First Rains of the Monsoon: A Collection of Short Stories

In Marquez’s novel, ‘Memories of my Melancholy Whores’ I came across a line, “Sex is the consolation you have when you cannot have love.” This line lingered on in my mind even after I had finished reading the novel. I wrote a story and named it, ‘mosumira prathama barsha’ (First Rains of the Monsoon). I begin the story with this line of Marquez. The story was published in a special issue of Jhankar. Many friends and readers liked the story and telephoned and written me their words of appreciation. I made this the title of my collection of stories published recently by Bharat Bharati, Sutahat, Cuttack.

I am often asked how I write. There are two aspects to this question. First, how do I get the idea/plot for a story or for a novel? A writer may get the idea anywhere like while reading a book as I have mentioned above, or from an event/incident he comes across, or from newspaper or even while looking at a picture.

Often I am provoked when I come across something I cannot digest or approve of, but unable to do anything. My helplessness drives me to write and I, perhaps, get the things done in the story what I cannot do in real life and also I express what I intend to. When the story is appreciated, I believe, the stand I take in the story is also appreciated and I feel encouraged to write more. An example is the story “pheribaku manaa” (Not Allowed to Return; this is the second story of this collection). I have been watching the Naxal movement since my college days or from the days of Charu Mazumdar (died in police luck up in 1972), Jangal Santhal (became an alcoholic, died in 1987), Kanu Sanyal (who hanged himself in 2010), etc. Now also I watch the news of surrender of naxals, assassination by the naxals of persons allegedly suspects of being police informer or destruction of mobile phone towers/ damage of the machines/equipment used for construction work in the naxal affected areas, the kidnappings by the naxal and government’s negotiations and compromise, etc. Pheribaku manaa is a story about a young person who has entered into the movement and cannot understand, and questions the logic behind all the murders and destruction perpetrated by the naxals. This story is appreciated by many including a retired judge who had sent an encouraging letter for the concern shown and stand taken in the story.

The second aspect of the question, particularly asked by my friends and colleagues of the organisation I work for or some other friends and acquaintances, is how I can get time and also think of an idea or a plot to write considering the onerous duty I have to discharge as part of my job. Of course, a person finds time to do something he likes / derives pleasure in doing. I feel I have something to say and I say in form of stories or novels. If for some reasons I cannot write for a week or a fortnight I get restless. I shall stop writing when I feel I have finished saying what I had to say and I have nothing more. Time and pressure of the job are no constraints. I answer to them that the person who is addicted to drinking, or loves womanising gets both time and means to get the bottle or a woman for his pursuits, so do I reach the plot, make the time to think and write.

My friends and readers are of the opinion that the characters of my stories are real and the stories are based on facts/real events. They relate a character to someone they know or we both know. Sometimes I take it as a compliment, but sometimes I feel it an accusation. A few years back when my novel ‘asapurna kahanira anya ek charitra’ (A Character of an Unfinished Story) was published, many readers allege almost with certitude that the story was written on some particular persons. The story was about a woman singer and a lyricist. One of my writer friend names a person relating to a character whose name I heard from him for the first time. A politician, an ex-minister reading the novel alleged that the story was based on the life of one of his politician-friend. In the novel there was reference to corruption in Indira Awaas Yojana (Indira Housing Scheme). After my politician friend told I remembered that there was scam in Indira Awaas Yojana in the constituency his friend represents. A few days back reading my last short story collection (Gabhira Nidrare Iswar: the God is in deep sleep) a senior bureaucrat alleged that what I have written are not stories, but actual events I have recounted, that have occurred in the lives of certain important persons. When my story shesachithi (the last letter), the first story of this collection, was published in a magazine, a woman telephoned me to say the story was an event that must have happened in my life during my youth. I had to explain to her that the main protagonist of story is an aged person, but I am not that aged. Sometimes the compliment/accusation amuses me, but sometimes it also pains.

But the reactions, both compliments or accusations, encourages me to continue with my writing.

******

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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

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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 job; 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.

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Face to Face with Terrorists

It was December; 1983. I had come to Bhubaneswar and was going back to Kurukshetra.

