Souribandhu Kar
Translated from the Odia
Supriya Prasanta
I
Talking about your personal experiences means you read out chapters from the book of your own life. However, it is no easy task, for one discovers one’s real self only in the course of telling someone about it. There is always this fear of getting confused in the process of self-discovery. How many of us really understand ourselves, after all?
Gandhiji says in his autobiography, ‘ I never wanted to write an autobiography. My life is nothing but a series of experiments with truth. I simply wanted to tell this.’
Here I want to tell of persons who were an inseparable part of my life and how they had influenced me.
I am not a charismatic figure. My achievements are few. Perhaps before my death, I may attain a little fame. Or so do I hope. Some may bring petals of flowers to sprinkle over me or walk in my funeral procession when I would be lying lifeless. And one or two of my acquaintances may write my obituary.
But now is not the time to think of death. Death comes without a warning.
My childhood reading of the Bhagabat has influenced my understanding of death to a great extent. My mother, when I was a child, had brought a copy of the Bhagabat and handed it to me, ‘ God saves the meek. You have no father to look after you, to comfort you. So read the Bhagabat.’
My mother was the first teacher in my life. I had lost my father when I was three. I can’t remember anything distinctly about him now. But I never felt the absence of a father. My mother gave me everything I needed: authority and affection. Perhaps because of this my fondest memories always centre on her.
My maternal uncle’s house was a little distance away from our village. It was just down the bridge that goes over river Brahmani. On the riverbank stands Gokarneswar temple. A guest house has been built there. And the management of the temple is in the hands of the temple trust. The temple rises into view when you cross Jaraka square and go towards Brahmani bridge. A magazine, Gokarnika is being published from here.
My maternal grandfather worked as a priest there. Every day he would bring milk, wood apple leaves, and water from river Brahmani to offer to the deity. I was still a child. I would run after my maternal grandfather whenever I went to my maternal uncle’s house. The temple is very famous. People from villages nearby come with their families to have a darshan of the lord even when the river is in spate.
The name of my maternal uncle’s village is Odanga. I never knew or tried to find out why it was given such a peculiar name. Barabati is not far away from there. We would go there crossing fields. Now, only the national highway runs straight past the village from which dusty roads wind into villages.
It takes two hours to reach Odanga from our village through the fields. We would also pass through villages on our way. In our village that thatched house did not stand in a row. One comes across thatched houses arranged neatly in rows only in areas and around Puri.
When we passed through villages, we would come across fields, where different kinds of vegetables were grown. Odanga was famous for its potalas, ridge gourds, brinjals, bitter gourds, tomatoes, cucumbers, and chhachindras.
We would walk past sugarcane fields where sugarcane would be crushed with the help of bullocks. Someone would offer us a glass of sugarcane juice when we moved closer; sometimes he would cut a piece of sugarcane and offer it to us. Now, even in towns sugar cane juice is sold in every lane. But the taste of sugar cane differs from the taste pf its juice. Sugarcane has a different and special taste.
When you go it was only natural to step on mud and cow dung! No one ever could walk so carefully as to escape these. And sometimes we would tread on thorn bushes. And we would also pass through muddy waterlogged paths.
My thread ceremony was held when I was aged eleven. I was then studying in class five. My mother was very worried about my thread ceremony; it was an extremely important event for her. I still remember that all the important persons of our village had come to attend this ceremony. An elderly person of our village, whom I called uncle, ceremonially gave me the thread he is still alive, and I continue to hold him in high respect. After the ceremony I went to visit my maternal uncle’s house. As part of the ritual, the brahmachari had to have food at the maternal uncle’s house before taking food anywhere else.
My maternal uncle was older than me by six or seven years. He was the apple of my maternal grand patents’ eyes. My grandmother had passed away by then. I had never seen her. I don’t remember any occasion when I had accompanied my mother to my maternal uncle’s house. My mother was the eldest child of her parents. So my mamu always deferred to her.
My mother had told me to return in a day. I promised to do so and set off with my uncle. Fields laden with crops stretched for miles around. When we went through the field hedges we saw snakes, mongooses and other poisonous reptiles, which made us scared.
My head was shaven, I wore rings in my ears and I had a pig tail at the back of my head. I carried with me a jute bag in which I had put the clothes, towels etc that I had worn during the thread ceremony. When I reached my mamu’s house his father was not at home. He had started a Bhagabat recital week at the Gokarneswar temple which stood at the outskirt of the village. I took a dip in river Brahmani and went to my grand father. When he saw me, he at once said, ‘ Let’s see, if you can read the Bhagabat.’
