FAR FROM HOME

(A Story)

By JOGESH DAS

(Rendered from the ASSAMESE by the Author)

Since how long the river has been flowing nobody knows. The oldest person of the neighbourhood, if asked, would perhaps say that like its ever-rolling waters its days of origin are untraceable. Maybe you can’t walk across the small river, but usually you don’t have to swim to cross it either.

“The red-pepper plant on the bank

being watered spreads its roots;

the Brahmans have calculated, O my Love,

in the month of Aghon we’ld wed.

I-hi-hi-hi!”

Someone cries out in a shrill voice from afar at the end of, the Bihu song, and the echo is heard somewhere in a distant corner opposite. A response comes from the other bank, “I-hi-hi-hi!”

The young man who sang on this side shouts, “Hei Bhakat!”

“Hello, yes!”, comes the reply from the other side.

“Come back, it’s time for meal.”

All around the river there are low paddy fields and sparse jungle edges on them. And beyond, on high lands, there are tea gardens. The smoke of the tea factories is seen to curl up to the sky from far-away places. In the wide fields, full of marshes and quagmires, the sun sees only the cows and bullocks grazing and their keepers tending them. Maybe now and then a man or two tread along with fish. Or sometimes the labourers, men, women and children, from the gardens come to bathe or wash their clothes. The garden Sahibs also may one day appear in high rubber-boots to shoot at birds that abound in the marshes.

“The nara fish goes up

and down comes the fish bhangon,

(But) betel prepared by my beloved I cannot take

from her own soft hands.”

With the Bihu song on his lips Bhakat comes to the river bank. He is bare-bodied, a piece of cloth covering the loins, spattered with mud up to his knees. His long knife with its wooden shaft hangs on his neck and he is with a bamboo switch in his right hand. With tanned skin and robust physique, Bhakat is quite an attractive young man.

He calls aloud, “Hei Bogadhar, Bogadhar.”

Bogadhar replies from this side, “Come, boy, meal is ready.”

“I can’t find where Hatee is.”

“Here she is sitting, old boy.”

Bhakat slips into the river, holding his knife high above water. He feels quite relieved of the midday heat he suffered from. He swims across to this side and throws the knife onto the bank, and hurls himself into deeper water to bathe and swim to his heart’s content.

When he comes up he can see the buffalo Hatee standing at a little distance from the clean-swept spot of the bathan¹ allowing the calf to suck at her. He changes and at the same time playfully rebukes her, “You wicked Hatee, I was nearly dead going there in search of you, and you are pleasantly feeding your baby. It were better for you to be dead.”

As they sit down for their meal of rice Bhakat chaffs his friend, “You fool, why have you roasted these magur fishes?”

“What of that ?”

“You could have fried them instead of the goroi fishes.”

“That also will do.”

“Uncle will be back today?”

“If he reaches the village, he won’t be back.”

“Then he will have a good time today, eh?”

After the meal they wash the dishes in the river. Bhakat goes into the tiny thatch hutment and sits on the bed by the fireside. “Got a bidi, Boga?” he yells, “I am out of cigarettes.”

“Look out there on the bed.”

Bhakat fails to find any and says, “There isn’t any.”

“Then look in my shirt pockets.”

“Neither here, boy,” Bhakat shouts back, searching the shirt pockets without any luck,

“Well, then take betel instead,” Boga says as he comes into the hut. He lies down for a little rest. Bhakat gives him a piece of betel, and chewing one himself goes out. Pulling the bamboo-flute out from the reed-wall, where it was tucked in, Boga begins playing on it.

The knife hanging over his back, Bhakat jumps upon a buffalo. “Sahib, let’s go to Mita. Come, go ahead.” Sahib, the buffalo, getting the order moved on obediently. Slipped out of Bhakat’s lips:

“I’m abed, but the memory of you

haunts me every nightly hour;

my unappeasable heart I appease

sighing sweetly about you.”

Another bathan house is seen near a lonely tree. Bhakat shouts from afar, “Mi-t-a, 0 Mi-ta!”

“Hallo brother,” someone responds from inside the hut.

“What are you doing? Come out if you please.”

