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“Is this pandemic a pre-planned act of Nature? Is this outbreak to make us comprehend that human organism is not the most all-powerful species on Earth?” Click here to read DR D V Raghuvamsi’s musings.
Dr Meenakshi Malhotra delves into the relevance, history and iconography of Kali as we draw nearer the date of Diwali and Kali Puja. Click here to read
Cancel Culture and Indian Intelligensia Pratyusha Pramanik, a researcher in Humanistic Studies, explores the impact of a desire to cancel out people from social media. Click here to read.
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In the Shadow of the Nataraja: A Kinship takes the readers on a journey through Ellora, Rio de Janerio, Rome, Jerusalem and even Manchester United till Sunil Sharma finds answers of a different kind. Click here to read.
A Plate of White Marbleby Bani Basu, translated from Bengali to English by Nandini Guha, reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha. Click here to read.
Interviews
Sunil Sharma, writer, academic, critic and editor of the online journal SETU, takes us on an exploration of his well known e magazine. Click here to read.
Aysha Baqir, a writer who has successfully empowered many underprivileged women in Pakistan, on her journey as a development personnel and novelist. Click here to read.
Sara’s Selections:
Our young peopleâs section hosted by Bookosmia. Click here to read.
Dr Meenakshi Malhotra delves into the relevance, history and iconography of Kali as we draw nearer the date of Diwali and Kali Puja
Kali sculpted into the Ellora Caves
Kali Puja, a festival that celebrates the defeat of a demon in the hands of a dark goddess Kali,  is celebrated in Bengal and some other parts of India on the new moon day of the Hindu month of Kartik, and coincides with one of the biggest Hindu festivals in India, Diwali. It usually falls around end of October or early November. Kali Puja is performed to signify the victory of good over evil, and the celebration is geared to seek the help of the goddess in destroying evil. Although Kali was present in mythology and some scriptures, she was on the margins of the spectrum of Hindu goddesses. Kali-worship was popularised by Raja Krishnachandra of Krishnanagar in Nadia(Bengal), only around the 18th century or so. By 19th century the family and community worship of Kali became an annual event, much like the event of Durga-worship under the patronage of elite and wealthy families. It coincided with a resurgence of Hindu revivalism in 19th century Bengal, which was fuelled in part by a perceived threat to Hinduism by imperialism and colonialism.Â
Kali is perhaps the most mystifying in the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddess. Evoking deep devotion in her devotees, she represents a vision and spectacle which is truly terrifying. Kali represents an eternal puzzle and an enigma to scholars and rationalists. Represented as standing upon Shiva and wearing a necklace of human heads, she represents the image of the divine mother as dark and destructive, cruel and cannibalistic.
Perhaps we need to recapitulate the history of the goddessâs representation in various religious texts that she appears in. The Agni-and Garuda Puranas record that her worshippers petition Kali for success in war. In the 5th segment of the Bhagavata Purana, Kali is represented as the patron saint of outlaws, who invoke her in fertility rites that involve human sacrifice, according to David Kinsley in his book on the Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition.
Banabhattaâs 7th century drama Kadambari contains a similar story featuring a goddess named Chandi, an epithet used for both Durga and Kali. A tribe of hunters worship Kali, plying her with ââblood offeringsâ. According to David Kinsley, this pattern of representation appears in numerous other texts. In Vakpatiâs Gaudavaho, a historical poem of the late 7th and early 8th century, Kali is portrayed as clothed in leaves and as one who accepts/receives human sacrifice.
In Bhavabhutiâs Malatimadhava, a drama of early 8th century, a female devotee of Chamunda, often identified with Kali, captures the female protagonist, Malati, with the intention of sacrificing her to the goddess. Like Kali, Chamunda is depicted as a terrible goddess, a maternal dentate, âa mother goddess with a gaping mouth and bloody fangsâ. One hymn praising Chamunda describes her as âdancing wildly and making the earth shakeâ just as Kali did while defeating the demons who threatened to destroy the cosmos. Another text is Somadevaâs Yasatalika (11th-12th century)which describes a goddess Candamari whose iconography seems remarkably similar to Kaliâs. Candamari is described in the 11th century text referred to above as a goddess who adorns herself with pieces of human corpses, uses oozings from corpses for cosmetics, bathes in rivers of blood, sports in cremation grounds and uses human skulls as drinking vessels. Bizarre and fanatical devotees gather at her temple and undertake forms of ascetic self-torture.
In the pantheon of Hindu goddesses, Kali represents a force that is disruptive, wild and uncontrollable. She threatens stability and order and when she kills and subdues demons, she becomes frenzied and drunk on her victimsâ blood. Untameable and liminal, Kali is cast in the image of a mother goddess who resolutely resists domestication.
We notice a resurgence of Kali worship in 19th century Bengal. While Kali and other Shakti goddesses are worshipped in some parts of India like Bengal and Himachal and in Nepal which borders India on the north east side, many of the Hindus of northern India worship the gods of Vaishnavism, like Krishna. In the south, the sects of Vaishnavism and Shaivism accord primacy to Krishna and Shiva, respectively.
The British had colonised most of India by the second half of the 18th century. By late to mid-19th century, imperialism had led to a burgeoning critique of colonialism and the beginnings of nationalism, catalysed by waves of social reform, particularly in Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab. While the worship of the fair, refulgent, glorious and most significantly, domesticated, figure of the goddess Durga was started and encouraged to provide a platform for the Bengali community to come together — a similar function was performed by the worship of Lord Ganesha in Maharashtra — Kali worship came to be practised by more subordinated social groups. She acquired respectability and recognition among educated middle-class Bengalis when she became the central figure in Hindu revivalism led by Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1835-1885). One reason for this phenomenon that promoted and made Kali worship respectable in the late 19th century, was the emergence of a new sect that, merging classical Hinduism and other forms of worship like Tantrism (a school of Hinduism which believes in the practice of some secret rituals to gain knowledge and freedom), rejected dualism.
Ramakrishna Paramahansa who was at the forefront of this phenomenon was a mystic and ascetic who was dedicated to Kali-worship, and whose devout practices offered devotees a space outside the domain of colonialism, which in turn helped trigger a Hindu revival. For the middle class Bengali functionaries who were in the lower rungs of colonial service, their subservience might have proved emasculating, a thesis argued by Sumit Sarkar, Mrinalini Sinha and others. In this context, it could be speculated that Kaliâs fierceness, her performance of virile masculinity might have helped her devotees reclaim a sense of manliness by associating themselves with her masterfulness.
Another reason Kali worship became especially popular among militant nationalists, criminals and outlaws, forest dwellers and tribal populations, and emerging fringe groups was because they discovered in Kali a powerful resource for protesting against their impoverishment and downtrodden status. Kali was also seen as a way of articulating their aspirations for political empowerment. As a mother goddess associated with fertility, birth, creativity as well as violence and martial prowess and anger, Kali offered the nationalist movement an apt narrative and iconography. It is a well documented fact that Kali-worship increased in Bengal in the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century, along with the rise of extremist and militant nationalisms.
One of the first novelists in India and the foremost novelist of late 19th century Bengal who was instrumental in the rise of the novel in India , Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay (1838-1894) describes Kali in his novels is a signifier of Hindu cultural nationalism. In his political novel, Anandamath, he uses Kali to signify âtimeâ(Kala)and political change. According to critics like Jasodhara Bagchi, Bankim departs from classical and medieval Indian literary conventions. They see Bankimâs use of the iconography of Kali as reflective of a modern, secular, rationalist sensibility. However, Bankim did not believe that Indians would rally behind a secular independence movement. Instead he felt that a sense of nationalism could best be cultivated through religion in the Indian context.
Bankim also believed that women and the feminine principle are particularly powerful forces for social change. He equated the nation with the divine maternal and asserted that the homeland or motherland should be the object of devotion. This adaptation of Shaktiâs mythology to the Indian nationalist project lent the figure of the mother goddess a new militancy.
In the novel Anandamath (literally meaning âabode of joyâ) Kaliâs darkness signifies Indiaâs degradation at the present time. In ancient times, the âmotherâ was glorious and resplendent. In the present, Satyanand , one of the characters in the novel, says, âlook what the mother has come toâŚKali, the dark mother. Kali is naked ,â he adds , âbecause the country is impoverished, the country is now turned into a cremation ground, so the mother is garlanded with skulls.â This is however a temporary state because the monk believes that the goddess and motherland will be restored to its previous glory, rescued by her brave sons.
Bankim develops the idea of linear time, past-present-future, which is tied up with his idea of writing a history of Bengal. Kali gets linked to evil, to political action but also to the idea of temporality–âkalaâ, which literally means an epoch- and more importantly, the idea of apocalypse. Kaliâs stepping on Shiva is seen as a reversal, a turning upside down of the accepted order of things. For Bankim who was a functionary in the colonial government, this vision of a world upside down had its use in restoring oneâs self-respect.
In the late 20th century, Kali was again invoked as a vital part of right wing assertion and the rise of Hindu nationalism of the 1990s.The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) called its womenâs wing âDurga Vahiniâ (the carriers of Durgaâs lore), which was established in 1991,invoking the names of Durga and Kali to signify cultural assertion of Hindu womanhood. However, the womenâs movement in the 1990s found that the â âShakti of the modern Durgaâ, was not directed against violence in the home and community but was directed externally to the Muslims-both men and womenâŚthe myth that all women are equal and could be mobilised around a common issue on a common platform lay shatteredâ (Sarkar and Butalia,1995)a point that gets reinforced time and again. Flavia Agnes, a lawyer who works on issues of womenâs rights, indicates her discomfort with Kali as an emancipatory trope for all Indian women as it remains essentially Hindu and does not accommodate women from other religions and communities. Kali or the dark goddess as a pan-Indian figure of empowerment for all women remains problematic, as it is too exclusionary and mired in violence.
