3

With the coming of summer, a flock of herons flew in from the direction of the Pirpainti hills and settled on the crown of Grant Sahib’s banyan tree. From a distance, it looked as though the treetop were laden with clusters of white blossoms.

One day, as I was working at a table and chair set up at the edge of a half-dry kash forest, Munishwar Singh, the sepoy, came and announced, ‘Huzoor, Nandlal Ojha the grain merchant has come to see you.’

A moment later, an elderly man of about fifty came before me, offered a selam, and, at my gesture, sat down on a stool. He immediately took out a woollen pouch. From inside it, he produced a tiny janti and two areca nuts, and began to slice them. Then, with the cut pieces in his palm, he cupped his hands together, held them out to me, and said with great deference, ‘Supari lijiye, Huzoor.’

Although I was not in the habit of eating areca nut that way, I accepted for the sake of courtesy. I asked, ‘Where have you come from? What is your business?’

In reply, the man told me his name was Nandlal Ojha, a Maithil Brahmin. His home was in Sungthiyadiyara, about eleven miles from the kachari to the north-east. He had farmland at home, and also a small moneylending business. He had come to invite me to his house on the day of the coming full moon—would I be so kind as to grace his home with the dust of my feet? Would he be granted such good fortune?

I had little desire to travel eleven miles in this blistering sun for a meal, but Nandlal Ojha was so insistent that I had no choice but to agree. Besides, I could not resist the temptation to gain some experience of a householder’s life in this country.

On the day of the full moon, after noon, an elephant was seen approaching through the tall kash jungle. When it arrived at the kachari, I learned from the mahout that the elephant belonged to Nandlal Ojha himself—he had sent it to fetch me. There had been no need to send an elephant—I could have reached him in less time on my own horse.

Be that as it may, I set off for Nandlal’s house mounted on the elephant. The green treetops were beneath my feet, the sky seemed to touch my head—the blue line of the distant, far-distant mountain ranges encircled the forest lands, creating a world of illusion. I was an inhabitant of that enchanted world—a god from some distant heaven. It was as though I travelled unseen, passing under so many clouds, through the blue atmosphere above so many of the earth’s green forests.

On the way, we came to the Chamta bil, which, even at the end of winter, was teeming with flocks of silli and red geese. They would fly away as soon as the weather grew a little warmer. From time to time, we passed utterly impoverished hamlets: tobacco fields fenced with cactus, and humble huts with tiled roofs.

When the elephant entered the village of Sungthiya, I saw people lined up on both sides of the path to welcome me. A short distance into the village was Nandlal’s house.

There were eight or ten mud houses with tiled roofs, all separate, scattered here and there across a vast courtyard. Just as I entered the house, a gun was fired twice, suddenly. I was startled—at that moment, a smiling Nandlal Ojha came to greet me, led me into the house, and seated me on a chair on the veranda of a large hut. The chair was made of local sissoo wood, and fashioned by a village craftsman. Then a little girl of ten or eleven came and held a platter before me. On it were a few whole betel leaves, whole areca nuts, a small bowl like one for madhuparka containing a little attar, and a few dried dates. Not knowing what I was expected to do with this, I smiled like a novice and merely lifted a little attar on my fingertip from the bowl. I also said a few polite, sweet words to the girl. She placed the platter in front of me and left.

Then came the arrangements for the meal. I had no idea that Nandlal had planned such a grand feast. A seat was laid out on a huge wooden pindri, and before it was placed a brass platter of a size we would use back home for the great naibedya offering during Durga Puja. On the platter were puris as big as an elephant’s ear, fried bathua greens, a raita of ripe cucumber, a sour curry of raw tamarind, yoghurt made from buffalo milk, and pedas. I had never seen such a strange combination of foods. The courtyard was thronged with people who had come to see me, and they were staring at me as if I were some creature never seen before. I learned they were all Nandlal’s tenants.

