A ramshackle house

A ramshackle house : Debashree Mazumder
A ramshackle house. The owner of the house dusts and tidies a black coloured, polished wooden box with his hands and begins searching something inside and his little son of twelve was following him what with blank and what with inquisitive eyes. Perhaps he is thinking what might come out of this Pandora’s Box! After an hour, the owner could trace out what he wanted. An old brownish thick layered paper is got out and it is handed to the boy with utmost care and the proud words pour forth: Son, See, this paper— there’s a signing of a British on it. What ink is it, father? asked he. –It is catechu – in Bengali it is called Khayer. Owao! How nice, Father. How come you got it? Father smilingly asks, Do you know what is written on it? -- His twitching eye brows were eager for the answer. “Roy Choudhury is the title given to him by the British to our Late Predecessor, the father of the great Grandfather, Ram Kumar Roy Choudhury and it is written on this paper with the ink of catechu—comes the proud reply from Father. Father, how nice paper it is!, Said the boy with wonderment. Father feels cherishing the memory of a by- gone ages. Both father and son seem to be lost in old days for some time. Mother is crying for the boy. “come, come, child, your Tiffin is ready . Don’t delay. Mother Sefali Devi is crushing hot puffed rice and adding sugar and water to its powdery form. This is favourite of Sonit Roy Choudhury alias Sonu. Mother said, Be quick! Take food like’ hum hum’ meaning ‘speed up’ and promises to prepare Alu posto , a mixture of potato and poppy seed paste. During meal Sefali Devi says to her husband, Why do you waste time in searching useless paper? –Useless? What do you say? These are invaluable papers. You have burnt down half of the papers. Don’t repeat it, said Nirmal. Sefali Devi purses her lips with typical gesticulation. Mr. Nirmal Roy Choudhury seems to be lost in wilderness. He has walking down memory lane for a long time. It makes him unmindful in his work of a clerk. The cot where his father had breathed his last is still to remind him some glimpses of the past. Father loved to caress his grandson Sonu over his chest and played some time every morning and every afternoon when Sefali did not mind reaching her hands towards him for Sonu. She had to engage herself for hours to bring pitcherful water from outside pond for boiling paddy and running legs through them by fits and starts for the sun to reach at the bottom and thereby making them dry in due course. When dried, the paddy was sent to a husking mill for rice. There was a paddling mill. But since the new husking mill run by motor drew others’ fancy. The poor lot of Nirmal didn’t go ally with his past family back ground. Nirmal’s father Parimal Roy Choudhury was a zamindar by lot and a destitute person by choice. He had squandered his property being involved in litigation. It was a very bad day. The sky was over cast. Sooner than expectation it started raining heavily. The pulse of Parimal started going slow down. His only Sister Hoimoti Devi was beside his bed. She noted the pulse and started crying, brother seemed no more… Nirmal went outdoors in rain to call in a doctor. The local doctor was Dhanantwari . He said, the patient expired and left the place. Nirmal, Sefali and Hoimobati started beating their breasts. Nirmal began to behave hysterically striking his forehead upon his father’s feet with the words: Oh God ! Oh Lord Govinda, give me my father back. Tears not only wetted his feet, perhaps it did the same to the heart of the family God and Parimal who was declared dead erstwhile by the physician opened his eyes distractedly as if he were one of the classical seven sleepers and woke up a minutes ago from his slumber for centuries. He scolded his son with peculiar expression – why did you bring me here? I was among beautiful trees and birds. I was enjoying the beautiful looks of Govinda with a flute in his hands and playing a melodious rendition. He was wearing a sky scraping crown with a peacock feather crest. Parimal lived only seven days thereafter. His nephew who was also his neighbour brought fishes in big sizes for him and Sefali cooked nicely for her father-in –law with much care. Nirmal had no doubt that his father journeyed to a heavenly abode, Boikuntho. Nirmal finds himself at sea. He is penniless. There is a coal go down opposite his house. He is thinking of borrowing some kgs of coal as fuel for the funeral of his father. But he is hesitant and suffering from doing so. He blames his fate with the words: My father was a zamindar. People used to come to him for help. He had lived like a king and dies like a beggar. Father’s lifeless body is lying down. Few village folks have gathered. Meanwhile, a person comes to him and gives him an envelope. The person goes away and he opens it. He removes tears from his eyes with hands and finds a letter and one thousand rupees. The letter is from his friend Nabin Das. Reading the letter makes his eyes blurred and he has to mop up them again and again to clear his vision. The letter contains: Dear Nirmal, Don’t take it as I am helping or doing something for you. I’m just lending you the money with a request to accept it. You will repay it when time is fit for you. Please let me know if more money is required for