It was the third day. Budhia was once more atop the tall palm tree.
Mangala shook her head in despair. ‘No one can save this man’, she thought, ‘he was sure to die any day now’.
Budhia, her husband, would climb the palm tree at day-break and remain there for the rest of the day. No food, no water for him. He would pee in his loin cloth and it would dry in the sun. He would look over the undulating land, mostly barren. The little crop that grew has been reaped. The land lay like stubble on a rough cheek. There wasn’t much to see. Yet Budhia, expert climber that he was, perched himself on the tall tree. He looked and looked all around, all day long. He looked for the return of his son.
Bansidhar was born eight years after their first born Parvati. Budhia was crazy about a son. He would lay prostrate before the black-stone image of the god Krishna for an hour each evening and some more on days he thought was auspicious to inseminate his wife. When Mangala became pregnant with the second child Budhia was happy but not over joyous because he feared that it would invite bad luck. He could hardly wait out the nine months. He needed to find out if it was a son or a daughter. Not that he did not love his daughter Parvati. But he was obsessed with having a son. He wanted a son so that he could teach him his trade, his art – terracotta making.
Budhia brought a calendar with the picture of the flute playing Krishna. He hammered a nail on the mud and mortar wall of his room and hung the picture there. He would mark each day with reducing numbers. For him it denoted the countdown to his wife’s delivery date that the doctor at the village health-centre had tentatively suggested. On some days he would write the thing that he thought was important over the date on the calendar. On janmastami, the supposed day of birth of god Krishna, he would write: my Gopal will arrive in 87 days. Budhia could read and write. But that was preliminary. He could never spell correctly. He wrote a kind of phonetic spelling with an unsteady hand. It amused his family and friends but Budhia was focused in his mission. He would will a son. He meticulously kept a mental note of what Mangala did, what she ate. Especially what she preferred eating. That was one of his ways to keep a tab on the signs that a son was to be born. In those months he would not argue or fight with Mangala over anything. Whatever she asked for was supplied. It was impossible to get tomatoes in July in the village market. But when Mangala wanted to have some tomato-chutney, Budhia asked a neighbour who had some business at the district town to bring half a kilo of the best quality tomatoes. It was expensive and Budhia suspected the man to have added a few rupees to the price, but Mangala’s wish was fulfilled. People laughed behind Budhia’s back and sometimes even in his presence about his abject dedication to his wife. Only Budhia couldn’t care less.
Mangala had often thought later what would have happened to her if she failed to give birth to a son. When she had gone to her mother’s place, as was the custom, a month before the delivery Budhia would visit every evening on his bicycle. He had bought one, though second hand, for the purpose. It helped that her parental home was not far away from her marital home. It also helped that Budhia’s mother, that paraplegic woman, had been dead for a couple of years then. The old hag would surely have given her and Budhia tough time if she saw her son splurging on his wife which he could ill afford.
Mangala had no idea what Budhia had felt for the past two days hanging on to the tree top and looking at the distance. On each evening after the sun had set he would climb down from his perch, draw a bucket or two of water from the well and pour over himself. Dripping wet, he would walk back from the well which was a little distance away from home. He would then dry himself, change into a fresh dhoti, drink three glasses of water with a pinch of salt and sugar and without another word would lie outstretched before his deity for an hour. ‘Are you all right?’ Mangala would ask. Budhia would simply nod. Not a word would he utter. He would have his meal early and go to sleep. To rise very early again and start his vigil afresh. This was the third day of Budhia’s day long fasting, the third day of his vow of silence, the third of penance.
Sixteen years were long. Sixteen years were short too. The breeze, still cool in the early morning, stirred something in Budhia which he could hardly lay a finger on. When Bansidhar was born, Budhia didn’t know how to celebrate. He had felt a cool breeze blowing through him, filling him up. He had felt light in the head. He was never an articulate man. But those days he was often incoherent. It was sheer joy, pure ecstasy to hold the baby near his body. He had a son. His wait was over.
‘Bansidhar? Isn’t that a rather fancy name?’ Budhia’s friend Rajaram had asked.
‘It is another name for the flute playing god Krishna. He is my deity’. Budhia had simply said. For him it was enough to clinch the issue. His pet name for his son, however, remained Gopal. And he has remained Gopal to his family, to the villagers, to all who knew him. Bansidhar was banished to the school records and the ration card.
