14

A few months later. It was the beginning of Falgun. I was returning to the kachhari from Labtulia when, in the middle of the jungle, near a pool, I heard the sound of Bengali conversation and laughter and reined in my horse. The closer I went, the more astonished I became. I could hear women’s voices as well—what was all this about? I urged my horse into the trees and up to the edge of the pool, where I saw a group of eight or ten Bengali gentlemen sitting on a spread shatranji near a thicket of bon-jhau, chatting amongst themselves. Five or six women were cooking nearby, while six or seven small children ran about, playing. As I stood there in amazement, unable to comprehend how such a large group of men and women, with children in tow, had come to have a picnic in this dense jungle, their eyes suddenly fell upon me. One of them said in Bengali, “Now where did this sattu-eater pop up from in this jungle? An umbrellu?”

Dismounting, I walked towards them and said, “I see you are Bengalis. Where have you come from?”

They were very surprised, and embarrassed as well. “Oh, you’re a Bengali, sir? Heh-heh, please don’t mind us, we thought—heh-heh—”

“No, no, there’s nothing to mind,” I said. “But where have you come from, especially with womenfolk—”

The conversation soon flowed. The elderly gentleman in the group was a retired Deputy Magistrate, a Rai Bahadur. The rest were his sons, nephews, nieces, daughters, granddaughters, son-in-law, and his son-in-law’s friends. While in Calcutta, the Rai Bahadur had read in a book that good hunting could be found in Purnia district, and so he had come to Purnia, where his brother was a Munsif, to see if he might get a chance to hunt. This morning they had boarded a train from there, reached Katihar at ten o’clock, and from there had come by boat along the Kushi river to have their picnic here—because, they said, they had heard from everyone that you haven’t truly seen the jungle until you’ve seen the forests of Labtulia, Bombaiburu, and Phulkia Baihar. As soon as the picnic was over, they would walk four miles to the Kushi river below the Mohanpura forest to meet their boat, and from there return to Katihar tonight.

I was truly astounded. The only provision I could see they had with them was a double-barrelled shotgun—and with this as their only assurance, they had come for a picnic with women and children in this terrifying jungle. I will not deny they had courage, but the experienced Rai Bahadur ought to have been a little more cautious. Even the local jungle-folk do not dare to pass by the Mohanpura forest before evening, for fear of wild buffalo. The appearance of a tiger would not be surprising either. And as for wild boar and snakes, there is no counting them. This was no place to bring children for a picnic.

The Rai Bahadur would not let me leave. I had to sit, I had to have tea. What did I do in this jungle, what were my particulars? Was I in the timber business? After recounting my own history, I urged them all to spend the night at my kachhari. But they would not agree. They had to be on the ten o’clock train at Katihar to reach Purnia by midnight today. If they did not return, everyone at home would worry, so they were unable to stay, and so on.

I could not understand why they had come so deep into the jungle for their picnic. The splendor of Labtulia Baihar’s open plains and its woodlands, the distant range of hills, the colours of the sunset, the calls of the birds, the countless exquisite flowers blooming this spring on the tops of bushes ten feet into the forest—I saw that they had no eye for any of these things. They were merely shouting, singing songs, running about, and making arrangements for their meal. Two of the girls studied in college in Calcutta; the other two or three were still in school. Among the boys, one was a medical college student; the rest were in various schools and colleges. But having stumbled by chance into this realm of astounding natural beauty, they had no eyes to see it with at all. In truth, they had come to hunt—for rabbits, birds, deer—as if these creatures were just sitting by the side of the path, waiting to be shot by their guns!

The girls who had come—I have never seen girls so utterly devoid of imagination! They were running around, gathering firewood from the edge of the forest for cooking, their chatter ceaseless—but not once did any of them look around to see where it was they were sitting and cooking their khichuri, on the edge of what vast, beauty-filled expanse of woods!

One girl said, “A great place for banging open a tin can, isn’t it? So many pebbles.”

Another girl said, “Ugh, what a place! Impossible to find good rice anywhere—we searched the whole town yesterday—such horribly coarse rice! And you all were talking about making polaō!”

Did they know that in the very spot where they were cooking, fairies came to play in the light of the moon?