Where there might be a tiny sliver of a possibility of reclaiming Kali as an emancipatory idea or a figure of emancipation might possibly be in two areas. One is to break the deadlock of âfair and beautifulâ in Indian culture, the prevalence of gender stereotyping of a reductive kind. Here, dark skinned girls carry a sense of social stigma and are often, in media representations, encouraged to use products that would lighten the effects of dark skin, both to improve their prospects of a glamorous career and a decent marriage. The other maybe to do with the idea of motherhood which is made more complex. While Durga rather than Kali is associated with motherhood, Kali as mother maybe reclaimed as a mother who does not necessarily shield her children by sugar-coating reality, but introduces them to death, destruction and the existence of ultimate reality. That is the significant moment in the iconography of Kali — the moment when she steps on Shiva, her consort, who is also the Lord who presides over destruction, in the Hindu trinity of Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwar(another name for Shiva). Her tongue pops out as she is caught in this stance of utter surprise, frozen in eternity(in her representations) even as she presides over time(kala).
References: Bagchi, Jasodhara(2008) Positivism and Nationalism:Womanhood and Crisis in Nationalist Fiction-Bankim Chandra’s ‘Anandamath’ Women’s Studies in India: A Reader ed Mary E.John, Penguin, pp124-131.
Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra(2005)Anandamath or The Sacred Brotherhood, translated by Julius Lipner, OUP
Kinsley, David(1986) Hindu Goddesses:Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition, Motilal Banarsi Das
Sarkar, Sumit(1998) Renaissance and Kaliyuga:Time, Myth and History in Colonial Bengal in Writing Social History. OUP,186-215.
Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor in English at Hansraj College, University of Delhi. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender and/in literature and feminist theory. Some of her recent publications include articles on lifewriting as an archive for GWSS, Women and Gender Studies in India: Crossings (Routledge,2019),on ââThe Engendering of Hurtââ in The State of Hurt, (Sage,2016) ,on Kali in Unveiling Desire,(Rutgers University Press,2018) and âEcofeminism and its Discontentsâ (Primus,2018). She has been a part of the curriculum framing team for masters programme in Women and gender Studies at Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU) and in Ambedkar University, Delhi and has also been an editorial consultant for ICSE textbooks (Grades1-8) with Pearson publishers. She has recently taught a course as a visiting fellow in Grinnell College, Iowa. She has bylines in Kitaab and Book review.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Rituals to dispel evil and vice, as diyas flicker in silent attempt
To retain some sun in eclipsed hearts.
November skies a strange contradiction
With pristine blues and weeping greys
That pour some secret wishful moments
In the confluence of heat and cold.
As verdant rain-washed desires and dreams
transform into mellowed gold.
Flashes of evil in ghostly chill
fill apprehensive autumn nights-
As hearts gear up for snowy heights
shedding the past in a stupendous feat,
November diaries fill with past
that blends with confused present-
Macabre tales of trick or treats.
.
Dr. Piku Chowdhury is a teacher in a government aided post graduate college of education and an author of 8 books. She has published more than 70 articles in international journals and acted as resource person in many national and international seminars and symposia. She has published poems, acted as editor, translator and core committee member of curriculum revision in the state.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Nishat got up from the swing and walked to the edge of the balcony to look at the procession leaving the house. They left her with no choice now. She will have to do what she had only put off from doing all these years.
Nishatâs husband, Muhib was ever ambitious, shoving all ethics under the carpet and disposing off his oppositions right and left. Nishat was finally tired of picking up the pieces and resuming normalcy. She was done with pretending to be naĂŻve and stupid. Her thoughts turn to her children. Miserable mother that she was, she had failed utterly in raising them.
Her son Purbo was getting married and she had just refused to attend the wedding. For the first time in her life she had looked at her husband and said quietly, âYou have sold your son to the highest bidder and I refuse to accept it.â There was pin drop silence in the room and her two daughters, Rima and Rikta had gone white. Purbo sat like a statue and her husband Muhib stared at her in sheer disbelief. Nobody knew that Nishat could think like that, let alone speak. The ever-patient wife and mother had finally thrown a gauntlet to her imposing husband and the fashionable but useless brood she had raised. They just stared at it and did not know what to do with it. Nor did they understand what it meant. Nishat spoke again, âIf you return to this house with your chosen daughter-in-law, I will leave the house. You will never see me again.â
Of course, nobody believed what she said, but they could not quite laugh her threat away. The shadow of a dead girl was already at the threshold of their posh home. And hence they all felt a nagging uneasiness.
Purbo was supposed to marry Shreya. They had known each other since school and Muhibur Rahman was then a regular service-holder. Both families were in agreement that Purbo and Shreya would marry. But when Purbo finally came back from abroad with a PhD in Economics, things had drastically changed. By that time, his father had earned tons of money through business and consultancy and was looking for a better match for his brilliant and only son. Purbo, of course would not hear of anybody else until he met Farinaâthe gorgeous daughter of his fatherâs newly acquainted friend and business-partner. Initially, he was reluctant, but then he too was swayed by the riches of his prospective father-in-law and his charming daughter.
He started to compare the two girls and Shreya, even though quite attractive, kept on falling short by his newly acquired western yardstick. He had already taken to occasional drinking and Shreya with her middle-class upbringing, wrinkled her nose at the mention of alcohol. She was curious about the parties that Purbo frequented, but he did not show interest in taking her there. Purbo also felt irritated with some other typically middle-class aptitude she showed. Finally, he realised that there was nothing Shreya could give him that could tie him to her for an entire lifetime. Unfortunately, that realization did not deter him from taking advantage of her. And Shreya, in her last efforts to retain him, lost miserably. Nishat still recalled with an aching heart the young woman who had come to see her with an ashen face for the last time. She had seen her grow up and could not protect her from her own son.
Then one fine afternoon, Purbo announced to a delighted father and a dumbfounded mother that he had broken off with Shreya and he was ready to marry Farina. Nishat looked at her son sadly and said, âBut Shreya waited only for you all these years. She could have been married by nowâŚâ
Her husband laughed out aloud, âShreya is not good enough for our Purbo. Why should he be happy with glass when he can have diamonds?â
Nishat said quietly, âYou donât know if Farina is diamond. And what makes you think Shreya is not diamond. She may not have a rich fatherâŚâ
Muhib raised his hand and said irritably, âEnough. My son will marry whoever I want him to.â
âYour son? Is he not mine too?â
Muhibul Islam looked at his wife with surprise. âWhat has gotten into you, woman? What rubbish are you talking about? Purbo himself said he wonât marry Shreya. Thatâs it.â
Nishat said in a voice that was unlike her affable self, âPurbo should marry Shreya. You pride yourself of wealth and money. Donât forget that Shreyaâs father gave you the initial capital to start off your venture.â Muhibâs face darkened. âYou promised on his death-bed that Shreya will be your daughter-in-law.â
Nobody spoke for a while. Muhib tried to laugh as he said, âI will pay Shreya off. I will give her back her fatherâs share of the money. Money should not tie two people together.â He paused and added reprovingly, âNow push away that middle-class mentality of yours. We are rising!â
Nishat sat in her chair frozen. Years of memories with Shreya and her parents threatened to drown her. She looked at her son askance; she could not see the rambunctious boy she had raised in this clean-shaven young man ready to shed his past like a dead skin.
*
It would be hours before they were back. She might as well take a last look around the house that had been her home for the last fifteen years. Every piece of it was her creation. Her husband and children may have gotten many of the rare and expensive articles in the house, but she took care of their whereabouts. She was the one who kept the house speckless. When people came to visit, they noted the burnished furniture, soft carpets in the drawing room with three different sitting arrangements. From the green plants in brass pots right outside the windows to the trinkets displayed on marble top side tablesâeverything bespoke her taste. Nobody knew though how she had hidden all her frustration and sorrow beneath them. Her life, thoughts, expectations, and even her children, were taken away from her bit by bit. All she was left with were these souvenirs. A curator of dead values and emotions — that is what she had become.
As she walked about her much-loved garden, she placed her bare feet in the soft grass. The blue, pink and yellow grass flowers in the bed nodded at her. She did not like roses and refused to have them. Instead, she had planted deshi* flowers like hajar beli, hasnahena and jasmine. Instead of bougainvillea, she had madhabilata climbing up her gate. Yes, there were caterpillars in them, and her children often objected to the tree. But she used to laugh those away.
She wondered how things would change now that she had decided to leave. Would they cut the madhabilata creeper, and these local flowers down? Would they create hot houses for roses? Would there be chrysanthemums and poppies in the flowerbeds? She sighed. But what did it matter? When one chose to leave, one should never look back. Now she had to hurry to make arrangements. Standing at the landing of the stairwell, she called out to Minu. Minu had been with her for yearsâsince she got married. Nobody called her by her first name anymore except Nishat.
âBhaijaan*, come home quickly. Something bad has happened to BubuâŚ. âThe line went off and Muhib did not know what to make of it. Here he was standing and chatting amiably with his behai* Chowdhury Modabber Islam. Everybody knew Modabber Islam, who was not only a business tycoon, but also very important personnel. What was there to tell? Of course, Muhibur Rahman had made a name for himself too, but he lacked the family name. His son was a rising economist and he intended to see him well-settled in the society. Wasnât it bad enough that his wife was not at the wedding? She had announced dramatically the week before that she was not happy with their sonâs wedding and would leave the house if the marriage took place. Stupid woman. Now how to get home âquicklyâ leaving all these behind? Muhib just waved aside the uneasy knot that was getting bigger and tighter.
Muhib got home slightly earlier than the rest. They would be arriving in another half an hour. The entire house was ablaze with lights. Masuda, his wifeâs personal maid, was waiting at the top of the stairs and she was in tears. Nishat called her âMinuâ though and the familiarity that existed between them always made him uncomfortable.