As I was getting up to leave before evening, Nandlal placed a small pouch in my hand and said, ‘A token for Huzoor.’ I was astonished. There was a lot of money in the pouch, no less than fifty rupees. No one gives so much as a nazar, and besides, Nandlal was not even my tenant. But for a householder, to have his nazar refused is apparently an insult—so I opened the pouch, took out a single rupee, and returning the pouch to his hand, said, ‘Buy some pedas for your children.’

Nandlal would not hear of it, but I paid him no mind, came outside, and mounted the elephant.

The very next day, Nandlal Ojha came to my kachari with his eldest son. I received them with due courtesy, but they would not agree to my offer of refreshments. I was told that a Maithil Brahmin will not eat any food prepared by the hand of another Brahmin. After a good deal of idle talk, Nandlal brought up a private matter with me. His eldest son was a candidate for the post of tahsildar of Phulkia Baihar—I must appoint him. I was amazed and said, ‘But Phulkia already has a tahsildar—the post is not vacant.’ In reply, Nandlal winked at me and gestured, saying, ‘Huzoor, you are the master. What is not possible if you wish it?’

I was even more dumbfounded. What sort of talk was this? The tahsildar of Phulkia was doing his job well—on what grounds was I to dismiss him?

Nandlal said, ‘Tell me how many rupees I must give you for your paan, Huzoor. I will deliver it to you this very evening. But you must give my son the post of tahsildar. Tell me, Huzoor, how much? Five hundred…?’ By now I understood perfectly the true purpose of Nandlal’s invitation the day before. Had I known the people of this country were so devious, would I ever have gone there? What a fine mess I had got myself into!

I sent Nandlal away with a few plain words. I could see he had not given up hope.

Another day, I saw Nandlal waiting for me at the edge of a dense forest.

In what an accursed moment had I gone to his house for a meal! If I had known that feeding me two puris would make my life so unbearable, would I have even crossed his shadow?

Seeing me, Nandlal smiled a sweet, gentle smile and said, ‘Namaskar, Huzoor.’

‘Hmph. And what brings you here?’

‘Huzoor knows everything. I will give you twelve hundred rupees in cash. Give my son the job.’

‘Are you mad, Nandlal? I am not the one who makes appointments. You can petition the estate owners. Besides, the man who is there now—for what fault shall I dismiss him?’

Without another word, I spurred my horse and galloped away.

Gradually, with my stern behaviour, I turned Nandlal into a great enemy of myself and the estate. I did not yet understand what a dangerous kind of man Nandlal was. I was to suffer dearly for the consequences of this.

To fetch the mail from the post office nineteen miles away was a momentous event here. Since it was not possible to send a man that far every day, someone went to the post office only twice a week. Perhaps the famous explorer Sven Hedin, sitting in his tent in the desolate, impassable, and fearsome Taklamakan desert of Central Asia, awaited his mail with a similar eagerness. In the eight or nine months since my arrival, watching day after day, night after night, the sunsets, the constellations, the rising of the moon, the play of moonlight, and the running of the nilgai through the woods in this unpeopled wilderness, I had lost all touch with the outside world—and it was through those few letters in the mail that a connection to it was re-established.

On the appointed day, Jawahirlal Singh had gone to fetch the mail. He was due to arrive this afternoon. The Bengali muhuri Babu and I kept looking out towards the jungle. About a mile and a half from the kachari, the path ran over a high mound. When Jawahirlal Singh reached it, he would be clearly visible.

The afternoon wore on. There was no sign of Jawahirlal. I was pacing in and out of the room. The volume of office work here was by no means small. Reviewing the reports of the various amins, signing the daily cashbook, writing replies to letters from headquarters, examining the collection accounts of the patwaris and tahsildars, passing decrees or dismissals on all manner of petitions, reading the reports from lawyers and case managers in Purnia, Munger, Bhagalpur and other places where various lawsuits were pending and replying to them—these and many other major and minor tasks had to be done regularly every day, or in two or three days they would pile up so much that finishing them would become a soul-crushing ordeal. And with the arrival of the mail, another mountain of work would appear: all kinds of letters from the city, all kinds of orders—go to such and such place, arrange the settlement of such and such mahal with so and so, and so on.

