7

To long for one’s homeland is an exceptionally lovely feeling. Those who spend their entire lives in one place, who never stir from their own village and its immediate surroundings—they know nothing of its varied colours. But he who has dwelt long in a distant land, a stranger among strangers, knows how the heart aches and yearns for the country of Bengal, for Bengalis, for his own village, for the beloved kith and kin of his homeland. Even the most trivial old incident then seems extraordinary—it feels as though what has passed will never pass that way again in life. The world turns desolate, and every single thing about Bengal becomes intensely dear.

Having spent year after year here, I found myself in precisely that state. How many times I thought of writing to headquarters for leave, but I always had so much work on my hands that I felt hesitant to ask. And yet, to spend month after month, year after year, alone in these uninhabited hills and jungles, this country of tigers, bears, and nilgai—what a hardship it is! My soul grows breathless at times. I have forgotten Bengal; I haven’t seen a Durga Puja in ages, haven’t heard the drums of Charak, haven’t breathed the fragrance of dhuna and guggul from a temple, haven’t savoured the birds’ chorus on a Baishakh morning. That serene and sacred domesticity of a Bengali household—the brass and bell-metal vessels on the wooden stool, the alpana painted on the floor-seat, the cowrie-basket for Lakshmi in the wall-niche—all of it seems a forgotten dream from a past life!

When winter gave way to spring, this feeling grew especially strong in me.

In that state of mind, I rode out on my horse towards the Saraswati Kund. Dismounting in a low valley, I stood there quietly. All around me rose high earthen banks, and upon them, dense jungles of tall kas grass and jhau. Directly above my head was a patch of blue sky. On a thorny tree, clusters of violet flowers were in bloom, resembling the cornflowers of England. A single flower had no particular beauty, but countless blooms, massed together, covered a large area, looking just like a violet-coloured sari. At the foot of the colourless, featureless, half-dry kas jungle, they were revelling in a little festival of spring. Above them, the ancient, immense jhau forest, a silent and severe wilderness, seemed to view their childishness with utter disdain and indifference, turning its face away, enduring it with the patience of old age. It was those violet wild-flowers that whispered to my ears the tidings of spring’s arrival. Not the blossoms of the pomelo, not ghetu flowers, not mango blossoms, not kamini, not the red palash or shimul—but the flowers of some nameless, formless, insignificant wild thornbush. To me, however, they appeared as the symbol of all the blossoms of spring that fill the woods and forests. For a long while I stood there, lost in thought. I, a boy from Bengal, found this scene novel—a handful of wild thorn-flowers offering a platter to honour the spring. But what a solemn beauty there was in the forest on the high ground above! So meditative and still, so aloof and austere, like a hermit in its harshness—and yet, how vast! My mind became one with the detached spirit of that half-dry, flowerless, leafless forest, and with the exuberant joy of all the unadorned efforts of this wild, untamed, youthful spring festival below.

That was a moment of supreme wonder in my life. I had been standing for I don’t know how long; a star or two had appeared in that slice of blue sky above my head, when the sound of a horse’s hooves made me start. I saw that the ameen, Puran Chand, was returning to the kachhari after finishing his survey of the western boundary of the Narha Baihar. Seeing me, he dismounted and said, ‘Huzoor, here?’ I told him I had come out for a ride.

‘Don’t stay here alone in the evening,’ he said. ‘Come, let’s go to the kachhari. This place isn’t safe. My tindal saw it with his own eyes, Huzoor. A huge tiger, in that kas jungle over there—come, Huzoor.’

Far behind him, Puran Chand’s tindal had struck up a song:

Daya hoi ji…

From that day on, whenever I saw those thorn-flowers, my heart would ache and yearn for Bengal. And as if on cue, every evening Puran Chand’s tindal, Chhotulal, would sing that very same song while baking his rotis in his own hut—

Daya hoi ji…

I would think that in this life, I would likely never have the chance again to stand on this side of a riverbank dotted with flowering shimul trees, in the mango-blossom-scented shade of the approaching month of Phalgun, listening to the cuckoo’s call. One day, in this very forest, my life would be lost unceremoniously to a tiger or a wild buffalo.

The jhau forest would stand just as still, the distant, forest-swathed horizon would look just as grey and indifferent.

On one such day of longing for my homeland, I received an invitation for Holi from Rasbihari Singh. Rasbihari Singh was a formidable moneylender of this region, a Rajput by caste, and a tenant of the Government Khasmahal on the banks of the Karo river. His village lay twelve or fourteen miles northeast of my kachhari, bordering the Mohanpura Reserve Forest.

