Short Story
Arjun's Bow
artwork by amina
Rajani Kapal alighted from the bus with his wife only to come face to face with his worst nightmare. He was returning from the city with his wife. His wish had been, after giving the thirteen Rupees he had gotten by pawning his wife's bracelet to the slick-talking lawyer handling his 1972 crop-snatching case, to catch the bus home. That had happened yesterday. Now he was suddenly up against the nightmare. Everybody knew that as soon as evening fell Nutu Mullik liked to down a couple of bottles of Bangla liquor. Rajani Kapal's fear, however, had nothing to do with Nutu Mullik's drinking habits. Nutu was the village headman, police, judge and hangman all rolled into oneeverybody around here knew that. In Rajani's hand was a small cloth bag inside which there were some potatoes and vegetables bought from the bazaar as well as a small bundle of court documents. Trying to sound normal he urgently mouthed words at his wife, "Come on come on now, fast, evening's past." Beneath his breath he gnashed his teeth, "Just as evening falls, comes the tiger!" His wife said from behind the sari veil on her face, "That drunk is making big eyes at me, look." Rajani hissed at her, "Quick, come along now, let's cross the road and get into the field." Nutu Mullik in a voice like a stricken tiger called out, "Hey, you beggar Rajani, stand still." On Bashirhat's forested horizon evening fell like a government curfew. The bus, having disgorged its passengers, had left, spewing smoke. On the road in front of the tea stall stood a Rajani Kopat fresh back from the court, fear making his chest thud, his wife cringing by his side. Nutu Mullik, scratching his armpit over an itchy punjabi, barked, "You miserable fool, where did you go?" "The city. It was a court date." "Oh, so nowadays every day is your court date? Where did you go the day before?" "Bhagabanpur, answered Rajani. When during 1970-71 Rajani had been imprisoned in Basharat jailhouse, the red-eyed police chief would harangue him in exactly this way: Where are the party leaders now, which party member comes to your house. Today the Nutu Mulliks were the police. Whoever Nutu touched, he left deep scratch marks. Again Nutu barked at Rajani, "Why? Have you opened an office of your party of sons-of bitches at Bhagabanpur? Back at your old game, eh?" Nutu's sidekick Haru Bostum sniggered, "Hunh, Nutu, let them go. These bastard Naxals are inviting death on their heads again." Rajani voiced his protest, "What kind of talk is this? I went to see my brother's wife at Bhagabanpur. My brother married, he says come over, visit my household. So that day took my wife over there to visit them. Why bring the party into this? What kind of a question is this?" Nutu flared up at this. In 1970-71 these low-castes had done whatever they wanted to the gentry. Had grabbed their lands, taken their crops, looted their property, like goats had slaughtered folks like Nutu Mullik. Oh, whenever he thought of those days Nutu felt as if his heart had been gripped by icy fingers. But these days Nutu reigned. If Nutu said the sun rose in the west, then every one of these miserable bastards would echo him, yes, sir, truly the sun rose in the west. If one didn't keep them under one's feet, showed them the pointed end of sticks, who knew when these beggars' children would again sprout wings and want to fly! At Rajani's logical answer, at his backchat Nutu raged and hissed, "Look out, Rajani, don't fucking fool with me. Don't you play tricks on me. If you start doing that party business again, I'll hang you and your sorry family in the marketplace." Standing beside him, Rajani's wife was about to retort angrily, but Rajani stopped her by speaking first, "That's true. You're the village headman, you can do whatever you want. We live on the Lord's mercy." At the note of meekness in Rajani's answer and the mention of the Lord Nutu Mullik's anger came down a notch. He raked his eyes over the sari-draped body of Rajani's wife and said, "Why talk of the Lord, aren't we there for you lot? Why don't you come to my house nowadays? Or is it that you don't need loans and money anymore?" Rajani sidestepped the question. "Don't get the time to go visiting anywhere these days, everything is work. A hungry stomach burns too much." Nutu Mullik belched and said in a voice touched with concern, "So you can't come, but you can send your wife--she can take some rice and muri." His tone dripped with honey, the liquor settling warmly in his gut. Haru Bostam opened another bottle and gave it to Nutu. Rajani began walking with his wife. "Of course, master, as long as you are at the helm of everything." Nutu called out in a loud voice behind them, "Yes, send your wife over." Then in an aside, "Know what, Haru, without subjects, how can there be a king, eh?" He was getting drunk. Rajani now began to walk faster, his wife falling in behind him. He spurred her on in an impatient tone, and the two of them hurried past the thatched walls of the shops and dropped down to the field. In the distance could be heard the noise of Nutu's drunken revelry. On stepping down into Sidurian's helter-skelter field Rajan let out a breath of relief. Once he was in the village there would be no cause for alarm. The police camp at Bholapur was five villages away, and at night the police tended not to disturb the villagers; that there were not some of Nutu Mullik's men in the village it would not be correct to say, yet in the village Rajani felt relatively safe, and when he would