Gopal would always ride on his father’s shoulders. The toddler refused to walk much. But when he found out the use of his two sure feet, he would run around all by himself, not allowing his father to carry him. The sight of the playful, bubbly boy every time brought out a sigh of deep satisfaction from the depths of Budhia’s heart. He knew his son had an iota of his beloved deity in him. Budhia made little clay models for the child to play with. Gopal took a keen interest in his father’s work. The boy would sit for hours on end watching his father shape out clay artefacts – Ganeshas in abstractions, tiny masks, incense burners, ash-trays and loveable little clay Gopals. ‘One day my Gopal would make Gopals’, Budhia would tell himself. He would smile all by himself at his own pun. That day was not far away. Another ten years maybe. Gopal would be fourteen by then, ready to learn the craft. Budhia could wait that long.
Gopal was eight when his sister Parvati was married off at the age of sixteen and left the village for her husband’s home in a small town. Now Gopal was all that his father had. He was like any other boy in the village. He rode to school some three miles away on his father’s ramshackle bicycle. ‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’ Budhia had asked his son.
‘A man.’
‘But you are growing. You’ll be a man in a couple of years’ time.’
‘Not that kind of a man. A man-like man.’
Budhia was mystified by his son’s response. He had no idea what a man-like man looked like or what it meant. Budhia had tried to ask Mangala if she had any idea what their son wanted to become. Mangala, with her limited idea of the world, preferred Gopal to be at home all his life, look after the little land they had, make terracotta models, get married, have children and allow his old parents to lead a contented life. She had no ambition either for herself or for her son.
‘What’s man-like man?’ She had asked Budhia when her husband relayed what their son had told his father.
‘That’s what I want to know. You have no idea?’
‘None at all. I thought you being a man should know what Gopal was talking about.’
‘Why would I ask you if I knew?’
‘To test me, perhaps.’
‘Why should I? Leave it. It was my mistake to ask for your opinion. Let us wait. Maybe he’ll explain himself in due time.’
Mangala had agreed. That was the best solution she could think of.
But Budhia was hardly satisfied. He had approached his friend Rajaram with the same question. Rajaram was amused. It was simple, only Budhia, the simpleton, could not see it.
‘To be a man-like man is to be a great man, a leader of men, someone who holds his head high, someone who gets respect from people. A man among men.’ Rajaram’s explanation had pleased Budhia no end though he could not really fathom what it meant. But Budhia was ready to wait for his Gopal to become a man-like man someday.
By the time Gopal was fourteen he had become deft with his fingers. He could knead clay, mould them into artefacts, bake them and even haggle over the price with the middle-men who bought the pieces in bulk rates. Budhia would watch his son and feel secretly proud of his skills. What impressed Budhia most was that his son was very sensible, even canny. Gopal, unlike his father, was clever and articulate. That pleased Budhia all the more.
Atop the tall palm tree memories came to Budhia like the sweet sap of the palm collected on earthen vessels tied to the tree. He could see the entire village and beyond. He could see the past, whatever came back to him in snatches. But he could not peer into the future. Sometimes flowing, sometimes faltering the memories kept him going; memories did not let him doze off, memories made him forget hunger and thirst. Only memories filled him with hope and look beyond the present and into the future. His eyes searched for a sign, any sign for the return of his Gopal. He believed in the return. He believed in his vigil. He believed in the wait.
Gopal was in the final year of his school term. He was just over sixteen. Gopal was doing well in school and he was sure to pass out of secondary school with a good grade. If he wanted to study more, Budhia would never stand in his way even if it meant Gopal having to travel quite some distance by bus every day. No one in the family had completed schooling and that was another reason for Budhia to wait for Gopal to appear for his school leaving exams. Budhia could see his son working hard over his lessons. He could find very little time now to work clay with his father. And he read a lot – books, pamphlets, poorly printed magazines. Budhia did not understand any of it yet he felt proud that his son could read so much.
‘You know Rajaram, my son reads a lot of books. Not many boys in the village do.’
‘Do you have any idea what he reads?’ Rajaram was sceptical of Gopal’s abilities. He knew Budhia was in the habit of glorifying anything that his son did. Moreover, he was barely literate. Any printed matter impressed him.
Budhia was a little abashed. ‘No, I really have no idea. How can I when I can barely sign my name?’
So Rajaram, for his friend’s sake, took it upon himself to ask Gopal about his studies. ‘Your father says you are working hard, reading a lot. So, clever boy, how good do you yourself expect to do in the exams?’
Gopal’s smile was disarming. ‘You know how baba is; he thinks I am the cleverest creature on earth. I expect to do well but not that good. Boys from other places in the school take tuitions from good teachers, even a few boys from our village do. I have no tutors. And you know without help it is very difficult to do brilliantly in exams. That’s the norm these days.’
‘Why don’t you ask your father for a tutor? Or, maybe a couple of them?’
‘Why should I? Baba can ill afford one. Even if he does, I have no use for it. I want to learn and learning has nothing to do with a few more marks in the exams.’
