The Heart of Donna Rai: Fugitives – II

Here’s the second part of the three-part forthcoming novel, The Heart of Donna Rai by Sumita, in the weekly column, exclusively in Different Truths. 

1:00 am, Tuesday, 3rd June to 01:00 am, Saturday, 21st June 1975

I couldn’t sleep. My aunt’s latest attempt at weaving horror had knotted my intestines. Shutting eyes meant a full-colour rendition under my eyelids. A witch with swaying coils of hair, there nested snakes that helped her sniff out specifically ‘naughty’ children. The witch apparently relished their eyeballs—the children’s, not the snakes’—and was blessed with magic talons that grew as soon as she spotted said, children. Their screams, of course, added the required sensory depth, to make the tale effective.

Really, such a silly, impossible story! Why was my imagination stuck on replay, insisting on examining grisly details?

Jo had already dropped off. While I sought a comfortable, coma inviting position, the two adults in the room slept peacefully, snoring gently in their cots. Actually, only Thakuma – my grandmother– was snoring. Pishi – as I called my aunt – shifted with a rustle of cotton sheets, practicing indistinct couplets in blissful slumber. What a contented soul she must be tonight!

Whenever we visited my grandparents, Jo and I preferred to sleep on mattresses laid on the floor between Thakuma and Pishi’s cots in the big hall upstairs. It was cooler than in the bedrooms, and there were the storytelling sessions. Thakuma’s stories were interesting, but Pishi’s chill-bump raising yarns were wicked.

I was the worst affected and usually ended up spending a sleepless night, but I refused to avoid it. Every night, I promised myself not to let the images she created with her words get to me. I sat through her tale mentally poking holes in the plot. So far I hadn’t succeeded in keeping my promise—much to my shame, Jo, my kid sister, recovers faster and easily falls asleep.

Jo’s peaceful face glowed in the diffused moonlight. It had rained earlier, but a bright crescent moon was visible through the open windows above my head. The floral grill dropped shadow patterns on the white cotton walls of our tent like the mosquito net. It looked pretty. The net walls fluttered gently in the breeze coming through the window making the moonlit patterns dance. I dropped off at last.

The moon was much higher in the sky when my eyes popped open. Two silhouettes appeared in the widening doorway that led to the first-floor terrace at the other end of our hall. The latch could be released by reaching through the open window beside the door.

“Who’s there?” Thakuma called sharply.

“Hush Ma, it’s me, Hora. Debu’s with me,” said one of the shadows.

They came inside and shut the door behind them. I sat up. They were my favourite uncles… They must have climbed the Jamun tree to come in this way…

“What are you doing here at this time of the night? Why didn’t you come in through the front door?” Thakuma asked.

“Didn’t want to wake up everyone. Need to talk to Baba. We’ll go down to him. Nothing to worry about,” whispered Hari Kaka. “Go back to sleep Ma, everything’s fine.”

Their shadows disappeared through the door leading to the stairwell.

“Suchi, where’s my stick?” demanded Thakuma, swinging her legs out of bed.

Pishi sat up. Dada – my cousin – peeped out his room. He had retired after the storytelling session but was a light sleeper like me. I scrambled out of the mosquito net to join him. We flew down the stairs, then abruptly stopped by the open collapsible gate, the bottom of the stairwell. The wide corridor beyond accessed the three large bedrooms on the ground floor merging with the veranda — our sitting/dining space.

Thakuma shuffled down after us as fast as she could, one hand on the smooth cement stair-guard, the other rapping each step firmly with her stick. Pishi hovered solicitously behind. We hadn’t switched on the light—moonlight pouring in through the expanse of filigreed stucco in the landing was bright enough.

Past Thakurda’s (Grandpa) room on our left, the single bulb hanging low in the veranda came on glowing yellow. Thakurda was with my uncles. He towered over their lean figures. Thakuma and Pishi joined them and we followed. Disturbed, a cow mooed, and the goats shuffled bleating nervously.

“I should take a stick to your back like when I caught you two smoking behind the hedges. Debu, your MBBS finals is just a few months away, and Hora, your dissertation?” my grandfather’s whisper was a gale force buffeting the two slim frames.