âIâm sure, something terrible has happened. Bubu gave bakhshish* to all of us and then she locked herself inside,â Masuda said in a broken voice. She chose not to reveal that her mistress had given away her old and heavy wedding necklace and a pair of gold bangles too.
âBut these should go to the aunties!â the maid had protested.
âRima and Rikta? They donât care for these. These came from my parents. These are old fashioned, and they will throw these away or change for something fancy. I want you to have them, Minu. You knew my parents and cared for them.â
Muhib noted with irritation that Minu referred to his wife as âBubu.â Could she not call her, âMadam,â or âApaâ at least? âBubuâ sounded too intimate. He knocked on the door and then rapped. He shouted, âFor Godâs sake, Nishat. Donât make a scene now. Todayâs your sonâs wedding day.â But even to him the words sounded hollow. Nishatâs voice mocked at him, âYouâve sold your son to the highest bidder.â
Finally, they had to break the door down.
They found her in the bathtub of her bathroom. As the police carried away her body, Muhib wondered detachedly why she chose to die exactly as Shreya did. Was there not a less dramatic way out?
Seated in the small parlour on the first floor, Muhibur Rahman suddenly had a taste of sand in his mouth. The initial shock and rage were replaced by a despondency he did not know he was capable of feeling. The blank and dead look in his childrenâs eyes had hit him harder than any loss he had ever encountered. Earlier he had been wondering how he would explain it to the bevy of friends and relatives. Now, however, he felt despair sinking into him. It was rather easy to ignore the shadow of his unhappy wife as she was living. Now she might be dead to the rest of the world, but how in the world was he going to ignore the ignoble wife who had transformed into a silhouette to haunt him and his children as long as they lived?
*Deshi — indigenous
*Bhaijan — brother
*Behai — father-in -law of the son
Sohana Manzoor is Associate Professor, Department of English & Humanities at ULAB.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The scientist who meddles with dark thoughts in the privacy of an apparatus-cluttered attic
is feeling ecstatic because of the sight that greets him on the automatic operating table in the centre of his gloomy room.
It is a monster constructed from parts that once belonged to people who now are dead
but he only knows for definite the name of the one who contributed the brawny left arm and that was Fred.
.
When read aloud the names of the others might resemble a chorus of doom
especially as he thinks he vaguely recognises the chap who contributed the major portion of the misshapen head
(a fellow who expired so recently that standards of decency prevent me from revealing exactly how, for what thatâs worth)
so Victor the experimenter wonât mutter anything at all, thank goodness! and yes thatâs the name he was given at birth.
.
He hopes to be famous for being the first man to create artificial life on Earth.
If he is successful with this monster he will go on to design himself a wife.
Not that he couldnât find himself a girlfriend to marry if he really applied his mind.
But he prefers to make a refined spouse from scratch right at the top of the house and mend her as required.
.
All the body parts he stole came from the graves of very polite people
but he wasnât aware of this fact when he exhumed the corpses with a spade in the moonlight shadow of a churchyard steeple.
And now the monster is ready and he will dare in his lair to pull the lever that sends electric current tearing through the flesh,
most of which is fresh but with a few gone off bits here and there.
.
The creature stirs, sits up and murmurs a gracious hello to his creator and notes that Victor appears to be famished
and so he invites him for tea and some buns with honey at a nice cafĂŠ later even though he has no money to pay for them.
His instinct is to be civil at all times even with a bolt through his neck that prevents him from courteously nodding
and thick cotton wadding in his mouth that stops him from speaking clearly when he is being impractically lavish.
.
Victor is baffled by this behaviour of the ghastly creature, whom he expected to act in a manner more horridly apt
but he simply shrugs his shoulders and accepts the situation as a hungry cat might allow a radish to be placed in its dish.
Not that the comparison is a good one, but the hour is late and Iâm the one who happens to be writing this poem
so weâll let it stand as it is and wait for Victorâs shrug to finally vanish.
.
Still hoping for an answer, the monster steps off the table onto the floor and offers his right hand for a friendly shake
and Victor doesnât know the name of the original owner of that particular set of fingers but suspects it belonged to a girl.
Then the monster pats his creator on the back and thanks him again and again with a smile like an array of black pearls
and wishes him all the best and inquires after his health and praises his lustrous curls.
.
But Victorâs curls are nothing special for they are just unkempt locks that have been combed by his studious fingers.
The warm but slightly odd feeling generated by the monsterâs compliment nevertheless continues to linger within him.
In the mind of Victor as he inspects his creation at a more judicious angle there rise doubts about what he is dealing with
and he feels alarmed at the distinct possibility that his monster might be congenitally friendly to all and sundry.
.
Monsters are supposed to be malign and frighten everybody in the nation
but this one is turning out to be the most genial entity in the entire history of biological experimentation.
Victor is bemused and considers the patchwork of good manners that stands unsteadily before him on mismatched feet
while the devoted monster sways but says thank you and remains sweet without an obvious motive or reason.
.
Then the scientist comes to a sudden decision and lunges for his adjustable spanner
and undoes the neck bolt with savage twists until the head falls off and rolls along the floor into a collision with the corner
but the dreadful head in motion still mouths a silent thank you and blows a majestic kiss, polite to the bitter end.
I donât want a wife like that, Victor tells himself with a shiver, for she would offend my notion of domestic bliss.
.
I want a spirited woman who will keep me on my toes and not a docile little lady who will apologise when I pull her nose.
He considers his experiment a failure and plans his next move and soon in that attic room he is full of qualms and fears.
Should I take all the parts back to the graveyard, he asks himself, his chin upon his hand, or keep them as souvenirs
of the time I proved to myself that a rude and lewd nature is more desirable in a monster than a respectful gentle mood?
.
In the end he judges it easier to keep the parts, but the jars in which he seals the flesh turn out not to be quite airtight
and depression makes him indolent in the weeks that follow and he watches sadly as the bits slowly decay away.
He wasnât exactly the greatest scientist of his day nor the happiest man in his town
but one thing can be said in his favour that should add considerably to his renownâŚ
.
To the Victor, the spoils!
Pumpkin
Would you like some toast?
(The waitress was a most gracious
host as she approached.)
.
You have bread! I said.
.
And she replied:
Yes, of course. A thoroughbred horse
is the best kind of bred.
.
Then in my silence
she continued:
I would deduce you have led a
sheltered life if you prefer any variety
other than that?
.
To which I responded:
.
A horse is not a loaf
all things being equal. I donât wish
to make a fuss but equus
for breakfast is worse
even than a poached top hat.
What else do you have?
.
No top hats at all, she sighed.
.
How about a bowler soup?
I inquired with a drooping
mouth (it surely was
uncouth of me to look like
that⌠but no top hat!)
.
Nothing, she sighed. The
kitchen flooded and all the food was
spoiled. We are growing
pumpkins to pump out the water but
they will take many more
months to be ready.
.
At this point I felt quite unsteady.
Pumpkins wonât pump out water!
Thatâs absurd. Consider
the word more carefully. They
pump kin. Though I will
concede that they sometimes
shift kith too. But H2O?
No! Rue the day that
idea came your way. Why itâs
chemically outrageous,
the logic of the notion is
quite fallacious. Now please be
gracious enough to show
me the door.
.
There it is, she said
as she pointed with a long
itchy finger. It is ajar,
a jar of apricot
jam.
.
The door jambs were made
from fruit,
this is true, yet
there was still no proper toast
so the point is
moot. I stood up in my boots.
.
I swear that
Iâve had better service from
a ghost, one with a
pumpkin head,
I said as I departed. But the
waitress snarled
at my retreating
back and started to hurl abuse.
.
You ought to drain your spinal
fluid, oh pesky druid.
Warts for keys!
Birds and fleas!
Pumpkins for frumpkins such as you!
There is no such word
was my final retort as I slammed
the door behind me.
Air Guitar Contest, Wiki
Air Guitar Poem
.
Many people play
the air guitar. I have a friend
who plays an air lute
instead. It is cute that he feels
the need to be so
mediaeval. As for myself: I play
the air tambourine,
the air cymbals,
the air harmonium,
the air flugelhorn,
and pretty much the entire range
of possible musical
instruments, even those that
are tuned differently
from the scales I
know so well. And I even play
the air cow bells.
.
The only
instruments I avoid are the
air wind chimes and
the air Aeolian harp.
.
I find those rather trickyâŚ
.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
I have absorbed more about life from tenants than teachers. The lessons were practical and harsh â involving critical issues that challenged my problem-solving skills.
I did not know what to do when a tenant hired a pack of goons who climbed our boundary wall with hammers to hone their demolition skills. I stood near the verandah and witnessed the post-dinner horrific sight of cracking up the newly-constructed brick wall. When I wanted to know the reason, one burly shadow approached me with his face half-covered with a towel and explained the encroachment had a mission: construction of a club. I identified the man from his hoarse voice â a tenant who sold cattle fodder and ran a transport business. I did not wish to have any truck with him as I feared he could get me bumped off on any main road or highway anytime. Those freak accidents to seek revenge that get reported but never get solved as murders.
I was angry at his audacity. But I could not hurl expletives to vent my anger â not even in my mother-tongue. His agile team had tools to conduct any lethal operation, chop off my tongue in the medieval style of torture, and feed it to the stray dogs barking at the full moon. While I was still trying to persuade him politely to suspend the act of vandalism, he was unwilling to cave in. What caved in and collapsed like a pack of cards in front of my blood-red eyes was my red brick wall. He threw an open challenge, egging me to approach the police for succour.