Gopal had grown up. He sounded more like Bansidhar than Gopal. Even Rajaram had to admit to himself that this boy was somewhat different, more mature than boys his age. The same boy who had wanted to be a man-like man when he grew up. Rajaram’s interest in Gopal grew. He knew he would have to wait a few more years to see how this boy shaped up.
On some days boys usually older than Gopal came to meet him. They were not from the village. But they were presumably his school-mates, his friends from other nearby villages. They came on bicycles, often double-riding. They would call out for him and he would follow them to the palm-lined drying pond at the far end of the village. The boys would sit there and talk. Budhia, like many others in the village, saw them but did not feel any curiosity. After all they were mere boys. What could they do other than chat, exchange a few bawdy jokes, smoke cheap cigarettes outside the prying eyes and ears of their elders? But was that all? Budhia on his perch now had his doubts. But there was no one who could answer his queries. He looked up at the sky. The sun was unrelenting. The heavens promised no answers.
It was a week ago. Gopal was unusually late coming from school. Mangala was fretting and fuming, ‘Let him be back today, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Who does he think he is? Governor’s son? He can choose to come any time he likes?’ Budhia, who had returned from one of his trips to the middle-man, kept his silence. He knew it would be foolish to cross Mangala now. All she was doing really was venting her helpless concern for her dear son. Then someone called his name out, rang a bicycle-bell. Budhia went outside to find a young man on his bicycle ready to take off with a foot on the pedal. ‘The police have arrested Bansi, he is at the thana, go help him.’ Before Budhia could ask anything the young man had pedalled off at top speed.
After that it was a whirr. Budhia has been trying to arrange the sequence of events for the last three days. The top of the tree was the place to think calmly, without interruptions, without intrusions. But he could not focus on anything. The more he thought the more confused he became. He had, without a word to Mangala, put on a long shirt over his dhoti and had rushed off on his bicycle to the police station a couple of miles away where the second officer told him that Gopal, along with four others including the headmaster of his school, had been taken to the subdivisional town for further questioning and for producing them before the magistrate the next day because they were suspected to be Maoist activists, collaborators in the plot to assassinate a minister, who had come visiting the area, by blowing up his car with a remotely controlled landmine. It hardly made any sense to Budhia. He neither knew of landmines nor Maoists. Next morning he had gone to the subdivisional town but he could reach only at noon by which time his son had been remanded to police custody and shifted to the district headquarters for another round of interrogation. Budhia had not the means to travel to the district headquarters. He did not have the wits to ask around and so returned to the village by dusk. Rajaram, his closest friend, was down with malaria. Therefore he went alone to the pradhan, the village headman. The pradhan was already in the know of things.
‘Look Budhia,’ he said, ‘your son has been nabbed by the police because he is a Maoist terrorist. Our Marxist government is a democratically elected government and it has been in power for over three decades. And mark my words, we shall remain in power for another twenty years at the least. We try to do good to the people, to our people, people who vote for us. But these Maoists don’t agree. They say we are exploiting the poor, depriving them of their rights; we are dividing the poor favouring only those who vote for us. They want power to the poor people. We Marxists cannot give power to the people simply for the asking. Power to the people is what we choose to give them. That’s that. We cannot tolerate any Maoist plot to dislodge us through violent means. Your son has committed an unpardonable crime.’
‘But we always vote for your party, I go to whichever rally you ask us to go. I do not know what a Maoist is. My son has never done any wrong. The police must have made a mistake….’
‘Our police don’t make mistakes,’ the headman cut Budhia short, ‘they always have sound information. You fight out your son’s case in court. I can’t help you.’
Budhia was stunned. He was confused. He was helpless. Next day he borrowed some money and travelled all the way by bus to the district headquarters. Gopal was not there either. He had been taken to Kolkata, the state capital, for further interrogation by the intelligence agencies. Budhia had been to the capital once. He knew no one there. It was a very very big city, very very crowded, full of threatening traffic, a very very confusing place. He didn’t have the money, courage or contacts to go there. He returned home heartbroken, defeated. For the next two days he sat staring blankly at his deity. Mangala could not console him. Parvati, on hearing the news, came from her in-laws’ place to be with her father in his grief. But Budhia remained unmoved. He would scarcely eat or drink. He was cocooned in a world where nothing worldly touched him. Then on the night of the second day he told Mangala about his vow. He would be atop the palm tree and watch over the lay of the land every day till his Gopal returned. He was sure the police would release him soon. His son was incapable of wrongdoing. The police had claimed that Gopal was waging a war against the state. That was absurd; he knew it in his heart. It was a mistake the police would realise in no time. They would come to apologize to him. They would return his Gopal to him and he would hold his dear son close to his heart. And make him promise never to go away from him.
So Budhia was atop the tall palm tree.
It was the third day of his wait.
