bus and its fumes would take everyone in the grip along the aisle. The driver would baulk that his head is spinning and he would crash-land the bus into the roadside ditch. ‘Please do it, you will also die with us!’ they would encourage him to keep his words.

During those grand old days of theatres, when people danced in front of the screen on popular songs, there would be some ganja-lovers inside the cinema hall who would leave a big plume of ganja smoke leaving dozens coughing and sneezing. Ask them to stop it and they would threaten to help the troubled person by beating him to pass out and hence turn impassive to the offensive smoke. Those were the days when women won’t dare to step into a theatre because the crudest words were hurled in the darkness infested with grossly atrophied masculinity. Well, coming back along the ganja strains to the little tale of Rashe’s house.   

Their brother, named Munna, is a bit higher placed on the scale of cleverness and sophistication in thinking. He works at a needle factory in the nearby town. A few years back he took an overdose of ganja. People said it entered his brain and he shouted all through the nights for almost two years and kept the family tradition of night shouts alive. Well, on a dull drab overcast autumn morning, the song of the birds holds the hope of a bright sun sometime. The fate of the only witty son in the family also got its sunshine. He got his mind back and stopped shouting. In fact, he seems a silent sage now and speaks only the least words required to sustain his job.

Rashe is my favorite of the three. ‘How are you Rashe?’ I ask. ‘Even happier after meeting you,’ he replies. He did some work for me and after paying him I asked, ‘Is it enough?’ ‘There cannot be any shortage in your reign,’ he replied. He prefers payment in liquor. Handing over the favorite beverage after the completion of another task, I ask him, ‘Hope this is sufficient.’ He points his fingers to the sky and declares, ‘God will definitely give more.’ So I have to give him more to fulfill God’s wish. He has a cutely slurred speech thanks to the immobility of his lower jaw that went out of action after their horse hit him on jaw when he was an infant.

Their mother is a much-at-ease woman. She is a big lady and moves slowly with ease and comfort. Any type of restlessness is farthest from her persona. She is incapable of holding any ill will against anyone or anything. The villagers take these uncompetitive traits as signs of her foolishness and say that she is weak in mind. Being competitive, restless and quarrelsome are taken as signs of mental health. She is thus beyond any malice. There is an exception though. She has a mission against the monkeys and that makes my head almost bow in reverence before her. The roots of this animosity go back to her childhood. She cannot forget that a monkey snatched away the sweetest mango she has ever tasted in life. Unpardonable. The simians got the duel further when an irritated monkey sank its teeth in her calf muscles. She took hold of its fur and bit even harder. The monkey carried the bite mark to its grave just like she carries hers on her leg.