At three in the afternoon, Jawahirlal’s white turban was seen glinting in the sun. The Bengali muhuri Babu called out, ‘Manager Babu, come, the mail peon is coming—there he is!’

I came out of the office. In the meantime, Jawahirlal had descended from the mound and entered the jungle again. I brought out my opera glasses and saw that he was indeed coming, far away, through the tall grasses and bon-jhau of the forest. I could no longer concentrate on my office work. What desperate anticipation! The rarer a thing is, the more value it holds in the human mind. It is very true that this value is an artificial one, created by the mind, and has no relation to the actual excellence or worthlessness of the desired object. But is it not by imposing an artificial value on most things in the world that we make them great or small?

Jawahirlal came into view on the other side of a narrow, sandy depression in front of the kachari. I rose from my chair. The muhuri Babu went forward to meet him. Jawahirlal came, offered a selam, and stood, pulling a bundle of letters from his pocket and handing it to the muhuri Babu.

There were a couple of letters for me as well, in a very familiar hand. Reading the letters, I looked at the surrounding jungle and was myself astonished. Where was I? I had never thought I would one day be living here, spending day after day in a place like this, far from the addas of Calcutta. I had subscribed to an English magazine, and today’s issue had arrived. On the wrapper was written ‘By Air Mail’. How could one appreciate the pleasure of this twentieth-century scientific marvel while sitting in the heart of crowded Calcutta? Here—in this secluded forest province—there was leisure to think about and be amazed by everything. The surroundings here brought forth that feeling.

If I must speak the truth, it is only since coming here that I have learned to truly think and reflect on life. So many thoughts awaken in my mind, so many old memories surface—I had never before enjoyed my own mind in this way. Here, amidst a thousand inconveniences, that joy seems to possess me more and more each day, like an addiction.

And yet, in truth, I have not been marooned alone on some uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. There is a railway station probably within thirty or thirty-two miles. I could get on a train there and be in Purnia within an hour, or Munger in three. But first, just getting to the station is a great hardship—a hardship I might endure if there were something to be gained by going to Purnia or Munger. As it is, I see no gain at all. No one there knows me, nor do I know anyone. What would be the point of going?

Having come from Calcutta, I feel the lack of books and the company and conversation of friends so keenly that I have often thought this life unbearable for me. Everything I have is in Calcutta; who is there in Purnia or Munger that I should go there? But I cannot go to Calcutta without permission from the head office—and besides, the expense is so great that a trip of just a few days is not worth it.

After a few months had passed in happiness and sorrow, from the end of the month of Chaitra, an event began to unfold the likes of which I had never before experienced. There had been some rain in the month of Poush, but after that, a severe drought set in. No rain in Magh, none in Phalgun, none in Chaitra, none in Baishakh. Along with it came an unbearable heat and a terrible scarcity of water.

To simply say ‘heat’ or ‘water scarcity’ in plain words would convey nothing of the true nature of this terrifying natural calamity. From Azimabad in the north to Kishanpur in the south, from Phulkia Baihar and Labtulia in the east to the border of Munger district in the west—all across the jungle mahals, every canal, pond, and kundi, or large reservoir, had dried up. If you dug a well, you found no water. If a little water did seep up from the sandy springs, it took over an hour for a single small bucketful to collect. A cry of despair had gone up all around. The only hope was the Kushi river to the east, but it was seven or eight miles from the easternmost edge of our domain, on the other side of the famous Mohanpura Reserve Forest. Between our estate and the Mohanpura forest, a small hilly river flowed down from the Terai region of Nepal—but now only its pebble-strewn footprint remained in a dry, sandy channel. For the little water that could be had by digging in the sand, women came with their pitchers from villages far away and, after spending the whole afternoon sifting sand and mud, returned home with about half a pitcher of turbid water.

But the hilly river—its local name was the Michi river—was of no use to us, for it was too far from our lands. There was no large masonry well at the kachari either. Obtaining drinking water from the small, unlined sand-well we had became a formidable problem. It took until noon to collect three buckets of water.

