The car had
come to a silent stop, without so much as a hint of a jerk.
But the snooze broke all the same. Raghab’s eyes opened
without a hint of sleepiness as though he weren’t waking up
from a slumber. The driver’s seat was empty. He blinked his
eyes, yawned and caught a glimpse of his driver’s receding
form heading towards a knot of people a little distance
away. Must be a landslide. It is a common occurrence in
these hilly terrains. But that is during the rains. Well,
sometimes shiny October mornings are not spared too. Rains
stopped only a few days ago. He looked out the other window
of the car. Serpentine strings of vehicles could be seen
stranded on hairpin bends. Must be the road had been blocked
for quite some time. He found his driver walking back
towards the car, absorbed in some thought. As he came close
to the car, his eyes fell on his officer.
‘A big
landslide, Sir! Looks like we’re stuck for some time.”
He said
nothing. The driver walked towards another, smaller knot of
people, perhaps his fellow drivers, relieved that he had
informed his officer and was now free to enjoy his time
until the blockade was cleared. But a little later he
appeared at the car window and leaning towards him said,
‘Why not you straighten your limbs, Sir? Take a walk; you
can relieve yourself too!’
Not a
bad idea, he thought. ‘Well, all right,’ he said and got out
of the car and, standing on his toes, stretched his hands
and gave a vigorous yawn. Then at a leisurely pace he
stepped towards the spot where labourers were slogging away
at clearing the blockade as expeditiously as possible. A man
in khaki was overseeing the work. Raghab tiptoed his way to
the other side of the blockade, careful not to get his shoes
soiled with the soft sticky mud. He had spotted a
comparatively less crowded space on the other side of the
blockade where he could relieve himself. Perhaps his plan
has gone awry. He had gladly taken up this task – making an
inquiry into an alleged misappropriation of funds by a Block
Development Officer in collusion with the local Samiti
leaders. Gladly because his village, his place of birth
where his mother still lived, was not far from the place. He
expected to save time and spend a night or two with his
mother.
This was a
sore point – an awkward predicament in his otherwise
successful, well-arranged life. His mother would not live a
choking city life with her son. She was used to a stately
life in the village with command and authority over scores
of share croppers who dreaded her, respected her and at
times – when faced with misery and want – turned to her for
succour. She loved disciplining them, browbeating them and
at times showering affection on them. Several times did he
try to persuade her to part with the landholdings and live
with him, her only heir, who would never have anything to do
with agricultural land. But his mother, thoroughly feudal
that she was in her attitude, had little faith in the
efficacy of an invisible bank balance. She didn’t believe
that the surrealistic concept of well being with no
perceivable wealth could hold good for generations to come.
There was no dearth of people there to look after her. She
had no cause for anxiety about a lonely existence in her old
age.
A faint
smile creased his cheeks even as he sighed. His mother’s
distrust of modern bank balance-credit card economic
security was irremediable.
‘Raghab!’ a
faint, diffident tone rang in his ears, as though coming
from the depth of his own erratic thoughts. He was just
preparing to tiptoe back to the other side of the blockade,
his fingertips clenching the creases of his trousers and one
leg already off the ground to take a step past the first
blob of sticky mud. He froze there, looked around to make
sure it was not a figment of his imagination. Then as,
certain that there could be no one to utter his name there,
he set down the foot on the targeted space, there was
another. Someone was calling him. This time, there could be
no mistake about it. He looked around with probing eyes. On
the side of the cliff was standing a female labourer smiling
at him. Her teeth were almost non-existent, but her gums
were very prominent and unusually red.
It struck a
chord. He knew the smile, for sure. Some scanning device
began scanning his memory at a mad speed. Yes! He could
never forget that smile. He retraced his step, turned
towards the woman and took a few desultory steps.
‘Ino
didi, aren’t you?’
The smile
widened with a touch of pleasure and accomplishment. But no
words followed. He knew she wasn’t the kind to utter too
many words. She was born with a peculiar speech disorder.
Not exactly dumb. Her voice was something like the
screeching of mice and there was a slight lisp in her
speech. She was all gums when she smiled; and she smiled all
the time. A flood of memories transported him back to his
childhood in one swift stroke.
Ino didi was
the daughter of a marginal farmer of the village. She was
known for her trademark smile and zero ill-will against
anyone. Everyone in the village loved her, and trusted her
to do just what she was told. Her family was in some way
closely related to theirs. He never had the occasion to find
out if there were blood ties between the two families. In
all probability, it was closeness between a landlord and his
loyal, trustworthy tenant farmer.
