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.

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.

Why is the real poetry a thing of youth only?

 

Most of the real poems are written during the turbulent twenties of a poet's life. In the early twenties, one is pursued by the glorious uncertainties of life. It’s a slippery, exciting and critically opinionated path. Don’t worry, it’s just a surge of extra energy, nothing else. The stage is shaky and realities are yet to get a foothold. You trample a lot of turf like a young colt spraying legs in all directions and galloping just for the sheer causeless fun of it. Of course, there are consequences but they hold their miserable importance in the eyes of the elders only. To the youngsters they are just irritable speed-breakers on the thrilling path.

One’s hormonally buzzing self floats in a hazy mist of unripe, raw, juicy, sweet-sour tart of dreams and imaginations striking the moron mass of established norms. The hormonal-storms-fuelled beliefs, views, opinions and dreams create sparks and sometimes thunderstorms. Nothing wrong with that! That’s all part of our making. It’s a pretty noisy and shaky groundwork born of your ‘making’ that provides a bit of stability later in life. Ask anyone, most of us are very lenient and forgiving towards our youthful gallops even if these have given us many bruises after the hard falls. We wear them with pride like the symbols of our reaching the peak of the mountain.

Tossed by immaturity and the raw power of youth and age, one hits the extreme ends of emotional scale. It’s a massive range of most painful pangs of heart to the ecstatic most reverberations of spirit. It’s a churning of our existence pulled by totally different strings. The product is quite fatty and butter-laced. No wonder, poetry is the handmaiden of the youth. The sediments, the cuts, the corrosion, the erosion, the torrents all unleash a gushing stream of emotions and adventures that swirl past the hard-established conventions and taboos to create a niche for the self.

There is an entire emotional terrain from the bleakest to the brightest as a youthful soul tries to manage the precarious walk on the shaky rope of young age. The same was the case with yours truly. It was a far simpler world in the nineties of the last century and it seems a long time since then. But it’s never easy for the youth, be it any age or century. They have their own challenges, agonies, follies and ecstasies.

The sheer shakiness of life in youth propels a multitude of streamlets in one’s heart. There is a teasing pull between the head and the heart, wherein the latter most often wins the lots in its favour. The elders may disagree but young people have an entire parallel world, a world that challenges the mundane and boring and firmly etched norms and conventions. We may compromise later in life and settle for a far more contained and restrained life but all of us carry pining nostalgia for our youth because that is when we really challenged the chains that curtail our free flight.

Our follies, which we committed during our youth, still stand better than all the rights of our later years. This is in celebration of youth and its tendency to throw us literally to hit against the ceiling. And the bumps, bruises and little scars that we get along the way never fail to bring a smile on our lips even in the grey years of our old age.      

The Last Bus of the Day

 

This goes back to the last decade of the last century. Those were the times of very limited means of transport. The last bus would start at half past nine in the night from the district centre for the neighboring district city. Our village fell at a distance of 10 km from the starting point. If the rumble-tumble of circumstances found you stranded at the town at night, you had to muster up every ounce of your flint-hard willpower to get a foothold on the last means of conveyance. If you missed it, pleading a lift with the truck drivers was the last resort. This was lethally inept choice because even if some trucker gave you a lift with a conspicuous condescension, you would lay at the most open disposal of fate as they would be drunk and ply their jangling vehicles with untamed energy.

It was against this background that the last bus acquired a big status. Those were easier times and at half past nine, the town would look deserted like it was midnight. The exotica, the erotica would arrive shaking its tin body with the epitome of teasing virility. It carried an air of romantic freshness as it arrived at long last. The big group of stranded passengers—at that time one would feel like stranded—would welcome it with whistles and catcalls. There would be a stampede to grab the seats. Tempers would ride tautened strings.

There would be dozens of indifferent village drunks among the passengers. Lawlessness went on increasing down the aisle. It reached its peak on the last seat. The conductor looked helpless in doing his ticketing duties. He appeared singlehandedly pitched against millions. He would squeeze through the pandemonium of brawls, lewd songs, guffaws of laughter, cuss words and dirtiest jokes. Free spirit unleashed its lecherous mechanism in full veracity with the evil. Everyone felt so free and independent to go to any extent without the censorial holds of society and traffic laws. Most of the passengers would flatly say ‘no’ to the bus conductor’s request for a ticket. There was no danger of getting caught by the ticket-checking flying squad at night.

There would be a joyful tension and exciting tumult among the law-breaking passengers, and the conductor carried his moist and embittered soul among the enemies. The roadways department chose muscular and brawny types of conductors for this last, tough trip of the day. Amidst the brash and benumbing noise, he tried to salvage some coins in his green leather bag and save the ignominy of not being able to hand out even a single ticket among the crowd. The moment he heard a sorrowful, somber and low-timbred voice, he would swoop down upon the opportunity to sell at least a ticket. More duty-bound types would enter into a verbal spat and even a fistfight with the vagrants. So, all in all, it was a charity round by the roadways. Dozens of passengers on the roof were the freest souls. They were above any rule of society and traffic department. Dark vaults of the sky were the farthest limits for their fun-ride.

Fauji Thekedar, a smalltime construction works contractor, once found him in this pandemonium. He was no Fauji, soldier, but his conduct was so orderly and disciplined that they accepted him as a soldier, more real than the real soldiers in the Indian army, and gave him the honorary title of Fauji. He also justified this title much demonstratively and crossed the paths and bypaths of personal and professional life with an impressive moral grandstanding.