enter the village Krishak Samity office he would feel emboldened, just like he did in the days of the disturbances five decades back. Entering the darkened doorway his wife said, "Was it the right thing to do?" Rajani did not reply. His wife swiftly snapped twigs and sticks to light the stove. She said, "I was saying, that party you talk about, that's a disaster. If you join it again, what will Nutu Mullik do?" The pot was put on top of the stove in the courtyard, and Rajani looked at his wife in the light of its fire. An owl hooted in the distance; there was yet no moon in the sky tonight. Rajani snapped, "Shut your mouth. What is the choice? To listen to you and work for Nutu ahead of working for the Party?" His wife shoved leaves into the stove and blew on the fire through a metal pipe. Wiping her eyes with her sari end she said, "That you know better. You are such a big pundit nowadays. You've been to jail. In the meantime I die." Rajani said in a softened tone, "And when the party people come why do you offer them a glass of water, a plate of rice? That too is a disaster." His wife did not answer. She pushed leaves into the stove. Rajani tried to explain to his wife, "See what they've written in the party paper. A seven-point programme for the village. Land to the tiller. Less taxes to the government. Take away the jotedar's guns…" His wife snapped her head up from the stove, "Hah, no shield, no sword, yet the men go to hunt! You've been there before once, you've seen how many died, how many rotted in jails. So many court cases, and yet you don't learn. The hell with your paper!" Had it been the old days Rajani would have flattened his wife's face with one blow of his hand. Today he laughed, "And what kind of a man would I be if I fled with my tail between my legs at the first blow? What manner of man is he who hides his face behind a woman after a policeman's lathi blow? Take care of the rice! First the stove's heat and now your temper…it must be done by now." His wife took the lid off the pot and stirred it with a ladle. The fire had gone down, and she lit the lamp with it. Rajani from among his court papers took out the party paper, and muttering to himself, began to read it by the light of the lamp. The late evening's deepening darkness began to press down on the village. Rajani read the paper. After a while the sound of somebody coughing could be heard from outside. Hurriedly Rajani swept the paper underneath the reed mat. He looked out, "Oh, old man Jamini, come in, come in." Jamini was an old inhabitant of the village, an old hand at being a lathial. He had taken part in the Tebagha rebellion, had used his lathi to break open many a zamindar's skull, had served time in jails. Now the skin over his eyes drooped, the eyelids were white. Jamini sat down in the doorway, straightening his legs, "So tell me what news of the city.""What news do you want to know?"
"Whatever news there is. Tell me about your case."
"Huh! What can I say of that? Filling the lawyer's belly. Let me tell you about the party."
"Which party?"
"Naxal Party." "Oh, that party? So where will the next fight be? Till Nutu is cut down? Till you go to jail again?" Jamini rebuked him. Rajani shuffled papers around in silence for a while. Then made a cone out of a little stray piece of paper and poking it at his ear said, "The fight now will be severe, I think something is bound to give. The party has given us a seven-point programme for the villagers." "You fellows give seven points, Nutu gives twenty points, CPM gives thirty-six points. Hopefully the farmers won't get bowled over with all these points. The police camp is there, the bastard Nutu Mullik is there too, what will the party do? Think with a cool head. You're young, hot-headed." On the line of mango-berry-coconut trees a sliver of moonlight finally fell. The village began to settle into the darkness. Old man Jamini whiled away the time talking. In the light of the kerosene lamp, spelling out the words aloud and muttering to himself, Rajani Kopat read the party's declaration. He did not understand it all, but what he did comprehend began a large disturbance within him. What if the land belonged to the tiller, what if it really happened? The fighting, the killing, the police, Nutu Mullik's oppression, Rajani could see clearly all the things that would ensue. And then what? Was there something wrong with the declaration, or was it that he couldn't understand everything in it? The party was in turmoil. But so what, he thought, this was a party that was wet with blood, sweat and tears, which spoke from the heart, said simple truths. That it was not another vote-hungry trickster parliamentary party, of that Rajani was sure. His wife said, "Here is the rice." But Rajani sat in studied silence, staring ahead. His wife again said, "Here's your plate of rice." Rajani then suddenly blurted out a question, "That big knife I had before I went to jail, do you remember, where is that knife now?" Annoyed, his wife replied, "Why? Who are you going to cut up? It's hidden in the straw bag for rice." Rajani asked her again, in order to reassure himself of the answer, "It's there, right?" His wife shot back, "If you don't believe me, go take a look with your own eyes. Death is calling you again, isn't it?" Reassured now, Rajani as he rolled some rice into a ball laughed and said, "Don't you understand? The Party never downs its weapons. And if we were to go lose our knives, it wouldn't be right, would it?"
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