I rushed to the nearest police station in my cosy nightwear, with full faith in the rule of law. Furious to hear my complaint, the cop asked me to get into the police van with great respect. We reached the spot in five minutes, with a clear intent of swinging into rapid action and throwing those scoundrels out by firing gunshots in the air. The burly tenant emerged from a deserted lane and blocked our path, and then escorted the officer aside for a briefing session near a paan shop. The cop returned thoroughly brainwashed and comforted me, urging me to settle the dispute through mutual understanding with the local people and politicians. It was a blatant act of trespassing and he dismissed it as a dispute.
I was shocked to hear his advice. As political approval was with the tenant, the cop decided to stay out of the messy situation. It was my first brush with political power â earlier seen only in Bollywood films where leaders control the men in uniform for vendetta.
The next day was an eye-opener of sorts as the tenant had grabbed the vacant land by erecting a makeshift structure with bamboo, placing a king-size carrom board with a bulb lighting it up with electricity hooked from the nearest pole. His henchmen drank liquor, played loud music, and lungi-danced to celebrate their big win. When I met that tenant again, he took me to the local leader for a meeting. It was my first encounter with the maverick leader who pretended to hear impartially and then urged me to accept the valid demands of the tenant. It was clear that the aggrieved tenant wanted the land in our backyard. It was a trick to scare and browbeat the landowners into submission, to draw their attention without any serious intent of causing physical harm. A second-generation tenant picking up stones to hurl at the landlord and his family in the middle of the night was playing an attention-seeking game, not trying to usher in any revolution.
A portion of the land was already grabbed so there was no question of negotiation. The land belonged to him â though without ownership papers. He wanted to maintain cordial terms even after this episode to get it duly registered in his name. He arranged a meeting with his cabinet and revealed he had a divine vision in which he was ordered by a popular God to build a temple on this land. He was merely executing the Lordâs will â there was nothing morally wrong with it. Imagine a devotee making this appeal with folded hands and vermilion smeared on his forehead.
To cut a long story short, he paid half price and grabbed the entire plot. I was expecting a grand temple to be raised on the land we had donated. I was hoping to be invited as the chief guest to inaugurate the temple since my contribution was legendary. My name should be recorded as the land donor in some corner of the holy premises for future generations and history to remember me. Instead of constructing a temple, the tenant built his double-storey house and sold the ground floor to a fellow trader. His magical story-telling conned me â it was fabricated to soften the god-loving and god-fearing guy in me. The tenant is still alive, and I wish to meet him someday and ask how it feels to fool people in the name of God and religion.
There was another tenant who always said his business was down though I found new stock whenever I went to his shop. He used to sell innerwear and T-shirts. For several years I picked up clothes to adjust with the rent. He was happy not to pay any rent. I was not a landlord who forced him to pay but a benevolent one who arrived as a customer at his store with rent receipts as gift vouchers to redeem. He complimented me, called me handsome whenever he saw me wearing the T-shirt from his shop. He promised to get me more fancy stuff every month. Soon other tenants began their woeful narrative of poor business to make me buy something from their shops as well. One tenant ran a gift store and he expected me to have lots of girlfriends to buy something for their birthdays and Valentine Day. He was a soft toy specialist who wanted to offload teddy bears and puppies, those heart-shaped red balloons, and cute busty dolls.
Since it was hot inside the market, the tenants got together to raise demands for air-conditioning without accepting any hike in rent. They complained to their business association. The president and the secretary found it an opportunity to interfere and lord over. One afternoon, the tenants took off their sweat-soaked shirts and sat half-naked in front of the collapsible main gate. The local media crew invited to cover their bulging bellies while they raised fists and slogans, seeking an end to this torture. They called the market complex a blast furnace, a gas chamber, and what not. They decided to look for a cheaper solution when a hike in rent was proposed again. They hired a local jobless engineer to supervise the breaking of the concrete roof to install exhaust fans for cooling, without the approval of the property owner.
I was surprised to find my name splashed in the local tabloid. Some quotes were attributed to me though I did not utter a single word. I was projected as a torturous, inhuman, insensitive landlord whose black hands needed to be broken and burnt.
My effigy going up in flames is a memorable sight that amuses me even today. It is a rare distinction that I should add to my resume. Some of my local friends and girlfriends found me not a nice guy to know after this â a debauched, exploitative landlord from the ignoble past. All the allegations flying around soiled my reputation. Those who knew me well also knew the people who were sponsoring these protests â the affluent business families who wanted to grab the prime property by making it difficult for us, creating adverse situations that compelled us to flee for the safety of our lives. It was a learning exercise to get dubbed as a notorious villain who did not have any traces of humanity left in him. The importance of smear campaign and negative publicity gave a clear idea of how to use it cleverly in advertising to edge past your competitors.
I cannot wrap up without mentioning one tenant who ran a wine shop. I had to go to his liquor shop to collect rent. Many respected people, bhodrolok types including my tutors saw me in front of the crowded wine store. They spread the news that I was a spoilt brat who had started frequenting the liquor shop after my fatherâs untimely death. I did not stop going to the wine store despite negative publicity as I liked looking at the fancy bottles. Such intoxicating stories brewed in the small town and many well-wishers supported and justified by saying Sardarjis start drinking early. The relationship between perception and reality is a dicey one. It is a different story that I have not started drinking yet!
Devraj Singh Kalsiworks as a senior copywriter in Kolkata. His short stories and essays have been published in Deccan Herald, Tehelka, Kitaab, Earthen Lamp Journal, Assam Tribune, and The Statesman. Pal Motors is his first novel.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Amidst the fog lived Doodle the dog When the sun wore its golden attire Doodle barked like thunder âBurn, burn Green Island!â . Last Sunday, Owl the wise Seer declared his behaviour as âweird, undignified, and anti-cheerâ
.
âWhoo-oooooooooâ shouted Doodle in anger wagging his tail in some way, rather peculiar, almost perpendicular And off he flew to some icy Penguin Land in his roaring machine The Grumpy Golden Retriever!
Yaya
When Yaya the yak yawned Marigolds and roses blew away and were reduced to scattered pieces . So the Ministry of Flowers enforced a law: Yaya should wear a gold-platted yawn-mask in Petal Land . Yaya smiled and complied as he loved all flowers And his mask looked much like a refined jewel to him . Afterwards whenever he yawned Poise-fully stood all flowers on the ground and in artistic pots At times they swirl in a dance all circular At times merrily they sang till dusk â Yayaâs yawn is now gentle, soft, soft is the breeze Yaya, now is our friend, oh dear friend and in harmony we shall all live in this colourful no fear landâ.
.
Biography: Vatsala Radhakeesoon Vatsala Radhakeesoon, born in Mauritius in 1977, is the author of 11 poetry books including Tropical Temporariness (Transcendent Zero Press, USA, 2019),  Whirl the Colours (Gibbon Moon Books UK/Kenya, 2020) and नŕĽŕ¤˛ŕĽ चŕ¤ŕ¤¸ŕ¤żŕ¤¨ŕĽ ŕ¤ŕĽ ŕ¤ŕ¤žŕ¤¨ŕĽ â Songs of the Blue Swan (Bilingual Hindi -English, Gloomy Seahorse Press, UK/Kenya,2020). She is one of the representatives of Immagine and Poesia, an Italy based literary movement uniting artists and poetsâ works. Vatsala currently lives at Rose-Hill and is a literary translator, interviewer and artist.
Friends and family would call on birthdays and some random seasons.
Closed behind empty minds,
These walls stare at my bare behind.
.
A hug, a touch, a curse that has become.
I can feel the virus in my veins.
It’s loneliness that I will die from,
Before I die from climate change.
.
Pranjulaa Singhhas an Msc in Creative Industries Management, from Birkbeck, University of London (2015). Her poems have been published in Poetry Nature, Poets India, Image Curve and Nocturne Journal, amongst others. One of her poems, based on a painting, won the first prize for the Arts Illustrated poetry writing contest. She has also authored an audio book, âShort and Sweet Storyâ, which is on Storytel, and has published her first collection of 23 positive poems in âSparkle: Life is Poetry, a book of positive poetryâ, on Kindle Amazon and a second poetry book, “Romance with Lock Down” across digital channels and is available for print by order. When she is not writing, she connects the worlds of art and management at www.PranjalArts.com
.
PLEASE NOTE:Â ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
The witch isAruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by renowned writer, Tarasankar Bandopadhyay. The original storytitled, Daini, was first published in 1940 in Probashi magazine in Bengali.
No one knows who gave the tract of land its name. Or when it was given. Those facts have been lost and buried in the annals of history. But the name has survived to this day as a vibrant reminder of its past glory. Chhati Phataar Maath — the field of the bursting chest.
There is no water here. Nor a speck of shade. No trees. Only a few thorny bushes of seyakul and khairi. The land stretches to the horizon in a shimmering sheet at the end of which the clumps of trees that signify the existence of villages appear as a dark blur. Looking on it the heart grows heavy; the mind listless. Travellers walking from one end to another are apt to lose their lives, their chests bursting from thirst, by the side of some ancient water body dead and dry for centuries.
The number of deaths increase in the summer months. In this season it seems as though Chhati Phataar Maath springs into a new unholy life. Its tongue slavers for the taste of blood and it exercises all its powers to attain the dimensions of a mighty pestilence. Dust, dense as smoke, rises in swirls from the ground, higher and higher, till it meets the sky. Burning heat and the stench of death hit the unwary travellerâs senses. But he sees nothing for the thick pall hanging in the air renders Chhaati Phaatar Maath invisible to the human eye.
Tiny hamlets dot the four sides of this field. They have simple homesteads in which unlettered peasants live. They tell a story, heard over generations, of a gigantic snake that once lived in Chhaati Phaatar Maath. The poisonous fumes from its nostrils gradually destroyed all animate and inanimate life. Trees and animals perished. Even the birds and insects flying in the air felt their wings singe and crumble to ash and dropped to the ground like dead leaves straight into the jaws of the mighty reptile.