I wore a panchi and started reading the Bhagabat. From childhood I had practised redaing loudly sitting on a mattress made of coconut and palm leaves. Tables and chairs were hard to find those days.
I started, saying ‘ Narayana namastutam’ and continued reading the Bhagabat for seven days. I told my grand father that mother would be angry with me for having stayed back, but he didn’t listen to me.
That was when I got through the whole of Bhagabat written by Jagannath Das. I read it through out my school career. It became a part of my life.
Beside the joy of reading the Bhagabat, there was the pleasure of having piping hot rice, dalma and saag. On some days, we had fried plantains and kheer. After making offerings to the Lord, we took the prasad with ghee. Even when we cookwith extreme care, homemade food never tastes like the prasad prepared in temples. As an eleven year old boy, I could not understand the profound meaning of the Bhagabat. I only read mechanically. I had all the time to read those days. Now I have the ability to understand the Bhagabat, but no time to read it. River Brahmani continues to flow, but I don’t know if Bhagabat weeks are celebrated in my uncle’s village anymore. Life marches forward relentlessly.
My grandfather is no more. I very rarely go to my mamu’s house now that the childhood fascination with it has faded. When I returned home after seven days, mother scolded her father more than she scolded me.
I then realized that mother’s affection for her son was infinitely deeper than her affection for her father. Perhaps this hold true for all women.
Even the Bhagabat appears insignificant before a mother’s love.
II
On river Brahmani, a fair-weather road used to be built from Gopalpur to Dharmasala bazaar every summer. It was called Jagannath sadak. Dharmasala is an old police station under the Jajpur subdivison.
Every year a fair called Munsi melana takes place here. Earlier, police officials were called munshis. The fair had been first started by the munshi in charge of the Dharmasala police station. Hence the name. On the river bed a big haat is held. Taxes are collected from there and the money collected is spent on the fair. It is a large fair. As the munshis organise this fair, bimanas carrying images of deities are brought in large numbers. Makeshift shops with out number are opened there.
Once I had gone to see the fair with my mmau. I went there again, after I got a little older and when I was a college student.
People would crowd around the bimana of Lord Gopinath. Kirtanias holding a silver staff in hand would be dancing. People gathered at the fair would be enthralled by their ecstatic dance. Jagannath sadak lay a long distance away from the bridge. By the side of that road, the deities remained till midday.
Who would reach the fair ground first— this though lay uppermost in the minds of people who came to see the fair. In the month of Phaguna, the warm morning sunlight caressed one’s chilled body, and eyes were heavy with sleep. Still, the visitors stared wide-eyed at the images. No one had reason to be afraid of the police.
I had walked all the way to the fair with my mamu. My maternal grandfather had given me one rupee to spend. Laddus were kept stacked in sweet stalls. Womenfolk bought all kinds of trinkets. By the time the fair came to an end, the sweet stalls sold huge quantities of sweets.
Munshi fair seemed to me a very colourful carnival. The white karpoora garlands of the kiratanias changed colour and their white kurtas turned many-coloured while the horias lost themselves in throwing coloured powders.
People came back from Gokarneswar temple, chewing wood apple leaves. Their heavy lidded eyes would be half-closed but they looked as if they had won a victory over an unconquerable enemy.
Time has gone by; but nothing has dimmed my childhood fascination for Gokarneswar temple, Munsi melana and river Brahmani.
Now no one needs to take the fair-weather Jagannath sadak, for a huge concrete bridge gives access to the temple. Womenfolk come riding rickshaws and cars. Bullock carts are used but rarely. But the deities still come riding bimanas.
Why do people come here in such large numbers? Because of love they feel for gods or for love for fellow human beings or for material gain? Someone feels ecstatic at a glimpse of the deity and rolls on the dust. A group of people drink the tale of love of Radha and Krishna which was sung by the kirtanias. Lovers give sidelong glances to their loved ones. I wonder if that warms the fair ground. Now, whenever I cross the Gokarneswar bridge by car, I automatically fold my hands in deference to Lord Gokarneswar.
Everything now seems like a dream: my going to Gokarneswar temple, chewing wood apple leaves, taking a dip in river Brahmani.
When I scolded my son who had spent the whole night at the fair and returned in the noon the next day, I realised that I had crossed the age of going to the fair. Now I was only holding on to the memories.