Khalistan movement was then at its peak. Sant Bhindranwal was ruling the roost. The Sikh terrorists hijacked the buses from the roads to fields, singled out the Hindus and shot them dead. In the night they blasted the railway stations. They set transistor bombs on the road side in Delhi. The innocent persons took the transistors home and when they switched on, the bombs inside blasted killing them with their family members. Then there was a Hindu backlash against the Sikh terrorists. In towns and cities like Panipat, Sonepat, Karnal, Ambala, etc the Hindus started harassing the Sikhs. Though no untoward incidents had happened by that time in Kuruskhetra, the town was tense. Of both the communities, the innocents suffered; they were beaten or killed. Whole of north India beyond Delhi was unsafe. When I wanted to go back to submit my dissertation, my friends of Bhubaneswar dissuaded me from travel to North India, particularly during that period as the Hindus had just joined the violence complicating the matters.

The scheduled time of arrival of Neelachal Express at New Delhi Railway station was around 8 at night. There was a connecting train, perhaps Amritsar or Simla Express; I do not exactly remember now, which departed New Delhi at around 8.30 PM. We normally got down from Neelachal, bought tickets and got into the other train. The train reached Kurukshetra at around 11/11.30 PM. My friends had advised me not to catch the connecting train at night. I had decided to spend the night in New Delhi Railway platform and travel in the morning as sabotage like setting ablaze the stations or derailing to cause accidents by the terrorists took place in night only.

That day Neelachal Express was running late. I was not worried as I thought I would have to spend less time in the Delhi platform waiting for the morning to catch my next train. Neelachal arrived on the platform at around 12 AM. I went to the Railway Enquiry to know morning train schedules for Kuruskhetra. The person sitting in the Enquiry told me that a train was standing on the platform for Kuruskhetra hinting that there was no reason to wait for the morning to catch a train. Without thinking anything I bought a ticket and almost ran to the platform where the train was standing. The general compartment was packed to the full; I could manage to find a little space for myself to travel standing.

The passengers were mainly rural folks and petty businessmen. The businessmen had their ware and bales. They were gossiping, cutting jokes with themselves. They seemed unconcerned about the sabotage or terrorism. I found another student standing at a little distance. He looked at me and came near to talk to me. He was a student of Regional Engineering College (REC, now National Institute of Technology), Kuruskhetra. Our campuses were adjacent to each other. He was coming from Gwalior, of course, by a different train. Neelachal was scheduled to arrive at 8 pm, so there was no provision of catering dinner to the passengers in the train. I had not taken dinner, so also the REC student. He had a pack of biscuits that we both shared. One of our co-passengers noticing us conversing in English guessed we were students and offered us to sit on the bales of readymade garments he was carrying. We happily agreed to sit on the bales.

The train reached Kuruskhetra at around 3 AM. We got down and found police camping in the platform. The officer in charge was sitting in the Station Master’s office room. We went to him and asked whether it would be advisable to go to the University at this hour. The University was four/five kms away from the station. The officer asked us about our states and our studies and told they had information that there were terrorists in the city, staying in the gurudwaras, and advised better not to venture till morning. He was a kind hearted man, perhaps he had sons of our age, and father like affection towards us could be felt in his talk and behaviour.

Another police officer joined us. He asked when we had started from home. I told that I started my journey day before yesterday, and had spent two days and two nights in the train. He suggested we might go and freshen up and rest in our rooms. He told that generally the terrorists did their mischiefs during 11 pm to 2 am in the night and it was already 3.30 am. It was dark because of winter days; otherwise it would have dawned within one hour or so. The officer in charge also agreed to his suggestion.

We came out of the station and got onto a rickshaw. After about a mile we found a road side tea stall had opened. We remembered last time we had taken our food the day before at lunch except a few pieces of biscuits at night and we felt suddenly hungry and weak. We could not hold our temptation for a cup of tea with biscuits that would invigorate us. We stopped the rickshaw and went into the stall and ordered buns and tea for us and the rickshaw puller. The stall owner put kettle on the stove to prepare tea. We were happy that soon our journey would end and we would be in our room.

We found four persons clad in blue gowns with flowing beard and long kirpans stuck in the waists suddenly came from nowhere and entered into the shop. They were also holding spears and we suspected they might be in possession of guns hiding behind their long gowns. They occupied vacant seats and ordered tea. We did not have any doubt that they were terrorists. We both were Hindus, so also the tea stall owner. We smelt bad and just to convey that we were outsiders, conversed in English.

