Diwali in Barbil: The hand rocket, who knows if it was mine or not, instead of going upwards, traveled in a deft horizontal plane and crossed the railway line… there. In that old man’s hut.
Beyond our house, I used to see an old man sitting staring at the distant Thakurani hill.
Beyond our house, I used to see an old man sitting staring at the distant Thakurani hill.
Quite a bit opposite of our house, I mean quite a bit across the railway line, there were rows of huts. Huting is the hut of the indigenous people there. In the afternoon or on Saturdays and Sundays, when I used to walk past him and go up the slope, to play cricket with the snowmen, I would be overcome by a strange smell. A couple of feet outside of Hutting, I used to see an old man of Hutting staring blankly at the distant Thakurani hill beyond our house. I could not understand what exactly the old man was waiting for, because the shadow-mark of a severe injury had not yet reached my vision. However, I still don’t know whether the water of an inexhaustible tomb will roll down the Thakurani hills.
Well that’s ok, but that lingering smell? Is it Uskokhusko from the head of the primitive man? Or Handia’s. After eating the pot, Dana Dada (everyone called Labor) who worked as a sower in his father’s company, once cried a lot, just as evening was falling. Even though father asked many times, he never said why. Why did he cry so bitterly? Dana Dada cried that day, until he gasped in his veins. After that he wiped his eyes and blessed his father a lot and went back to his hut. If he begins to walk far, in the evening, he will reach beyond childhood, when the night is youth. Although this story is from when Dana Dada, people used to say, at least 72! When grandpa came home that night with a heavy pot, full of potions, or was still walking, my 7/8 year old obviously didn’t have the ability to understand. All I remember is one day in the hot sun, when I escaped the cycle of time and fought a personal battle with a bat-ball, and then, defeated there, ran back with lightning on my head to face Khepturius’s mother, in the middle of the sea, on the face of that next cliff. The red-haired Dada came to pick me up with a dirty sheet tied on his head. Now it may seem like I’m trying my best to do some cheesy poetry or gratuitous melodrama but I know for sure, that day I felt a little shiver from a century old touch. The hutting old man is next to the slope. Is it the endless whispers of past memories from Thakurani that he is touching in his old dark eyes? There is no way to ask Ish Dana Dada now.
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Of course, what happened to the old man of Hatting on the night of Kali Puja, is there any way to apologize to him! Dad used to buy a lot of bets. My great uncle’s sons, i.e. Bubu, Tutu and Laltu Dada-Rao used to buy Dedar for me. The peons working in the office were Biro Dada, Navin Dada, they also brought whatever they could for me. Dana Dada would also stand a little far away and bring bets for me with that incomparable smile. Flowers, rockets, tubaris wrapped in shalpata were handed over to father or mother. And he didn’t say anything to me, that smile only spread a lot of love. As if eagerly asking for overtime, Bini Paisa, tilting his neck because he will give me a glimpse of the peace of churning sea. Are the grandfathers so wise? Do you understand that sweet dewdrops are destined to hang forever, so block the surrounding air as much as you can? Knows, on a winter night in Konkan, suddenly a jackal calls out under the thakurani and a fan at full speed in a lovely square. And after that the Philistines fell from the wall in disgrace. by reading As long as he keeps giving the wall and devastation something new.
Or the same experience? Did Dana Dada come to Baba and weep profusely on that day when he heard the footsteps of the incoming tremors and while leaving, forgot all the differences between area manager and laborer and blessed Baba for his birth?
Luckily I wasn’t caught up in such complex and unanswerable thoughts, or we wouldn’t have been sitting on our huge balcony gazing greedily at the gallons of beets left to dry in the sun. Rocket, kalipatka, chocolate bomb, tubri, phuljhuri, rangamshal, charki, after that a new one comes out once, potato bomb. A yellow colored medium size bullet. Damash is only thrown a little far away. Even though Dad is not very interested in it, when it comes to burning/cracking stakes, As Usual is the champion. I didn’t have much permission in that bombshell. Others will crack, you watch from afar, be happy. End of speech. However, I was amazed to see that the mother could light the chocolate bomb in her hand and throw it in the air. Why? Because it is taught from a young age, mothers are careful about caste? What is unfair? As if the mother could never rocket back to girlhood in a new role. Gee careless in his surname…
But I was even more excited than my mother’s act, when our driver Ahmed Dada, showing unnecessary bravado, removed the bottle and held it in his straight hand and set fire to the rocket. Let’s do it, what did the mother suddenly notice before understanding something and grabbed my hand and said, May hun no! What a disaster, what? A bit of the rocket stem stuck in my hand. I turn back and look for someone, either father or mother, by whose command I will be rescued but there is no ancient proverb in the forest, luck is where it wants… Just then the trunk call comes from Calcutta to Jethur and on our red dial phone the father is smiling and talking, mother. – He is waiting, will talk to Didivai, my elder sister, I say Bamma.
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Before the trunk call was over, Ahmed Dada got Samside. The hand rocket, who knows if it was mine or not, traveled in a deft horizontal plane and crossed the rail line, instead of going up… there. In that old man’s hut. It is still not understood even today, due to the injury of several dum words from a distance, which one is my / our misstep. But after hearing the whole incident, I still remember that when the dead father and Ahmed Dada went to Hatting to apologize, they did not find the old man. Besides, there were a few hutings, from which a few people came and said nothing. As a result, the apology remained incomplete. It was they, sorry they said, the old man had gone somewhere towards Thakurani Hills before daylight that day. There was a friend of his on that side, he had a furry bear that looked like a black wolf. He went out to play. I saw it too. That to him. The father came and said that if the old man returns, he should be informed once or at least if he comes to our house once, the parents will sit down and express some regret. It’s been so long, I don’t remember if that meeting happened or not. I only remember the time when there was a strong storm and I was so afraid of the storm, the noise outside the window, that’s why I was quietly shivering in a corner of the bed and the shaking stopped when suddenly I felt a strange light burst on the balcony. Who knows in what disagreement the storm was more angry that day or maybe such is his birthright! As he crossed the road, he casually grabbed the thick asbestos on our balcony. When extra baggage will be thrown on the flight like a spit, then why show unnecessary anger, I don’t understand, father!
Some time after the storm had gone elsewhere to establish the new morsipatta, as the window panes were opening again one by one in the soft light, he came, the old man, with a few others, to return us pieces of asbestos.
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