(A STORY)
(Translated from the original ORIYA by V. V.
Prasad)
Before the moon of the Chathurthi had set, a bit of
black cloud appeared on the horizon, and slowly covered the four directions
with darkness. Sujono das has not yet returned home for the day. His wife,
Gunjoro, has cooked a little sago (leafy vegetable) brought from the
backyard, some dried fish, two brinjals fried in oil, and a handful of rice,
and is waiting for him. His old mother is sitting by the kitchen-fire and is
nodding. The lamp which is burning is spreading four times as much smoke as
light.
Sujono at last came home. Gunjoro showed domestic
anger in her face and asked, “Who will sit so late waiting for you every day?
Why don’t you finish your tamashas before the end of day? Your old
mother waited and waited, and has gone to sleep without eating or drinking.”
Sujono was engaged in no tamashas. He was troubled. Yet he smiled at his
wife and said, “You should have taken your food and gone to sleep. I would have
served myself food and eaten it.” Gunjoro replied with her chin on her knee,
“Yes, you may say anything in jest.”
While Sujono ate, his wife looked on him. These
humble, illiterate farmers do not understand the meaning of the word “love”. Of
“friendship” and “devotion” they have not heard. Yet they experience them in
their souls. It could not be said that these two people with all their poverty
were less happy than those who had riches. But today Gunjoro noticed a troubled
expression in her swami’s face. She was also troubled.
They were from farmers’ homes, and so they were
married when children. During the past six years, this poor family had many
calamities. Sujono’s father died and their lands have been mortgaged to
zemindars and merchants. What remains is the house in which they live. Several
of Sujono’s ancestors had fought with famines, big and small, and come out
triumphant by sheer physical strength. They never had to go to someone else for
a seer of rice. But today Sujono is a wage earner bringing five seers!
Between man and wife there have been quarrels,
surely. But they always made them up. Sometimes they gave up talking to each
other for a few days. And then, if the old mother went to visit the neighbours,
Sujono was put in an awkward position. If he wanted a little oil, he would call
his mother for it. Gunjoro would act as the mother’s representative and bring
him what he wanted. Sometimes she would not respond to his call of “Mother!”
And the quarrel would be made up.
Gunjoro had noticed that something was troubling
Sujono, but did not know what it was. While he was taking his food, Sujono
asked, “What? Should we forever lead a life of sorrow?” She thought he did not
like the food, and she was sorry. She replied, “Tell us what else we could do.
Whatever grows in the backyard, we cook.” Sujono was irritated and told her:
“No, I am not thinking of the cooking. For two years there has not even been a
weed in the fields. How are we to get on, the three of us?”
Gunjoro could not know the seriousness of the
position and replied in jest, “We will get on as we did before.” Sujono said in
a pained tone. “This is why I don’t tell you anything. You take everything
lightly. Last time I had brought a little paddy from Hori Santhora, and you
should have heard what he said to me today. No man in blood and flesh could
endure those words. It is impossible for me to get a seer anywhere. And as long
as I am strong, I won’t let you and my old mother go to pound rice. The fields
are a desert and there is no work I can do there. Tell me what I can do.” What
could she tell? She was also troubled.
Gunjoro could not relish her food because of the
uneasiness of her husband. She touched the feet of her old mother-in-law and
went to their bed-room. Sujono was turning some documents and papers by a lamp.
She sat down to prepare the pan and asked him,
“What are you reading up to the middle of the night?”
“These are our documents. This land has been
mortgaged to Dodhi Samolo, and we have not yet been able to release it. At this
rate I wonder whether we will be able to live until next year.”
His wife would point out that they were neither six
nor nine people to worry about. But how could even three people hold on?
Gunjoro was reminded of something and wanted to give evidence of her wisdom: “I
hear someone is giving away rice. Why not we go and get some?” Sujono smiled
sadly; “What? Are we to bring that rice? Then you might as well go to the fair
at Banapur and beg for rice.” Gunjoro understood her foolishness, but asked in
playfulness: “If you give the word, would I not go?”
Gunjoro was worried. She asked, “Who is this
distributing so much rice?”
“Those grains are being given by big people from
all countries. Are not those who take that rice the same as beggars? Some go
begging from door to door. And someone comes from door to door to give alms.”
