Blue Are the Far Off Mountains
A Collection of Short Love-Stories by
Ratan Lal Basu
Copyright 2011 Ratan Lal Basu
Contents
Chapter-I: Blue Are the Far Off Mountains
Chapter-II: The First Rain
Chapter-III: The Tale of Two Cities
Chapter-IV: Jasmine
Chapter-V: The Magic Marble
Chapter-VI: Strangeness Is Beauty
The Author
Chapter-I: Blue Are the Far Off Mountains
I
The car turned around and screeched to an abrupt halt and I could stretch out my hands in time to save my head from crushing against the driver’s seat but got my thumbs bruised in the process. I pushed open the side door and came out. The Nepali driver was watching the deep decline that the front wheels had missed for a few centimeters and as I got alongside he displayed an apologetic stupid smile. “The wheels skidded on the stray pebbles at the shoulder of the road” he blurted out and looked up with puzzled eyes at my comment, “A thrilling adventure after all” and squinted to decipher if I’d been serious or simply joking and remarked in an undertone, “Could’ve been fatal sir.”
“Certainly, but we may always relax and enjoy in reflection while out of danger.”
My comment made the driver burst out in wide guffaw revealing all his yellow-stained teeth and the charming simplicity which only the hill people possess. I looked around and was marveled at the away off deep blue mountain adorned with patches of sooty clouds capping the tops and the lush green vegetation with islands of thickets and swaying bamboo groves that spread in mild slopes from the foothills and dipped into the distant horizon to the right. Ahead lay a grassy narrow path barely passable by a car, bordered by stiff declines that curved into the green and a foot track at the middle, battered bare by constant walking. Some thirty yards ahead the road turned sharply to the right and lost behind a row of thickly foliaged tall trees and there was no sign of any house or shop. The passage was narrow and unsafe for the car and after the driver had parked the car safely at a niche right below the shoulder of the high road we started off on foot down the passage and turning the corner came upon a few wooden houses off the passage and nestling amidst plots of vegetables, blooming marigolds, banana groves and a few shady trees and the desired paan shop was there jutting out into the passage raised on wooden poles from the lowly field.
The day before at the travel office I’d asked for a Mahindra Max but the Bhutia owner, fair, tall and with a large square face, back-brushed thick black hair, aquiline nose uncommon for hill people and a golden denture that glistened each time he smiled or talked, assured that the roads were good and the Chevrolet Tavera would give a safe and swell ride and I booked it right away without further argument in the first place owing to the nostalgic appeal of the name of the manufacturer that reminded me of the days of huge cars when fuel was not so costly. The car was cozy indeed and drove smooth even on bad patches and we traversed along zigzag streets lined on either side with tall trees in full blossom or embellished with multi-colored orchids hanging from the branches, through dense forests, across green vales and glades irrigated by tiny streams, and waded right through military installations and undulating tea plantations. We had a stopover at a tea garden and the manager enthusiastically showed me through the factory demonstrating how different grades of pekoes are being manufactured and the tea he served was brewed from second flush flowery orange pekoe rich in excellent spicy flavor. On a flat rock above a small stream kept alive by a galloping spring straight from the heights we had our lunch brought along from the hotel at Siliguri. I lighted a cigarette and offered one to the driver and then discovered with dismay that I had forgotten to bring zerda-paan for which I felt badly and when I queried if there was any paan shop around he laughed out and said, “There’s none in these uninhabited hills, but I know one a few kilometers down close to the foothills and we may drop off on return journey if you could wait that long.” I told him to do what he thought fit.
The small shop that rose a few feet in front on sawed saal poles had wooden walls and an asbestos roof and the racks and planks inside were squeezed tight with all sorts of groceries, stationeries, toys, cigarettes and stuff like that in gunny sacks, jars, bottles and polythene packets and to my delight there were also sweet betel leaves and choicest zerdas along with other paan things on the ledge at the front. The shopkeeper, a young Nepali boy in mid twenties with drooping moustache, inwardly drawn small eyes, longish hair and sideburns curving down a fair yellowish cheek toward the nasal folds, was seated on a small wooden stool amidst the medley of wares. He stood up and grinned with questioning eyes as I walked over to the shop.
