Curse on Ahalya

I was a lecturer teaching History in a college for a little more than two years. She was a student of plus three Arts. I caught sight of her in the annual function of the college. In the cultural programme that followed the meeting she gave an Odishi dance performance. Her performance was well acclaimed. Then I remembered she belonged to the tutorial group I was allotted. She further attracted me when I came across her poem published in the college magazine. Considering her age and experience the poem was a good one.

I learnt that she was a trained dancer. She had also won a few prizes in dance competitions when she was in the school. But she was not allowed to pursue dancing after she left the school for college. She told she wrote poems, but did not send to magazines for publication as she was not sure of the standard of her poems. The editors might rate the poems substandard and reject. I encouraged her to continue writing poems and start sending to literary magazines. One day she would definitely be noticed by the editors.

I left the college and teaching also. But we were in touch and corresponding regularly. But she stopped writing to me after a few months of her marriage. I also did not come across her poems in any magazine. In course of time I had forgotten her.

After almost ten years I was sitting in the room of an editor of a reputed literary magazine gossiping with him. I found a letter addressed to the editor. The handwriting seemed familiar and I discovered it was she. I got her address from the letter, collected her phone number and talked to her over phone. I enquired about her family and children. She evaded my questions concerning her family; and told that, in fact, she was looking for me and was almost desperate to meet me. She would tell me many things and everything when we would meet. We arranged to meet within a fortnight.

She told me that after her marriage when she went to stay with her husband who was working in a faraway city, she discovered her husband was not only a drunkard and a debauch, he was already married also. He tortured her and forced her to do immoral act. She told me her story. I was shocked, and could not believe that a person could be so cruel and inhuman, which I had only seen in Hindi films.

She asked me whether I would write a novel based on her story. She told she could not tell everything, but would write and hand over me her story. I agreed. She kept her promise and within four months, gave me a diary in which she had written forty pages her story.

She is Madhavi of the novel, prema teeniranga. Madhavi, a tender and beautiful girl still carries Ahalya’s curse in the 21st century India. Madhavi says this is true with all women of brain and beauty.

My first novel kasatandira swapna was published in 2004. The novel begins on the day the police are forcibly cropping short the long hair, called hippy style, a fashion with the college boys then, and tearing the bell bottomed trousers of the college girls. The police act as self-claimed moral force with a view to cleansing of anti-socials and bringing in discipline in the society. That was the period of Emergency in India and almost all the leaders of opposition parties were behind bars, fundamental rights of the citizens were suspended. Ajay, a student of the college protested, and was taken to police custody. The novel covers the period from 1975 to 1984-85. Kasatandira swapna is the story of Ajay.

Sanat was present at the scene when Ajay was taken to police custody. That was his first day in the college. Prema teeniranga is also the story of Sanat. The story begins from the day Mrs Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her own body guards. Mrs Gandhi had declared emergency in the year 1975 when she was the Prime Minister. Prema teeniranga covers the period from 1984-85 to 1995-96.

I am now writing this novel, prema teeniranga, in English.

Excerpts from the English version of the novel:

“I had a dream during the last hours of the night.


I was wandering in the college garden. The garden had only roses. I saw a rabbit. The rabbit looked innocent and beautiful. I went to catch it. It moved from that place. I ran after it. It was not going out of the rose garden, but hopping hither and thither within the garden. I was running after it, but was unable to catch it. I got bruises from the thorns of the rose plants. But I did not care. My body started bleeding, but I was feeling a thrill of joy in spite of my bleeding body. I saw Raaj standing at the gate of the garden and laughing. The rabbit disappeared.


I woke up from the dream and remembered an incident happened during my childhood.


My father was at that time at Baripada, I was in Class IV. We were staying in government quarters. Our neighbour was a doctor. He was employed in Government hospital. He loved roses. In the compound of his quarters he had developed a beautiful rose garden. One day after I returned from the school I had gone to their home to play with his daughter. They had a dog. That day they had not tethered their dog. On seeing me the dog started barking. I ran away, but the dog ran after me. I was running in their rose garden to escape from the dog, but the dog was also after me. Having listened to my cry, the doctor-uncle came out of his room and controlled the dog. But by that time my body had started bleeding with the bruises caused by the thorns of the rose plants. The doctor-uncle took me to his room and applied medicine to my wound. I came back home. That night I had fever.


