Identity
The decrepit bus shuddered yet again to a stop. It was raining outside. Hard. The raindrops were pelting down on the black tarmac of the Assam Trunk (AT) road which runs from Gauhati to Dibrugarh. The potholes on the road had been converted into small ponds that were interconnected by transient rivulets. A passing vehicle splashing the water as it went by would change the orientation of the ponds and the network of the interconnections. But then the steady drumming of the drops from the pelting rain would bring everything back to their original essentially dynamic pattern. The picture that the raindrops brought was of change but the framework of water it created brought a reassuringly permanent sense of reality. That is what I could see peering out of the holes in the frayed brown rexine curtain that covered the bus window.
I could not dare to raise the rexine since then I would be showered with more rain than what was seeping through the holes and the edges. When the bus was on the move it was a constant exercise to dodge the raindrops aiming straight down your collar and then running down your back. The drops were cold and avoidable since I was more than a little wet. They were also random since the rexine was not secured well to the window and with the bus in motion it would flap and then the raindrops trajectory would change.
With the bus having now stopped I thought I would raise the curtain a bit to see why it had stopped. From the right side of the bus where I was sitting at the window seat, I could just see the road and a little bit beyond where the occasional shimmering yellow incandescent light of the distant houses would come into focus when the rain paused a while to disappear into a chromatic haze when the crescendo picked up again. Otherwise there was nothing, you could see nothing except water pouring from the skies as if God had just opened a huge tap and was just letting it go.
This was the time of the monsoon in Assam where the rain came down in sheets, day in, day out for a month or so at least. If you could get a glimpse of the sun during this time the local people felt that it was a gift of God. I was concentrating on the rain because I was nervous. I was scared. Anything to get my mind off those burning eyes looking at me across the aisle in the row of seats in front of me.
I was going on work to Dibrugarh to repair a piece of equipment at the Medical College there. My first trip to these parts. The only way to reach Dibrugarh was by bus from Gauhati, the State capital. There was a train which meandered through the tea gardens, went up to touch Dimapur in Nagaland and then came back to the last railhead in Assam, Tinsukia. From there I would again have to go by road to Dibrugarh that is what I had been told. But the train took double the time of the bus which was overnight and got you into Dibrugarh in time to start work in the morning. The bus took the AT road which bisected the State almost in two halves and wended straight through the famed Kaziranga game sanctuary, through the flatlands of Jorhat, the burning oil wells where they flamed the natural gas at Sibsagar and Duliajan and then through the tea gardens up to Tinsukia and on to Dibrugarh. This is what I had been told by my boss, the diminutive Seal at Kolkata. It sounded good and once my work was over I was planning to catch the day bus back so I could see the sights. But then there was a problem. The very reason I was here was that apart from the rains, there were riots in Assam at this time.
Though things had cooled down for a week now, the situation could flare up at any moment. The papers had been full of the burning down of the houses and the carnage and the killings of Bengalis by the locals and the tribals across the length of Assam. Assam called Ahom once, was ruled by proud and strong warrior kings before the British came after setting up base in Calcutta as the East India Company. When the British arrived in Assam to plant tea and plunder timber from the abounding forest wealth they brought the Bengalis with them from Calcutta as ‘babus’ – the clerks in charge of the paperwork that the British loved so much. The Assamese mortally hated the Bengalis since with their proximity to the British masters they lorded over the local people and terrorized them. This hatred ran over generations and sporadically erupted as now in riots where with some blood spilt, the hate sated, abated until the next time around. It was a cycle of a few years that the riot dragon would rear its head up again. This had been going on for the last twenty, thirty years though after India’s Independence the Bengali had left with their masters but there were some who loved the land they had grown up for generations and stayed back in pockets in the towns dotting the plains of Assam and in the tea gardens.
To cut back to the present, I was the only non-Bengali in our Calcutta office and with some sort of an emergency at the Dibrugarh Medical College with the recalcitrant piece of equipment, Seal called me in and said that I had no choice and I would have to go. I could fly out the next day to Gauhati and then get onto the bus and reach Dibrugarh the day after in the morning. The company I worked for allowed us to fly into Gauhati even at the service engineer level as the train took almost two days through the North Bengal Chicken Neck to reach Gauhati while the flight took just an hour. And then I had never flown. This was my first flight. But then the blood and gore in the papers in the past week was scary enough for me to protest – ‘But I look like a Bengali!’ Everybody used to presume I was a Bengali when I first met them before I could convince them of my own identity and tell them otherwise. Comes of growing up in a place and staying there long enough, was what my parents said about this. Seal never took note of my protest with a definitive – ‘But you are not.’ So there I was wet, cold, hungry and far from home in this rattletrap of a bus somewhere on the AT Road on the way to Dibrugarh. While actually I wanted to be home safe, warm in my own bed after having a hot dinner that my mother would have made. Was it worth it, the first flight to nowhere!
