A Whistle blower--Debashree Mazumder

Snapshot-Gopal Chatterjee
A Whistle blower: Debashree Mazumder
Rahul Roy is a brilliant student of AKJ High School. He reads in class XII. Teachers say, Rahul is a square boy. He reads well, recites marvelously, draws awesomely and whatnot! As a referee, says local club members, he is peerless. He is hired not for playing but for blowing the whistle. His whistle never stops from blowing whenever someone tries to give an off side goal in a match. Rahul's father never played football in life. Rather he detests it. Why? Wait ! wait! I'll give a hint - he was a whistle blower. He used to blow whistle. It was his duty. But when he became a whistle blower, his family fell into utter misery and that could not have been easily manageable if Rahul's mother was not alive then. So, Rahul knows why his father detests a whistle. Yet, he keeps it with him always and blows shrilly to test when the days of a match are drawing in. Rahu's home is at Kamarpara village. It is housed in a hay trussed one storey room against the back drop of Choupahari Jungle. The jungle starts from Kamarpara and then a few kms off come villages Daranda and Sukhbazar. The Jungle seems to be talking for hours on end to everyone coming to its range i.e. east -west 7 kms on Bolpur -Illam Bazar Road. The jungle is nearly 5 kms wide. Rahul runs every morning to make his body fit. Every Sunday afternoon he takes his cycle, and at Dhallar More he takes a turn on the left to ply about 5 kms among tall shal trees along the red laterite path and then turns on the right to go one km more to reach the Fossil Park and Amkhoi village. He has some friends in the tribal village. People are few there. There are only fifteen families. Rahul and his bosom friend Sunil Hembram spend some time at the Fossil Park and half an hour or so before a primary school there. There is an alter at the park. A log is erected in the middle of it. There are so many logs awaiting visitors. All the logs look like those of trees. Since time immemorial they had been metamorphosed into stone, coal or iron under deep earth (before being excavated). It had taken 5 crore years. The more Rahul and Sunil think about it the more do they get nostalgic and feel goose bumps over their bodies sharing their views in such a dense forest and viewing un penetrating minuteness lying strewn about old civilization. He returns home before evening falls because there is dangerous wild cat locally nicknamed 'Horol'. Rahul's father worked as a night guard in a local technological institution. Life was smooth sailing for him. Every night he used to make a roundup inside the compound with a powerful torch in one hand and a bamboo stick in the other. His duty was to blow a whistle to feel others his presence if there were any. His son Rahul was growing up with stout body. He was almost happy- go -lucky. One day, he found some fishy movements in the compound. His torch flashed out. A chill shiver ran up his spine to see something. Logs of Shal were being kept by the use of a huge crane machine. He raised an alarm. A man with spitting nose and a hat on his head came to him and said, Hey man! Everything settled. Don't mess up. So saying, he was about to pull the trigger of his revolver. He became careful when firing at point blank range! He said, it's OK. No tarrying! Do whatever only before dawn. The next day he made a blunder. He disclosed everything to other staffs and met the head of the institution. As expected, disciplinary action was taken against him. Other staffs took his side. A strike broke out. The authority became more firm. Only he was suspended for one month because he was the whistleblower. He could have even got murdered had his wife not thrown herself at the feet of the local party leader and begged forgiveness for her husband. Since then he has lain in bed helpless for years. Doctor says, it's an incurable neuro problem. Rahul's mother works as a domestic help in other's house and manages the expenditure of the family and her son's education. That day was however, not the counterpart of other days. Rahul was the referee of a match between the two local teams. When the match was nearing to end, a call came to him from his house. It said, His father is not well. Rahul hurried home. Father hinted at him to sit by his side. Rahul sat. His father continued: You blow whistle when there's a foul kick. Your whistle blows to end a game also. There's a good side too. You again blow whistle to start a new game. I was a whistle blower. Time was not ripe then. So, I suffered. Time! Time! Now I hear another whistle blowing for me to leave. My son! Blow whistle to start life. But don't be a whistle blower going against time. With these words, the man takes final leave. Rahul sobs covering his face with hands. Mother clings him to her breast, and both eyes meet in raining tears! Choupahari Jungle looks pitch dark and the rest of it appear dorky!