Lying on the bed I was contemplating my dream with the real incident happened long time ago. The dog ran after me in the rose garden, but in my dream, I was running after a rabbit in the college garden. I wrote,


The body of the girl bleeds


Bruised by the thorns of the roses


The girl chasing after the rabbit


Does not care for her injury


Failure of catching the rabbit


And bleeding bruises


Brings tears of joy to her eyes”

**************

Where God Comes As Witness

I was elated when I was transferred to Satyabadi as Sub Treasury Officer in 1992.

Satyabadi that is Sakhigopal is a historically famous and religiously important place. It is believed that pilgrimage to Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath is not complete without a visit to Sakhigopal. The name Sakhigopal is derived from a legend in which it is told Lord Gopal has come to be a sakhi (witness) for a poor Brahmin. The story runs like this:

Two Brahmins went on a pilgrimage. At Brundaban the old Brahmin fell seriously ill. The young Brahmin nursed him. The Brahmin recovered, and pleased with the service of the young Brahmin, promised to give his daughter in marriage with him on their return to village. After their return, the old Brahmin changed his mind as the young man was of a lower caste Brahmin. He denied to have made any promise. The young Brahmin went to Lord Gopal who obliged him and came from Brundaban to be a witness.

At Satyabadi, Utkalmani Gopabandhu had started his famous school in 1909. When the house of the school was burnt, the classes were run in the nearby grove of chhuriana and bakul. That is why the school was known as Satyabadi Bana Vidyalaya (Satyabadi Garden School). The school was set up with a noble intention of inculcating national spirit and humanitarianism in the students. The school was justifiably called a ‘man manufacturing factory’. The teachers of the school included Neelkanth Dash, MA in Philosophy, Krupasindhu Misra, MA in History and Godavarish Misra, M A in Economics. They had forsaken allurement of government or any kind of high salaried jobs for an ascetic life of teachers. All the teachers were dedicated and learned. Neelakanth along with Acharya Harihar, another teacher of the School had taken a vow with Gopabandhu on the bank of river Bhargavi that they would work to see a better world at the time of their death than what they had seen at the time of their birth. They were not only great teachers, but also social reformers, litterateurs and freedom fighters.

My euphoria gave way to disappointment soon after I joined.

I had a notion that the place would be nice; the people would be sophisticated and progressive in outlook. But contrary to my belief, I found the place just like any other place, nothing special or different, the people rather proud, orthodox, and caste conscious. On the first day in the office, three-four persons who came to give me curtsey call asked my caste. Disgusted, I replied to one, “How does my caste relate to my official functions?”

In the hotels of Sakhigopal you had to wash your own dishes if you took tiffin or meals. I could not find a hospitable house to take on rent to stay with my family. All of my predecessors were either commuting from Bhubaneswar or Puri or from Cuttack. (My successors till today, what I learn also do the same). But I decided to stay there. I managed to get a house; it was of mud wall and asbestos roofed. There was no piped water supply. We had to drag water from a well that was inside a small courtyard of the house I lived in. One had to be careful against mosquitoes and snakes. One day, within first week of my stay there, I found a snake, a king cobra, in the office under my table; another day my wife discovered a snake in the kitchen. The climate was humid, and added to it, there were frequent power cuts.

A Brahmin used to meet me in the office. He was normally clad in dhoti. He did not wear a shirt; he used a dhoti chadar to cover the upper part of the body. He would bless me by reciting a Sanskrit sloka, and take one rupee that I offered in return.
One day I was in the office just gossiping with my staff after our day’s work was over. The Brahmin came, blessed me and also took the one rupee I was in the habit of giving. One staff member said, “Why are you offering him money? I was about to tell …he is a retired Sanskrit teacher, taking pension.”
This information surprised me. I had mistaken him to be a poor temple priest, begging by way of reciting slokas. I said, “How could he accept? I was mistaken, but he should have declined, and told me his true identity.”
Another staff member who happened to be incidentally a Brahmin said, “Sir, if a jajaman offers something, a Brahmin cannot decline. If he declines, it would be harmful for the jajaman.”
I did not know about this sort of Brahmin-Jajaman relation. But next time when the Brahmin came and blessed me by reciting a sloka I did not offer him the one rupee. He waited for some moments, but did not ask for the rupee, which he never did, and went away. But after that day he had not come to bless me.