They began to talk about films. They had seen a film in Purnia just last night, and it was, apparently, utterly dreadful. This was their talk. And along with it, they were comparing it to the cinemas of Calcutta. The saying is not untrue: a dhenki will thresh paddy even in heaven! At five in the afternoon, they departed.

As they left, they threw away a number of empty condensed milk and jam tins. How out of place they looked to me, lying there beneath the trees and plants of the Labtulia jungle!

From the end of spring this year, the wheat in Labtulia Baihar began to ripen. On our estate, the cultivation of rapeseed had been extensive last year. This year, wheat had been planted in many of the fields, and so the season of the katuni mela fell at the very beginning of Baishakh.

It was as if the harvesting labourers had a sixth sense; their bands had not come at the end of winter this time, but now, arriving in droves, they began to build their huts, their khupris, everywhere along the edge of the jungle and in the middle of the fields. The crops of two or three thousand bighas of land were to be cut, so no fewer than three or four thousand labourers had arrived. And I heard more were on their way.

I would set out on my horse at dawn and dismount only at dusk. So many new types of people had begun to arrive; among them were so many rogues, thugs, thieves, and sick people—if one did not keep an eye on everyone, a disaster could happen at any moment in these parts, which had no police.

Let me recount an incident or two.

One day, I saw two boys and a girl sitting by the side of the road, crying.

I dismounted from my horse.

“What’s happened to you?” I asked.

The gist of what they told me was this: their home was not on our estate, but in the village of Nandlal Ojha Golawala. They were siblings, and had come here to see the katuni mela. They had arrived only today, and somewhere or other a game of chance was being played with a stick and a looped rope, and the eldest boy had started to gamble there. You had to wrap a rope around the end of a stick that was touching the ground; if, as you unwound it, the rope formed a noose around the top of the stick, the operator paid the player four paise for every one paisa bet.

The elder brother had ten annas with him; not once had he managed to get the noose on the stick, and after losing all his money, he had taken his younger brother’s eight annas and finally his little sister’s four annas, wagered it all, and lost everything. Now they had no money for food, let alone for buying or seeing anything.

I told them to stop crying and took them towards the scene of the gambling. At first, they couldn’t even locate the spot, but then they pointed to a haritaki tree and said, “The game was happening under this tree.” There was not a soul there. The brother of Rupsingh, the kachhari’s jamadar, was with me; he said, “Do swindlers stay in one place for long, Huzoor? They’ve made a run for it!”

Towards afternoon, the gambler was caught. He was playing his game in a settlement about three miles away when my sipahis spotted him and brought him before me. The children recognized him at once.

At first, the man did not want to return the money. He said he hadn’t taken it by force; they had gambled of their own free will and lost, so how was it his fault? In the end, not only was he forced to return all of the children’s money—I gave an order to hand him over to the police.

He began to clutch at my hands and feet. “Where is your home?” I asked.

“Ballia district, Babuji.”

“Why do you cheat people like this? How much money have you cheated out of people?”

“I am a poor man, Huzoor. Let me go this time. In three days, I’ve earned a total of two rupees and three annas—”

“In three days, that’s a very high earning compared to the labourers.”

“Huzoor, how many times a year do I get to earn like this? My annual income is thirty or forty rupees.”

I let the man go that day—but only on the condition that he leave my estate at once. And no one ever saw him within the boundaries of our estate again.

Not seeing Manchi among the harvesters this time, I felt both anxiety and surprise. She had told me again and again that she would certainly come to our estate during the wheat harvest. The reaping festival came and went—why she had not come, I could not understand at all.

Enquiries among the other labourers also yielded no trace of her. I thought to myself, there is no other estate with such vast crops anywhere nearby, except for the Ismailpur diyara estate south of the Kushi river. But why would she go there, so far away, when the wages in both places were the same?

Finally, towards the end of the harvest festival, I received news of Manchi from a certain Gangota labourer. He knew Manchi and her husband, Nakchhedi Bhakat. He had apparently worked with them in many places. It was from his mouth that I heard that last Falgun, he had seen them cutting crops in the Akbarpur Government Khasmahal. After that, where they went, he did not know.

The harvest festival ended in the middle of Jyeshtha, and then one day, I was astonished to see Nakchhedi Bhakat in the courtyard of the main kachhari. Nakchhedi threw himself around my feet and began to wail. Even more surprised, I freed my feet and said, “What is it? Why didn’t you come during the harvest this time? Is Manchi well? Where is she?”

The substance of what Nakchhedi said in reply was this: he did not know where Manchi was. While they were working in the Khasmahal, Manchi had abandoned them and run away somewhere. Despite a long search, no trace of her had been found.

I was astonished and stunned. But I saw that I had no sympathy for old Nakchhedi Bhakat; whatever concern I had was all for that wild girl. Where had she gone, who had lured her away, and in what state, where could she be? Having observed her fondness for cheap luxuries, I knew it would not be difficult to entice her away with the promise of such things. That must have been what happened.

I asked, “Where is her son?”

“He is no more. He died of smallpox in Magh.”

I was extremely saddened to hear this. The poor woman, driven mad with grief for her son, must have simply wandered off wherever her eyes led her. After a moment of silence, I said, “Where is Tulsi?”

“She has come here. She is with me. Please give me some land, Huzoor. Otherwise, we are an old couple, we can’t manage just by harvesting crops anymore. Manchi was with us, she was our strength. She has broken my arms and legs and gone.”

That evening, I went to Nakchhedi’s khupri and saw Tulsi with her children, shelling cheena grains. Seeing me, Tulsi burst into tears. I saw that she too was greatly saddened by Manchi’s departure. She said, “Huzoor, it is all that old man’s fault. The government man came to the fields to give everyone the needle, but the old man gave him a four-anna bribe and sent him away. He wouldn’t let anyone get the needle. He said the needle would cause smallpox. Huzoor, not three days had passed when Manchi’s son got smallpox, and he died. In her grief for him, she became like a madwoman—she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t do anything, only cry.”

“And then?”

“And then, Huzoor, they drove us out of the Khasmahal. They said, ‘Your people have died of smallpox, we won’t let you stay here.’ A young Rajput fellow had his eye on Manchi. The very night we left the Khasmahal, Manchi disappeared. I had seen that boy lurking near our khupri that morning. It was his doing for sure, Huzoor. Lately, Manchi was always saying, ‘I want to see Calcutta, I want to see Calcutta.’ I knew then that something was going to happen.”

I too remembered that Manchi had indeed shown a great eagerness to see Calcutta last year. It was not surprising that the cunning Rajput youth had lured the simple jungle girl away with the promise of showing her Calcutta.

I know that for women from these parts in this situation, the final destination is indenture in the tea gardens of Assam. Was servitude and exile in the friendless hills of Assam to be Manchi’s ultimate fate?

I was furious with old Nakchhedi. This man was the root of all the trouble. Why had he gone and married Manchi at his advanced age? And secondly, why had he bribed the government vaccinator and sent him away? If I were to give him land, it would not be for his sake, but for the sake of his middle-aged wife Tulsi and her children.

And so I did. An order had come from the head office to settle tenants in Narha-Baihar quickly; I made Nakchhedi the first tenant.

Narha-Baihar was a dense jungle. Only two or three families of tenants had begun to clear small patches of jungle and build their khupris. At first, Nakchhedi had shrunk back upon seeing the jungle, saying, “Huzoor, a tiger will get us in broad daylight there—and I have a household with children!”

I told him plainly that if he didn’t like it, he could try his luck elsewhere.

Helpless, Nakchhedi took the land in the jungle of Narha-Baihar.

I had never been to his khupri since he moved here. But that evening, as I was riding through the Narha-Baihar jungle, I saw a clearing in the dense woods—and nearby, two small huts made of kash grass. Light was coming from inside one of them.

I did not know that this was Nakchhedi’s hut, but the middle-aged woman who came out at the sound of my horse’s hooves—I saw it was Tulsi.

“You’ve taken land here? Where is Nakchhedi?”

Seeing me, Tulsi was flustered. In a great hurry, she spread out a gunny-sack seat stuffed with wheat husks and said, “Please dismount, Babuji—sit for a moment. He has gone to Labtulia, to the shop to buy oil and salt. He took the elder boy with him.”