One of the four asked us in Hindi, “Where are you from? What are you doing here?”
My friend answered, “We were students, doing our studies in the University. He is from Bhubaneswar, I am from Gwalior.”
That person said, “So you are vidyarthis.” Then he asked me, “Recently there was a bandh called against the sikhs in Odisha?”
A few days back the sikh terrorists, the followers of Bhindranwala had burnt an image of Lord Jagannath in Amritsar. In protest, there was a bandh call in Odisha. I was present on that day in Bhubaneswar. All the shops and offices were open. Buses were running. I answered, “Yes, there was a bandh call, but the people did not observe bandh. Everything was normal. The bandh was observed only in newspapers.”
The persons in blue gowns switched over to Punjabi and discussed among themselves. I could not understand all that they discussed, but guessed they were speaking something against the media. They did not now seem frightening to us. In course of discussion we had also gathered courage and the fear in us for them had disappeared. My friend asked, “Where are you from?”

“Why?” the person asked in surprise and added, “Don’t we look like belonging to this place?”
“No, I have been here since three/four years and have not seen a person like you in this kind of dress, I mean, blue gown, spear and kirpan.”
The person replied, “Of course, we don’t belong to this place, we have come from outside. Can we remain as mere spectators when our people are killed or beaten? We would retaliate. But don’t be so inquisitive…”

He told, paid the bill and they went away. The tea seller had served them first though we had ordered earlier. After they left he said, “I was really afraid of seeing them. My shop was closed since the trouble began a week ago. Today I opened after a week and these people came. We had heard they were staying in Gurudwar.”

We took our tea and left the tea stall. It was yet to be dawn.
*******

Three Encounters with a Revolutionary

It was 1981.

He was slim, of medium height and was sporting beard. He was very casual in his dress; he was clad in trousers or pyjama with kurta or trousers with a simple half sleeved shirt. He was doing his Masters in Philosophy. He would be invariably sighted where there was a group of students agitating for something or other. He would organise the students on any issue; if there was increase of college fee, price rise, or if there was an incident of rape or anything happened anywhere in Odisha or India or even in the world. It appeared as if he were waiting for something untoward to happen so that he could get a chance to organise a movement. He hawked his party tabloid (Proletariat?). He along with his friends collected donations in a tin box in bus stand or in other public places for the party cause. He was a member of the student wing of a leftist organisation. He professed to bring in revolution for a classless, exploitation-free society, to establish the rule of the proletariats. Let’s call him a Revolutionary. In the University he was one year junior to me.

A student from Balasore while returning from home had an altercation with the conductor of the bus. The conductor of the bus allegedly threw away a bag of puffed rice he was bringing from home. He came to the campus, told his friends. His friends and friends of his friends went to the road and hijacked seventeen buses (all government buses) into the campus and demanded action against the culprit bus conductor. It was given the colour of prestige issue for the university students. The bus, the conductor of which misbehaved with the student, belonged to the president of the Bhubaneswar Bus Owners’ Association, who was also an MLA. The demands of the students were not always rational. The bus owners were also united against the students. The administration could not resolve the issue immediately. Mrs Indira Gandhi, then the Prime Minister was scheduled to inaugurate Institute of Physics at Bhubaneswar within three-four days. The administration was very cautious not to take any step that would precipitate a strike on the eve of the PM’s visit to the state. They were dilly dallying.

The day of PM’s visit came. The Revolutionary reached the scene like a vulture reaching a carcass. We had our last semester within a week or so. We were apprehensive. If anything happened which led to a students’ strike, our exam would be postponed and we might lose one year. In the name of students’ unity, against inaction of the administration and for students’ honour he mobilised the students to protest and show blag flags to the visiting PM at the site of Institute of Physics. I was standing in front of our hostel with a few of my friends. He started his harangue and urged upon us to join the demonstration at the Institute. His very appearance infuriated us as we could smell disaster. We reasoned with him and tried to dissuade from showing blag flag to the PM, but he was made of a different stuff. Out of anger a friend of mine threatened him with his fist; he went away castigating us ‘reactionaries’.