To stand outside at noon and look at the coppery, fire-spitting sky and the half-dry bon-jhau and tall grass was frightening. Everything around seemed to be burning fiercely, and now and then, blasts of hot wind like flames from a furnace would blow past, searing one’s entire body. I had never seen the sun in this guise, never seen this terrible, majestic form of the midday heat, nor even imagined it. Some days, a sandstorm would blow from the west—in these parts, Chaitra and Baishakh are the season of the west wind—and things a hundred yards from the kachari would vanish behind a thick screen of sand and dust.

Most days, Ramdhaniya, the watchman, would come and report, ‘Kuwan mein paani nehi chhe, Huzoor.’ On some days, after an hour of scraping and sifting, he would bring before me half a bucket of liquid mud from inside the sand for my bath. In that dreadful heat, even that was priceless then.

One afternoon, I was standing in the scant shade beneath a haritaki tree behind the kachari when I looked around and suddenly thought that not only had I never seen such a sight at noon before, but once I left this place, I would never see it anywhere else either. All my life I had seen the noons of Bengal—I had seen the fierce, sun-drenched noons of Jyaishtha—but they did not have this wrathful form. This awesome and terrible aspect captivated me. I looked at the sun and saw a gigantic furnace—calcium burning, hydrogen burning, iron burning, nickel burning, cobalt burning—hundreds of known and unknown gases and metals burning together in a blazing forge millions of leagues in diameter. The roaring waves of its fire, piercing the layers of ether in infinite space, were lashing the grasslands and vast forests of Phulkia Baihar and Lodhaitola, sucking dry the very sap from the veins and arteries of every blade of grass, turning them to cinders, scorching and burning the world from horizon to horizon, and beginning a frenzied dance of destruction.

I looked and saw, far into the distance, shimmering heat-waves everywhere across the plain, and beyond them, an indistinct haze born of the heat. I never saw a blue sky here on a summer afternoon—it was coppery, brownish, and empty. Not a single kite or vulture was to be seen; the flocks of birds had fled the region. What strange beauty had blossomed in this noon. Ignoring the searing heat, I stood there for a long time under that haritaki tree. I have not seen the Sahara, nor Sven Hedin’s famous Taklamakan desert, nor the Gobi—but in the awesome, terrible aspect of the midday here, a faint intimation of those places emerged.

Three miles from the kachari, a small, forest-ringed pool had a little water left in it. I had heard that the pool had been full of fish from last year’s monsoon; being very deep, its water had not completely dried up even in this drought. But that water was of no use to anyone. Firstly, there were no human settlements for a great distance around it. Secondly, the mud between the water and the bank was so deep that one would sink to the waist—the hope of filling a pitcher and getting back to shore was slim indeed. Another reason was that the water was not very good; it was not at all suitable for bathing or drinking. I do not know what substance was mixed in with the water, but it had an unpleasant metallic smell.

One evening, when the west wind and the heat had subsided, I went out on my horse and arrived at the path by the high sand dunes and bon-jhau jungle next to that pool. Behind me, the sun was setting behind Grant Sahib’s great banyan tree. To save some of the kachari’s water, I thought I would water my horse here for once. No matter how much mud there was, a horse would surely be able to get out. Passing through the jungle, I went to the edge of the pool and saw a strange sight. Around the pool, on the mud, were eight or ten snakes, large and small; on the other side, three huge buffaloes were drinking water together. The snakes were all venomous, of the saw-scaled viper and krait families, which are commonly seen in this country.

The moment I saw the buffalo, I knew I had never seen one of its kind before. It had a massive pair of horns, a shaggy coat of long hair, and an enormous body. There were no villages or buffalo-herders’ camps anywhere near, so I could not fathom where this beast had come from. I supposed someone might have set up a secret camp somewhere in the jungle to evade the grazing tax. As I neared the cutcherry, I met Muneshwar Singh, the chakladar. He started the moment I told him. “Good God! What are you saying, Huzoor! Hanuman-ji has granted you a great deliverance today. That’s no domesticated buffalo, that’s an aran—a wild one, Huzoor. It’s come from the Mohanpura forest for a drink of water. There’s no water to be found anywhere in that region, you see. It’s been driven here by the drought.”