Gunjoro was astonished to hear this. Have these people no work that they go
about giving alms? Sujono told her: “Are you still thinking about those alms?
only the other day a babu was saying, ‘Try to feed your bellies by your
own labours as much as you can. If you cannot, this rice is your last resort.
We are not giving you this help so that the world may be full of beggars’.”
Sujono could not sleep well that night. Gunjoro saw
this and asked him, “Hullo, what has happened to us that you are worrying so
much?” Sujono sighed and said, “No, nothing has happened. Only the water is
drowning our house and has come up to the knee. What else can happen? I have
been telling you so much, but you could not understand anything.”
Gunjoro said in despair: “Then why don’t you do
what should be done? Why so much thought?”
“Yes. I have decided what I should do. I did not
tell you because you would not understand. But now I must tell you. A Sardar
has come from Rangoon. He will give ten rupees for household expenses. He will
then provide train fare, boat fare and other expenses on the way to Rangoon. He
will also get me a job. He will pay fifteen, twenty, or thirty rupees according
to one’s work. His debt has to be paid from...”
“Don’t talk like this. You will do what you will,
but why talk like this?”
Sujono knew she talked thus because of sorrow and
love. He told her slowly, “I cannot do anything else.”
Gunjoro could hear his pitiable voice, but she
could not see the two streams of tears that rolled down his cheeks.
The clouds were pouring rain in torrents. The smell
of wet earth and of the mango flowers was brought by the breeze, which gently
touched man and wife. Neither of them was a poet. But both felt consoled by the
breeze.
Sujono said, “Please think of dropping your
childishness. I give you this ten-rupee note. You will buy rice and can get on
for sometime, somehow or other. After I go there I will send you money every
month. I will also, in the meanwhile, pay back Hori Santhora, and I will
release our land from Dodhi Samolo.”
“All right. Don’t play. Go to sleep.”
Morning came. Sujono explained everything to the
old mother. The sixty-year old woman was agitated, She told him she would go
out for work and get a seer or a half.
“Yes,
mother. You spoke right. When my father was alive, you did not have to do such
bits of work, and will I send you to pound rice now?
“What wrong is there if I get something for my son
and my daughter-in-law? Am I working for strangers?”
Gunjoro learned as she returned from the tank in
the morning that the whole village knew that Sujono was going to some “Rongu
country”. She wept and told him: “I won’t stay here. Take me with you. Else,
you sit at home, and we two will run the house.”
It could not be. Hunger came before attachment.
Sujono told everyone that he would return before the end of a year and a half.
The mother tied a common talisman round his neck. She prepared two “come-back
puddings” and entreated her son to eat them. The son let fall tear-drop after
tear-drop.
Sujono Das went by train to Calcutta with the
Sardar. He had never traveled by train before. In Calcutta he saw carts,
horses, trams, motor-cars, electric lights, big houses. Sujono Das–who was he?
Old mother, Gunjoro–they were no more true than the black smoke that he saw!
They stayed in Calcutta for two days. All the
Sardars gathered together. Three hundred Oriya coolies were led like cattle to
sit in the Rangoon steamer. They made a lot of noise in the ship. Two Bengali
Babus were sitting on chairs and reading newspapers. They made wry faces and
remarked in Bengali that these fellows had no sense. The chaprasi of the Babus
came and asked them to be silent. But when the chaprasi went away, the Sardar
asked the three hundred not to mind the Bengali Babus.
They again began to shout. The Babus called the
chaprasi again. He came and made his eyes red with anger, and shook the stick
in his hand. The Babus forgot about the Locarno Treaty in the newspaper, and
shouted to the chaprasi to beat them: “Chaprasi! Maro byatader.” But the
noise only increased, and the Babus had to seek a more peaceful spot in the
ship.
Sujono had a hundred and five degrees of fever. Two
and a half days in the ship. The Sardar came with a number of one-anna stamps.
Advance given at home Rs. 10, Train-fare, Boat-fare, etc. Rs. 40. Expenses
after reaching Rangoon for food and room Rs. 20. Total Rs. 70. He asked Sujono
to write him a hand-note for the sum. Sujono looked at him.
“How much money can I send to my home? How do I
repay Hor Santhora?”