That snake is no more but some of its power still clings to the atmosphere. Chhaati Phaatar Maath is cursed territory. To its east is a marshy tract which the locals call Daldalir Jalaa. Daldalir Jalaa had been a shallow bog of slime and rotting vegetation, the size of a lake, till the Sahas of Ramnagar bought theland, drained it and planted mango saplings. In time these grew into fine trees. But alas! Forty years ago, an old witch with fearful powers of destruction took possession of the orchard and made her home there.
People are still afraid of going near her for her ruthlessness is well known. Children see her at a distance and run for safety. Yet everyone can describe her. Her matted hair, crooked limbs and, best of all, her eyes. Those eyes, they say, have not blinked in forty years.
Beneath one of the mango trees is an earthen hovel. It has only one room with a dawa, a veranda thatched with straw, jutting out of it. The witch sits here all day long her body still as a statue. Her unwavering gaze is fixed on Chhati Phataar Maath.
She gets up once a day to sweep the mud floors and smear them with cow dung. That done she goes to the village to beg. She doesnât need to stand outside many doors. Two or three are sufficient for the housewives are afraid of her and pour more rice into her tattered anchal* than they need to in the belief that their generosity would keep the evil eye away from their husbands and children. Once she is able to collect a seer of rice her begging is over for the day. On the way back she stops at the grocerâs and exchanges half her stock for some salt, mustard oil, chillies and kerosene. She goes out once more in search of kindling. She picks up whatever she can find. Fallen leaves and twigs, dried cowpats and bits of broken bamboo. Once she has cooked and eaten her meal there is nothing left for her to do except sit on her perch and stare unblinkingly on Chhati Phataar Maath.
The old woman does not belong to these parts. No one knows where she was born. But of one thing everyone is certain. She had lived in three or four villages in the vicinity and destroyed them all. Then, forty years ago, she had darted across the skies on a flying tree and looked down on Chhati Phataar Maath. Charmed by its desolate splendour, she had come down and made her home there. Beings like her prefer to live in isolation. Human society frightens them. For the moment they see a human being, a deep-rooted instinct to hurt and destroy flares into life. This malignant force hisses like the tongue of a snake and spews venom into the air. Fanning out like the hood of a cobra, the unholy urge dances in glee. Powerless to control it she submits to its strength. After all she, too, is human.
The knowledge of her own power makes her shiver. She has a mirror, dim and dusty with age, in which she examines her face from time to time. Two eyes look back at her, tiny eyes with bronze irises, the lights from them sharp and glittering as knives. Her hair is the colour of shredded jute; her mouth a gaping hole. Looking at her reflection she feels a stab of fear. Her lips tremble and turn blue. She puts the mirror down and looks out again on Chhati Phattar Maath.
The wooden frame of the mirror has blackened with age. It had been a lovely rose brown once, gleaming with polish. The glass, now spotted with mildew, once had the shining clarity of a sun warmed lake. The face that had looked out of it had been another face. A small forehead surrounded by waves of hair. Not black; dark brown with reddish glints. Below the arched eyebrows a delicate nose rose in an aquiline curve. The eyes were small, even then, but they shone like pieces of topaz. People were afraid of her eyes, but she loved them. Crinkling them even smaller she felt as though she could see the full expanse of sky from one end to another.
Those razor-slit eyes had a strange power. Whoever they looked upon with love came to harm. She had no idea of how it happens. But it did.
She remembers the first dayâŚ
She was standing on a cracked slab of the ancient bank of Durga Sagar lake facing the shrine of Burho Shibtala. She could see herself in the water; undulating, changing contours. Her body was swaying, growing longer and longer. All at once the ripples ceased and she saw herself whole and clear. A pretty ten-year-old girl looking at her with a shy smile.
Suddenly she felt a tug at her head. Haru Sarkar, of the Brahmin palli*, was behind her. Seizing the hair at her nape he twisted it viciously. “Haramjadi*!” he roared throwing her down on the broken flags, “How dare you cast your evil eye on my son? Iâll kill you for that.”
She remembers the hate and revulsion on Haru Sarkarâs face to this dayâŚ
âO go babu*!â she had cried out in terror. âI donât know what I have done! I beg youâŚâ
âIâll tell you what you have done. The boy has been tossing and turning, screaming with belly cramps, ever since you left the house. If your tongue had watered with greed when you saw him eating muri and mango why didnât you ask for some, you bitch?â
It was true. The saliva had gushed into her mouth at the sight. But why that should give the boy belly ache—she hadnât a clue. She wonders about it to this day. She remembers going to Haru babuâs house and crying at his wifeâs feet. Crying and praying⌠âMake him well Thakur*! Please make him well. Iâm taking back the evil glance I cast on him. Here⌠I take it back.â
Then the strangest thing had happened. The boy vomited a couple of times and rose from the bed completely cured. A relieved Haru Sarkar turned to his wife. âGive her some muri* and a mango,â he said. Sarkar ginni* picked up a broom and waved it in the girlâs face. âMango and muri indeed!â she hissed. âIâll stuff her greedy mouth with ashes instead. Ma go*! Iâve taken pity on her and given her food whenever she came to the house. A poor orphan girlâŚIâve thought. And the ungrateful witch returns my goodness by casting her evil eye on my son! Look, look at those eyes. Iâve had my suspicions for a long time. Iâve taken care never to feed the children in her presence. She snuck in today when I was away at the ghat and did this vile thing.â
Trembling with shame and fear the girl had run away. The story had spread in the village and people had started shunning her. Not allowed in any house he had slept that night on the portico of the shrine of Burho Shibtala. No⌠she hadnât slept. She had kept awake all night weeping bitterly, praying, âO go Thakur! Purge my eyes of the unholy power. If not, strike me blind.â
âŚThe old woman stirs. A deep sigh escapes her. The thin lips quiver; tears glitter in the tiny eyes. She knows, now, why God was unable to answer her prayer. The malignant power she bore was her punishment for the sins of a past life. She had to live with it. What could poor God do? It was wrong to blame himâŚ
That night she had decided never to cross a householderâs threshold again. She would stand outside the door and beg the way other beggars did. It had been difficult the first time. Her throat was choked, and her tongue refused to articulate the words. But she forced herself and suddenly they came out in a high unnatural voice. âMa go! Can I be given some alms Ma? Hari bol! Hari bol*!â
âKe re*? Who is that? Oh, itâs you. Stand where you are. Donât dare come into the house.â
âNo Ma. I wonât come in.â
But the very next moment a strange feeling had come over her. A greedy craving rose from her belly like a darting flame and made the saliva squirt into her mouth. What a lovely smell was coming from the kitchen! They were frying fish. Big fat chunks of fresh fish. She sucked in her cheeks. A ha ha! She breathed deeply.
âEi Ei Haramjadi! LookâŚlook at her peeping into the kitchen with her snake eyes!â
Chhi! Chhi! Chhi*! The memory makes her bite her tongue in shame. She had peeped into the kitchen and her eyes had searched it from one end to another. It was not the first time that such a despicable urge had risen in her. Nor the last. It does to this dayâŚ
The motionless form, once moulded out of rich earth, is dilapidated now; colourless as dust. Slowly the chipped joints of the ancient limbs flex and loosen. Breaking out of their shackles they shudder into life. The twisted nails dig into the earth of the dawa. The white head bobs up and down in agitation. Why do these things happen? She has asked herself the question over and over again, all her life, but never found the answer. What should she do about it? What could she do? If only somebody would tell her. Aanh! Aanh! Aanh! She squeals in the voice of a beaten beast. Clamping her toothless gums in helpless rage she raises her hands to her dreadlocks and pulls them cruelly by the roots. Her eyes, sharp as a kiteâs, scans the endless sweep of empty earth.
It is the month of Chaitra. The last month of the year and the first of the hot season. The cool of the morning has given way to a blazing afternoon. A haze of heat and dust shimmers over Chhati Phataar Maath rendering it almost invisible. But the razor slit eyes can see better than most. What was that trail of light flickering across the field? She could, if she wished, have blown the dust away with a puff from her lips and seen what it was. Ah⌠it was gone now but she could see something else. Something solid, substantial, in the smoky haze. Arre*! It was moving. What was it? A living being? Human? Yes, yes, she could see it now. It was a woman. Suddenly the old hateful urge rose from within her. Should she blow a breath on the creature and make it disappear? Her toothless mouth opened in a cackle of cruel laughter. She rocked herself to and fro like a mad woman.
And then she pulled herself together. Balling her fists till the sharp nails dug into her flesh she fought the blood thirsty urge. NoâŚno⌠she would turn her eyes away. She wouldnât look towards Chhati Phataar Maath. If she did, the poor woman would die of asphyxiation. She would sweep the floor of her hut instead. Or she could stack the dry leaves and twigs she had gathered that morning into neat pilesâŚ
Unlocking her inert limbs, she picks up the broom and starts sweeping the floor. But the dust and leaves she gathers together take on a life of their own. Wriggling away from the end of her broom they coil around her form like snakes, hissing and spitting at the withered skin. Dust stings her eyes and nostrils. She doesnât know how to withstand the assault. She bares her empty gums like a mangy old cat. âOut!â she shrieks waving her broom helplessly in the air. âOut I say! Leave me alone.â
But the snakes do not heed her. They wind about her form tighter and tighter till she can scarcely breathe. âOut! Out!â she howls in despair flailing herself with the broom. Suddenly, with cackles of rasping laughter, the snakes release her from their coils. Loosening their hold, they fly, as though on wings, in the direction of Chaati Phataar Maath. Dust and dead khairi rise in swirls to greet them and together they form a giant tower that spirals its way to the sky. More such columns spring up in the air. Spinning in a joyous dance. There are a thousand now. Big and small. Chhati Phataar Maath grows dark and terrifying.