III
Mother called out, ‘ Arakshita, ajaa is ready, go with him to the haat and bring a pen’ I was around eleven years old and was reading in the fifth class. Our school was within a calling distance from our house. The school’s headmaster was the village schoolmaster’s son. My name was enrolled in that school. The date which was considered to be auspicious for me was registered as my date of my birth. It was different from my actual date of birth. My age was decreased by two years.
I always came first in the examinations. Sometimes I stood second for having secured less marks in mathematics. I would write dipping an ink pen in an inkbottle. My mother would say, ‘ If you practice handwriting, then your handwritng would be good.’ I would draw the lines with a pencil and practise two pages of hand-writing every day. Fountain pens were available then, but it was difficult to get these in a village and they were also costly.
I was selected to sit for the scholarship examination. By this time, another new headmaster had joined. He came from a village near my maternal uncle’s. He was my mother’s classmate at Madhupurminor school. He was a very strict person. He would lay sticks of different sizes on his table. Like a butcher dragging a goat to the block, he would take a pupil behind the door and thrash him. The poor boy would scream, ‘Mother, mother…’ We were all very scared of him.
‘ Where is your fountain pen? How will you go to sit for the scholarship examination?’ how the scholarship examination and a fountain pen are connected? Though I could never grasp the connection, he was able to persuade mother that a fountain pen was what I needed urgently. Mother called out to me. I was working out sums lying under the shade of a tree in the mango orchard.
‘Go with ajaa. And bring a founatain pen from Madhuban haat.’ My heart overflowed with joy when I heard mother say this. But we had to go to Madhuban haat. It was nearly four miles from village. Kuakhia bazaar had not been set up at the time. Madhuban haat was very famous in villages nearby. Mahia ajaa used to go to the haat twice a week. He managed to earn a little from his visits. He was an expert in repairing watches and locks. Mother gave me a five-rupee note and asked me to it to ajaa, ‘ Mamu, buy him a fountain pen. He is merely a child and easily can be cheated.’
Mahia ajaa nodded, ‘ Let’s go. It is already 11 o clock. It would take nearly an hour to cover four miles.’ I accompanied ajaa, bare of foot.
We crossed river Kharasuan and passed though Bhotaka village and Panchagochhia. We walked though crop fields. During hot noons, people also picked vegetables like brinjals, potalas, phuti kakudi, and jahni to take them to the haat for sale.
Ajaa wore shoes made of discarded tyres. When I walked on the hot river sand, I would sigh. He would say, ‘You know Souri; here you get very sweet melons.’ When we passed though our fields, our eyes fell on a large water melon. The field was then cultivated by a tenant farmer. We carved to eat a melon. From not so far, Mahanta, our farmhand, called out, ‘ Ho, son of Kar family, where are you going with ajaa? Come, won’t you have a melon?’
Mahanta was also my classmate at school. His father’s name was Chakradahar Pradhan, but he was known as Chakara. He belonged to radhi caste. Preparing rice falkes was their traditional family occupation. By then Mahia ajaa had picked up a melon that lay concealed in sand. Then he wiped off the melon and broke it open by dashing it on the ridge. ‘ Have a piece.’ We resumed our walk eating the melon. The Kharasuan was shallow at the patia ghat, but water was crystal clear. We took water in our cupped hands and drank to out heart’s content. We could hear the bustle of the haat from a distance. The wind carried voices to us. Mango trees stood on both the sides of the road. Shadows of the trees fell across the ground. Ajaa was used to walking on this road, but my feet burnt. I hurried and took shelter under the shade of a mango tree.
It was a huge gathering. Someone carried a basket of vegetables on his head. People chatted about who had a good harvest of potalas, who needed money for his daughter’s marriage, who was buying a plot of land. They talked about how sugarcane fields got ruined, how this time during the fair, the kirtanais created a nuisance before Brundaban Chandra’s bimana and so on. I tried keeping pace with ajaa. Everybody knew him. One would ask, ‘ Son of the Pani family, have you repaired my lock?’ Ajaa would nod. To every enquiry he would respond by nodding.
We entered the haat. It was full of small platforms having palm fronds for roofs. Banyan trees, peepal tress, mango tress shaded these. There were only a couple of big shops. Mahia ajaa took me near the pen shop and asked me to wait there.