Some voices in front of the bus brought me back to the present. They were speaking in Assamese which was close to Bengali but not quite the same. I could understand it to a large extent to get most of the meaning since I was fluent in Bengali. A bridge had been washed away in front and with the waters now receding somewhat you could cross over to the other side where there was another bus waiting which would take us on further. Upto Dibrugarh? Nobody could guarantee that. The rain was so bad. And there were more floods ahead. I got out of the bus and under the shelter of someone’s umbrella looked out to the other passengers streaming towards the large gash on the road ahead. Through the pelting rain you could see the outline of a bus on the other side. There was some movement on my right and involuntarily I moved to avoid it. They were the same guys on the bus getting out. The three guys sitting across the aisle in the row ahead of me and the guy with the bloodshot eyes in the aisle seat was the one giving me those stares which I did not like one bit.
From the Gauhati Airport I had got into the city picked up a spot of dinner and walked around the bazaars for a while before I made my way to the bus stand. I bought my tickets to Dibrugarh by the bus leaving at 8.00PM. There was a queue at the ticket window and that is when I saw these guys the first time. There were two guys ahead of me, one of the three was in the ticket line while the two others were chatting with him. The moment I came one of them told the others something and they all looked back. Gave me the once over. The guy with the bloodshot eyes continued staring and his lips curled into a caricature of a sneer and ended with a curious smile before he turned away. I did not give it any importance then. Because we were used in Eastern India to ‘dadagiri’ – people proud of their stoop or territory and throwing their weight around. The way to handle it, was to ignore it. They would get bored and stop. After buying the bus ticket I moved away to pick up some magazines. These guys the three of them again were at the adjacent tea stall and looked me up from head to toe. This time I smiled away from them thinking that I probably resembled somebody they knew. It had happened to me many a time getting accosted on the road with someone who claimed he knew all about me but for the life of me though the face looked familiar, I could not even remember the name let alone place the person. But when we got into the bus and settled down I found these guys sitting just ahead of me in the next row. The bus stuttered to a start and moved out of Gauhati. It was not raining then and I watched the city lights for a while receding away from us. Then we were in the countryside and it suddenly became dark and the rain was starting. I pulled the brown rexine curtain on the window, clipped it down and tucked in trying to catch up on sleep.
The tiredness caught up with me and with the rocking of the bus on the pitted road and the steady drone of the engine and with the whoosh of air rushing off backwards, I dozed off fitfully. Through the slight haze of sleep, I could hear the voices of the three talking in front of me joined occasionally by the guy in front of me and some of the others further ahead. They were all local Assamese. Speaking in Assamese which I could generally get the hang of with my knowledge of Bengali. There had been riots up ahead and some of the houses had been burnt and a few Bengalis had been killed. Hacked to death. Numbers in the tens as they said but would go up because there were some caught in the burning houses and others seriously injured because of stabbing. These were admitted to the district hospital. Yes, there had been retaliation in Dhubriwhich was near the West Bengal-Assam border where the Bengalis were a majority. A number of Assamese shops had been burnt down and two Assamese stabbed to death. These Bengalis had to be taught a lesson once and for all otherwise they would never learn and time again these incidents would happen. We can only be at peace when the last Bengali has left Assam. Look at the guy behind you, he looks like a Bengali. I squeezed my eyes tight further shut and sharpened my ears. Struts about as if he is superior to us. The way he sneered at us at Gauhati before getting on to the bus. We will show him that this is Assam. He does not know what he is getting into. These fellows have to be taught a lesson. Whenever and wherever. I was sweating by now even though the gusts of air and an occasional sprinkling of raindrops on my face coming in were cool. I changed my position on the seat, slid down and stretched to make myself comfortable, almost crouching and wanting to hide with my back to them. The guy next to me looked at me but did not say anything. When I had got in we had exchanged cursory greetings. He was going up to Duliajan worked with ONGC, looked a Northerner like me.
I moved out into the rain and started looking for the conductor. He was nowhere in sight. But I got the driver who was sheltering under a tree and asked him in Hindi – ‘What will happen to this bus?’ The driver said – ‘Saab, the bus on the other side will come back after reaching Dibrugarh with passengers for Gauhati sometime tomorrow afternoon, when we will go back.’ I persisted with him – ‘What will you do? Where will you go?’