I wanted a transfer, but could not as I was, and still am shy of approaching anyone for anything personal. But as days passed by I got used to the conditions, the mosquitoes and snakes, the people and the place. And after some days I found I had started liking the place. I liked to sit on the veranda of the house where I lived and watched bullock carts carrying loads of coconut to the market. I waited for anla nabami, the day people thronged to have a darshan of Goddess Radha’s feet in the temple. I loved to watch the queue of the devotees snaking in front of my house for the darshan of the feet. I fell in love with the special dishes of dalema, besar or mohura, the way these dishes were prepared in the locality. The pandas (temple priests) loved me and my children. They never forgot to give us special prasad offered to the God on special occasions. I stayed in Sakhigopal for more than four years till August 1996. When I was transferred I was given a teary farewell by the pensioner-friends, and I left the place with a heavy heart.

I lovingly treasure the memory of Sakhigopal and watch avidly even today any news concerning Sakhigopal including Silpa Shetty getting kissed by a priest in the temple precincts.
####

Emptiness

My words betray me

When I translate my sentiments into expression

The changeover connotes different

Other than what I intend to



My image on the mirror

Reminds me of an emptiness

I am not what I used to be



My eyes get misty

Images look blurred

Heart becomes heavy



I am, perhaps, destined to bear

This burden of emptiness

Forever

*********

In the dream, I was discussing a story with a pretty woman journalist. She claimed to have written the story. But from the first two lines I could know that the story was just translation of a famous story of Marquez. It was nothing but plagiarised. I wanted to show her the original story and looked for Maquez’s book in my book-self. But immediately I could not find. Then I remembered my assignment would end the next day. I could not go back to my old job which was a secure government service that I had left for this assignment. I became gloomy as I had plunged myself into a future of uncertainties by leaving a secure government service.

I woke up and realised it was a dream, and was reassured that I had not the left the present job, and what to talk of leaving the government service; I had also no offer of such an assignment as I had dreamt.

Dreams of this kind often visit me. I do not know what the psychoanalysts shall interpret, but I know the reasons. The reason for this kind of dream is I do not enjoy the job I am in even after completing twenty three years. Like many I failed to translate my dreams of young days into achievement and I had to enter into government service with a kind of resolve that I would leave the job after a few years. But I could not.

During my student days, like many, I had lofty ideals. I thought that I would do something for the people. I would travel a lot, mix with the people, take up their cause and highlight it in the media. For that I had to write features/articles. But I did not get into a job to my liking and I had to enter a service in which, I was told, being a government official, I could only write the things academic in nature, and nothing critical of government policy.

I have a law degree. I thought I would leave the job after a few years and pursue my interest. But government service is such a thing that one might find it easy to get, but difficult to leave. In the government service, salary of the person is secure even for one’s inefficiency and for doing nothing. A secure job and an assured salary after the end of the month is what make one lazy, stoic, satisfied and useless. In fact, I have actually made myself useless without my noticing at it. The books I had purchased for practising law are still gathering dust.

After training I was posted to manage a check gate. The purpose of setting up check gates is to check evasion of tax. As the check gate officer, one has to deal with truck drivers, tax evaders, local goons and criminals. I wondered how my reading of political philosophy from Plato to Marx to Gandhi, understanding the social issues like communalism and dowry deaths, political events or economic policies of the Government would help me sort out a simple problem when a drunken driver parked his truck at a wrong place causing traffic problem in the check gate area or when an unscrupulous person attempted at hoodwinking the officer to carry his goods in a vehicle to evade tax.

Frustrated, one day, I was ruminating my past and the present. During those dejected moments, my past days, memories sweet and sour, many incidents and friends with whom I had spent fond moments came to my mind like scenes from a cinema. I wrote a story based on such an incident which I sent to a popular literary magazine.

The story was published and was well received. I got a good number of letters of appreciation that encouraged me to continue writing stories. I have now published ten books so far, and two books are in press. Before that day when I sat frustrated, brooding over my sorry state I had never thought of becoming a short story writer. Of course, I had an ambition of becoming a feature writer/columnist.

After more than twenty years into writing and publishing ten books now I feel a kind of emptiness. Musing over my youthful dreams and my achievement so far, I think, I got my life wasted. I could have lived differently and more meaningfully. I feel I repeat in my stories what I had written twenty years back. I want to write something new, something different. But I cannot. I want to travel a lot, mix with the people, get direct feel of the place, the people and their problems. But the nature of my job with its limitations does not allow me to do. Last year I wrote a story on naxals (Pheribaku Manaa, Not Allowed to Return). Of course, the story was appreciated. But it could have been better had I gone to the place of the problem, met the people and get direct feel of the situation. That was not possible.

