POLITICS

                                (NITIDIN had published this incident of my childhood)

I met Parvati after forty five years. I was a speaker in a literary function in Cuttack; she was in the audience.

I had become a communist by the time I was in Class X. One of my teachers was a leftist and he did not miss an opportunity to teach us his leftist ideas. I could not avoid hearing from him a lot on Marxism, Socialism, Russian Revolution, Mao’s long march. Inspired by him, I read the poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam, Anant Patnaik, Rabi Singh, Brajanath Rath. Off and on, while discussing any subject with friends or others, I used the words like capitalists, bourgeoisie, proletariat, exploiter, exploited, class struggle, class war, revolution, etc. In the 1974 Assembly elections, CPI had fielded Dushasan Jena as a candidate from Barachana constituency. I campaigned for him in the villages near to our school. He was elected to the Assembly. (That was his first and last win in any election.)

A few days after he was declared elected, he, along with four/five Comrades, visited the constituency to thank the voters. It was a holiday. He came to the school and told me to accompany him to the villages where I had campaigned for him. There were neither cars nor any vehicles. We walked to the village. One of us went by a cycle to inform in advance the villagers about the MLA’s visit. The people spread a reed mat on the veranda of a villager. We sat on it. A few people who had not gone to the field, and were in the village at the time gathered and the MLA discussed with them on various issues like the weather, farming, and also their problems. They  served tea and offered paans. He took the tea and put the remaining one or two paans in his pocket after chewing one. Then we went to the next village.

In the third village that day a Comrade had arranged lunch for us in his home. The Comrade’s daughter, Parvati was in my class in the school.  She had, for some reason, discontinued her studies after Class IX. Parvati helped her mother in serving us a simple meal of rice, moong dal, fish curry, saag (spinach) and alloo bharta (mashed potato). The food was tasty. Parvati, clad in a saree, looked grown up and also beautiful.

After lunch I did not go further with the MLA and returned from there. The MLA would proceed to another village after taking rest and sleep the night with a  Comrade where it would be dark.  Parvati came to see me off. She said, “You have Board exam next year. Are you studying or wasting time with these vagabond communists?”

I was a good student in the school; I always stood first in the class exams. Parvati’s beautiful face and her sweet reproach were in my mind until I reached the school, in my room.

The voting in Odisha for the general elections, 2019 had been completed, but counting of votes were awaited. People discussed everywhere they gathered on elections, high expenses and its probable results. After the meeting was over I was taking my lunch arranged by the organisers of the meeting. Parvati came to me, introduced herself and her husband. She had not changed much physically and her voice and way of speaking remained almost unchanged. Participating in the discussion she said, “Now, there are road shows, mutton biriyani and alcohol for the party workers and unemployed youth, and bribing the voters the night before the day of voting. One cannot win the election unless one has money and muscle power. In fact, the people like you should have been in politics.”

I had not forgotten the lunch I had taken with the MLA in her house, and her sweet reproach forty five years back. But I could not tell her one of the reasons for which I left politics was her words of caution or reproach  that day.

*****

                    (This story was published in PRAMEYA  on 21st June,2010)