The things happened as we had apprehended. The students demonstrated and showed black flags to the PM at the Institute of Physics. The police lathi charged to disperse the mob. A few students including some girls were injured by the lathi charge and the stampede that followed. The students came back to the campus and set alight the hijacked buses. The police arrested the students, whoever they chanced upon, including many innocents and put them behind bars. The university was closed sine die. But our revolutionary escaped the arrest. Our semester exams were postponed. We lost one year, we took three years to complete a two year Masters’ course.
*******

1982. One day I was taking tea with my friends in a jhopdi hotel inside the campus. We had appeared the exams and waiting for our results. I noticed the revolutionary sitting on the cement structure of the culvert in front of the jhopdi hotel with some of his friends. I saw he opened the tin box they used in collecting donations, counted the collections, picked up a few coins and came to the hotel. He ordered some boiled eggs. His harangue on the day before going to disrupt PM’s programme immediately came to my mind and all my anger for having lost a year was directed at him. I shouted, “You are collecting donations from the public for the cause of revolution and buying boiled egg with the money. This sort of moral character you bear?”

He went away without waiting for the eggs and responding me. My friend taking tea with me remonstrated, “What happened has already happened. The revolutionaries have also hunger and perhaps, he was hungry.”
*******

1993. I was working as Treasury Officer, Satyabadi.

It was a day of the first week of the month. There was rush in the Treasury of the old people to take their pension. The left parties had given a bandh call against inflation, unemployment, etc. etc. I was in my office disposing pension files. A group of persons trooped into my office room. They were holding red flags and shouting slogans against the government. They forced me to close the office. There were around 80-90 pensioners. Many of them, mostly retired primary school teachers, were drawing minimum pension and the amount of minimum pension then was a paltry sum of Rs 300. If they returned without pension, they had to come again. I tried to reason with the agitators. They were not in a mood to listen to me. One of them threatened, “Are you going to close the office or face the consequences?” I knew the consequences. They would vandalise, ransack the furniture, set ablaze office files and papers. They could do anything.

I was helpless and bewildered. At that point in time I spotted the Revolutionary through the window of my office room. He was outside the office arguing with some retired persons who had come for their monthly pension. I went straight to him and said, “Most of the old people here take minimum pension and that is rupees three hundred only. They might have spent rupees ten for the rickshaw or towards bus fare. If they don’t get pension today, they have to come again, and again they have to spend towards rickshaw or bus fare...”

He stared me for some moments. Perhaps, he was not certain of what he should do. I did not have patience. I lost my temper. I said, “You might have forgotten me, but I still remember you. You are that person who buys boiled eggs with the donations collected in a tin box for the party cause. Of course, it is futile to request you. I am well aware of your conscience and moral standards.”

I told my office people to close the office. But to my surprise, the revolutionary instructed his followers to leave me and my office. He told them in a loud voice, “The officer tells he will close the office within one and half hours after disposing the pensioners. Let him do, otherwise the old people would face hardship that we don't want.”
*******

Now a days bandhs are not as frequently called as it was in the seventies and eighties of the last century except in the Naxal affected areas. Many of the student ‘revolutionaries’ of those days have joined the so called ‘reactionary’ parties and some of them have also become MPs and MLAs of the parties they have joined. Some of them have also joined government/company services, in other words, working for ‘bourgeois’ class. I have not met our revolutionary since 1993.
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Mumbai Musings

We reached Mumbai on 9th Feb to attend the workshop conducted by NSDL on IT preparedness for GST on 10th and 11th. Mr Patra, my senior colleague and immediate boss wanted to have a darshan of Mahalaxmi on 10th evening after the workshop was over. We visited. The next day, on the 11th, he wanted to visit Siddhi Vinayak. While returning from Siddhi Vinayak temple in the evening after the darshan, he exclaimed, “Yesterday we visited Ma’laxmi, incidentally it was Friday, an auspicious day for visiting Maa and today, we visited Baba Vinayak.”
He was visibly pleased and satisfied. He described his feelings as if he were in a trance after the visit.

Last time I had visited Mumbai with my niece. She had to appear interview for Grade-B officer of Reserve Bank of India. On the day, after her interview was over by 3 pm, we went for sight-seeing to India Gate. The next day our train was at 10 in the night, so we had a full day at our hand. We went to Khandala.
During my last visit to Mumbai it did not strike me to visit Mahalaxmi or Siddhi Vinayak. I was even not conscious of the God and Goddess.