Mita comes bending out of the low hut. Emaciated, pitch dark, with soiled clothes and poor health: that’s Bhakat’s Mita. His name is not known to Bhakat, so he calls him Mita, that is, friend. Mita must be a son or a grandson of some tea labourer who came to Assam on a three-year agreement. He has left hoeing and plucking in the gardens, and instead, has made these jungles and marshes his abode with bathans like many villagers of Assam.

“What’s wrong, Bhakat?”

“Well, say not.” Bhakat jumps down from the buffalo.

“I’ve come after a bidi. Spare me one if you have any.”

“Come, sit awhile.” Bhakat sits on the stool Mita gives him. They have left their villages far behind and have come to this uninhabitable and haunted paddy field to keep bathans. Bogadhar and Bhakat are well known to Mita, and they three are great friends.

A female voice is heard inside the hut. Bhakat looks up and says, “Well, Mita!”

“Yes.”

“Has your woman left?”

“No, not left; Have you not heard her, brother?”

Bhakat calls aloud, “Hei Mitni, Mitni.”

Mitni is Mita’s wife: she responds from inside, “Yes, brother.”

“Well, well.” He speaks in such a tone as if he is greatly surprised. “Could you not come out here? Now, now, come out please.”

Mitni comes out: a robust, dark woman with red lips. “This is proper”–this thought flashes through his mind. Mita brings bidi and fire and smoking himself one he asks, “Want betel?”

“No, I do not.”

Mitni asks, “Why, caste will be wronged?”

“Caste? Surely, it would be wronged. Won’t it?

“But you have taken bidi,” Mitni argues on.

“Well, bidi won’t wrong.”

“Indeed, bidi won’t wrong! Why should it? The wrong is only with the betel. Some day I’ll make you eat a meal here.”

He bursts into loud laughter and says, “Mitni, you are a woman of courage. But the actual thing is, to tell you the truth, I don’t bother about castes as such; only they in our village won’t tolerate. That’s the trouble.”

Mita was smiling all along. At last he says, “Let’s go, brother, or the buffaloes will go astray.”

“Yes, yes, you are right. Hei Mitni, give me a piece of betel, let me wrong my caste.”

But Mitni hesitates. Bhakat forcibly takes a piece from her hand and puts it into his mouth. “Please don’t tell it to Bogadhar. Tell none for that matter.”

They jump on two buffaloes and ride away. Soft and sad music floats from Bogadhir’s flute. Mita guesses the musician must be sitting on the river bank at a considerable distance. “This is Bogadhar.”

“Yes,” Bhakat affirms. Perhaps he is remembering.”

“Is he married?”

“Do we need to marry to remember things? You are married, and you are living together far away from village. What have we?” Bhakat lets out a heavy sigh.

Mita understands his feelings, and so to sympathise he observes “Was it not that Malou–or who was it?–and others who were to come to see you, brother?”

“Yes, they were to come–I don’t know when they would be here–or maybe they won’t come at all.”

“They’ll come, they’ll come.

“Uncle has left today for village.”

“Malou is his daughter, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he is your uncle, how is that?”

“Oh, it is only some sort of distant relation. He is actually not my uncle.”

Then they part and Bhakat goes after those buffaloes which have gone very far for grazing. The sun is setting. It is time the cattle are brought back. Bogadhar’s shrill shout is heard, “Hei-i, Bhakat!”

“I-hi-hi-hi!” Bhakat shouts back.

By that time the sun is screened by the distant trees and his shout spreads wide in the still calm of the fast-darkening lowland. Bringing back their buffaloes, Bhakat and Bogadhar begin to milk the cows.

His hands busy on the teats, Bhakat asks, “Boga, how many pots are there to fill up? Three are filled, I think?

“Yes, there are two more. That is two days more.”

“Did the garden Babu come again?

“Yes, he came to enquire. That sweetmeat-seller also came. As soon as we finish up with the Babu, we do for the shopkeeper.”

“Certainly....Didn’t you put the kettle on the fire?”

“Yes, it is there. Go and make some tea.”