Initially I thought of giving up the job for advocating. I could not. In Odisha, one cannot live on his writing. Later, I thought I would quit the job after twenty years as I would be eligible for pension. But I did not dare. I have a daughter and a son. They have not settled and I have parental duty and responsibility to see they are established. By leaving the job, I do not have the confidence of earning enough to match the salary I receive at the end of the month by doing something else. I do not enjoy the job, and at the same time, I cannot quit it also. And it is painful to go to the office every day, tolerate the whims of my boss and the harangues of my Mr Know All Seniors.

*********

Six Days at NIFM

I had a depressing feeling when I entered into the hostel room allotted to me. The carpet on the floor had, perhaps, not been dusted since it had been put. The window screens looked dirty. It was too hot outside, the temperature being more than 43 degree Celsius. The air conditioners produced only sound; it did not cool the room. I rang up Tarangini.

Tarangini is doing her two year MBA in NIFM. She had won Katha Nabaprativa award for short stories. I always enjoy the company of the persons dabbling with pen or having a taste for literature. She told power cut in Faridabad was rather normal, supply an exception. On an average Faridabad experienced outage for eighteen hours, supply was hardly for six hours. She gave a piece of advice that it would be prudent to store at least a bucket of water in the night for use in the morning. (One could store maximum one bucket of water as there was only one bucket in the bathroom). Often, water did not come in the morning.

*******

The Management Development Programme (MDP) was on Finance for non-Finance Executives. I am a member of Odisha Finance Service, but my knowledge on Finance Management is almost zero. We are basically taxmen, we administer tax Acts, collects revenue. Of course, I read Economic Times, but only news related to tax matters or from a taxman’s angle. Suppose, there is news that the sale of scooters has gone up by 25% in the first quarter of the year, I would see that tax collection from two wheeler sector has also gone up by 25%. If inflation rate is 11%, I would expect the growth rate in collection of taxes is 11% plus.

The programme was scheduled to be held in May, but it was postponed as they did not get the required number of participants then. This time also there was only nine participants: five from Delhi/Haryana, one from Karnatak, one from Mumbai and we were from Odisha. Thus, the group comprised participants from north, south, west and east, representing whole of India. Of the nine, only three had any commerce background. Nandeesh was a mechanical engineer, Dr Jain a scientist of fisheries. I was a student of History and my friend, Muduli, a student of English literature. But the course was designed and the professors taught us assuming our low level knowledge so as to make the subject intelligible to us.

*******

I love teaching and love to interact with my students. I was a lecturer teaching History in a degree college before I joined the present service. I take classes on VAT/GST in Madhusudan Das Regional Academy of Finance and Management for the Odisha Finance Service recruits. As training co-ordinator in the Commercial Tax Department I conduct training and also take a few classes. A batch of fifty OFS recruits was taking one month management training course at NIFM when I went for the MDP. Though many of them are married and some are having children, still students are students. I happened to meet them in the dining hall or chanced upon them sitting and gossiping or reading newspapers at the reception of the hostel. Despite the heat and temperature, sweat and power cuts, interacting with them was always a pleasure and it enlivened my stay.

*******

Dr K P Kausik is wonderful and one of the finest teachers I have ever met. He teaches citing funny anecdotes to make his lecture simple, interesting and comprehending. Later, we knew most of the anecdotes he told were concocted. One of his lectures was on personal finance. He renamed it how to become rich and gave the example of Ambani. He told the friend of your father or grandfather living in the locality where Ambani lived must have come across him riding a cycle in his youth. But at his death, as all know, he left wealth of more than one lakh crores. As a salaried person we should all save and invest our savings to get returns in future. His advice: one, after his promotion, should live as he was in his previous post and work as a person of the promoted rank at least for a year. Similarly, an employee when he gets his annual increment should save in a recurring deposit his incremental amount till he gets the next increment. He gave similar tips for saving and investing the savings in order to become rich to live in style and comfort after retirement.

The things he said sounds well and alluring. But I believe in spending rather in saving and it has been with me since my young days. People say personality sets in before one reaches forty and then it never changes. I am past that age.

I remember a joke.

A fisherman was seen sleeping on a beach in the morning using his rolled up fishing net as his pillow and enjoying the morning sun. A Marwari saw him and asked, “Why are you sleeping in the morning?”

“What should I do?” asked the fisherman.

“You should fish in the sea.” He advised.

“Then?”

“You should sell the fish, and earn”

“Then?”

“ You should feed your family members and the balance you should save.”

“Then?”

“You will work more, save more, and invest more and get more returns on your savings.”

“Then?”

“One day you will find you have become very rich and then you will enjoy.”

The fisherman said, “ What am I doing now?”

xxxxxxxxxxxx