The gale dropped; he sat down abruptly, head in hands. “Hai Ram! What will we do? The police will come… You’ve been bent on ruining your life, now Debu…”

“I’ll take care of it, Baba. We just need to hide Debu for a while,” placated Hari Kaka softly.

“If only the wheel-pin hadn’t broken. The oxen were trotting at a brisk clip… The right wheel struck a large rock, the wheel-pin snapped and the wheel was off. We fell, cart-load of pumpkins rolling everywhere,” said Debu Kaka. “My trunk sprang open. Everything rained out. My books, my clothes, and the guns…,” said Debu Kaka, “Right before a toddy shop…”

Thakuma and Pishi, on their way to calm the animals, halted. Dada and I froze too.

“They were drunk… Anyway, they’ll want to avoid trouble… but…” Debu Kaka hesitated.

Hari Kaka put his arm around Debu Kaka’s shoulders and murmured, “Debu collected four guns before the villagers rushed in to help. In the melee… with everyone tramping around… one went missing… probably got buried in the slush. It will be catastrophic if the police find it…”

His quiet words resounded in the silence of the night.

“It will be catastrophic? It is catastrophic! Do you really think nobody noticed guns lying at their feet?” thundered Thakurda, forgetting to lower his voice. Agitation flooded his fair skin with a swathe of red across his nose and cheeks. “Of course somebody found it. Reckless, and to top it all, stupidly optimistic!” He paused, breathing harshly, then burst out in a whisper, “What maggot in the world made you want to bring guns here?”

Doors opened down the corridor and my parents appeared. Ma adjusted the end of her sari to cover her head. Jethu came out of the other bedroom with Jethima. She too arranged the end of her sari in a ghomta (one end of the sari covering the head), in respect to Thakurda and Thakuma.

I marvelled at them. If you are a married woman, it is, of course, of paramount importance to follow the etiquette of covering one’s head in the presence of one’s in-laws, even in the middle of the night. God forbid my grandparents should catch sight of their bare head; every sane thought might fly away in shock; the world might even come to a cataclysmic end!

Khokon toddled behind Jethi happily. He probably thought Thakurda was introducing midnight parties. Dada joined his parents and held his brother back.

“I wasn’t coming here with the guns. I was couriering them to Jongolgaon, to Hari Da,” said Debu Kaka.

“Hora, Debu, how wonderful! You must be hungry,” said Jethima, first concern – feeding people.

“Guns! What are you talking about Debu?” Baba unerringly hit bull’s eye. My father, the high achiever; he’ll never do anything reckless or stupid in his life.

“Hai Ram! You two are ruining your lives, and now you are going to drag the rest of us into this mess too. What will happen to us? Why did you come here? We have families here—children. When will you grow up?” came from Jethu, Dada’s father, and Baba’s sanctimonious elder brother… At least Baba wasn’t sanctimonious.

“Enough said, Satya,” Thakurda interrupted. “How did the two of you end up here?”

“I brought him home, Baba. This is my fault. If anyone is arrested, it should be me,” said Hari Kaka.

“Be quiet, you fool! I should have pulled you out of Jadavpur University as soon as you started spouting this Naxal nonsense. Colleges are simmering pots of rebellion… When will you realise that guns and violence will get you nowhere? It’s been almost ten years now since this revolution started. Apart from brutal deaths, what has been achieved?” asked Thakurda softly. Hari Kaka stared at the floor, mute. “So, you collected everything, minus one gun, and went to Jongolgaon. Did you find another poor farmer to get into trouble, or did you take a bus?” Thakurda asked Debu Kaka.

“Hiked cross-country,” said Debu Kaka, head lowered.

Thakurda demanded of Hari Kaka, “What were you doing in Jongolgaon anyway? With guns? Have you gone completely mad?” His panting filled the silence, then more calmly, “Did you go back to search for the missing gun? What is the name of this place?”

“Aagachagram, the accident happened in Aagachagram. We went back and searched, but…” Hari Kaka shrugged. “There’s another problem… Debu mentioned his name… and your name… to the farmer driving the cart… He enquired and Debu didn’t think of lying… When the police come, you must tell them it was me.” Hari Kaka folded his arms tight across his torso.