“You are all alone in this dense forest?”

“We are used to all that, Babuji. Can we poor folk afford to be afraid? I wouldn’t have had to be alone—but my fate is bad. As long as Manchi was here, there was no fear, not in the water, not in the jungle. What courage she had, what fire, Babuji!”

Tulsi loved her young co-wife. And Tulsi also knew that this Bengali babu would be pleased to hear news of Manchi.

Tulsi’s daughter, Suratia, said, “Babuji, we’ve caught a baby nilgai, would you like to see it? The other day, it came rustling in the jungle behind our khupri in the afternoon—me and Chhania went and caught it. It’s a lovely little thing.”

“What does it eat?” I asked.

“Only the husks of cheena grains and tender tree leaves,” Suratia said. “I bring it tender kend leaves that I pluck.”

Tulsi said, “Show it to Babuji, then—”

Suratia, nimble as a doe, vanished behind the khupri. A moment later, her girlish shout was heard, “Hey, the nilgai’s run off, Chhania—over there—here, catch it quick—”

The two sisters scrambled and managed to catch the baby nilgai, and, panting and smiling, brought it before me.

So that I could see better in the darkness, Tulsi held up a piece of burning wood. Suratia said, “Isn’t it lovely, Babuji? A bear came last night to eat it. That mahua tree over there—a bear climbed it last night to eat the mahua flowers. It was very late—Father and Mother were asleep, but I heard everything. Then it came down from the tree and stood behind our khupri. I sleep with the calf clasped to my chest at night—when I heard the bear’s footsteps, I clamped my hand over its mouth and held it even tighter—”

“Weren’t you afraid, Suratia?”

“Pah! Afraid? I’m not afraid. I see lots of bear-lairs in the jungle when I’m gathering firewood—I’m not afraid then either. Can we afford to be scared, Babuji?”

Suratia made a wise, knowing face.

All around the khupri, the tall, black trunks of kend trees pushed up towards the sky like the chimneys of great factories, as if in a forest of Californian redwoods. In the branches, the wings of bats and nocturnal crab-plovers flapped and rustled; in the thickets, swarms of fireflies glowed in the darkness; in the woods right behind the hut, a jackal was howling—how this woman lived with her small children in this lonely wilderness was hard to comprehend. O wise, mysterious forest, your grace towards those who take shelter in you is truly great.

In the course of conversation, I asked, “Did Manchi take all her things with her?”

Suratia said, “Little Mother took none of her things. That box of hers you saw that time—she just left it behind. Do you want to see? I’ll bring it.”

She brought the box and opened it in front of me. A comb, a small mirror, a string of beads, a cheap green handkerchief—just like a little girl’s doll-play box! But the string of Hinglej beads, the one she had bought at the fair in Labtulia that year, was not there.

Who can say where she has gone, leaving her home and family behind? These people had at last taken land and begun to settle down and build a household; only she, the wanderer of their group, had remained a wanderer.

As I was about to mount my horse, Suratia said, “Come again another day, Babuji—we catch birds with traps. We’ve woven a new trap. We have a pet waterhen and a gurguri dove. When they call out, the wild birds come and get caught in the trap. There’s no time today—otherwise I would have shown you—”

It is a little frightening to ride along the paths of Narha-Baihar so late at night. To the left, the water of a small hill-stream flows with a gurgling sound; somewhere an unknown forest flower has bloomed, its fragrance filling the darkness, which in some places is so dense that I cannot see my horse’s mane, and in others, thin beneath the starlight.

Narha-bihar is a sanctuary for all manner of trees and creepers, wild creatures and birds—nature has adorned its woodlands and meadows with boundless treasures. Saraswati Kund lies on the northern border of this Narha-bihar. Old survey maps show that the ancient course of the Kushi river once flowed there—now, it has silted up, leaving only that small pool of water behind. In other places, that same ancient riverbed has transformed into dense forest—

Where once there was a river, now there is a sandy bank—

What indescribable beauty I saw in that forest on that still, dark night! But my heart sank when I realised full well that the days of this Narha-bihar forest were numbered. I loved it so dearly, and yet it was by my own hand that it would be destroyed. For within two years, the entire estate would be settled by tenants and covered over with ugly hamlets and filthy slums. This Narha-bihar, the fruit of nature’s own hundred years of devoted creation, with its incomparable wild beauty and its far-flung meadows, would vanish without a trace. And what would be gotten in its place?