I am not a religious man, the names of Gods and Goddesses do not evoke devotion or the kind of religious feeling in me as they do to Mr Patra. During my school days I was under the influence of my teacher Kalindi Charan Jena, who was a professed communist. I had an overdose of Marxist clichés such as religion is opium to the masses, Religion and Gods are creation of the ruling class to exploit the proletariat, etc. The impact it had is still with me and perhaps, will remain till I die. I never do puja, do not relish going to a temple. If my wife and children are not at home and I am left alone, they request my neighbour’s wife or daughter to light at least an incense stick in our puja room; my wife never trusts me in the matters of Gods, Goddesses and worship.

On our way to India Gate I came across an Art Exhibition on the road side in the open space. We got down and saw the exhibition. It was theme based (I have posted a picture); I wished I would have spent some more time. I would have loved to see the exhibition, studied the arts, but my boss did not seem interested in such things and we did not have also much time for it.
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Security arrangements were made elaborately, the devotees/darshan seekers had to pass through security check and metal detector test. There was a long queue for the darshan of Siddhi Vinayak when we reached the temple around 5.20 pm. We stood in the queue. One person approached us and told if we paid Rs 150 each, he would take us inside avoiding the security,and enable our darshan without the travails of standing in the queue and wasting time in waiting. He warned darshan would be stopped at 6 pm and we might not be able to have our darshan. We did not agree to his proposal.

A few years back I had gone to Agra with my family. After we booked tickets to visit Taj Mahal, we had to stand in the queue for security check. The queue was more than a kilometre long and I reckoned it would take at least an hour to pass through the check. One person approached and suggested if we paid Rs 100 each he would take us inside avoiding the security check. I did not heed to his offer. He lowered the price and said Rs 70 would do. Still I did not listen. He further lowered the price to Rs 50. The person standing near me bargained and said, twenty. The person said, “The police shall take Rs 20 each, what shall I get? Make it thirty.” The person standing beside me agreed, paid Rs 30 for him and for each of his family members and went out of the queue.

The security arrangement is for ensuring terrorists not to sneak into and create mischief that would not only damage the shrines/monuments but also result in communal catastrophes. If a person of my kind can avoid security by bribing Rs 30 or 50, can’t a terrorist do the same?
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Among the friends working in Mumbai, I had close friendship with Sailendra, Radharaman and Ranjan during my college and university days. On reaching Mumbai on 9th, first I rang up Sailendra. He was in his office and seemed busy. He talked and suggested if I could drop in his home and told me how to go. I was put up in Odisha Bhavan in Navi Mumbai and his residence was somewhere in Dadar. I could go by taxi or catch the local train at Vasi. I told, I would try, but considering my schedule it was not possible. I stayed till 12th, but he did not remind me, perhaps, did not find time to talk to me till I left Mumbai.

I talked to Radharaman. He was also in his office and obviously busy. First he could not recognise me; he had not saved my number in his cell phone. While talking, he recognised aafter I self introduced, the phone went off and neither I nor he thought of reconnecting. On 11th he called me up. I was in a meeting. I told I would ring back during lunch. I rang up at 2 pm. His office was within two kms from Lower Parel where we had our meeting. He told that he would leave his office for home within ten minutes. It was Saturday, perhaps, he had half day off. I said we would meet next time I visit Mumbai, and switched off the phone.

I rang up Ranjan on 12th, the day I was to leave Mumbai for Cuttack. He responded to the call and seemed to have been peeved. I asked what he was doing. He replied he was sleeping. It was 8.45 am. I had already taken my breakfast. He invited me for lunch. But I was sorry for I had disturbed his Sunday morning sleep. I said, “Next time.” He switched off his cell phone and, perhaps, continued his interrupted sleep.

All the three friends are sincere and hard working. They work for banks and are successful in their profession and have also moved high in ranks in their respective banks. They have tight work schedule. They leave for office around seven or seven-thirty in the morning and reach home after nine in the night on the working days.
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A few days back, poet Rajendra Kishore Panda had posted in Facebook the most common dying regrets, as recorded by Bronnie Ware in her book titled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying-A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. She was an Austrian nurse who had worked in palliative care, and had to spend with the patients during the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. The most common five dying regrets of her patients are
1.I wish I’d the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2.I wish I didn’t work so hard
3.I wish I’d the courage to express my feelings
4.I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5.I wish that I had let myself be happier

She concludes, “Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness”

I know I do not have choice; I shall have the same regrets at the time of my death. What’s about yours?
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A Cup of Tea on Puri Beach

Sakhigopal is historically famous and religiously important, but a small semi- urban place. There were a few offices when I was there Sub Treasury Officer during 1992 to 1996. I did not have much work after first week of the month, after pensioners were paid and pay bills were passed. During the rest of the month I had on an average hardly thirty minutes’ work in a day. I spent the time reading daily newspapers, magazines and books. Sometimes I would start a book of two hundred to three hundred pages in the morning and finished reading before I went to bed in the night.