the funeral rites. Money is of nobody. Today is mine. Tomorrow will be yours. Friend Nabin Das. Floodgate of tears from his eyes knows no bound. He uses both hands to stop them flowing in vain. Little boy is astonished to see why an elderly person is crying! Nirmal’s father-in-law Ajoy Chatterjee lives in the same village. He comes to him and asks what he would do now? Whether the body is cremated at Tarapith or Murshidabad --- is the question? No, cremation will be at Tarapith—comes the reply from Nirmal. Money arranged or not? Asks Ajoybabu. Yes, everything is arranged. Bit coins will come in a minute to throw on the road. Father-in-law Ajoy babu seems critical about it. He says, you should not throw coins. You don’t deserve it. You pretend to arrange for ‘Brisatsargo rites’ How funny! You have no capability to complete funeral rites with sesame i.e. til and water. This hard word hurts Nirmal than ever before. In sad time simple words hurt a heart but it is too hard to bear! Nabin comes to the funeral ceremony in time. Invited guests are fed accordingly. Brahmans are pleased. Nabin does not take a morsel of food till one is left to feed. At the end he takes two sweets, a glass of water and before taking leave he enquires: Are all the groceries consumed? I have told you to buy in excess. Nirmal says, No, grocery residue is kept. To hear this Nabin enthusiastically says, “Start your grocery shop with the remaining items. Keep them in Earthen pot and sell to customer. I am sure you will roll in money. Just take guts to try your fate”. Nirmal never deviated from his path of family responsibility. Once he had been driven away from his house. Yet his heart always craved for home he had to leave. He must needs procure some money to buy clothes for his step brothers and sisters. But it had not been so always. Nirmal’s father was titled Zamindar and earned a great respect in the society. His fame had spread far in five or six villages. The name of Zamindar Subimal Roy Choudhury was uttered in awe and reverence not for wealth only but for his untilted courage and strength. He was an heir to two hundred acres land that covered a major part Farakka, Dhulian, some part of Pakur and let it not stop till it reached Gorsha in Birbhum in West Bengal. The west part of the Ganges that merges with Bhabanipur under the same PS was fixed for sugarcane cultivation. It is said that at least 30 acres of land produced bumper crops of sugarcane. In three or four rooms were required for storing molasses. The entire rows of two storied building were permeated with its inebriated scent. Nirmal tries his fate with a village shop. He keeps all the grocery items- rice, sugar, tea, even soap, milk, vegetables etc. His shop remains closed from 10 am to 5 pm. During the time he has to be in a school. He is a clerk in a local ME school. The school over, he comes back home and opens it again in the afternoon. The beginning is not so good. But the wheels of fate begin to turn. Soon customers come flocking together to his shop. There is gathered awaiting humanity for the shop to open! The front of the shop gets packed to capacity. Indeed it becomes a brisk business! He has to go a number of times now to a muffasil town for purchase as yet he has no lump sum capital then. Business is in his blood. Let me tell you how it goes with him! It means finding the water line where the hull of a boat that once upon a time met the surface water of a vast river. 6 The pot was full and the smell of ghee permeated the air. Now it is simply a pot from which ghee already emptied out. It was Time. It had been time before. Now time is and is with no variety. Let’s go… Zamindar Subimal Roy choudhury’s father was Parimal Roy Choudhury. He lived a life of prince. He was the landlord of two estates—Atpalgachi and Bhabanipur Mouzas. He had to oversee 600 acres of land in two estates. Every early morning he rode on his horse Mangal and made a run of 30 kms up and down, met Khajanchis and returned home at Bhabanipur. He had his property from two sides—one from his parent which is of Atpalgachi and another from his childless widow Brindobasini Devya. Brindobasini Devya gave all her property in the name of the family deity RadhaGovindo and she gave power of execution of this property in the hands of two Sarihks who were actually her kinsmen. This property amounted to near about 350 acres of land. Brindobasini Devya wrote in her will that Radha Govindo would be taken care of by two Shariks in her absence since a deity is a perpetual minor. Some portion of the property might be sold in future in case of temple construction and anointment of the deity to be done. But there was of course a reason behind such a decision. It would be explained later. Brindobasini Devya was devoted to the accepted pieties of the time strictly followed by a widow. Her days of piety were routine bound. She used to get up early in the morning. Rising from bed, she sprinkled water upon her face, changed her nocturnal dress of Sharee and shemiz she had worn during the night and then took a tiny bough of Vereda plant to brush up her teeth that looked as black as ripened tamarind seeds as she was habituated to take betel leaves. Once she had gone on a pilgrimage to Kashi and had her hair cut there with customary boy- cuts. The tan of the skin, nasal index and tamarind seeds teeth