Word of it immediately spread through the cutcherry. Everyone said, to a man, “Phew, Huzoor, you’re very lucky to be alive! You might survive an encounter with a tiger, but there’s no getting away from a wild buffalo. And if that thing had charged you in that lonely spot, at this time of evening, you’d never have escaped, Huzoor, not even on horseback.”

From then on, that small, jungle-girt pool became a primary watering hole for the wild animals. The longer the drought went on, the more fiercely the sun blazed, and the more the land all around shimmered with a terrible heat, the more news we began to receive that people had seen tigers drinking at the pool in the jungle, and wild buffalo, and herds of deer. Nilgai and wild boar were common sights, of course, for those last two were exceedingly numerous in these woods. One moonlit night, I myself rode out to the pool, intending to hunt. I had three or four sepoys with me, and two or three guns. The scene I witnessed that night is something I shall never forget as long as I live. To understand it, you must picture in your mind’s eye a vast expanse of forest on a deserted, moon-drenched night. You must also imagine a strange stillness pervading the entire forest—though to one who has never experienced it, such a stillness is impossible to conceive.

The warm air was thick with the scent of half-dry kash reeds. I had come far from any human habitation; I had lost all sense of direction.

Drinking almost silently at the pool were, on one side, two nilgai, and on the other, two hyenas. The nilgai would glance at the hyenas, and the hyenas would glance back at the nilgai—and between the two groups stood a little nilgai calf, only two or three months old. I had never seen so poignant a scene. Seeing it, I lost all inclination to fire wantonly upon the innocent, thirsty bodies of these wild creatures.

Meanwhile, the month of Baishakh passed. There was not a drop of water to be found anywhere. Another danger appeared. People had lost their way in this vast expanse of forest before, but now these lost travellers faced the grave danger of dying from lack of water. For in the entire vast grassland stretching from Phulkiya Baihar to Grant Sahib’s Banyan Tree, there was not a single drop of water to be found. The few nearly-dry pools that did exist were not easy for an inexperienced, disoriented traveller to find. Let me relate one day’s incident.

That day, at about four in the afternoon, I was reading a book, unable to concentrate on my work in the oppressive heat, when Rambirij Singh came to report that a strange-looking madman had been spotted on the high ground west of the cutcherry—he was waving his arms and legs, trying to say something from afar. I went outside and saw that it was true: someone was standing on the distant ridge, staggering toward us like a drunkard. Seeing that the entire staff of the cutcherry had gathered and were gaping in that direction, I sent two sepoys to bring the man here.

When the man was brought in, I saw that he was shirtless, wearing only a clean dhoti. He had fine features and a fair complexion. But his face was a terrifying sight: foam was frothing from the corners of his mouth, his eyes were as red as hibiscus flowers and held a crazed look. On my room’s verandah there was a bucket of water; seeing it, he ran like a madman toward the bucket. Muneshwar Singh, the chakladar, understood the situation at once and quickly moved the bucket. After getting him to sit down, we made him open his mouth and saw that his tongue had swollen to a grotesque size. With great difficulty, we pushed his tongue to one side and began to give him water, little by little. After half an hour, he had recovered somewhat. I had some lemons at the cutcherry, and I gave him a glass of lemon juice and warm water to drink. Gradually, after an hour or so, he made a full recovery. We learned that his home was in Patna. He had set out from Purnia two days before, searching for jungles of kul trees for the purpose of lac cultivation. He had entered our estates that afternoon, and had shortly thereafter become disoriented; it is very easy to lose one’s bearings in a monotonous forest of identical trees, especially for a stranger. He had wandered all the previous afternoon in the dreadful heat and the blasts of the hot westerly wind without finding a drop of water or seeing a single human being. At night, exhausted, he had lain down under a tree. He had begun his wandering again this morning. Had he kept his head, it might not have been too difficult for him to determine his direction from the sun—he might at least have made his way back to Purnia—but in his fear and bewilderment he had spent the whole afternoon running first this way, then that, and on top of that had tried to call out for help. But who was there to hear? The stretch of forest from the kul jungle of Phulkiya Baihar to Labtulia, an area of ten or twelve square miles, was completely devoid of human life. It was no surprise that no one had heard his cries. What had terrified him even more was the thought that he had been possessed by the djinns and peris of the forest, who would not let him go without killing him. He had been wearing a shirt, but in his unbearable thirst that afternoon, his body had begun to burn so intensely that he had torn it off and thrown it away somewhere. In his condition, if he had not, by a stroke of luck, caught sight of the red flag on our cutcherry’s Hanuman flagpole, the man would surely have perished.