Whatever,
one very memorable day of his childhood was all about Ino
didi. He was not more than four years old then. His parents
had gone on a day’s tour of a religious shrine. He’d later
learned, it was to soothe their broken hearts – broken at
the death of his older brother – that they had made the
trip. However, they had left him in the care of Ino didi.
For they knew Ino wouldn’t do anything other than what she
was instructed. Perhaps her parents were given the overall
charge of looking after the child. But it was Ino didi who
was there all day long playing with him. He could never
forget that day. He had made life hell for the poor,
introverted girl. He must that very day fulfil all his
long-cherished desires when his parents were away;
particularly his desire to explore the neighbourhood. And
Ino didi was particularly instructed not to allow him out of
the compound. His persistent pestering had broken down Ino
didi’s resistance. They had strayed into the woody patch
behind the house. The tall trees with dark shadows gathering
at their bottoms had a kind of primordiality that had always
exerted a pull on him. A fairy tale world was awaiting him
there, inviting him to come and explore the mysteries of the
shadowy world – shadows with weird schemes of sunlight. At
noontimes, when the house wore lonely looks with only his
mother cooking in the kitchen, he often tried to steal a
foray into that world. But his mother would invariably foil
his designs with uncanny astuteness. It was this Ino didi
who had opened the door of his fantasy world that day. Once
inside the mystic world, Ino didi had become a child
herself. She had plucked some kind of wild berries and
offered him. The juicy berries had a strange sweet-and-sour
taste. Then there was the sighting of that strange creature
on a tree – lizard-like to look at but bigger in size and
with strange colour combinations. It almost flew from one
branch of a tree to another. He had sighted it first and
attracted Ino didi’s attention to it. Ino didi’s gaze had
frozen for a few seconds before she had grabbed hold of his
hand and broken into a run for their dear lives. ‘Blood
sucker,’ she had explained later. It sucked blood from the
navel of young children like him.
Strangely,
he didn’t remember anything else about Ino didi except -
much later - a word or two being spoken by the village
people about Ino getting married. He hadn’t known what kind
of a match had come to marry Ino didi and from where. All
these years, he had never once remembered a thing about the
poor girl of the village whom everyone pitied, everyone
loved but nobody considered anything beyond that.
‘I can’t
believe this! Where’s your husband? What’re you doing here?
What does your husband do?’ he couldn’t wait to find out
everything about Ino. Then, from Ino’s grudging, almost
reluctant replies, he learnt her husband was a day labourer.
They’d shifted to these parts recently; for it was easier
here to find work. They earned better here. Her husband has
earned a name as a skilled hand at jobs like mending fences
and thatch-roofing houses. He is never short of work, goes
out every day to day-labour at residences in the
neighbourhood. She works for the highway maintenance people
– tarring a worn part sometimes, cleaning the sides and
sometimes removing blockades caused by landslides as she was
doing now. Altogether, she wasn’t unhappy. Her kids? The
elder one works for the forest order suppliers, has married
and lives separately. Two have died; the youngest one – a
girl – goes to school.
Raghab found
nothing more to ask. Ino didi’s story was so brief, and
uncomplicated. He stayed put thinking what more to say.
Neither did Ino seem to have anything to enquire about him.
Perhaps she had known he had become a big officer; there was
the unmistakable awe in her eyes, awe of talking with a big
man. He groped for a parting word but found none. The
all-powerful bureaucrat in him wondered if propriety
required that he extend a favour to Ino. What favour could
he extend to a self-contained woman who had no complaints in
life? Ino most certainly wasn’t a scheming snob. She
expected nothing out of her once-upon-a-time familiarity
with a little child who had now become a big man.
But it didn’t
seem easy on his part to just get away from his Ino didi
without something appropriate done to express how happy he
was to see her after ages. Something inside him said he owed
something to his once-upon-a-time playmate, whom he had, out
of naivety, considered his elder sister. But he wasn’t sure
what it was.
Fortunately
for him, the man in khaki had decided to allow the small
cars to pass. There was a commotion and busy movements. He
grabbed at the change of scene, turned around to take a
quick look at what was happening around, and then with an
air of extreme hurriedness took himself off uttering some
incoherent words of no particular meaning.