I directed him to make three paans and spelt out the specifications and he reached for the betel leaves, rubbed them clean in water from a tin bucket and started smearing them with lime from an earthen container. Suddenly a boy raced in trots up the brick laid narrow track that led gingerly to the dwellings and breathed something to the driver who followed the boy toward the dwellings below. I stepped aside and noticed a Nepali woman beckoning the driver from under the shade of the bushy tree that fronted the house and I felt a bit disconcerted while this unknown woman whispered to the driver pointing out at me. I reached for the paans, tucked the open one into mouth and shoved the packed ones into my pocket. The driver returned and told that the woman desired to talk with me if I were the youngest son of late Anil Choudhury, the landlord of Bhatpur. I nodded yes and went down the track over to the woman wondering all the way how this woman had known me and watching intently my nervous countenance with beaming eyes she giggled and gesticulated like a teen age girl,
“He-he-he, I’m Tan-dra, daughter of Birbahadur Pradhan, the darwan of the raj-kachhari close to your father’s garden. Don’t you remember me?”
“My God, You’re Tandra! I was then ten and you fourteen. How could I recognize you?” I blurted out in utter astonishment.
“I had come out to drive off the goats and noticed across the field someone walking down the road with Paban and at once it occurred to me that it was no body else but you.”
“But how you did, I am now grown up in age and changed too!”
“How could I tell?” She wore an enigmatic smile.
“Are you very busy now by the way?” She queried.
“Not at all. Just having a ride seeing sights around.”
“Then come in and be rested for a while. You too Paban.”
“I should better be with the car. You know thieves are around now-a-days.”
Paban, the driver left off.
“Do you know this driver?” I queried.
“Yes, he’s some distant relation of my husband and resides in a nearby village.”
Tandra, now a heavily built short woman with sun-burnt fair complexion, fluffy cheeks still centered with crimson circles paled by accumulated dust and grey specks, chapped protruding red lips, wavy creases on forehead and a lengthy line of deep red vermillion parting her grey hair, showed me to the verandah of the wooden house with cement floor and corrugated tin roof. The boy who had been hanging around with the loose end of her sari in his mouth, glancing occasionally at me with amazement, hurried to the room to bring up two cane-chairs and placed them on the verandah.
Tandra motioned me to seat on a chair herself seated in front and began fingering the disheveled hair of the charming boy who’d now come close to her again holding her hand and casting sidelong glances at me.
“My grandson of elder son and the younger son in the shop is yet to be married. By the way, have you already paid?”
“Why not!”
“You should not. Piku go get back the mon
ey” and the boy hurried off.
“Where’s his father?”
“He runs a small hotel close to Mahabirsthan at Siliguri and my old man is now staying with him for treatment. There’s a flyover now you might have seen and the place is completely changed. They’ve rented a house at Kalibari road near New cinema and come home once a month.”
Plots on either side of the track, fenced by thorny bushes, were sulfur yellow with marigolds and mustard blossoms and while watching the butterflies and dragonflies of variegated hues roaming around I felt the past reeling off in unending streams.
II
It was Sunday high noon and everyone in the house was deep asleep and I sneaked out the backdoor, rode over the locked outer gate and raced up to the railway godown attached to the minor platform for the siding track. Seated on springy thickets under the shade of the opening that partitioned the structure at the middle I noticed a goods train passing by at slow speed along the side track and I at once ran over to the edge of the platform and started thumping the wagons as they glided past and was immensely delighted at the resonance booming around at each stroke. The thrilling game ended as a strong hand grabbed my shoulder and jerked me around abruptly and I noticed with awe the tall demonic pointsman waving a green flag in his free hand and he burst out in a rude angry voice, “Naughty boy, like to be killed!” I felt my nerves giving way and forgot even to cry out. After the tail of the train had crossed the signal post the hefty devil with military moustache, reddish cruel eyes and thick swarthy upper lip bulging with tobacco wad inside, grabbed my right wrist painfully and dragged me down the platform and across the tracks to the stationmaster’s office. As he pulled me in, the station master seated on a wicker chair with stacks of decrepit files on the table in front, turned back and burst out in sudden anger, “Rascal, how dare you do this to the child?”
Flummoxed at the unanticipated outburst of the station master the Behari pointsman cringed and stammered out, “Sir, sir, this boy was handling the running wagons. Could’ve slipped off and killed.”
“So what?” The station master roared in.
“This mere child ought not to know things. You should have persuaded him. You’ve handled this delicate one so roughly? Do you know who he is? The son of Anil babu, the philanthropist planter.”
The bespectacled lanky white-shirted station master, with pointed chin and the face strewn with stubs of grey beard, pulled me close embracing my waist and examining intently the reddish scar on my wrist made by the strong grasp of the Behari and queried in an affectionate tone, “You’ve been hurt badly I suppose.”
I now felt pity for the cowering pointsman and smiled, “Not at all.”