Looking on the scene, the old crone is filled with glee. Waves of rapture lap around her. She chortles with laughter. Raising her bent body, she spreads her out her arms, broom in one hand. She twirls her limbs, slowly at first, then fastâŚfaster. Round and round she goes, round and round, till overcome by fatigue, she sinks to the ground. She tries to stand up and resume her dance, but her legs will not support her. Her head spins and the world grows dim. Her chest crackles with thirst. Dropping on her hands and feet she crawls, like a baby, to the clay pot of water in the corner of her roomâŚ
âIs anyone at home? O go! Is anyone at home? Can I come in?â
âKe? Who is that?â
A young woman, coated with dust from head to foot, poked a long pale face through the door. She was clutching something to her breast, hiding it under her tattered anchal. It was dark within and all she could see was a knot of crooked limbs huddled together like a bunch of rotten twigs. She felt a stab of fear and moved back a few steps. âWater,â she murmured faintly, âA few drops of water.â
The old woman sat up slowly. âA ha ha! My poor child,â she clicked her tongue in sympathy. âCome in. Sit down and rest yourself.â The girlâs frightened eyes darted this way and that. Then, slowly, reluctantly, she seated herself at the farthest edge of the dawa. âGive me a drink of water Ma,â she said faintly, âI die of thirst.â The old womanâs heart melted. She poured out a large tumbler of water then, digging a bony hand into another pot she groped for a piece of gur* murmuring all the while, âPoor child! Poor child! What made you think of crossing that field of death in this terrible heat? You could have died.â
âIâm on my way to see my sick mother. Her village lies at the eastern boundary. But I lost my way and found myself in the middle of Chhati Phaatar Maath.â
Coming out on the dawa with the water and gur, the old woman got a shock. A male infant, a few months old, was lying on the floor. The poor mite was drenched in sweat and his tiny limbs sagged like boiled spinach. âCome, come,â she prompted pushing the tumbler towards the girl. âSprinkle some on the childâs face. Quick.â The girl obeyed. Wetting her anchal with water she wiped the tiny face and limbs and poured some into his mouth.
The old crone sat and watched them from a distance. The woman was young and healthy and the infant, perhaps her first, had a plump tender body, moist and supple as a tendril on a bottle gourd vine. Saliva squirted into her toothless mouth. She sucked in her cheeks and swallowed.
A ha re! The childâs chest was going up and down like a pair of bellows. Perspiration was pouring out of him. More and more and more. A patch of damp was forming on the mud floor on which he lay. The eyes were misting; turning crimson. Was itâŚwas it? But what could she do? What could she do? Why did they come into her presence? Why? The strangest sensations were pricking in her blood. A frantic urge to pick up the bundle of human flesh and hold it to her breast. To squeeze and mash it, like a pat of dough, against her ribbed, hollowed chest. To press the cool, watery limbs against her fevered skin.
Baap re! How the child was sweating! All the water was being drained out of his body. She knew it from the sap that was filling her own mouth⌠warm and sweet. Oozing from the corners. Dribbling down her chin. âO re kheye phellam re*!â An anguished cry tore its way from her throat. âIâmâŚIâm swallowing the child. Run. Run for your life. Pick up your baby and run.â
The young woman who was drinking water in large thirsty gulps looked up with a gasp. The tumbler clattered to the ground. âYou!â she muttered, her face as white as a sheet. âIs this Ramnagar? Are you⌠the one?â Without waiting for an answer, she snatched up the child and flew out of the house, the little one hanging from her arms like a fledgling folded in a mother birdâs wings. The old woman watched her flight. The tiny eyes dimmed with self-pity. She was helpless. If it were possible, she would have pierced her sharp twirling nails into her withered breast and torn the shameless urge out of it. She would have cut off her tongue. But all this, she knew, was useless. The malaise lay deeper. Far deeper.
Chhi! Chhi! Chhi! How would she set foot on the village path tomorrow? How would she show her face? The child would be dead by then and everyone would know the reason. They wouldnât taunt her with it. They wouldnât dare. But the disgust and hate in their eyes would shame her more than words. Even now children ran away at the sight of her. They could burst out weeping. Some could even faint and fall to the ground. Chhi! Chhi! Chhi!
A similar self-aversion had led her to flee the village of her birth, in the dark of night, years ago. She was a little older then — approaching womanhood. A friend of hers, a girl from her own community, had delivered a male child the night before and she had gone to see him. Savitri was sitting in the yard sunning her limbs, her new-born lying beside her on a kantha*. What a lovely baby! Plump and healthy with a shining black skin. She felt her heart swell with love. She wanted to fondle the tiny bundle and squeeze it tight against her breast. To kiss the drooling mouth with hungry lips. She was unaware, then, of the evil power in her. She thought her feelings were those of maternal love.
All of a sudden, Savitriâs mother-in-law came rushing in. âHaramjadi!â she screamed at her daughter-in-law. âHave you lost your mind? Chattering and giggling with the accursed creature! If anything happens to my grandson, Iâll flay you alive.â Then, turning to the visitor, she pointed to the door and said grimly, âGet out you slit eyed witch. Donât dare come here again.â
Savitriâs limbs, still weak from childbirth, had trembled in fear. Picking up the baby she had run indoors and slammed the door. And she? She had walked out of the house head hung in humiliation. Tears had gathered in her eyes. Everyone said she was a witch. They could be right. She did not know. But even if she was a witch would she, ever, ever harm Savitriâs baby? âDear God,â she prayed, âBe the judge and prove them all wrong. Give the boy one hundred years. Let everyone know how much I love Savitriâs child.â
As afternoon came on the mother-in-lawâs fears began manifesting themselves as the indelible truth. News rippled through the village and reached her ears. The baby was very sick. The tiny limbs were flailing and threshing, and the small trunk was twisting into an arch. Turning blue. Exactly as though some malignant creature was sucking the lifeblood out of him.
She had run away in shame. Avoiding the village paths, she had pushed her way through the jungle and taken refuge in the burning ghat. She had hidden herself behind a bamboo thicket and thought of what she had done. ButâŚbut if she had drunk blood, as everyone was saying, it would be in her mouth would it not? Crouching on her haunches she spat on the ground. Thoo! Thoo! Several times. But where was the blood? Her spit was as innocently white as foaming milk. She dug her fingers into her throat and threw up. Yes, now she could see some dark flecks in her vomit. She dug deeper and a gush of fresh blood filled her mouth, warm and salty.
There was no doubt in her mind now. What people said was right. She possessed a demoniac power which surfaced whenever she looked on any human being with love in her heart. Love turned sour in her; took the form of hate and destructionâŚ
It was well past midnight. Was it the fourteenth day of the waxing moon? Yes, of course it was. The old woman could hear the beating of the drums from the temple of Tara Devi. Tomorrow was purnima, the night of the full moon. The shrine would be full of people. They would sacrifice goats and ask for boons. Tara Ma was a powerful deity and no one who approached her for favours went away disappointed. Only she had been denied Tara Maâs blessing. She had offered prayers year after year and begged, âTake pity on me Ma. Change me from a witch to an ordinary woman. Iâll slit my breast and offer you my blood.â But the goddess hadnât heeded her prayers.
A deep sigh rose from the shrivelled chest. Sorrow and despair were her constant companions now. She didnât even resent them anymore. Thoughts drifted through her head like kites on broken strings. Floating this way and that on the whims of the wind. Dipping to the ground. A lost look came into the aged yellow eyes. She sat motionless looking on Chhati Phataar Maath. There was nothing to see. Only a dun coloured pall of dust. Still and unwavering. Not a whiff of breeze to stir itâŚ
The child died a few hours later while the woman was still on her way to her motherâs house. Nothing she did would stop the perspiration that kept pouring out of him. Perspiration? Or was it something else? Someone was drawing the life blood out of him; sucking him dry. And who could it be but the diabolic creature in whose hut she had taken shelter? Whose water she had poured down the babyâs throat? âO go! What have I done?â She beat her breast and howled, âWhat possessed me to go there? To let the wicked creature set her eyes on my little darling? O go! Ma go!â
The villagers gathered around the weeping woman and her dead child. Some commiserated with her. Some cursed and threatened the witch. A band of ruffians made their way to her hut vowing revenge. She saw them from afar and started muttering in self defence, âIt wasnât my fault. Why did she come to my house? Why did she hold out the beautiful baby before my eyes?â Suddenly she felt a current of mixed emotions sweep through her. A shiver ran down her spine and the hair on her head stood up and spread around her face like a cobraâs hood. She screamed abuses at the approaching men in a voice that was no longer human. It was a predator birdâs screech — shrill and penetrating.
Her would be assaulters turned pale with fear and backed away. But the old womanâs fury hadnât abated. Curses, bitter and corrosive, continued to fall from her lips, spiked with the poison she had held in her breast for so many years. Her breath came out, hot and hissing, like a wounded snakeâs. Her arms, the skin on them thin and papery as a batâs wing, flailed the earth. And then she started laughing. A ear splitting metallic laugh burst from her, ringing through the length and breadth of Chhati Phataar Maath. She pulled her hair by the roots weeping and laughing by turns. âTck! Tck! Tck!â she cackled like a brooding hen. âWhat fun! No need to light the kitchen fire. No need to set rice on the boil. Iâve devoured a whole human child. Sucked it dry. Iâve had my fill for the day.â
Night came on. It was the nineth night of Shukla Paksha and Chhati Phataar Maath lay shrouded in silver moonlight. JhirâŚjhirâŚjhir⌠a gentle breeze rippled the leaves of the mango trees. Crickets chirped and an unknown birdâs song, sweet and fluty, came wafting on the air. The old woman pricked up her ears. She could hear voices from behind her hut. Had the goons of the morning returned to harm her? She rose and turned the corner on cautious feet. There was a couple standing under the gopal bhog tree at the edge of the stream. She knew them. The Bauri* girl whose husband had abandoned her and the boy she loved. She crouched on the ground, a few yards away, listening.