It would not look good to decline the invitation, but I felt an intense reluctance to go to Rasbihari Singh’s house. He was the moneylender to all the poor Gangota tenants of this region. He had grown rich by crushing the poor and sucking their blood. Against his harsh rule and oppression, no one dared to utter a peep. His band of salaried or land-endowed lathials, armed with staves, roamed about constantly; if told to fetch someone, they would bind him and bring him. If Rasbihari somehow felt that so-and-so had not shown him enough deference in some matter, or had undermined his due honour, then there was no escape for that unfortunate soul. Rasbihari Singh would, by hook or by crook, teach him a proper lesson and put him in his place.

After my arrival, I had found that Rasbihari Singh was the king of this land. The poor peasant tenants trembled at his word, and even those who were better off dared not say anything, for Rasbihari’s band of lathials was particularly fearsome, and they were especially adept at beatings, brawls, and riots. The police, it was said, were also in Rasbihari’s pocket. The Circle Officer or Manager of the Khasmahal would come and accept Rasbihari Singh’s hospitality. In such circumstances, whom would he heed in the midst of this jungle?

Rasbihari Singh tried to assert his authority over my tenants—and I put a stop to it. I made it clear: ‘Do what you will within your own territory, but I will not tolerate so much as a hair on the head of any tenant of my estate being touched.’ Last year, this affair had led to a minor skirmish between Rasbihari Singh’s lathials and the sepoys of my kachhari’s Mukundi Chakladar and Ganpat Tahsildar. In the month of Shraban last, another dispute had broken out. That time, the matter went all the way to the police. The police daroga came and settled it. For the several months since, Rasbihari Singh had left the tenants of my estate alone.

To receive a Holi invitation from that same Rasbihari Singh surprised me.

I called Ganpat Tahsildar for a consultation. Ganpat said, ‘Who knows, Huzoor. You can’t trust that man. He’s capable of anything. Who knows what he’s planning by wanting you to go there? In my opinion, it’s best not to go.’

But this view did not sit well with me. If I didn’t attend the Holi invitation, Rasbihari would feel deeply insulted, because Holi is a major festival for Rajputs. He might think I didn’t go out of fear. If he thought that, it would be a matter of great dishonour for me. No, I had to go, whatever fate might hold.

Almost everyone at the kachhari tried to persuade me with various arguments. Old Muneshwar Singh said, ‘Huzoor, you are going, it’s true, but you don’t know the ways of these parts. Here, people will commit murder at the drop of a hat. It’s a land of ignorant folk; there are no educated people. Besides, Rasbihari is a very dangerous man. How many murders has he committed in his life, is there any record of it, Huzoor? There is nothing he’s not capable of—murder, arson, fabricating false lawsuits, he’s an expert in all of it.’

Ignoring all such talk, I arrived at Rasbihari’s house in the Khasmahal. It was a house with brick walls and a tiled roof, as is typical for well-to-do people in these parts. In front of the house was a verandah with tar-smeared wooden posts. On two rope charpoys, a couple of men sat smoking a hookah.

As my horse came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, two gunshots rang out with a loud gurum-gurum. Rasbihari Singh’s men knew me; I understood that they were welcoming me with gunfire according to local custom. But where was the master of the house? It is not the custom to dismount until the host comes forward.

A little later, Rasbihari Singh’s elder brother, Rasulllas Singh, came and, raising both hands in front of him in a humble gesture, said, ‘Aaiye, janaab, garib-khane mein tashreef lete aaiye.’ My unease vanished. The Rajput caste, once they acknowledge someone as a guest, does not harm him. If no one had come to welcome me, I would have turned my horse’s head back towards the kachhari without dismounting.

There were many people in the courtyard. Most of them were Gangota tenants. Their grimy, torn clothes were stained with abir and coloured powder; they had come, invited or uninvited, to play Holi at their moneylender’s house.

Half an hour later, Rasbihari Singh arrived and seemed astonished to see me—as if he had never dreamt that I would come to his house to accept his invitation. Be that as it may, Rasbihari treated me with considerable respect and care.

The room he took me to contained only two or three chairs with very thick legs and arms, made of sisam wood by a local carpenter, and a wooden bench. On the wall was an image of Ganesh smeared with sindur and sandalwood paste.