He then explained to me the danger in such inadvertence and I promised not to play the dangerous game ever again. Our conversation got interrupted as my father rushed in and queried in a grave menacing tone,
“What’s up Biren babu, what has my son done?”
“Just a mistake of this foolish pointsman.” He put in politely.
The poor pointsman fell right on to the feet of my father and after the station master had explained the matter, my father helped the terrified pointsman straighten up and said admiringly, “Don’t worry, you’ve done right. I should rather reward you for having saved my son’s life. What a naughty boy! He sneaked out when we’d been asleep!”
The station master glanced at me with affectionate eyes and said, “My son who’s his teacher says often that he’s overwhelmingly brilliant.”
“That doesn’t give him right to do whatever he likes even risking his own life. His mother’s spoiling him.”
The atmosphere was all easy and relaxed now and we departed and all the way up home I wondered how come father, who was deep asleep when I’d sneaked out, had learnt that I’d been taken to the railway office.
Upon entering the gate I heard wide laughter and as soon as I’d gone over to the house my elder brother hugged me and laughed out convulsively, “Celebrate our great Devdas.”
The shrill giggle of elder sister pierced through my ears and mother too laughed out loud. “But where’s Parvati?” Queried my sister sporting mock innocence. This made even my grave father laugh and he said, “Bahadur’s daughter had been outside the office but I found her no where afterwards.”
“Parvati must be sleeping home peacefully now that her Devdas is rescued safe.”
Sister put in raising another roar of laughter. So they had nick named me Devdas and Tandra Parvati. I could not know the meaning as I had yet to read the childhood love story in Sarat chadra’s fiction titled ‘Devdas’ though I guessed something vile and nasty in it but ignored all as I was quite relieved that father did not punish me belying my apprehension.
I learnt later on from mother that their sleep had broken at Tandra’s loud cry at the gate and as soon as my brother had unlocked the gate she splintered through right over to father and gasped out, face soaked in tears and phlegm, “Babu the wicked pointsman is beating Samir and dragging him toward the railway office.”
My brother and sister used to rejoice calling me by the nasty nickname and it angered me so much that I showered them in return with all the nasty obscenities, learnt from the tea garden laborers.
III
The boy returned and handed over the money to Tandra who at once shoved it into my front pocket giving me no opportunity to protest and the feel of her fingers on my chest sent thrilling ripples down my spine. The boy left off dancing lisping “I’m going to the car to gossip with Paban uncle” and Tandra kept watching him with affectionate eyes till he vanished at the turn.
“He has bent for cars and I’ve told my son to put him to driving school. Formal education is no use for our family.”
She paused a while and deftly put back the lock of hair from her forehead while I surveyed the blazing fields around.
“I’d learnt from dactarbabu (doctor sir), your elder brother, that you’ve the highest education from best places and a big job in a bank. I felt so happy.” Tandra blushed and looked sideways to avert my eyes.
“Yes I was the branch manager at a government bank but now taken voluntary retirement.”
“Oh hoh, you left the big job? Why?”
“I got some good money at retirement and am now free to loaf around and see places.”
Tandra giggled, “Maiji (revered lady), your mother, used to call you pagla (crazy), and you’ve not changed.”
“By the way, how did you happen to meet my elder brother?”
“When my son’s father was ill for the first time, sort of breathing trouble, we took him to Garodia nursing home and called upon dactarbabu who advised government hospital and wrote a letter to his friend therein mentioning him as an old employee of your father’s estate and admission was no problem and they treated him well. I also went afterwards to dactarbabu’s house with some vegetables grown in our garden, and his wife, a very good looking lady, gave me a recently taken picture of you and dactarbabu.’
“So this is the mystery of your recognizing me so promptly! You asked her for the photograph I suppose.”
“Patakkai hoina” (not at all). She swayed her head as if in protest and then laughed out loud and we laughed together the way we used to whenever in childhood. I blurted out for fun the awkward Nepali words.
“Is your hubby not fully cured yet?”
“Asthma is never fully cured dactarbabu says. He had been well for a while but this winter it got bad again and he’s been under treatment now.”
The clouds had now floated down to devour the sun and the cool breeze from the northern heights was pleasant and exhilarating.
“Where are Bahadurda and Kanchhidi?”
“Both died a few years back. They were old enough. Karna, the younger brother, works at Torsha tea garden and Sweety, the younger sister, is married at Kalimpong close to elder sister’s house and they have a foreign liquor shop at the market place. Your parents had died early dactarbabu told.”
“Yes, father
had high blood-pressure and he fell sick while reprimanding an employee and was found dead while taken to hospital. Mother got hysteric at the shock and died a year after of heart failure. I was unfortunate to be in Calcutta both the times and could come home only after I got telegrams.”