âIâm going home,â the girl whispered, âSomeone may see us.â
âHeh! Heh!â Her companion laughed away her fears. âNo one comes here even during the day. As if theyâll come at night.â
âEven so,â the girl persisted. âIâm not staying here with you. Your father isnât allowing us to marry. Then whatâs the pointâŚ?â
Chhi! Chhi! Chhi! The old woman bit her tongue. If the two were in love and wanted a quiet place to meet why didnât they come into her hut? Why stand outside where someone might see them? Were they embarrassed to take her help? But why? She was an old womanâŚtheir grandmotherâs age. She understood their predicament.
And now the boy was saying something that made the withered lips curl with amusement. âIf we are not allowed to marry,â he whispered, âweâll run away and settle in another village as far from here as possible. I cannot live without you.â
Aah maran*! The old woman snorted in contempt. Canât live without her indeed! A girl as black and round bellied as a clay pot! Suddenly another scene came before her eyes. Another time. Another place. She had seen someone in the long mirror that hung over a wall of the paan shop in Bolpur. A tall slim girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, with a head of rough reddish hair, a small forehead, a delicate nose and thin lips. The eyes were small, it was true, but attractive⌠bright brown with golden flecks. Charmed with her own beauty she had kept smiling at her own image. She had never seen herself in a mirror before.
âArre! Who in the world are you?â A manâs voice came to her ears. A young man, tall and strapping. âWhere do you come from?â This had happened on the day after the incident in Savitriâs house. She had run away from the village that same night and come to Bolpur. She had liked the look of the man but taken umbrage at his tone. âWhere I come from is my business,â she had glared at him, âNot yours.â
âYour business! Not mine! Do you know who you are talking to? One blow and youâll fall to the ground like a dead leaf. Have you seen the size of my fist?â
She had stared at the stranger. At the sculptured black marble torso, the strong thighs rippling with muscles, and had willed herself to suck the blood out of him. She had gritted her teeth and mouthed a stream of silent curses. Her tongue had watered like a fountain. But nothing happened. Throwing a bitter glance at him she left the place.
She encountered him again the same day. She was sitting on a bank of the big pond at the far end of Bolpur town, beyond the railway line, eating muri from a mound in her anchal. The sun had just set, and a saffron moon was rising like an enormous platter from the east. The light hadnât turned silver yet. The sky was covered in a dim yellow haze. Suddenly she heard footsteps approach and looked up in alarm. It was the man of the morning. âWhy did you run away?â he asked laughing, âI only asked you a question.â
She remembers the laugh to this day and the two dimples that pitted his cheeksâŚ
âI donât want to answer your question. Please go away. Iâll scream if you donât.â
âYouâll scream, will you? Iâll wring your little neck before a squeak comes out and bury you in the weeds and slime.â He pointed to the pond. âNo one will find you again. Ever.â
She had looked at him with terror-stricken eyes and remained silent. All of a sudden, he stamped his foot and shouted âDhat!â Jumping up in fright at his menacing tone she burst into tears. The muri fell out of her lap and rolled all over the bank. The man was embarrassed. âYou little ninny,â he said in a softened voice. âStop snivelling.â He smiled as he spoke and there was tenderness in his voice. But that hadnât taken away her fear. âYouâre not going to beat me, are you?â she had asked between sobs.
âArre na. Why should I beat you? All I did was ask you where youâve come from and you snapped my head off. Thatâs whyâŚâ He started laughing once more, the dimples deepening in his cheeks.
âIâve come from far. V-e-r-y far. All the way from Patharghata.â
âWhatâs your name? What caste are you?â
âMy name is Shordhoni. Everyone calls me Shora. Weâre Doms*.â
âIâm a Dom too.â The man sounded pleased. âSoâŚtell me. What made you run away from home?â
The tears brimmed into her eyes again. She remained silent not knowing what to say.
âDid you have a fight with your parents?â
âI have no parents.â
âThenâŚ?â
âThereâs no one to look after me in the village. No one to give me food and shelter. I came to the town to work for a living.â
âWhy didnât you get married?â
Married! She had looked at the stranger with wonder in her eyes. What was he saying? Who would marry a witch like her? But⌠there was something in his voice that was unnerving her. She trembled and a strange shyness came over her. She felt her cheeks flush and her heartbeat with an unknown emotion. She lowered her eyes and her fingers fiddled with the broken stones of the bankâŚ
Suddenly the needle with which she was stitching her old memories fell to the ground. The thread snapped and her mind went blank. But the shy rapture of that moment stayed with her. The old woman sat with her head bowed like a young girl in the first flush of love. Like on that evening, her hands moved involuntarily gathering leaves and pebbles into a mound.
Oof! There was a cloud of mosquitoes swarming around her. Humming like bees from a broken hive. Why! The pair under the gopal bhog tree must have left. She couldnât hear their voices anymore. She rose softly and crept back to her perch smiling to herself. They would be back tomorrow. There was no other place in the village more suitable for a loversâ meeting. No one dared come near her hut. But those two would come. Love knew no fear.
And now she felt a strange feeling coming on. The old urge was rising within her; the urge to hurt and annihilate. Should she suck the blood from the young manâs body? Such a strong, supple, muscular body! But the very next moment she shook her head violently. No…no⌠never. She mouthed the words. He was young and in love. No harm should come to him. She sat silent for a few minutes then started swaying gently, thoughts running in and out of her head. She was carrying a burden already. As heavy as a block of iron. She had drunk the blood of an innocent child. There would be no sleep for her tonight.
She wished she could cross Chhaati Phataar Maath and go far away⌠very far away. People said she had special powers. She could put wings on a tree and make it take her wherever she wished. How wonderful it would be if that were true! If she could sit peacefully in a cluster of leaves and be borne over the sky; drifting on cool breezes, floating between clouds. But then⌠then she wouldnât see the young couple again. They would be sure to come tomorrowâŚ
Hee! Hee! Hee! The lad was here. She could see him sitting by the stream his eyes darting this way and that. He was waiting for his love. Her eyes twinkled with amused affection. Be patient, the withered lips murmured in reassurance, sheâll come.
A scene such as this had played itself out in her own life years and years ago. Yet it came before her eyes, sharp and clear. The young man who had accosted her near the pond had returned the next day. To the same place; at the same time. He was sitting on the bank swinging his legs and gazing on the path which she would take.
âYouâve come! Iâve been waiting for ages.â
The old woman was startled. It was the boyâs voice. He was speaking to the girl who had walked in silently through the trees. But what a coincidence! The young Dom who had waited for her had spoken exactly the same words. She had pursed her lips and looked demure. She couldnât see very well in the dark, but she could swear that the girl had the same expression on her face.
The young man had brought a leaf cone full of food that day. âTake it,â he had said holding it out, âYou dropped your muri yesterday because of me.â But she hadnât put out her hand. She couldnât. The strangest emotions were coming over her. Desire, swift and sudden, was leaping up in her blood. Swaying and swinging like a snake to a snake charmerâs flute. Venom and fangs forgotten; it was tossing its head in an ecstatic dance.
And then? What had he done then? The memory made her blush. The youngsters of today, she thought smiling, have no ideaâŚO Ma! O Ma! The boy was doing exactly the same thing! He was putting something, was it a sweet, in the girlâs mouth. Filled with glee, the old crone flailed her arms in the air and laughed quietly to herself.
Suddenly she stopped laughing. Stifling a sigh, she leaned against a tree trunk lost in thought. The strangest thing had happened next. The young man had looked at her with unblinking eyes and asked, âWill you marry me Shora?â She was so startled she lost her voice. She could feel her ears blazing and her hands and feet grow cold and clammy. Sweat rolled off her forehead in large drops. âI work in Marwari Babuâs factory. I earn lots of money. But no one in Bolpur is ready to give his daughter to me. Thatâs because I am an untouchable. But you and I are from the same caste and weâre both orphans.â He had held her light eyes with his fine dark ones. âMarry me Shora,â he had urgedâŚ
The two sitting by the stream were speaking softly but the silence around them was so deep she could hear every word. âThe people of the village are against us,â the boy was saying, âyour family as well as mine. Theyâre making life hell for us. Letâs run away. Weâll go to some distant village where nobody knows us. Weâll marry and be happy.â
O Ma! That was exactly what she and the young Dom had done. They had cut off ties with everyone in the world and built themselves a shack by the side of the factory. His work was stoking the fire under an enormous barrel like contraption called a boila or something like it. He was paid higher wages than all the other workers.
âN-o-o-o.â The girlâs voice came to her ears, sulky, demanding. âYouâll have to buy me silver bangles first. And tie a ten rupee note in my anchal. Only then Iâll go with you. Iâm not ready to starve in a faraway village for want of money.â
Chhi! Chhi! Chhi! The old woman spat on the ground in disgust. She felt like thrashing the girl with her broomstick. Did she have no faith in her man? Such a strong, sturdy handsome youth who loved her so much! Would such a man let her starve? âDeath to you,â she muttered indignantly, âSilver bangles indeed! Why âŚif you stay loyal to him, youâll wear conch bangles encased in gold one day. Chhi!â
The girl waited for a reply but there was none. âWhy donât you speak?â she snapped at him, âHave you gone dumb? Say what you have to say quickly. I canât wait here all night.â The boy sighed. A deep sigh that hung on the air for a long time.
âWhat is there to say?â he murmured, âIf I had the money, I would have given it to you. And the bangles too. I wouldnât have waited for you to ask.â
âIâm going.â The girl tossed her head and swayed her body lasciviously.