“What is
there if you put your signature here? You don’t have to pay all the money at
once. You can repay by instalments when you get a job in Rangoon.”
As soon as they reached Rangoon, the Sardar
miraculously found Sujono a job. He had to lift bags of rice and bring them to
the ship. He would make ten to twelve annas a day. Out of this the Sardar got a
commission of an anna or two. He could send home only three to five rupees per
month. He could not pay anything to Hori Santhora, and his debt increased at
compound interest. He could have saved from eight to ten rupees, but for the
Sardar’s commission, the money he had to pay by way of pan expenses for
chaprasis, and bakshis, for the clerks.
One year, three years, five years, ten years. No
news of Sujono Das. The old mother died. Gunjoro attended on her most
carefully. Sujono Das did not send money. He did not even send a letter.
Gunjoro’s parents asked her to come and stay with them, but she did not. Sujono
would come suddenly home! She made promises to the gods! Those who returned
from Rangoon could not give any definite information about him. Some said he
had obtained a very big post. Some said he had taken another woman for wife.
Others said he had left Rangoon. Gunjoro’s parents, since they were farmers,
thought of giving Gunjoro in marriage somewhere else. When she heard these
words, Gunjoro wept. But how long? Hori Santhora took possession of the house,
and ejected Gunjoro. The gods did not hear her. At the exhortation of her
parents and brothers, she became the second wife of Nidhi Dolai of the next
village.
Sujono had in fact improved his lot. He left his
weight-lifting profession, and learned to read and write, and became clerk in
the god own of a big merchant. But at first he was in a pitiable condition. He
was unable to pay his debt to the Sardar, and was on the point of being sent to
jail. But he was rescued by a woman-friend. He lived as a tenant in her house
and a friendship developed between the two. He persuaded her to close the pan
shop where she sat, and she was known as his married wife. For, in the
letter which contained the news of his mother’s death, there was news of
Gunjoro’s death also. This was due to the skill of the new friend of Sujono. He
received no more letters from home. He therefore decided to spend his days in
Rangoon. But one day his friend left him for another man. Sujono was then ill.
Would Gunjoro have left him in that condition?
He got up and saw that his box was empty. Rs. 500
had disappeared. There was only a bundle of letters in it. He saw them. There
was one from Gunjoro written a year back. Gunjoro was alive then! This woman
had deceived him! He remembered Gunjoro’s eyes on the day of his departure.
They were swollen with weeping. And his mother–she was dead.
Then he remembered Hori Santhora and Dodhi
Samoro–how many days had passed! How many promises he had made to Gunjoro that
he would return in one and half years! He cursed himself.
He became better in two days. His mind ran to see
Gunjoro. Hori Santhora had been paid back.
Sujono had changed a lot. His body was hidden
behind his dress. But he was thin. His nose was sharp like the beak of a crane.
And his eyes looked as though they were trying to hide from the nose in fear.
His body was a long straight line–it had length but no magnitude. He took the
permission of his master and set out. (The fat master was sitting in the
godown, surrounded by his bag of merchandise and he could not make out which
the master was and which the goods.)
Sujono always dreamt of Gunjoro, and returned home.
When he started for Rangoon he had not taken anything from home except two
pieces of cloth. He brought saris for Gunjoro, and a box, lantern, shoes,
kurta, tobacco, and the most important thing, malaria! He also had changed in
the use of his words. Bono Porida had told the village that as Sujono was in a
cold country, he spoke without opening his mouth and with the teeth together.
For mun he would sometimes say ami, and for nodia he would
say narikel.
He had scarcely set foot in the village when
Bhojoni Chotora recognised him and asked him when he had returned. He who was
accustomed to be addressed as “Babu”, looked behind. He had his mind on his old
house. He would see Gunjoro. He had seen so many new places–now he is returning
to the old.
When he reached the place where his house once was,
he saw brinjals being grown there. He heard all about Gunjoro. It appeared to
him that the village, houses, men, trees and every living thing disappeared
into thin air. He was alone in the whole world. Why? Who was to, blame? He
remembered Hori Santhora. Not he, for he had given him rice in times of famine.
The Sardar–not he either, for he had helped him in adversity. The Kuhakini woman–she
had saved him from jail. Gunjoro–no, she had waited for him for ten years.
On whom is he to take revenge?