He felt a mortal strain to his sense of uprightness. Sitting on the last seat amidst the vilest revelers, he decided to teach them a lesson. As the bus stopped at a non-descript station in the countryside, he raised a terrible alarm ‘Bomb-Bomb’ and made way for the exit as if flying away from definite doom. He fell on the steps with his face down and his back offered a nice ramp for the fellow passengers to escape into the dark outside. The bus was empty within a minute and Fauji was the sole passenger lying painfully facedown on the steps. From a distance, they waited eagerly for Fauji to be blown away with the bus. There was no blast for five minutes and they slowly came nearer. They got him up and enquired about the bomb. A lot many of them looked eager to start the second installment of punishment. But then a sane voice intervened. ‘His back has enough horses galloping on it for the day. Leave him!’ He was given a safe corner. Later on, Fauji seemed to lose his sense of discipline. He turned cranky and at loggerheads with any sense of order.

A Visit to the Town

 

These are the times of big things and big issues. If you ride a little vehicle like scooty then you have to accept your humble position and agree to whatever inches of the road by the edges that may be granted to you by the bigger, faster vehicles. A car parked by the side will suddenly take a turn and deprive you of even the thin line of your travel along the road’s margin. A window may suddenly pop open giving you the scare of life.

I am going to the town and a liquor lover is asking for a lift. He is standing right in the middle of the road. When he found that I am crossing him without paying heed to his orders, he takes a swipe at my helmeted head. I duck and give myself credit for being alert enough to avoid going dusting at his feet. Further on, you have a non-confident dog looking to cross the road. It almost did what the drunkard had failed to do. Well, there are confident dogs as well, who just step back wisely as you press the horn. By the way, the very same are the categories of the humans crossing the road.

A woman is getting down from the bus with her face backwards and the helpless conductor shouting, ‘Look saamne, saamne!’ She tumbles down as the bus is still in a snaily motion. Luckily, there is no harm done and she gives a sheepish, embarrassed grin. A few people gather around and give her a nice lecture about how to properly get down from a slowly moving bus.

The most challenging task is to avoid a little school boy from scoring a goal. Bored with school after two years of Covid-forced holidays, and not in the habit of attending classes anymore and hence in a terrible mood, he tries to beat his boredom by kicking a coconut shell. He is all for playing football with an empty coconut. My vehicle is surely the goal. I turn sharply at the last moment and he misses it. Misses a goal and kicks dust with a dejected face.

Then I have to overtake a tractor discotheque. The tractor itself makes so much of noise and coupled with huge woofers and speakers it unleashes a tornado. The main beneficiaries of the music, if at all, are those at least a mile off. I cross it with much trepidation. It’s almost like getting across a fighter jet.

Randhir, the farmer, is coming back from the town. He feels best while plying his tractor, so in good mood he waves at me. His BP has been recorded to fluctuate between 40 and 240 and he passes off almost every fortnight. But he feels safe while driving his tractor. ‘The bumps and jerks keep the body shaking and I am at my best!’ he explains the reason for loving tractor riding. So he doesn’t miss an opportunity to go plying his tractor.

In the town, the banjaras have pitched tents along the road. They have a nice way out to handle the civic body officials. They too want to settle down now after those centuries of wanderings. They have national flags flying from their huts and tents. A few have cows also tethered in front. It stops the civic authorities from treating them merely as stateless ruffians. Nationalism sells well these days and they have as much a right to affirm their credentials as any other internet patriot.

A policeman has parked his car on the road and there is a traffic jam. Many people mutter their grumbling dissent under their breath only. You have to respect police even if they park their private vehicles right in the middle of the road. Small vehicles carry advantages also and I somehow squeeze through.

In the grain market, a merchant shares his philosophy. His servant is busy in cleaning his master’s brand new car. The business is slack and there is no work for the servant so the Lala has got him to the task of cleaning his already shining car. ‘Never leave a servant free!’ he tells me the mantra of his success. I get a few moments for a talk with the car-cleaning servant. ‘Haan ji ki naukri, Na ji ka ghar!’ he shares his philosophy. Well, both credos seem complementary to each other in the world of business.

If you are lazy to go visiting your town regularly and instead club your multiple tasks in a single visit, you will return at twilight only. There are shrieks and screeching of the noisy spotted owlets as I open the gate. They love jumping out while it’s still some minutes left for the fading light of the day and scare the people with their hideous shrieks and squeaks. It sounds like they are condemning my returning in one piece on a little vehicle, riding on a road that has been hijacked by the bigger ones.

Never commit the mistake of being absent for the entire day, especially if there are monkeys around. The garden is vandalized. The banana frond is decimated. It seems an intentional ravage. They are showing the best population growth rate at the moment. There are monkeys-monkeys everywhere. Does nature have a counter? Younger lithe males are trying to break into the established harems of the old rascals. Short on love, a young rascal settled for a very old, shrunk, tailless monkey lady. He was earlier thoroughly bashed up by the huge alpha male so the beaten Romeo settled for a harem discard. If they are off the scene even for an hour, you come to understand what peace really means.

A bat hovers around. The twilight is preponed slightly as it’s overcast. It loves to suck juice from the big dark scarlet cone of the banana flower. It seems to love doing shirashana as it hangs upside down from the pointed end of the cone. It’s miraculous that the cone is still dangling intact after the monkey’s free play in the garden.

The kittens are waiting for their milk. They are both males by the way. They now have a cheeky girlfriend. She is very clever. They love her company and their priorities seem to have shifted quite a bit. They have given her an unrestricted access to their milk bowl. They no longer sleep together curled up in a brotherly ball. There is a girl in the equation now. Maybe they are jealous of each other and are looking for some private space.