âGo.â
âDonât call me anymore.â
âVery well.â
She went away. Her white sari melted into the moonlight and disappeared. The dejected lover kept sitting by the stream, his head in his hands. Poor lad! The old crone clicked her tongue sadly. What would he do now? Would he leave the village never to return? Or would he, God forbid, take his own life? Drown in the pond or hang himself? NoâŚno. He mustnât do that. It would be better for him to give the girl the silver bangles. She had twenty-one rupees hidden in a clay pot in her hut. She could give him two out of it. Or even five. Five rupees would be enough. Once she got her bangles the girl wouldnât make any more fuss. Aa ha! He was so young! Youth was the time for love. For happiness. She would give the boy the five rupees and tell him to look on her as his grandmother. She would laugh and joke with him. She would wipe the sorrow from his face.
She rose slowly, painfully, putting her weight on her hands. She tried to straighten the hump on her back but it was as stiff and heavy as stone. Hobbling towards the stream she called out with a merry laugh, âPoor little down cast lover! Do not despair. Your troubles are about to end. Iâll give youâŚâ
The boy looked up startled. He saw a strange creature creeping towards him in the dark, closer and closer, like a giant crab. And now a face was thrust into his. A face as ridged and contorted as a dried mango. And out of the ridges two tiny eyes glowed like pinpoints of amber light. The mouth was a gaping cavern. The boyâs blood froze. His heart started hammering like a blacksmithâs anvil. Springing up, he ran screaming into the woods.
Within seconds the old womanâs face changed. The amused indulgence vanished and hate and loathing took its place. The hackles on her neck rose like an angry catâs and her slit eyes glittered with venom. Pulling her lips back from her toothless gums she snarled at the fleeing figure. âDie!â she screeched, âDie!â And now the old urge rose snaking up from deep within her bowels. She would destroy the ungrateful creature; suck all the blood out of him. Not only the blood. Flesh, fat, sinews, bones and marrowâŚshe felt like consuming it all.
Suddenly the boy sank to the ground with a howl of agony. Then, picking himself up, he limped his way slowly through the trees. She could see him no longer.
Next morning a rumour spread through the village, leaving everyone turned to stone. The she-devil, who lived by the stream, had shot a Bauri boy with a flying missile. He had gone there in the evening and the blood sucking fiend had smelled his presence the way a tigress smells her prey. She had crawled stealthily towards him not making a sound. Then, when the frightened boy had tried to escape, she had brought him sprawling to the ground by blowing a dart through her lips. It was sticking to his heel when he reached home, a long thin bone sharp as a needle. The boy had tried to pull it out, but it was stuck so deep, the blood had gurgled out like a fountain. High fever and convulsions had wracked him through the night and now his body was arching exactly as though some malignant spirit had seized him by the head and feet and was squeezing the blood out of him.
The news reached the old womanâs ears. She tried to feel concern but couldnât. An inexplicable apathy came over her. Never in her life had she felt so weary, so listless. The boy was dying. But what could she do about it? He shouldnât have tried to run away. How dare the little weakling run away from her? Even the toughest, most stout-hearted man she had known in her life, a man who had warred with fire all his waking hours, had not escaped her evil power.
More news came the next day. The boyâs father had sent for a clairvoyant who had promised to cure him. The old woman shrugged. The physician in Bolpur had said the same thing. He would cure her husband. But was a slow fever and a dry wracking cough a disease? He had left medicines, but they hadnât helped. The symptoms had persisted. And, little by little, the flesh had fallen from the magnificent limbs and the skin that had once gleamed like polished ebony had turned to ash. What had happened to him? And why did he vomit blood in the end?
Her eyes looked out on Chhati Phataar Maath. It lay like a bleached corpse under the midday sun. Not a breath of wind anywhere. Not a leaf stirred.
A strange restlessness seized her. She rose from her perch and walked about in the yard. Round and round she went, her thoughts running ahead of her. She had loved the man more than life itself. She had given him all she had to give. Heart, soul, mind and body. Yet she couldnât protect him from her own evil power. It had drained him of his life force. Emaciated his body and left it dry and brittle as a fish bone.
Suddenly she laughed. A harsh metallic laugh that rang through the length and breadth of Chhati Phataar Maath. Who was this clairvoyant who thought he could cure the Bauri boy? She had cast a malevolent glance on the fleeing figure, hadnât she? There was no way he could counter that. Not all the clairvoyants in the world could save him.
Oof! How hot and still the air was. She could barely breathe. She felt a weight on her chest. Suffocating her; crushing her lungs. Was the clairvoyant using his powers on her? Mouthing his most deadly mantra? Perhaps he was. It didnât matter. Let him do the best he can she thought scornfully. But the painâŚthe pain was excruciating. It was killing her. If only her heart would burst open and the grief and agony she had held in it, for decades, well out in blessed release.
One thing was certain. She couldnât live here anymore. She would have to escape the irate villagers. They would come after her any moment now, as the people of Bolpur had done after her husbandâs death. They had hounded her out of the town. And all because of an indiscreet remark she had made to the wife of a worker in Marwari Babuâs factory.
Shankari and her husband belonged to the Harhi community. Being fellow untouchables, a friendship had sprung up between the two women and they often confided in one another. Some days after her husbandâs death, out of a desperate need to lighten the load of guilt she carried, Shora had opened her heart to her friend. She had told her about the evil power in her, a power that destroyed everyone she loved.
What happened next? WellâŚhere she was living at the edge of a desolate tract of land at a safe distance from human habitation. She had fled from village to village, in the intervening years, but nowhere had she found a permanent home. It was time for her to move once more. But where would she go?
O Ki! The sound of lamentations, loud and bitter, tore the silence of the hot somnolent afternoon. The old womanâs blood froze with terror. She sat, immobile, for a few minutes. Then, tossing her head this way and that like one possessed, she crawled into her room and locked the door. A few hours later she stepped out of her hut, a small bundle at her hip, and walked into the deepening dusk.
All of a sudden, the world went dark. A deep, dense, unnatural dark. A thin trail of dust followed the feet of the fleeing witch. All else was still. Chhati Phataar Maath lay trapped and lifeless under a black velvet shroud.
After walking for a while, she sank to the ground. She couldnât take another step. Her heart was pounding with exhaustion and her hands and feet felt numb and heavy. What do I do now⌠she thought fearfully.
Suddenly, after years and years of frozen silence, a wail rose from her breast. A wail of lamentation for her dead husband. âO go!â she cried out wildly, âCome back. Come back to me.â She looked up. The black cover had shifted, and she could see a part of the sky. It was the colour of her eyes.
Moments later the storm broke. The first Kalbaisakhi of the season. Great clouds of dust rose from the earth and went spiralling across the field carried by cyclonic winds. Trees were pulled out by the roots. Animals were swept away. And the old womanâŚ
Next morning, after the storm had subsided, the villagers found her hanging from a khairi bush at the extreme edge of Chhati Phataar Maath. Her body, light and fluttering like a birdâs, was pinned to the highest branch. There were patches of blood on the ground; the dark unholy blood from a witchâs veins. The men looked at one another. What had happened was obvious. She had tried to escape on her flying tree when a powerful mantra from the clairvoyantâs lips had entered her breast and brought her tumbling down like a bird shot in the wing. She had fallen on the khairi bush and, pierced by hundreds of thorns, had died an agonising death.
Today Chhati Phataar Maath is deadlier than ever before. Mixed with the venom of a prehistoric snake is the blood of a malignant witch. Reeling under a pall of dust that clings to it from dawn till dusk, it stretches to unseen horizonsâŚ
And now some specks appear through the haze. Tiny black moving dots. They grow larger. Then sounds are heard. A mighty flapping of wings. A cloud of vultures are swooping down on Chhaati Phataar Maath.
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(Published with permission from Amalasankar Bandopadhyay, grandson of Tarashankar Bandopadhyay)
Tarasankar Bandopadhyay, Wiki
Tarasankar Bandopadhyay (1898-1971) was a renowned writer from Bengal. He penned 65 novels, 53 books of stories, 12 plays, 4 essay collections, 4 autobiographies, 2 travelogues and composed several songs. He was awarded the Rabindra Puraskar(1955), the Sahitya Akademi Award(1956), the Padma Shri(1962), the Jnanapith Award(1966) and the Padma Bhushan(1969) in India.
Aruna Chakravarti (India) has been the principal of a prestigious womenâs college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with fourteen published books on record. Her novels Jorasanko, Daughters of Jorasanko, The Inheritors have sold widely and received rave reviews. Suralakshmi Villa is her fifteenth book. She has also received awards such as the Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar for her translations.
Index of Bengali Words:
*anchal: The loose end of a sari
*palli: colony
*Haramjadi: Bastard or bitch
*O go babu: Oh sir
*muri: Puffed rice
*Thakur: God
*ginni: mistress
*Ma go: Oh mother
*ghat: Bank of a water body
*Hari bol! Hari bol: In Godâs (Hariâs) name
*Ke re: Whoâs it
*Chhi: An expletive expressive of shame
*Arre: An expletive to express urgency
*gur: jaggery
*O re kheye phellam re: I am eating him up
*kantha: A rug made out of old rags
*Thoo! Thoo: The act of spitting
*Aah maran: Oh Death
* dhat: An expletive expressive of frustration
*paan: betel leaf
*O Ki: What was that?
*Bauri: An indigenous community of Bengal. Could be related to Bhils.
For the pavement has anaesthetized their gentle feet.
*Apu and Durga: This is a reference to the young village children in The Mango Whistle, a novel called Aamer Anthhi in Bengali, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.
*Kaash : Long grass or reed
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Milan Mondal, Assistant Professor in English at Narajole Raj College (Narajole, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India) is a young bilingual (English and Bengali) writer of poetry and short stories. The major themes of his creative writings include âpartitionâ, âdiasporaâ, âpsychoanalysisâ âexistentialismâ etc. Some of his poems have been published in reputed magazine.
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