Bhakat gets up, but exclaims, “Oh God. Hatee is still to be milked. You finish her, Boga.” He sees Sahib sitting and chewing the cud. He goes to him and begins caressing him with his hand, “Sahib, you are a very good boy. Sitting here calm and quiet. That’s like a good boy.”

After they finish milking and see that the tying is all right, darkness comes over them and they are relieved of a day’s labour. Hastily they prepare some sort of dinner, eat and go to bed. Lying down on bed Boga begins to play on his beloved flute. Bhakat, all dark around him, goes silently on listening to the music. So far from home, in this bathan of the desolate and haunted low paddy-fields, he feels so very lonely.

Boga’s flute stops and he intends sleeping, But Bhakat calls out, “Boga.”

“Yes?”

There is no response from Bhakat. So Boghadar asks. “What’s up, Bhakat? Why are you silent?”

“Are they coming tomorrow with uncle?”

“You mean Malou and others?”

Silence is all the answer Bhakat gives. Bogadhar again asks, “Am I right? You want to know about her but keep mum. You think I know nothing.” Bhakat is still silent. Bogadhar goes on, “Uncle said Maloa and others would like to come. But who the hell knows if they come? Possibly they’ll Come. It is for their sake that we are staying in this desolate place, far from home. And Malou….well–er-she loves you, I think?

“That’s right.”

“Then she is sure to come.”

Then they fall asleep.

Next day the uncle returns to the bathan, but there is nobody with him. However, he informs that two or three days after, Malou, her mother, and one or two of Bogadhar’s relatives, will come with a village neighbour.

Bhakat is not disappointed. He prepares tea for his tired uncle. Uncle has brought tea and Sugar among other necessaries.

Mita appears on the other side of the river. He asks of the uncle, who is sitting outside the hut, “Brother, can I walk across this way?”

Uncle replies, “If a man, you can; if woman, you can not.” At the old man’s joke, Bogadhar and Bhakat blush and bend their heads. Mita walks into the river, laughing. When he is on this bank, uncle gives him a seat and they begin discussing about bathans and animals. Uncle brings out bidis from his shirt pocket and both of them go on smoking.

“Hei Mita, like to have a little tea?” Bhakat, who is making tea, asks from inside.

“If you so please.”

In a half-joking and half-serious tone uncle says, “Then you must get something to drink in, we won’t give you our cups.”

Mita does not at all feel offended: he is used to their ‘Superioity.’ He brings an arum-leaf and rolls it into a cup and Bhakat pours curs tea into it.

After the tea Bhakat and Mita go away from the hut, walking along the bank. Bhakat will have to look around for the grazing buffaloes and it is meal time for Mita.

“Mita” Bhakat breaks the silence, “they are coming here in a day or two.”

Mita understands and says smiling, “Is that so? Then You will have a jolly good time?”

“Oh Mita, you needn’t mention it.” Bhakat is excited. “Do you, by chance, have a piece of betel, Mita? My teeth want something to chew.”

“Why go to wrong your caste again?”

“Oh, let your caste go to hell. Those are the ways of the old folk. What is the use of caste to us? If I feel like taking a piece of betel, I take one, no matter where it is. What has caste to do with it? Come Mita, give me one.”

Mita laughingly opens his tin-case and gives him a piece and goes away. Bogadhar joins Bhakat, and they bring all the buffaloes into a patch of grassy land near the river on whose bank they sit and chat on.

“Look here Boga, they would be coming by this side.” Bhakat is again with Malou, in thought.

“How do you know that they are coming by this very side?” Bogadhar unsympathetically argues. “They may come by another side also.” “Whichever is the side, they will, indeed, come across this same river.”

“Oh, that is why you love the river so much?” Boga sarcastically comments.

“Sure I do. So many people have crossed this river and so many have gone away across it. But it is so dear to me, for Malou, too, comes crossing it. Apart from that, Boga, we all love the rivers. Had there been no rivers, how could we get water to drink? From this river here our village gets water.”

Bhakat gazes on the swirling waters of the river, motionless. The sun is fast approaching the horizon, and its bent rays, falling upon the flowing river, dazzle beautifully. From the dawn of creation rivers have been useful to living beings, and Bhakat, unable to be ungrateful, is gazing on this river. It has today a new beauty for him. It will bring him his beloved Malou.