A number of ugly, tile-roofed huts, cowsheds, fields of maize and corn, stacks of jute, rope charpoys, pennants for Hanuman-ji, prickly pear cacti, an abundance of chewing tobacco, an abundance of khaini, and an abundance of cholera and smallpox epidemics.

O forest, O ancient one, forgive me.

Another day, I went to watch Suratiya and his people catch birds.

Suratiya and Chhaniya took two cages and walked with me towards the open meadows outside the Narha-bihar jungle.

It was late afternoon; the sun, casting long shadows across the fields of Narha-bihar, was sinking behind Surya Pahar.

They set the two cages down on the grass beneath a young silk-cotton tree. In one was a large dahuk, in the other, a gurguri. These were trained birds; to attract their wild counterparts, the dahuk immediately began to call.

At first, the gurguri was silent.

Suratiya whistled, snapped his fingers, and said, ‘Speak, little sister—I swear by you—’

The gurguri at once cried out—Gur-r-r-r—

In the stillness of the vast, lonely afternoon fields, that strange call conjured in the mind only images of such horizon-spanning vastness, dreams of such open skylines, of shadowless moonlight. Nearby, in the grass where masses of yellow dudhli flowers were in bloom, Chhaniya set the trap—it was like a fence made of bamboo sections. With these, he concealed the gurguri’s cage.

Suratiya said, ‘Come, Babuji, let’s go hide behind the bushes. If it sees people, the bird will fly off.’ We all crouched in hiding behind some young sal saplings for a while.

The dahuk would stop from time to time, but there was no break in the gurguri’s cry—it called on and on—Gur-r-r-r—

What a sweet, unearthly sound! I said, ‘Suratiya, will you sell that gurguri of yours? How much is it?’

Suratiya said, ‘Hush, hush, Babuji, don’t talk—listen, a wild one is coming—’

After a few moments of silence, another call came floating from the meadowlands to the north—Gur-r-r-r—

A shiver ran down my spine. The wild bird had answered the call of the caged one!

Gradually, the call drew nearer to the cage.

For a time, the cries of the two birds could be heard side by side; then the two calls seemed to merge into one. Suddenly, there was only one call again—only one bird calling—the one in the cage.

Chhaniya and Suratiya ran forward; a bird had been caught in the trap. I ran after them.

Its foot caught in the trap, the bird was fluttering frantically. The moment it was trapped, its call had ceased—what an astonishing thing! It was hard to believe my eyes.

Suratiya picked up the bird and showed it to me. ‘Look, Babuji, see how its foot is stuck in the trap? See?’

I asked Suratiya, ‘What do you do with the birds?’

He said, ‘Father sells them at the market in Tirashi-Ratanganj. A gurguri goes for two paisa, a dahuk for seven.’

I said, ‘Sell it to me. I’ll give you the money.’

Suratiya gave me the gurguri just like that—I simply could not get him to take any money for it.

It was the month of Ashwin. One morning during this time, I received a letter saying that Raja Dobru Panna had died and that the royal family was in great distress. I should come, it said, if I could find the time. The letter was from Jagru Panna, Bhanumati’s elder brother.

I set out at once and reached Chakmaki-tola a little before evening. The Raja’s eldest son and grandson came forward to receive me. I learned that while herding his cattle, Raja Dobru had suddenly fallen and injured his knee; in the end, it was that very knee injury that had caused his death.

As soon as news of the Raja’s death got out, a moneylender had come and seized their cows and buffaloes. He would not release them until he was paid. On top of this disaster came another: the new Raja’s coronation festival was to take place the very next day. That, too, required some expense. But where was the money? Besides, if the moneylender took the cattle, the royal family would be reduced to a wretched state—by selling the ghee from that milk, they had met half their household expenses. Now they would starve to death.

Hearing this, I had the moneylender summoned. His name was Birbal Singh. I saw that he was not prepared to listen to a word I said. He would not release the cows and buffaloes without his money. I saw he was not a good man.