contributed a peculiar combination in her looks. It was her routine bound duty in the morning session to prepare Vog (food) for Govinda. Parboiled rice used to have been boiled under her vigilant eyes. Sometimes she used to fan fire with well knit palm leaves made hand fan by the left hand while right hand made her busy with brushing up the teeth with the verandah dal brush, made after chewing the end of it. The juice was stealthily running down in spite of her desperate bid to prevent so. Sometimes she was tilting the lid of the pot to see how much time was left to be full boiled. She was also shaking the twirl of the boiled portion with the butt end of the veranda dal. She did not mind flowing mouth juice down the natural tooth brush and mixing with the vog meant for Family God. If asked, she used to say, it was her motherly affection toward Govinda in his infancy, which was fondly called Gopal. She seemed to have likened Sabarmati in her affection to Ramchandra in this regard. In the midsession Brindobasini Devi offered mid day meal to the deity. But before that she had bathed, worn clean clothes and made total arrangement to a T. Food offered to deity was distributed among devotees and what left; she used to take as residue. It may not be a la carte as one is used to choosing in a restaurant. It had been fixed for years. Rice, five vegetable preparations as fry, curry, sweetened milked rice etc were in the menu. During mid day food preparation, she covered her nose and mouth with seven layered white and clean pieces of clothing so that her breath might not come in contact with food being prepared. Out of utmost devotion, she did it. It was, according to her, a devotion of a devotee to her beloved God. 7 Business was in the blood of Nirmal. As the eldest son of his parent, he had to shoulder a great responsibility. Parimal set in a brisk business of grocery on the bank of Bhagirathi. The vast Bhagirathi was bifurcated at Farakka and a part of which flowed through Bangladesh where it is known as Padma. It was a huge shop for all items, although it was actually a grocery. Almost all kinds of items from peg to fishing net, items of groceries were available in the shop. A sand bed called Dwab area follows the Bhagirathi. It is almost a forbidden estate. Some brave people cultivate vegetable in this area, the practice of which is found till today. This vast area ends in a river and the beyond of it is Bangladesh. The area is free zone for smugglers. Border Security Forces of two countries were seen few and far between to patrol by boat. Nirmal had to spend night at the shop. Khudu Mian called him every night to go to the shop. He spent the night with him in the shop. Almost every night smuggling- boats stole out of the way and smugglers knocked the door of the shop. They sold sacks of clove, cardamom and various items to Nirmal at low price. The business flourished. But nothing could be escaped from the eyes of Smritirani, the youngest wife of Parimal. Whenever she used to go to bathe in the Ganges with her cronies i.e. maids oh honour, she sent Parubala, one of them to take money for miscellaneous expenditure. Nirmal gave the money willy -nilly, as he could not understand the purpose of the expenditure. He thought it exuberant and feared if such practice went on, some day the brisk business would collapse. It was his habit to write every day- expenditure in zabeda khata. As he opened it to write, Smriti rani opened her cowl a little and made a gesture of calling Parubala. Parubala came and she was instructed to tell Nirmal not to mention the money in Zabeda khata anymore. Parubala complied with her request. Smriti rani made it a habit. Nirmal could not say anything to his father Parimal. The old man was mesmerized with the beauty of his youngest wife—as an old Sanskrit proverb runs—the youngest wife of an old person! Smiritirani was Nirmal’s playmate. No wonder he might not take courage against her once upon a time- friend -now turned -mother! How come Smritirani got married to Parimal and became mother of Nirmal? There is a different yarn of story to tell later. A miracle incident happened! When Subimal’s wife was pregnant, Brindobasini Devi had a bad dream. She saw Govinda was leaving the temple. She was morose and spent the entire day keeping herself to herself. Next morning she called for a local priest and discussed about what she had dreamt. Though she had already taken a decision, she was trying to elicit a remedy to the predicament. She was too much anxious about the destiny of the religious Seat in the homestead. She told him that it was an omen to the destruction of her so long cherished practice here. As Providence had it, she decided to leave the homestead for good. But before doing that she made a will to give all the property and jewelleries in the name of the family deity Govinda and appointed her cousins –the two Shariks as sebayets who became the two co-sharers. The temple stayed between the two families. If God so willed, so it must happen – was her final realization. She made an arrangement to go for Brindaban. A boat was made prepared for the voyage. It first took her to Kolkata and there from she went to Brindaban by rail. She never came back and died there living a few years devoting her life to offering prayers to her beloved God. Thus a glorious chapter came to an end.