A little later, a boy held out a large thali before me. On it were some abir, some flowers, a few rupees, some sugar-coated cardamom seeds and pieces of crystallized sugar candy, and a garland of flowers. Rasbihari Singh dabbed some abir on my forehead, and I put some on his. I picked up the garland. Not knowing what to do next, I was staring awkwardly at the thali when Rasbihari Singh said, ‘Your nazar, Huzoor. You must take it.’ I took out some more money from my pocket, added it to the money on the thali, and said, ‘Treat everyone to sweets with this.’

After that, Rasbihari Singh took me on a tour of his wealth. There were about sixty or sixty-five cows in the cowshed. Seven or eight horses in the stable—two of the horses, he said, could dance beautifully; he would show me their dance one day. He had no elephant but intended to buy one soon. In this country, a man is not considered respectable if he does not have an elephant. Eight hundred maunds of wheat were produced from his cultivation, eighty to eighty-five people ate in his household at the two mealtimes, and he himself, he said, had a breakfast of a ser and a half of milk and one ser of Bikaneri misri after his morning bath. He never ate the common misri from the market, only Bikaneri misri. A man who breaks his fast with misri is considered a rich man in these parts—it is another sign of a wealthy man.

Then Rasbihari took me into a room where two thousand to two and a half thousand cobs of maize were hanging from the rafters. This was seed maize, set aside for the next year’s planting. He showed me a huge iron karahi, made by joining sheets of iron with nail-heads; a maund and a half of milk was boiled in it at once every day. That much milk was consumed in his household daily. In a small room, there were so many lathis, shields, short spears, long spears, axes, and swords that one could rightly call it an armoury.

Rasbihari Singh had six sons—the eldest was no younger than thirty. The first four sons were tall and strong like their father, with impressive moustaches and sideburns already. Seeing his sons and his armoury, it occurred to me that it was no great wonder that the poor, famine-gaunt Gangota tenants should live in fear of them.

Rasbihari was an extremely haughty and grave man. His sense of honour was also acutely sharp. The slightest slip, and Rasbihari Singh’s honour would be offended, so one had to be constantly vigilant and on edge when dealing with him. The Gangota tenants were always on tenterhooks, lest they somehow slight their master’s honour.

I saw in Rasbihari’s household a living picture of what one might call barbaric plenty. Plenty of milk, plenty of wheat, plenty of maize, plenty of Bikaneri misri, plenty of honour, plenty of staves and cudgels. But to what end? There was not a single good picture in the house, not a single good book; forget good couches and chairs, there wasn’t even a bed with well-arranged pillows and bolsters. The walls were stained with lime and paan juice, the drain behind the house was clogged with utterly foul, filthy water and garbage, and the architecture of the house was exceedingly ugly. The children did not study; their clothes and shoes were very coarse and grimy. Last year, three or four children of the house had died of smallpox within a month. What purpose, then, did this barbaric plenty serve? What good did it do anyone to acquire this plenty by thrashing hapless Gangota tenants? Of course, Rasbihari Singh’s honour was increasing.

The abundance of food, however, was astonishing. Could one person eat so much? About fifteen puris, each the size of an elephant’s ear, various vegetable curries in small bowls, yoghurt, laddus, malpoa, chutney, papad. For me, this was food for four meals. Rasbihari Singh, it was said, could consume twice this amount of food in one sitting.

When I came outside after the meal, the day was almost gone. The Gangota tenants, having spread leaves on the ground in the courtyard, had sat down to eat yoghurt and fried seeds of Chinese grass with great delight. Everyone’s clothes were dyed red, everyone had a smile on their face. Rasbihari’s brother was supervising the feeding of the Gangotas. The ingredients of the feast were very simple, yet their happiness knew no bounds.

After a long time, I saw the boy-dancer Dhaturia’s performance here. Dhaturia had grown a little older, and his dancing was much better than before. He had been hired to dance here for the Holi festival.

Calling Dhaturia over, I said, ‘Do you recognize me, Dhaturia?’

Dhaturia smiled, saluted, and said, ‘Ji, Huzoor. You are the Manager-babu. Are you well, Huzoor?’

He had a very beautiful smile. And the mere sight of him awakens a kind of sympathy and pity in the heart. He has no one in the world to call his own; at this young age, he has to earn money by dancing and singing to please others, and that too in the courtyard of rich, uncultured men like Rasbihari Singh.

I asked, ‘You’ll have to dance and sing until midnight here, what will your wages be?’

‘Four annas, Huzoor, and they’ll give me a full meal,’ Dhaturia said.

‘What will they give you to eat?’