Everything seemed new to me. Many people from our village had come to sell vegetables. I looked at the pens arranged neatly in the shelf having a glass door. An hour passed, but there was no sign of ajaa. The shopkeeper, seeing a child like me, subjected me to a sort of interrogation. My legs started aching from standing for so long. I was too afraid to roam in the haat by myself. Mother had warned me, ‘ Never leave ajaa’s side. Do as he says.’ I felt like crying while I was waiting for him. I thought to myself, ‘ I am a big boy reading in class five. I am going to sit for the scholarship examination, would I be lost in the crowd. I grew confident when I ran into Sudam Naik from our village. He pointed ajaa to me: ‘ He sits there.’
Mahia Ajaa was busy repairing a lock. I went and sat near him on the thick root of a banyan tree. The haat was coming to a close. The sun poured down scarlet rays on the trees. We had to again cover four miles on foot. At last, ajaa said, ‘ Come, we will buy a pen.’ We went over to the shop where he had left me before the shopkeeper placed before me many poems.
Ajaa picked up one and examined it. ‘ Parker’ was written on it.
‘ How much does it cost?’ – Ajaa asked.
The shopkeeper said, ‘ Four rupees and fourteen annas.’ Ajaa handed him the five-rupee note. The shopkeeper gave back two brass coins. He poured ink into the pen, and scrawled something on a paper to check if it worked properly. I put the pen in my shirt pocket. We made our way back taking another route. Mahia ajaa boasted that he has used a parker fountain pen in his childhood and he predicted that I would definitely come out successful in the scholarship examination.
When I reached home, mother was lighting a clay lamp near the tulsi platform. She asked, ‘ Bought a pen? Show it to me, is it good?’ she then looked at my poclet and exclaimed, ‘ How come there is a black spot on your shirt pocket?’
I discovered that the fountain pen was leaking and a blotch ink had appeared on my shirt. My Bou was furious seeing the black spot on my only shirt and at my stupidity. I was feeling hungry but only got two heavy blows from mother and fell on the ground. The parker pen, lying on the ground, was mocking at me. It was quite late when mother tapped on my shoulder and said, ‘ Come and eat. Go to Madhuban tomorrow and change the pen.’
The moment I woke up next morning, I remembered mother’s words. I could not tell her that it was Ajaa who persuaded me to buy this pen. I mustered courage and set off again for Madhuban haat. But the shopkeeper did not recognize me. I returned home walking in the scorching heat, but my mother’s anger scared me more than the heat. My face was pale and sad. Tears rolled down my cheeks, which mother wiped with the help of her sari end and said, ‘ Sit and have your food. You look like a piece of burnt wood. You Arakshit, poor child.’ I could not say a word and burst into tears.
I went and sat for my examination with using that pen. My hands were smeared with ink. My friends commented, ‘You would surely get scholarship. It is a good sign if the hands get blackened. The blotch of ink on my shirt had faded by then. When the results came out, our teacher said, ‘ Your name does not figure in the list.’ Mother said nothing. That day, nothing was cooked at home and everybody went without food. After this, mother did not want me to continue my studies at the village school. I carried a jute bag on my shoulder, my clothes and other necessities in it and set off for my piusi’s house at Mangalpur on foot. When I reached her house, I found that my pen had fallen somewhere through a hole in my bag. I took admission in Jajpur high school and forget all about it.
Today I stand in the Madhuban High School premises as the chief speaker in its annual function. I have put a parker pen in my folder and look impressive. Many eminent persons are sitting in front of me and listening to what I said.
Many things have changed in between. The same banyan tree spreads its branches and occupies a huge space.
Everything came back to me in a flash. I was standing with Mahia ajaa to buy a parker pen. He was busy repairing a lock. I could hear my mother saying tenderly, ‘ You, poor child.’
IV
That a village boy like me would one day finish his studies at the village school and go to one in a town was beyond anyone’s imagination. My mother was against my studying in the village school. As for me, I was thrilled that I would go to Jajpur to study. But my excitement was also laced with apprehension.
I crossed the Kharasuan and to reach my piusi’s house, we had to walk a few miles. We had no money to pay the bus fare. My grandfather said, ‘ It is not far away, we can easily go on foot.’ We passed through fields. It took us nearly two hours to complete our journey. When we reached my piusi’s house it was already dark.
My piusi was a widow. She was childless. But she was very short-tempered and she had a domineering attitude.
Jajpur was three miles from where she lived. I had no other option but to walk all the way to my school. I went and enrolled myself in Jajpur high school. It was a big school, and was quite famous. Sri Achyutananda Mishra was the head master and Mr. Narayan Chandra Ghosh was the assistant headmaster.