“Married yet?” Tandra asked with keen looks.
“Not yet and have no intention either.”
“It’s very bad”, Tandra put in with an apparently admonishing tone though I felt she was not serious and was happy within. She ought to be.
IV
The wife of the jute officer paid a visit with her daughter to our village during puza vacation and stayed on in their quarter for a week before Darjeeling tour and they paid a visit to our house in the second afternoon after they’d arrived. The daughter, studying in a Calcutta convent, was my age and extremely beautiful like a Chinese doll with large dreamy eyes, hair cropped in semicircle over the forehead. We got on well soon and she told me about the great city of Calcutta while we roamed through our garden and while picking ripe guavas for her from the tree close to the fence bordering the kachhari (landlord’s rent collection office) I noticed from the tree top Tandra standing on the other side and watching the girl with burning eyes and ran away as soon as our eyes met. The girl invited me to her father’s quarter while departing.
Next day Tandra took me aside and whispered, “Have you seen the large mole on the right cheek of the girl? It’s an ominous sign of witches and goblins. In my father’s village a boy had friendship with such a girl and while found him alone she turned into a ferocious black cat and killed him by sucking out all his blood.” I had a bad dream that night that the girl, head turned into a cat’s with protruding long teeth, grunting like a tiger and chasing me through a forest track. I got terrified and never met the girl again.
I was very proud at all the teachers calling me child prodigy and had no friends at school and Tandra was my lone friend and we used to explore together all the places around. Our house was a vast area taking almost the entire northern side of the bye road that led from the main road to the railway station and to the western flank of our compound opposite the railway office building across the tracks was the kachhari of the large estate that embraced almost the entire district of Jalpaiguri and it also included the timber rich Baikunthaput forest.
The borders of our garden and the kachhari were fenced by barbed wire fastened on saal posts by u-shaped nails. To the north and north-west were the vast jute and paddy fields dotted with cluster of trees, bamboo groves and straw-roofed peasant shacks and dissolving into tea gardens flanked at the north by dense forest that rose in height in a curve into the Darjeeling hills crowned by the majestic peaks of the Kanchenjunga. About two kilo meters to the west the plain was cut north-south by the river Talma fed by hundreds of tiny streams that galloped down from the Sikkim glaciers, meandered gingerly through the forest and irrigated the tea gardens.
Tandra’s father, Birbahadur Pradhan, was the security guard of the kachhari and lived with his family in the small hut behind the office premises of the kachhari and beneath a giant mango tree not far from the fence of our garden. Tandra’s mother was called kanchhi as she was the youngest among her sisters.
We’d struck loose the nails with stone slabs and battered down the barbed wires at places, covered from vision of others by tall ferns, to make passages which we could sneak through at ease.
On holidays and Sundays we used to slip out over to the fields and talk out all sorts of things of our dreams, imaginations, ghost stories, fables and superstitions while racing along the elevated foot tracks cutting through the fields, at times resting in shades of bushy trees and thickets and throwing pebbles at the silvery water of Talma and in winter it was thrilling to pluck wild plums from bushes that lined the bank of the river in wavy semi circles.
At times Mofiz, the strongly built herd boy would join us. He was always clad in only a loin cloth and had well set ivory teeth in a rounded face and dense black hair cropped small to give the look of a tightly fitted black cap. He used to entertain us with blood chilling stories of bad zins and witches. Tandra had a good collection of phantom stories learnt from her grand mother and I told them of places learnt from my geography book. Mofiz forbade us to go near the cabbage like large tamarind tree at the corner where the rail track had crossed the river by a wooden bridge and below which the Muslim cemetery lay alongside the Hindu cremation ground and the river too, he warned, was unsafe at high noon when the mean gods of the Rajbansi’s used to play in water with their wives and mistresses.
V
There were more clouds at the mid sky which now wore a murky look and I asked casually, “How much land do you own?”
“Only this house and the plots lining the track you’d come through. We grow vegetables here for family use and flowers for beauty. We at times distribute vegetables to neighbors but never sell. Each of the dozen houses around owns small plots and the wasteland, marshes and thickets are properties of tea gardens and ones close to the high road are owned by the government. We have a pond inside and I’ll show you something interesting.”
Tandra straightened up and brought up a mug full of fried-rice from the kitchen that jutted out from the far end of the verandah with an opening on the verandah. I followed her across the room and the inner courtyard to the pond and as she told threw a handful of friend-rice into the still water and in a moment there was commotion in the water and a large number of blackish fish floated up to the surface jostling rhythmically, fighting among themselves and somersaulting while gulping the floating food.