‘Marha, yoghurt, sugar. Probably laddus too; they gave them last year.’

Dhaturia was filled with glee at the prospect of the impending feast. I said, ‘Is the wage the same everywhere?’

Dhaturia said, ‘No, Huzoor, Rasbihari Singh is a big man, so he’ll give four annas and food as well. If I dance at a Gangota’s house, they give two annas, no food; but they give half a ser of maize sattu.’

‘Can you manage on that?’

‘Babu, there’s not much in dancing, there used to be. Now people are struggling, who will watch a dance? When there are no bookings for dancing, I work in the fields. Last year I harvested wheat. What to do, Huzoor, one has to eat. I learned the chhakkarbaji dance from Gaya with such passion—no one wants to see it, the wages for the chhakkarbaji dance are higher.’

I invited Dhaturia to perform at my kachhari. Dhaturia was an artist—he possessed the true artist’s detachment.

When the full-moon light grew bright, I took my leave of Rasbihari Singh. Rasbihari Singh fired two more gunshots for my honour, just as my horse was leaving his courtyard.

It was the night of Dol Purnima. In the vast, open plain, the white sandy road shimmered in the moonlight. In the distance, a silli bird was calling somewhere in the moonlit night—like the desperate cry of a lost, beleaguered night-traveller in this immense, desolate expanse!

Someone called from behind—‘Huzoor, Manager-babu—’

I looked and saw Dhaturia running after my horse.

Stopping my horse, I asked, ‘What is it, Dhaturia?’

Dhaturia was panting. He stood for a moment to catch his breath, hesitated a little, and finally said with a shy face, ‘I wanted to say something, Huzoor—’

In a tone meant to encourage him, I said, ‘What is it? Tell me.’

‘Will you take me to your country, to Calcutta, once, Huzoor?’

‘What will you do there?’

‘I’ve never been to Calcutta. I’ve heard that singing, music, and dance are highly prized there. I learned some fine dances, but there’s no one here to see them, and that makes me very sad. I’m starting to forget the chhakkarbaji dance from not performing it. Oh, the story of how I learned that dance! It’s something to be heard!’

We had left the village behind. The desolate fields were bathed in moonlight. It seemed to me that Dhaturia wanted to meet me in secret, afraid that Rasbihari Singh would punish him if he found out. Nearby, in the middle of the field, was a young shimul tree covered in blossoms. Hearing Dhaturia’s words, I dismounted under the shimul tree and sat on a piece of stone. ‘Tell me your story,’ I said.

‘Everyone used to say that in a village in the Gaya district, there was a talented man named Bhitaldas, a great master of the chhakkarbaji dance. I was obsessed with learning chhakkarbaji, no matter what. I went to the Gaya district, wandering from village to village, searching for Bhitaldas. No one could tell me where he was. Finally, one evening, I took shelter in a buffalo-herders’ encampment, and there I heard them talking about the chhakkarbaji dance. It was very late at night, and very cold. I was lying on a bed of straw in a corner of the encampment; as soon as the words “chhakkarbaji” reached my ears, I jumped up. I went and sat with them. How happy I was, Babuji, I can’t tell you! It was as if I had acquired a whole taluk! From them, I got a lead on Bhitaldas. His house was in a village called Tintanga, seventeen kros away.’

I was thoroughly enjoying the story of a young artist’s passionate quest to learn his art. ‘And then?’ I said.

“I went there on foot. Vitthaldas, I saw, was an old man with a full white beard. On seeing me he asked, ‘What is it you want?’ I told him, ‘I have come to learn the chakkorbaji dance.’ He seemed utterly astonished. ‘Do the young men of today even care for such things?’ he asked. ‘Why, this art has been all but forgotten!’ I touched his feet and said, ‘You must teach me. I have come from a great distance, having heard your name.’ Tears welled up in his eyes. ‘This dance has been practiced in my family for seven generations,’ he said. ‘But I have no sons, and no one from the outside has ever wanted to learn it. In all that time, I have grown so old. Today, you are the first. Very well, I will teach you.’—So you see, Huzur, it’s a skill I learned with so much hardship. What would be the use of showing it to the Gangotas here? In Calcutta, true talent is appreciated. Will you take me there, Huzur?”

“Come to my kachari one day, Dhaturiya,” I said. “We’ll talk about this matter.”

Reassured, Dhaturiya went on his way.

It occurred to me then: who in Calcutta would possibly want to watch this rustic dance of his, learned with such great hardship? And what, indeed, could the poor fellow do there all by himself?