‘Saab, where can I go? I will be with the bus.’
At that moment I decided that I would stay in the bus and go back to Gauhati tomorrow. I told the driver – ‘I will stay with you in the bus. I will be sleeping in my seat.’ That way I could avoid the three and anything they were planning.
I then made my way back to the bus. Near the door the three were standing. One of them asked me in Hindi – ‘Are you not going?’ I said – ‘I have not decided yet.’ He continued –‘There is not much time. The bus on the other side will leave shortly.’ ‘You guys go ahead I will be with you shortly.’ ‘If you want we will wait for you.’ I could not understand this sudden interest and pushed my way into the bus. I was drenched. I got my towel out of the bag and dried myself as much as I could. Changed my shirt and settled down in my seat. The northerner had left. With two seats in which to tuck in I was more comfortable than earlier. The three had not come back. I thought that my problem was now sorted out. The bus was by now empty. I tried to sleep. It was difficult to sleep. But I must have dozed off for a while.
I got up with a start. There was a noise somewhere. I got up, looked around. It was dark. Could not see a thing. I called out –‘Driver! Driver!’ No reply. I did not get up from my seat. Sleep was difficult to come after that. I started to wonder why I was thinking of all these things. Pretty morbid. Then that sound again. I looked up, nothing. This time I got up. It was dark inside except for the occasional flash of lightning that would light up the inside for an instant. I came up to the driver’s cubicle. No one was there. The fellow had disappeared. The door of the bus then opened behind me. I turned to look thinking it must be the wind. There were two or three dark figures coming in and they were carrying something in their hands. The next burst of lightning illuminated them like a freeze frame and I saw they were three, two had choppers and leading them was the guy with the bloodshot eyes who was in the seat across the aisle from Gauhati. He pointed at me and yelled.
‘That’s the Bengali bastard! Get him!’
I could not understand for a moment what was happening. I begged them. Pleaded with them. Telling them my name and that I was not a Bengali. They pushed me out of the bus with one of them holding onto my collar. I had gone completely cold by then. Sheer terror was flowing in my veins. I was babbling incoherently since I could make out the intentions of these guys. They pushed me, dragged me to the middle of the road and let me lie there. I raised myself to my knees with hands folded, pleaded with them. Then there was a flash, was it lightning, and I lost sense of everything.
****************************
The police came the next day in the morning to the stopped bus. The headlights were still on but dim now. Right in the middle of the road was this body of a thin, tall man with his head severed completely. The head was lying a few feet away from the torso with blood spattered all over on the road. The victim must have been fair complexioned with long hair and slightly balding. The report had been filed by a passing group in a car which was driving towards Dibrugarh. They reported that when they came near the stranded bus its headlights were on. And in that glare,right in the middle of the road there was this figure with a pale face kneeling in front of a group of people, around five, who had choppers in their hands. The kneeling figure seemed to be begging the men around him for something with the rain streaming down his face. And then one of the men behind the kneeling figure brought his chopper down on the neck of the kneeling man and the head just rolled away. The body shuddered for a moment in that kneeling posture and then slumped to the road. The group reported they could see all this from about a hundred yards, driving in and then they stopped. Turned around desperately and came back the way they were going. They did not want any trouble with these rioters.
The police found the driver huddled inside the bus in shock. When the men came he said, he ran away since he did not want trouble. He had a family in Gauhati, two small children. There were five. Three he thought were in the bus when they left Gauhati. The other two seemed to be locals. They were the ones who had the choppers. One of those from Gauhati he had heard yelling – ‘You think you guys are better than us. We will show you. Kill him. Kill the bastard.’ This saab, the driver said, pointing at the body was pleading with them and showing them some plastic card that he had in his hand. It was then that a car came speeding down the road behind us, when the man who was yelling screamed –‘Kill him now! Now! Do it! Finish it off!’ The chopper flashed, Sir, and then saab was no more.
The police sub-inspector (SI) walked near the torso and clutched in its right hand was a laminated identity card splattered with blood. The SI picked it up, wiped it clean and read the name – Ramani Iyer.
*******************
Seal and Iyer’s family came to Assam to pick up the body of Ashok. The police SI said that the people were probably flustered with the arrival of the car on the scene and in that moment of confusion they just finished the job without even looking at the ID card.
In those riots some hundred Bengalis, ten Assamese and one Ramani Iyer lost their lives. And then Seal’s office had only Bengalis left.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment