The Book

A nanya Basu, thirty, thin. dark and clever. Spare .L"'\androgynous form, close cropped hair. eyes magnified by thick lensed glasses. Always, clad in loose kurtas with batik chakras. a pair of scruffY jeans she never seemed to get out of, a jhola crammed with books. note pads, a dictaphone ... Ananya drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney and swore like a trooper. Damned good at· her job. she had won the grudging respect of even the most hardbitten of her senior male colleagues .. She was the special correspondent of Update, based at Guwahati. One would often see her zipping through the streets in her electric blue Luna. overtaking cars, scowling ill grim concentration. Often hunched over the typewriter. cigarette. dangling from lips, pounding away the keys like one possessed. Lobbing lethal questions at poliU:cia~s, bureaucrats ... or draped over a chair at the Press Club. nonchalantly swirling ice cubes in her whisky glass. Her casual conversations too were terse staccato journalese. not a word out of place. Her approach was objective. analytical, utterly soulless.

A year after she was first posted at Guwahati she would accurately name all the tributaries of the Brahmaputra. the rise and" fall of dynasties, the priestly heirarchy of the satras; outline the intrica(lies of Ojapalli, elaborate on the aesthetic sensibility of the Sualkuchi weavers ...

She had a phenomenal memory and it helped her in her work. It also made forgetting difficult and what she saw on tnat muggy August evening remained with her all her life.

When this story begins she was doing well for herself.

Her by-line appeared regularly in Update. She had unearthed three scams, conducted an exclusive interview with a top tea official who had been kidnapped by an insurgent group andreleased after an astronomical amount had been paid as ransom, accompanied the Chief Minister on his aerial survey of the floods and lambasted the army for denying the involvement of a few of its jawans in the rape of some village women.

Her colleagues in the fourth estate either loved her or hated her. They could hardly ignore her. Most of them regarded her with a mixture of awe and grudging admiration. Some of them called her a frustrated spinster behind her back. One of them, always began his futile overture of friendship with a genial "Aha, Miss Basu, are you related to Jyoti Basu?" Another hapless scribe, having knocked back several whiskies at a late evening, attempted a clumsy seduction and was rewarded with an well aimed kick between his legs.

On her part, Ananya had a dim view of human relationships and adroitly stepped clear of what she called damned entanglements. Then there were those things that irked her, made her tense, irritable. The indolent ways of the people, the snail's pace at which officialdom moved, the alacrity with which most of her colleagues grabbed freebies gifted by corporate house ... their embarrassing attempts at ferreting out details of her personal life ....

Perhaps only Murugan came closest to understanding her. Of course, he didn't say so, articulateness not being one of his strong points. But somehow she felt that he knew. Knew that behind her carefully cultivated facade of blase worldliness there lurked loneliness and uncertainty. She liked Murugan much more than she cared to admit, even to herself.

Murugan was a freelance photographer who had fallen in love with Assam and made it his home for the last twelve years. He took exquisite photographs of maidens swinging in the hypnotic rhythm of the Bagrumba dance, captured the blush of rare orchids hidden in remote

shadowy forests, celebrated the colour and chaos of the annual Ambubachi- mela at Kamakhya temple, the shifting moods of the Brahmaputra. A bearded, gnome like man who was rumoured to sleep with his beloved Nikon strapped to his body, Murugan was an unabashed sentimentalist who was always helping out people with sob stories. He was so in love with Assam that he delighted in calling it the emerald treasure land, made lip-smacking sounds of approval as he wolfed down pua pithas and sent yards and yards of expensive pat-muga to his married sisters back home in Kottayam. Kerala.

~ireworks resulted during Murugan and Ananya's first metting.

Murugan took one look at her cropped hair, her jean and kurta clad frame, noted the near absence of bosom and growled in his guttural accent.

"But madam. why are you trying so hard to look like a man?"

Ananya sharply drew back her proferred hand and snapped. "Why do Madrasis poke their noses in matters that don't concem them?"

Murugan flashed his startlingly white teeth in a wry smile and said in an injured tone. "I was mistaken. I thought that at least you are one Indian who would not call everyone from South India a Madrasi."

''I'm sorry." She shrugged her shoulder. "Now come on. leave me alone. I have work to do. Go and shoot a prize winning photo of ruminating cows or something. I'm busy."

"Busy doing what?" Murugan shook his head sorrowfully. "Nit picking on the netas? Finding out who is horse-trading, telephone-tapping. passing the buck, who is hobnobbing with goons? You're obsessed with our netas, madam. You can't get enough of them." He pulled a chair next to hers, sat down and leaned forward. "But tell me, Madam, have you seen life beyond their capers Have you bothered to find out about what is happening beyond Guwahati, the reality in the countryside? I do not find in your W1ite-ups even a little whiff of the blood. the sweat.

the semen ......... .

She dropped her gaze, scuffed the edge of the worn carpet with her toe and was silent.

"Come with me to Saraikhowa tomorrow," he said quietly. "It is a remote Bodo village where Santhals killed eleven people yesterday. Come with me, madam and file a story, tell the world about the horrors of mindless massacre. Are you game?"

"Alright," she said, feigning indifference, as if she was merely doing him a favour. His words unsettled her. No one had quite dared to speak to her like that. It made her feel so inadequate.

* * * * *

Murugan picked her up early next morning from her PG digs at Chandmari colony. The streets were deserted and the sky was grey and salmon pink. Soon they were out of the city and speeding along the highway in the battered Ambassador (with the press sticker displayed on the windshield). The driver, a dark saturnine Bihari drove recklessly over potholes and swore under his breafr).. Basumatary, a slender Bodo youth who was to act as their guide and interpreter, sat in front. Ananya and Murugan were in the rear, both mumbling embarrassed "sorrys" every time a jolt flung them against each other.

"It was a retaliatory attack", explained Murugan. 'The NDFB killed seven Santhals at Tilapara two weeks ago. This is only the beginning, much blood will flow before Jharkhand or Bodoland is created."

"Can you tell me something I don't really know?" 'Anahya's tone was caustic.

"Alright, Madam Smartypants" Murugan flashed a rueful smile. "What do you know about the Bodos?"

'I've done my homework," she snapped, "Bodos-by far the most noteworthy Mongoloid group in eastern India. They number about six lakhs, ten thousand and five hundred as per 1971 Census. Bodo language falls under the Tibeto-Burman sub-family of Sino-Tibetan language. Eminent artist Bishnu Rabha claimed that the word Brahmaputra is in fact an Aryanised or Sanskritised form

of a Bodo expression BhuUung Buthur, meaning "great river of bubbling waters."She trailed off, pausing for breath.

"Good", nodded Murugan. "Impressive, so you know as well that the Bodos want a separate state and that infighting has broken out between the different groups heading the movement. However, madam, these facts do not interest me. Instead, I am fascinated by this old Bodo

folk tale about the origin of man .

"Go on," she was curious. "It's like this," he steepled his fmgers in an arch. "Bhagwan Aham Guru created two birds, a male and a female. The female bird laid three eggs. Thousands of years rolled by, but the eggs did not hatch. So the female bird broke one egg. There was no sign of chicks. Aham Guru forbade her from breaking any more eggs and asked her to scatter the broken egg from which were created evil spirits, worms, insects and trees. Then, after thousands of years, from the remaining two eggs were born human beings.

* * * * *

Ananya sat silently, listening. The car sped along. They were passing a sal forest. Sunlight streamed between the tall trunks. All was still, stunned in the stilling summer heat. Then, once again, there were vast open fields submerged by flood waters, the ridges of blue hills beyond seeming hazy and unreal. Murugan unzipped his shoulder bag and lovingly examined his Nikon, peering into the viewfinder and stroking the sleek zoom lens.

"The common people," she began, "are not bothered about these Bodo Santhal killings. Doesn't it point to a lack of sensitivity? ..

"Ah," Murugan shook his head. 'That's not exactly true. The shadow of these events has fallen over painting, theatre, films, literature. My friend Harekrishana Deka is a top police officer and also a much respected man of letters. Let me quote from one of his poems-

"On the bare forked branches The full moon stands crucified As in the picture

The ridges of the houses gleam Like skulls in the moonlight Do they come or do they go?

The hills kick up dust or red ants All at once I hear

The chorus of hurrays In the open sky

The bullets whiz with glee Like a flight of birds

I feel I am my slave.

Only their bayonets

Pick up their days all clammy with blood."

Murugan's voice trailed off and his chin sank to his chest, his dark stubby fingers clasped protectively over his camera. By now they had turned off the highway into . a kutcha road winding through thick bamboo copses. Further ahead, a posse of armed policemen signalled the driver to stop. Murugan leaned out of the window. How much further to 5araikhowa? They were the press. An 51 examined Ananya and Murugan's 10 cards, the car papers and waved them on, advising them to get back before dusk.

Twelve kilometres ahead, the road ended abruptly.

Ahead was a river, not very Wide, but swollen in the monsoon rains. The driver got out and streatched his limbs.

"Now what?" asked Ananya. "How do we get across?"

"Don't worry, memsahib" Basumatary assured her in broken Hindi. ''There is a way."

Close to the other bank was a young boy standing idly at one end of an old mildewed boat. Basumatary hollered to the boy, pointing to himself. Ananya and Murugan.

The boy dug his oars into the water and, precariously balanced on the prow, began to steer the boat towards them. On reaching the bank he nimbly jumped ashore and conversed earnestly with Basumatary. A deal was

struck. He would ferry them across for twenty rupees. Another twenty for the return trip.

* * * * *

Ananya gingerly stepped into the boat, but not before her right foot sank into soft, squelchy mud. The boat was old, leaky and hardly looked capable of endu...-mg their combined weight. So the driver stayed back. Murugan and Basumatary stepped into the boat. Ananya bit ~er lower lip and stared apprehensively at the boy struggling with the oars, the water lapping the sides of the boat and the bank receding rapidly behind her. Murugan patted her arm comfortingly but she impatiently shrugged him off.

Once on the other bank, Basumatary, Murugan and Ananya trudged on for well over two kilo~etres in Indian file. It was eerily quiet, the silence around them broken only by their footsteps. A flight of birds suddenly rose in the air, screeching. Ananya was hot, tired and resented the sweat that trickled down her back and between her thighs. What the hell was Murugan upto, a Madrasi initiating a sceptical Bengali (herself) into the lives and sufferings of an obscure tribe in an obscure village. Was this a circuitous ploy to get her into bed with him?

They reached a little clearing. The pitiless sun was now hidden by a bank of grey clouds. A breeze rustled through the tall grass.

"Saraikhowa pas hi hein, sir," Basumatary said in a low voice to Murugan.

Sure enough through the trees on the other side they saw the thatched roofs of a Cluster of huts. Murugan took out his Nikon and peered through the viewfinder. A startled hen squawked and scuttled away. A half-blind dog waved its tail feebly.

No smoke of woodfires drifted out of the huts. Doors lay ajar but no one came out. There were no murmer of voices.

There were cows in the sheds. grain in the granary, utensils laying in the yard. But no people.

Then they saw an old man, his face creased in a thousand wrinkles, squatting forlornly on a low wooden pirha in front of a dilapidated hut. Basumatary went up to him and they conversed in low tones.

Ananya and Murugan stood some distance away.

Ananya felt a keen sense of disappointment. She had expected a crowd of terror-struck, glazed-eyed people, shrouded corpses laid out on the ground, splotches of blood, gaping wounds, wailing women beating their breasts and tearing their hairs. The cliche ridden phrases had already formed in her mind-senseless violence, on the brink of madness, handiwork of cowards-dastardly killings, the killing fields, reign of terror. She might as well have been in her cosy wood-panelled office, smugly sipping coffee and hammering on the type-writer .... was this reality-dull, uninspiring, a non-event, an anti-climax? She would, she decided grimly, give Murugan a piece of her mind.

* * * * *

Basumatary was talking to her. The old man's name was Nabley. Nabley Daimary. All the villagers had fled to Betkuchi twenty miles away. He was too old and not afraid to die.

It had been drizzling at dusk the day before. The women had just lit their kitchen fires for the evening's meal. At first it was Nabley who heard the dogs barking.

Then, from the shadows, dark men appeared. They were carrying daos, knives, bows and arrows. His eyesight was failing. He had trouble hearing too. He dimly saw his people-men, women and children running helter-skelter. There were screams and shouts.

It was over in a few minutes. The dark men melted away in the darkness. The villagers left their dead and wounded and fled ... At dawn Nabley's son Bijoy went to report to the police eight miles way. The police came six hours later. They took away the dead and the injured with them. Across the river? No, perhaps to Nalbari, by the kutch a road beyond Betkuchi.

The old man stood up. hobbled ahead and pointed to the ground. There had been blood there. It had seeped into the ground. He had worked since morning, putting a lump of fresh wet earth over the stains.

Then faintly. from the last hut. came the sound of a woman singing. It was soft. lilting, plaintive. unbearably sweet. Puzzled. Ananya turned towards Murugan.

Basumatary explained. The old man says there is only one woman left in the village-Phulshi.

She had bolted her door after it happened and has not ventured out since. She was singing a lullaby for her son. four year old Sumbi.

They stood for some moments outside the hut. feeling strangely unsettled by her song. Ananya remembered some lines from a book. It was more abnormal to be normal under abnormal circumstances than to be abnormal under normal circumstances ....

* * * * *

Finally. Nabley, the old man quavered soothingly.

Phulsi, come out. There is nothing to fear now. Come. my child. Sumbi must be hungry. There is food for him ..

The song trailed off. There was a long silence. Then a shuffling ,sound and the door opened with a creak.

Phulsi stepped out shyly, hesitantly, her eyes darting towards each face. Her canary yellow dokhona was stained with splotches of bood. She had a child in her arms. a plump bare bodied boy with sturdy limbs and round, dimpled buttocks.

Ananya felt the hair rise on her forearms and at the back of her neck, the delicate tingle of goose flesh and a numbness that travelled slowly up her legs. her belly, her chest, squeezing the breath out of her, making her mouth dry ...

Phulsi hugged her baby son close to her and smiled uncertainly at them. There was a terrible emptiness in her eyes:

Above the bloodied stump of the baby's neck, the head was missing ...