Somehow or other, I learnt to pass the working days, but Sundays and holidays were problem for me. I ate good hearty meals and slept. I added fat. One day in 1993 I found I weighed eighty two kilos. (Now after nearly twenty years I weigh seventy eight.) To pass time and avoid boredom, on holidays, mostly after lunch I went either to Bhubaneswar or to Puri. I participated in the old bus stand’s writers’ Khatti. (That Khatti still continues, some old participants continue to attend, many new members have joined.) The day I went to Puri, I would get down at the bus stand, walk to the sea beach, wander on the beach aimlessly and come back by the evening bus. Sometimes Prafulla Mohanty or Anup Dwivedi or both joined me. Prafull was then on study leave, doing his research for his Ph.D. Anup was an officer of State Bank India, Sakhigopal. He had rented a house in Puri, was staying with his family and daily commuting to his Branch. But most of the times I was alone strolling on the beach till evening.

One day while rambling on the beach we went up to Pentkata. Pentakat is a fisherman’s village, a large cluster of huts on the beach. Prafulla was with me. We found two foreign ladies sitting on sand and enjoying the soft afternoon sun, cool sea breeze and watching Pentakata urchins playing on the sand. One lady came to us and asked pointing to a couple fisherwomen doing some chores near their huts at a distance, “Do you speak English? Can you interpret them for us?”

We readily agreed. They were from Sweden.

The ladies queried the women on matters like how they felt like living on huts at the sea, how much they earned a day, whether they feared when their husbands went into the sea on the boat for fishing, what they wanted to see their children to be in future…. A few more women and children gathered. They asked questions to the children and the other women. They also took photographs and they paid ten rupees to each of the children present there. We worked as interpreters for both the ladies and the women and children.

They spent almost two hours with the fisherwomen and children of Pentkata. After they finished their interview, one of the two ladies, who I came to learn taught anthropology in a college, asked me, “How much would you take?”
“What for?” I asked
“You have worked as interpreter and spent almost two hours with us …” She replied.
“We don’t want; we have enjoyed your company. Thanks.” I said.
She looked surprised, and proposed, “If you don’t mind, have dinner with us. We are staying in a nearby hotel.” She could not relish that we should go unpaid for the time we had spent interpreting for them.
We were walking back towards Puri hotel. Last bus to Sakhigopal was at 8 PM. It was 5.30. I said, “No, thanks. I have to catch the bus to go to my place of work where I also reside.”
Then the lady said, “Let’s have tea. Actually we have enjoyed your company as well as your talk. We can spend some time more before you leave for your place of work.”
We could not decline. We saw a tea vendor walking and selling tea in the beach. Prafulla called him. The vendor served us tea. When asked the price, he said, “Forty rupees.”
“What?” Prafulla exclaimed. Then he turned to Odia and with typical Puri style of speaking and accent charged him for the exorbitant price of the tea.
The vendor, aged about twenty, smiled and said in Odia, “Sir, the cost of tea is rupees two for an Odia, rupees five for a Bengli or non Odias and rupees ten for white skinned foreigners. I could not conceive you two could be Odias. I thought you might be from South India accompanying the white skinned ladies.”

He mistook us, often it happens with me, because of my dark skin, and our speaking in English with the ladies.
“Is there any difference in quality?” I asked.
“No, the quality remains the same.”

“Take eight.” Prafulla commanded. But the vendor entreated, “Please, make it to twenty.”

The Swedish ladies could not understand what we were discussing. She asked,“What happened? How much I have to pay?”
“Twenty.” The vendor now said.
The lady could not believe how the price was reduced to half so suddenly and asked again, “How much?”
“Twenty.” Prafulla pitied the vendor.

The ladies looked Prafulla with admiring eyes and paid the vendor.
The vendor left the place with a look full of gratitude for Prafulla.
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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 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.
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