“I recall you loved fishing very much but had strong aversion to cooked fish and you had to eat with spoons after fishing as soaps could not remove the fishy smell from your hands. He-he, a true pag-gal (crazy boy).” Tandra giggled out frantically.
Returning to the verandah Tandra was still giggling and I felt drowsy and asked her for tea and she, end of the sari on her mouth in an effort to control laughter, walked over to the kitchen and I heard the clanking of the utensils. I looked ahead and watched the enormous ball of pitch-dark cloud sliding down the folds of the mountain in slow pace and now the forest at the slope broke into islands floating on an inclined dark sea.
VI
The jute office that year had distributed chemical fertilizers among poor share croppers free of cost and the jute field bordering our garden grew dense and tall. Tandra and I crossed through the opening and battered down jute plants to make a ten feet long narrow track and the plants on either side curved down head to head to give the opening the look of a cave. At the far end we pulled down plants to create an elliptical haven large enough to accommodate both of us and seated on the battered bushy plants we felt great at having made our own secret niche.
“We’ll now play a thrilling game.” Tandra whispered and looked a bit nervous.
“I’m not in it if it’s bidi smoking again. It hurts my throat and the odor does not go even after soap-washing and chewing bunches of tulsi (sacred basil) leaves.”
“No, it’s a new game. It’s baby feeding game and you’d enjoy it.”
She lisped conspiratorially and pulled the frock over her head and drew me close with her hand on the back of my head.
While departing, she proposed a more thrilling game, the husband-wife game, she’d seen her parents playing and I assured her I’ll steal out next noon the required mat and bed sheet.
The game we’d already played was thrilling no doubt but a guilt consciousness lingered all through and coursed through me to make me sick. At night I had bad dreams and next morning I’d bad headache and high fever. I recovered in a few days and dared not query if Tandra had come during my illness as this might provoke my brother and sister to bring up again the loathsome Devdas-Parvati stuff.
In the evening I with my brother and sister sat on a mat outside the gate gossiping and watching the blazing dots of fireflies on the dark canvas around and we got up as a jeep honked and turned into our lane
. My uncle, with his familiar detective cap and majestic gait disembarked with bags full of ripe mangoes and sweets pasted with poppy seeds. He’d business meetings at Jalpaiguri and would be back to Maldah by road after a few days’ halt at our house.
During his stay we three used to gather around him after dinner and he entertained us late into the night with stories of his adventures in Africa, Amazon and Philippines and we enjoyed much although aunt had warned us not to believe him as he’d never stepped out of North Bengal. On the day before his departure uncle proposed that I could accompany him for a fortnight’s tour of Maldah as about a month of my summer vacation was still left and I leapt at the proposal. Father was reluctant at first but uncle could eventually get his consent on condition that I would take my books along and uncle would take care of my studies.
I spent a swell time at Maldah with my loving aunt and the smart and jovial cousins and upon return I learnt that Bahadur with his family was gone, to where no body could tell. The estate had been vested in government under Zamindari Abolition Act and the kachhari would now be converted into the Forest Range Office for Baikunthapur division and all the erstwhile employees of the kachhari had to vacate the premises at short notice.
VII
The tea brewed from Doors brand broken orange pekoe was strong and enervating and I noticed Tandra surveying me intently while I sipped through the tea.
“Can you recollect the childhood?” I queried.
“Better cut it all off. They’re all stored deep in my mind and I should not let them out. I was then an innocent child and ignorant, but now I know things. You’ve a large heart none else do possess I believe, but the world around is different and it’s a grave sin to disobey the rules and custom of the society we’re in.”
She paused for a while and said in an under tone,
“You should have been married and there’s still time. You are so nice, any woman would love you.”
“Not ‘any’ woman. Only a few have the hearts to love and the lucky few who are being loved truly are God’s favorites.”
The driver came over gasping, “Sir the sky portends bad. We are to leave off right away.”
I bed goodbye and followed the driver to the car and in back glance noticed the sad eyes of Tandra from the distance that was now and had ever been between us.
Halfway through to the national highway the downpour caught us and I peered ahead to decipher only the head of the driver and the wipers frantically fighting off the lashing torrents and the carefree driver, well accustomed to wading through foggy hills, tuned the CD player on letting the joyous Sarchopa song of dragon festival boom in.
May be I’m among the select few who are being loved and can love too.
The downpour had now raced ahead leaving us behind and turning around I watched through the hind glass the receding line of trees and away off, the deep blue of the mountain glistening in slanted sun rays from the west. I felt great and happy.