One day, in the midst of this intense heat and drought, word came at high noon that a terrible fire had broken out in the jungle about a mile to the south-west, and that it was advancing towards the cutcherry. We all hurried outside and saw vast plumes of smoke, with red flames licking far up into the sky. A fierce westerly wind was blowing that day besides, and the jungle of long grasses and wild jhau, half-dried by the sun’s heat, had become like tinder. The moment a single spark fell, a whole thicket would burst into flames. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but dense, blue-black smoke and leaping flames—and a furious crackling. Bent by the gale, the line of fire was racing from west to east at the speed of a mail-coach, heading straight for our few thatched bungalows. Every face went pale. If we stayed, we would be scorched to death in the encircling flames—the inferno was upon us!

There was no time to think. The cutcherry housed everything we possessed: important papers, the treasury funds, government deeds and maps—not to mention our own personal belongings. All of it would be lost! The sepoys, their faces pale, said in frightened voices, “The fire’s here, Huzoor!” I said, “Get everything out! The government treasury and papers first.”

A number of men set to work cutting a firebreak, clearing as much of the jungle as they could between the advancing fire and the cutcherry. Seeing the fire from their camps in the forest, a dozen or so men—graziers who were our tenants—came running to help save the cutcherry, for they had seen the strength of the westerly wind and understood the cutcherry was in grave peril.

What a strange sight! Crashing through the jungle from west to east came herds of nilgai, fleeing for their lives. Jackals ran, rabbits with their ears pricked up ran, a whole family of wild boar, piglets and all, rushed in a blind panic right through the cutcherry courtyard. Domesticated buffalo, broken loose from their pens in that region, were stampeding for their lives. A flock of green pigeons fled past with a whirring sound, followed by a large flock of red shelducks. Then another flock of green pigeons, and a few cotton teals. Rambirij Singh, the chakladar, said in amazement, “There’s no water anywhere… Hey, Ramlagan brother, where has this flock of red ducks come from?” Goshtha Muhuri said with irritation, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, man! We’re fighting for our lives here! Who cares where the red ducks came from?”

The fire arrived within twenty minutes. Then, for the next hour, the fifteen or so of us waged a desperate battle against the flames! There was no water to be had anywhere—our only weapons were half-green tree branches and sand. The heat from the fire and the sun had made everyone’s face fearsome, demonic. We were covered from head to foot in ash and soot, the veins standing out on our arms, and many had blisters on their hands and bodies. All the while, the cutcherry’s belongings—boxes, cots, chests of drawers, almirahs—were still being dragged out and thrown helter-skelter into the courtyard. Who could keep track of what had been put where! I told the Muhuri-babu, “Keep the cash in your custody. And the deed-box.”

Halted by the courtyard and the cleared ground, the torrent of fire split, flowing north and south before rushing eastward in an instant. The cutcherry, by some miracle, was saved. The belongings were carried back inside, but far in the distance, that lolling-tongued, cataclysmic flame lit the eastern sky red, burning all through the night until, by morning, it reached the edge of the Mohanpura Reserve Forest.

Two or three days later, news arrived that eight or ten wild buffalo, two leopards, and several nilgai lay mired in the mud along the banks of the Karo and Kushi rivers. Fleeing the fire in terror, they had galloped out of the Mohanpura forest along the riverbanks and plunged into the mire—and this, despite the fact that the Kushi and Karo rivers are a good eight or nine miles from the Reserve Forest.