But Sri Raj Kishore Das, our head clerk, had more power than these two put together. He entered my name in the register. I could sense that he felt sympathy for a fatherless child like me.
Our school faced the office of the sub-collector. At the back of the school there was a playground and an isolated room where lived our Urdu teacher.
Historically, Jajpur is an imporanat place in ancient times; it is used to be the capital of Orissa. It is not far off from river Baitaranee. And the narrow lanes are lined with small shops on either side.
I was a student of the sixth class. Our class teacher, Shri Bhubanananda Mishra, who taught us English, was very strict. He would do sketches to explain things. My task was to bring the picture board every day to the classroom. I was made the monitor of the class. Without my knowledge, I started taking responsibilities.
Now, forty years later, I am going over these memories and returning to those days at Jajpur high school when I never knew what life held in store for me. I was then floating down the stream of life, and I tried not to get drowned.
I had to try hard to arrange so that I could pay the school fees. My mother had no money. My piusi would vent all her anger on me, by telling me off frequently. Yes, she would become restless if got late. She would call out my name loudly. On Sundays, I had to work in her garden and help with planting vegetable seeds, weeding out grass and watering garden. But I always relished the taste of toasted brinjal eaten with watered rice.
I would throw the bag on my shoulder and start for school around nine o cloak. I had no shoes. My legs would turn red as I walked down the dusty road. In Ashadh the rains turned the road muddy and slippery. Many students like me took this road to go to school. I belonged to a village different from theirs. So, sometimes they teased me. They would throw muddied water at me. One would pull at my hair. I would turn around and see faces mocking at me and hear the sound pf laughter. My eyes would fill. I would remember my mother’s words, ‘God helps the meek.’
Every morning, I would take a dip in the canal and go to Lord Shiva’s temple and chew wood apple leaves offered to him.
These were the six years of my early adolescence. Memories of Jajpur High School, time spent with teachers inside the classrooms come crowding into my mind.
I remember how Jagabandhu babu taught us to draw with the help of lines and circles. He taught us English in class ten. He would get carried away while teaching us Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He was fat, fair and bald in the front. He would fill a rickshaw when rode on it.
Many such stories of my childhood lie buried in my mind. I never understood the importance of writing down my thoughts. I could not do that then, have never been able to do that. It is said, ‘What you cannot develop during your childhood, you can never do later in life.’ The bad habits persist. The loneliness of the student life is still there and I am still without a friend or a companion. I go on paddling my own canoe.
The road was a slippery one. I too slipped and fell sometimes as I trod it. Youth casts its spell on all. I would immerse myself in the books, which told of Robin, the pirate and his heroine, Meera and I would also tread booklets meant for village women. They made me feel restless.
Sometimes I gave my piusi the slip and spend hours on end swimming in the river. I went to play football in the funeral ground, sewed the ball with the help of my sacred thread. I started reading detective novels ignoring textbooks, playing cards with village girls and women. These were like water leaking into my life boat.
While doing all this, I was unwittingly hurting myself. Results of the matriculation examinations came as a blow to me and hit me hard. I was placed not in the first or second class; nor even in the third class. No one could ever imagine that a student like me, who was the teachers’ pet, would fail his examination.
I could not share my feelings with anyone. Besides, my younger brother had joined me at the school and I also had to shoulder his responsibility.
But then may be I was not totally spoilt. Amidst all these I kept reading the Bhagabat and that aroused my consciousness. It made me a traveller on a new road. There remained always the fear of getting lost, but I was fortunate that I reached my destination in the end.
I have lost touch with the friends who were reading with me at school. Now and then I accidentally met a few of them, like the clouds floating in the sky.
Sometimes when I go to Jajpur, I meet my teacher Bhubanananda babu. My eyes would pass from him to the school with the wide gate. I would remember how Saraswati puja was celebrated in our school premises. All night we would collect flowers from others’ gardens and also stole cabbages and vegetables for the feast to be held the next day. We would not notice how time passed while preparing for the puja.
From class sixth to class eleventh, for six long years, I was taught by four teachers. I had wanted to hold the fingers of one of these and walk down the path of life. I longed for guidance and love from my teachers.
It was the first time I went from a remote village to a town, small by the standards of present days. I learnt many things these, sometimes cheated myself and got lost somewhere in the crowd.
I went on to become a college student. The days I spent at the high school formed a part of the past.
Sometimes I remember how poignant it was to be a part of a large place, even though I was but a very small part of it.
~
(Selected from Stories, Rupantar: Bhubaneswar, 2006)