The art of surrender

 

Two events, roughly 125 years apart, bear witness to the validity of the principle of surrender, of unqualified, ageless surrender to be precise. It bears fruits. The first instance dates back to 1890s. Of all the so-called low caste communities, dhanaks are known to be the least submissive to the dominant landholding castes. They are dark-skinned proud natives who have the guts and foul words to rattle the eardrums. They also possess enough stick-wielding prowess to match the previous two traits. They don’t carry social power and standing, but they hold their head quite high and can definitely quarrel when faced with casteist slur.

In the 1890s, Magni was a popular outlaw from their community. He and his group of vagabonds robbed the travellers crossing the scrub forest around the village at night. Confident of his dark-time profession, he carried extra air in his chest during the day. But then pride hath a fall.

A farmer from the village bought a beautiful mare from a fair. The majestic animal instantly caught Magni’s fancy. The barn was within the almost fortified compound of the haveli. It was impossible to enter once the main big copper-spiked wooden door closed for the night. The walls of lakhori bricks worked in lime were too strong to be broken except by hours of hammering.

Magni but had a better plan than launching a loud attack on the walls. He sneaked into the haveli around twilight and hid himself in an upper wall alcove used for storing dung-cakes and farm equipment. There he sat hidden casting greedy looks at the mare below. Unluckily someone saw him. Very silently a group of rotund farmers wielding lathis and pharsas gathered, closed the gate and peacefully stood below the hiding place. There comes down Magni with the highest probability of being lynched to death.

However, Magni was a smart guy also. He knew humility and surrender has its value. They saw him coming down with his buffalo leather juti held in his mouth as the humblest mark of surrender. It qualifies as the highest degree of self-court-marshal. There he goes, keeping his eyes on the ground, shoulder slouched to a big degree, his muddy leather footwear in his mouth, walking with the warm and majestic ease of ceasefire and surrender. Such unqualified surrender deserves consideration even among the work-brute farmers. They let him pass. But after this episode he had to keep a little less air in his chest as he walked in the village streets.

The second incident dates back a few years. There was a huge bully dog in the village. A misuser of the canine power, I would say. It was so dismissive of the lesser canine mortals. It would intimidate women and children, ate the smaller dogs’ chapattis and stole their girlfriends by force. All in all, it wasn’t popular neither among the humans nor the canine folks of the village. It had been to our yard as well. In fact it toppled over the pots containing dalia poultice for the newly calved buffalo. We ran after it but it would escape.

Then one fine day, on yet other mission of mischief, it got trapped because it couldn’t escape in time. We were successful in closing the yard gate before it could escape. Within minutes a few stick-yielding brats arrived to help us settle the score. They had their own grudges against the dog bully. So half a dozen nice sticks waited to dispense justice. Ours is a society that believes in justice, especially if we are in the authority or position to bring it about.

Had the dog growled or reacted in some angry way meaning a fight back it would surely have meant getting lynched to death. Had it yelped in piteous pleading tones, it would have meant a few severe, maybe, bone-breaking strikes. But it was a clever dog, maybe even wise, as smart as Magni was. Like him it knew the value of utmost unqualified surrender. It sat on the ground, brought out its tongue in supplication and hideous abjection and gave such a marvelous show of shivering that the attacking party was left spellbound, almost hypnotized by the show of perfect surrender.

I think had it shivered just a bit more, we would have heard its skeleton creaking and clanking. We were mesmerized. We forgot that we had sticks in our hands. We saw the waters of his surrender dribbling out from under him. He performed the surrendering feat for full five minutes. Yours truly having some poetic bent of mind or rather heart, became the first one to accept the terms of surrender and even the rough farmers agreed.

The surrender papers presented such a big victory that it wasn’t possible to ignore them. I opened the gate. There it went with its tail jutted against its balls, tongue out and body shivering. A slow march to defeat it was. I hope it wasn’t Magni repeating his surrender in a canine avatar.