Bhanumati came and began to weep. She had dearly loved her Jethamoshai, that is, her great-grandfather. As long as her Jethamoshai had been alive, she said, it was as if they had been sheltered behind a mountain; the moment he closed his eyes, all this trouble had begun. As she spoke of these things, her tears would not stop. She said, ‘Come with me, Babuji—I’ll take you up the hill to show you Jethamoshai’s grave. Nothing feels right, Babuji, I just want to sit by his grave.’

I said, ‘Wait, let me see what can be arranged with the moneylender, and then we’ll go.’ But for the time being, no arrangement could be made. The formidable Rajput moneylender was not one to listen to anyone’s pleas or requests. As a small concession, he only agreed to leave the cattle tied up here for now, but he would not allow them to take a single drop of milk. A way to settle this debt was found a couple of months later—but that is not a story for now.

I saw Bhanumati standing alone in front of their house. She said, ‘It’s late afternoon, we won’t be able to go later. Come, let’s see the grave.’

That Bhanumati was walking with me alone up the hill showed me that the simple mountain girl now considered me a close friend of her family, an intimate. The guileless manner and friendship of this hill girl had captivated me.

Afternoon shadows were falling across that great valley.

Bhanumati walked in a great hurry, like a startled doe. I said, ‘Listen, Bhanumati, walk a little slower. Are there any shiuli flower trees here?’

In Bhanumati’s land, the shiuli flower has a completely different name. I could not make her understand exactly what I meant. As we climbed the hill, the view opened up for a great distance. The blue Dhanjhari range encircled their land, the kingdom of the kingdomless Raja Dobru Panna, like a girdle. From far away, a raw, open wind came blowing.

Bhanumati stopped walking, turned to me, and said, ‘Babuji, are you finding it hard to climb?’

‘Not at all. Just walk a little slower—what’s the hardship?’

After walking a little further, she said, ‘Jethamoshai is gone. I have no one left in the world now, Babuji—’

She said this on the verge of tears, like a child.

Hearing her words made me want to smile. So her old great-grandfather had died, and her mother was also gone, but otherwise her father, brother, grandmother, and grandfather were all alive, a vibrant household all around her. Still, Bhanumati was a woman, and a young girl at that; the instinct to attract a man’s sympathy and coax some womanly affection was natural for her.

Bhanumati said, ‘You’ll come and visit sometimes, Babuji, you’ll look after us—say you won’t forget us—’

A woman is the same everywhere, in all circumstances. The wild girl Bhanumati, too, was cast from the same mould.

I said, ‘Why would I forget? Of course I’ll come now and then—’

Bhanumati pouted with a note of feigned hurt and said, ‘Yes, but when you go back to Bengal, to the city of Calcutta, will you still remember this hilly, wild country!’ She paused for a moment, then added, ‘Remember us—remember me—’

In an affectionate tone, I said, ‘Why, did I not remember, Bhanumati? Did you not receive the mirror? You tell me whether I had remembered or not.’

Bhanumati’s face lit up as she said, ‘Oh, Babuji, it’s such a wonderful mirror—truly, I completely forgot to tell you.’

When we finally stood under the banyan tree at the burial site, the day was all but gone. Behind the distant mountain range, the sun was sinking, a red disc. It was as if the place stood in silent, still anticipation of the moment when a slender moon would rise and dispel the deep shadows of late afternoon under the banyan and the profound darkness of the encroaching dusk.

I asked Bhanumati to gather some wildflowers to scatter on the stones of her great-grandfather’s grave. The custom of scattering flowers on a grave was unknown in her land, but spurred by my enthusiasm, she collected some blossoms from beneath a wild shiuli tree nearby. Then both Bhanumati and I scattered the flowers upon the grave of Raja Dobru Panna.

Just at that moment, with a frantic beating of wings, a flock of silli birds flew up from the top of the banyan tree, calling out as they went—it was as if all the neglected, oppressed, ancient ancestors of Bhanumati and Raja Dobru Panna, having found their peace through me, cried out in one voice—‘Well done! Well done!’ For this was perhaps the first time that a descendant of the Aryan race had paid homage to the tomb of a non-Aryan king.