“Arguing over the past will not help,” said Thakuma. “Shompa, heat some milk. The leftover rice will do. Suchi, fetch a few ripe bananas and the jaggery.”

Thakurda looked flabbergasted.

“Love them and feed them and make them men; in old age, they’ll support, keep on dreaming in vain,” muttered Pishi.

No one reacted to her comment.

Baba rubbed his face. “It’s late,” he said. “We should get as much sleep as we can. Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day. Baba, you need to retire immediately.”

He led Thakurda by the elbow to his room adjacent to the veranda. The picture they made: the giant old man, led quietly by my much shorter father, was incongruous… also touching…

I helped Dada quieten the animals. While he braved the cows in their shed, I saw to the goats. They were generally housed in the high-walled courtyard facing the veranda. Gently murmuring to calm them, I checked their water and feed, all the while wondering how my uncles could possibly have anything to do with guns. Tasks completed I waited for Dada.

The solemn facade of Thakurda’s house rose before me. The details of the two-storied house were shrouded in dark grey shadows, only the veranda spotlit with yellow light. The entrance to the kitchen, on the other side of the veranda from the bedrooms, emitted a dim flickering glow. At the back, a door set into a depression in the wall stood like a mysterious gloomy sentinel. It led to an outhouse in the backyard. Tonight, the lit veranda surrounded by the dark house, stained right in the centre by that rectangular patch of shadow, hinted at unpleasant secrets.

Jethi and Pishi bustled with pots and pans until convinced the kakas wouldn’t eat more. Baba returned to hustle all of us to bed and lights were switched off. Everyone retired dreading morning.

I lay next to Jo — still sleeping soundly — pondering everything I had heard. It was all so unbelievable. How could my gentle uncles have anything to do with guns? They were academicians, had their nose in a book most of the time. Guns were so… mobster. Something found only in the hands of ‘bad men’ in movies… or the police and soldiers of course. Why would my uncles even touch a gun? I love my uncles without reservation. I know they are good people. Sometimes I identified with them even more than I identified with my own parents.

Debu Kaka is a kind, temperate person. He’s going to be a doctor. That’s his vocation and he’s perfectly suited to it. Won’t this affect his career? Didn’t he think about it?

Hari Kaka… I like to think I’m a female version of him. Like me, he is dark skinned, and doesn’t care to talk much—prefers a book to socialising. And his eyes laugh at absurdities. Inspired by him, I had practised keeping a straight face while saying ridiculous things. A handy skill when I wanted to be particularly obnoxious to The Parents.

I am aware I fall far short of Hari Kaka’s good qualities—patience, helpful and a host of other virtues. I’m neither patient nor helpful—especially if it doesn’t suit me. I can be quite selfish, sometimes outright bad…

Could anything make me pick up a gun? I don’t think so…

What if somebody threatened my family? I might rebel against my parents’ every wish and make their lives generally miserable, but I wouldn’t let anyone else say or do anything against them. Jo… If anyone harmed her, or even thought of it, I would do my best to harm them…

Did Hari Kaka feel like that? But nobody was threatening any of us.

He’s the calm, bookish type. No uncontrolled rages or flights of fancy for him—another difference with me. Certainly not at all ‘prickly,’ like Ma describes me. He smiles readily enough…

Ma was forever begging me to stop frowning; said life would be easier for me if I smiled more often. Why? How? What’s the big deal about my smiling anyway? She should love me the way I am. I’ll frown if I want to. When my parents are around, I make sure I want to. My straight brows, meeting in a feathery ‘u,’ were the bane of my existence until I discovered my frown could be a formidable weapon to keep people at a distance.

How could people like my uncles be involved with guns? What was Thakurda talking about when he mentioned that word—Naxal? Hari Kaka was taking the blame for Debu Kaka. I would do it for Jo… Hari Kaka may have a darker side to him but Debu Kaka taking to a life of crime is hilarious.

(To be continued)

©Sumita Dutta ‘Shoam’

Illustration by the author and photos from Internet