Uncle shouts out from the hut, “Hei Boga, Bha-k-a-t.”

They jump up. Yes, they have to milk the cows, tie the bulls, cook meal. They have so many things to do. Discussing only love will not do. They hasten towards the grazing buffaloes, they hasten to work.

At dead of night, all of a sudden, thunder roars above their head. Uncle wakes up startled. He can see the sky is overcast, stars are nowhere to be seen, the glow-worms have fled somewhere.

Rain begins to fall and it grows heavier and heavier. All three lie wide awake inside the hut. None of them speaks. They are deeply sad: the poor animals are fretting like hell. They are reminded of their village homes. Rain water trickles at places through the thin thatch roof of the hut.

At morning the rain ceases. But the weather is still cloudy. It will rain again. Bhakat and Bogadhar untie the animals and allow them to go away. They won’t milk today, the animals have suffered too much from being drenched all the night. They sweep and clean the bathan with a heavy heart. Mita comes and laments over the sad plight of the buffaloes overnight. But what to do?

During the whole day the weather does not clear, though no rain comes. At night it again begins to rain. In the morning they find that the river is rising. Yes, the dry months are nearing their end. No wonder, rain is sure to come, and with it, flood too.

Uncle swims across to the other side. The river is now too deep to walk across. Bhakat follows with a dry cloth in one of his hands for Uncle. Untying and driving away the animals a little way, Bogadhar begins to clean the place with a bamboo broom. Bhakat sadly observes, “I am afraid they won’t corne, Boga. How can they in this rotten weather?”

Bogadhar loses his temper, “Do away with your madness. Water is rising and we are to remove the whole bathan as soon as we can, or do you wish we chatter over ‘they won’t corne’?”

Silently Bhakat slips into his work. He is very much disappointed with his friend at his unsympathetic attitude. But, on the contrary, Bogadhar is quite aware of the fact that Bhakat wants his Malou to know about her lover’s keeping a bathan in this haunted place so far away from home.

The sun peeps through the shattered clouds. There is no rain. The buffaloes feed on whatever they get near the bathan. Standing on the bank Bhakat looks on at them with a grieved heart. He tries to fathom their suffering of the last night. Then he looks at the river in a frightened manner. The low clouds float above him seeking opportunities to come down in the shape of water. At this scene fear creeps into Bhakat’s heart.

“Bhakat,” Mita comes to him, “we must remove the bathans.”

“Yes, Mita, we are in trouble.”

“I have sent for men from village to take away the animals.”

At noon Uncle comes rowing a small boat. He declares in a grave tone, “Let us wait for to-morrow. If the rain does not cease we will go. I have informed them in the village.”

The river swells up, slowly but steadily. Still Bhakat keeps gazing at the distance, hoping against hope that they might still come.

The sun shines brightly on the third day. There is no trace of cloud in the sky. Bhakat’s face brightens up; Uncle and Bogadhar, too, are happy. Uncle unties the buffaloes and goes to tend them himself. To enliven himself, Mita sets out for the nearby garden in search of liquor.

Bhakat takes the boat away from the bathan and keeps it on the other side of the river. To Bogadhar’s query he simply replies, “I’ll bring it back before Uncle returns.” He keeps looking at the distance, in a lingering manner.

There, they are corning! Three women and a man are seen at that distance trudging through the field towards the river. Bhakat’s heart beats fast. But, still, Bogadhar cannot make him go ahead even by force. He himself goes to receive them.

Bhakat calls out, “Uncle, Uncle, come, they are corning.”

Uncle comes to the hut. Yes, they are really coming. They are getting into the boat, the man about to row. The women are laughing, covering their faces with cloth.

Uncle goes forward.

Bhakat keeps on looking from outside the hutment. The boat swiftly drifts on with the current. The rowing man must be very careful. Bhakat thinks: the boat is very small, it will be a boon if it can bear so many people.

The boat is carried away by the current. It drifts away and away despite the rowing man’s attempts to veer it towards the bank. In the middle of the river it shakes heavily. Malou and others, in great fright, look dumbly at the angry waters. Standing on the bank, Bogadhar and Uncle become restless.

All on a sudden the helpless boat flounders and the riders are thrown into the deep and swiftly-moving waters. The man begins to swim towards the bank; but the women are up to their necks in the water, helpless and unable to swim.

Bhakat runs like a wild animal. Uncle, too, runs forward. Bogadhar shouts and shouts. Bhakat and Uncle, one after another, hurl themselves into the unkind river. They dive and dive in an attempt to find and rescue the drowning women. Bogadhar rushes to Mita’s hut to fetch the fishing net. The man comes up and begins to tremble.

Bhakat and Uncle come up to the bank. Mita also appears, a jug of liquor in his hand. He snatches away the net from Bogadhar and begins fishing for the women. Bhakat again jumps into the river. Hearing the shouts of Bogadhar and Mita some people from the nearest tea-garden collect there. Two of them rush back for fishing nets.

Uncle, trembling and heaving, points to Bhakat who prepares to jump into the river for the third time. “Hold him back,” he cries out. Mita and Mitni hold him by his two hands. He looks at the spot of the tragedy, his eyes wide open. Emotion surges within him and his manly chest expands and falls with his quick breathing. Mitni is too frightened to look at him.

None is found, nobody can be saved.

A man who goes down the river for a considerable distance, comes back. “No trace whatsoever.” He says, “I doubt if they are taken away by the current or are stuck somewhere.”

Inside the hut, with his head bent into his knees, Uncle gives way to loud sobs. “Why did I allow you to come?” he wails. “It was raining and you ought not to have come. I have been the cause of your death. Oh God, what have I done.”

Bogadhar weeps, sitting on a piece of unsplit firewood. Bhakat, with his right hand on his head, looks on vacantly at the river. He is sitting on the ground, tears rolling incessantly from his eyes. He is also sobbing.

Mita today drives the buffaloes home much earlier, he does not milk them. He then goes to the buffaloes of the other bathan and begins to tie them before it is dusk. His wife helps him. Today’s sunshine had lured the animals very far. Mita brings them in twos and threes and his wife ties them.

All done, Mita comes to the hut and sympathises, “Brother, what is the use of crying? Don’t cry. Gone are those who had to go. Some day we will also go, only they have gone before us. It was God’s will, He called them home. What can we do?”

Mitni goes to Bhakat and says, “Please get up, Bhakat. The man is in wet clothes since morning. Give him something dry to cover himself. Come, Bhai, take heart.”

Bhakat tries to take heart and rises. Consoling the bereaved sometime, Mita and Mitni take leave of them and melt away into the darkness, going towards their own bathan.

Bhakat and Bogadhar do not prepare meal at night, neither do they need anything. Without food the four of them lie down in the hut and pass a sleepless night. Bhakat once again sobs out, his face pressed in Bogadhar’s arms, and uncontrollable tears come trickling out of his eyes, swollen from weeping. The other man is silent. The intensity of Uncle’s loss and bereavement the other three do not quite know.

In the morning news is received that the bodies of three women have been seen floating a little away down the river. Uncle goes with the man who brings the news to do the needful, and probably also to arrange the removal of the animals from the bathan.

Bhakat lets the animals out into the field. He does not take anything. Mechanically Bogadhar goes on working his chores, his mind heavy and thinking of nothing. The man hesitatingly follows Uncle. Bhakat leaves the animals to graze near ‘Mita’s hut and goes to the river bank and sits down there. Mita comes to him and tries, by way of talking, to enliven him; but Bhakat replies only when needed, otherwise he is silent.

Mitni also comes and gives him bidi and betel, exchanges a few words and goes away. He silently smokes and chews his betel. He sits on there till midday. The sun is very hot above him, but he is heedless of it. Mita comes up to him, “Go, Bhakat, and eat something.”

“Yes.”

But he still sits on.

Mitni comes and calls, “Bhakat.”

“Yes, Mitni, I am going.” He gets up and trudges slowly towards the hut. She heaves a sigh.

The river flows on, bright and unconcerned as ever, oblivious of the tragedy it has caused.

¹ Buffalo-pen.

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