KAMATAPUR QUESTION

This paper that deals with the issues relating to the Kamatapur Movement in Assam and North Bengal was published in Protocol: Journal of Translation, Creative and Critical Writings, Vol I, No 1. Readers are requested to post their comments.

Dr. jyotirmoy prodhani


Ethnic Persistence in the Adjuncts: Organic Intellectuals,
Steve Biko and the Kamatapur Question



“Ancient civilizations were destroyed
by imported barbarians”
Dean Inges



I

The sky of the Northeast of India is distinctively marked by the overarching rainbow that features the united colours of multiethnic shades . In recent times we witness the sharp resurgence of the respective hues of ethnic entities saliently protruding from the point of forced disfiguration in the wake of supposed homogenizing politics at the behest of the representatives of the macro-cultural discourses. Saliencies of ethnicities abidingly seem to have surpassed all logic of homogeneous re-formation of identities in terms of the exigencies of integrated territorial nationality.

In Assam we see the emphatic emergence of the Rabha Hasongs, the Karbis, the Dimasas, the Mikirs, the Thengal Kacharis as well as, inter alia, the Rajbanshis as distinctive nations challenging the well formulated processes of assimilation and their consequent submerging into the larger spectrum of the dominant, what we can call, Assasmesehood. When most of the ethnic groups are for transforming their specific constituencies into exclusive territories of self rule, the Rajbanshis are for the retrieval of their lost land – the Kamatapur- the echoes of which percolates down to the other side of the state border –West Bengal- where happened to be the historically endorsed address of their lost kingdom’s Royal capital- Coochbehar.

There is a sustained persistence of ethnic identities in rejecting, in no equivocal terms, the processes of interpelations strategically adopted by the dominant ruling groups as in the case both in Assam and West Bengal. This persistence on the part of the ethnic nations seems apparently disturbing, politically irrelevant and logically irrational as well as unnecessary quite at times. Yet we cannot avoid this reality, for it forces our engagement. The received logic of enlightenment is inadequate and problematic in understanding the phenomenon, for the enlightenment logic is essentially macro-culturally biased and trains us with the idioms of denial when it comes to the question of the cultural and the racial other. Ethnicity is to be understood in terms of the experiential subjective forces underlying the ethnic identity and its maintenance, observes Lola Romanucci Ross and George A De Vos in their introduction to Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict and Accommodation (1996). They underline the need to prioritize the emotional, even the irrational psychological features that are involved with the issues relating to the social identity formation of the ethnic groups.



The consequential imperative is to address the question as to whether ethnic assertions are sui generically conflictual? What are the interrelationships between the processes of recording social and cultural history and ethnic defiance? What impact does it make the manipulations of the instruments of raciality, territory, religion, culture, language and history on the subsequent resurgence of ethnic assertions? Is the growing ethnic saliency a valid proposition?

Ethnicity is defined as a “self perceived inclusion of a group who hold a common set of traditions not shared by others with whom they are in contact” (De Vos in “Ethnic Pluralism…”,18). He explains that the urgency for ethnic resistance occurs in a situation of forced assimilation where the ethnic entity has two options open for possible acceptance: (a) adopting a future oriented religious, cultural or political ideology and the aspiration to gain an entry in the territory of the larger cultural group; (b) to emphasize their ethnic past and exert pressure to change their collective group status.

De- Vos, like Steve Bantu Biko, the precursor of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa, emphatically argues that ethnic conflict is not a result of any class struggle. The dialectic class equation becomes an inadequate premise to understand and interpret the issues of ethnicity. It arises out of racial politics. If ethnicity seems conflictual, it is the dominant racial group that invariably starts the conflict forcing the ethnic entities to resist and retaliate. Against the backdrop of acculturation of the ethnic group and the formation of negative definition by dominant group to establish the ethnic other as genetically inferior, opens up the third alternative for the ethnic entity: that is to accept the inferior caste status, their basic inferiority, both social and genetic, as part of their self definition and initiate a process of ethnic solidarity from that vantage of supposed inferiority.




II

The question of ethnic survival necessitates the formation of its own intellectuals as the dominant intellectuals belonging to the ruling regime and race perpetually dilute the aspirations of self articulation of the ethnic communities. The ethnic nations need to create counter ‘organic intellectuals to take on the powerful intellectual onslaught belonging to the contending class.

Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks informs about the organic formation of intellectuals in every social group. Gramsci links intellectuals with that of people as well as political goals and popular desires. He interrelates feelings, understanding and knowledge as the inseparable attributes for an intellectual to establish a relationship with people nation. Benedetto Croce, on the other hand, in support of the Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals, advocated the role of intellectuals to serve a disinterested scientific function. “To go beyond the assigned role by mixing politics with literature and science is an error” (Croce). But for Gramsci intellectuals must come down off the ivory towers. For him intellectuals must share the feelings and the elementary passion of the people, must understand them and should have the knowledge to coherently elaborate it. Without it the relationship between the people and intellectuals becomes bureaucratic and purely of formal order. For him:

“the relationship between intellectuals and people nation, between the leaders and the led, the rulers and the ruled, is provided by the an organic cohesion in which feelings, passion become understanding and knowledge …then and only then is the relationship one of representation.” (1978)


Steve Bantu Biko of the Black consciousness movement in South Africa and Bongshi Badan Ray of the Greater Cochebehar movement in Kamatapur (presently called North Bengal), as representatives of two ethnic communities, the Blacks and the Rajbanshis respectivly, made effective intervention in the history of their respective people-nations that inform us how ethnic entities form themselves their own organic intellectuals. Eventually the success of the respective groups largely depends on the expansion and elaboration of their intellectuals.



III


The Blacks in South Africa and the Rajbanshis, especially in communist Bengal, are omitted people-nations. Both groups are indigenous natives of their specific geo-cultural territories but the communities have been internally displaced in their respective native lands through the politics of apartheid and the subversive policies of the ruling left. Against this backdrop evolved the Black Consciousness movement under Steve Bantu Biko in South Africa and the Kamatapur consciousness in the form of Greater Coochbehar movement under the leaders like Bongshi Badan Ray in Bengal.

One of the greatest resurgences of ethnic identity in recent history took place in the form of Black Consciousness movement in South Africa in the late seventies under the leadership of Steve Bantu Biko. He was the founder of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) as well as the Black Consciousness movement. Born in 1946 and was killed by the white police in custody within six days of arrest in 1977. He had deliberately inserted the term ‘Banto’ in his name to underline the White attitude against the Blacks. This Black term used by the Whites to refer to the Blacks in derogatory term. ‘Banto’ reminded the White hatred of the Blacks. Interestingly the Rajbanshis in Bengal are called by the ruling race and a section of Bengali intellectuals, as ‘Bahè’ people. The term in fact is the truncated form of the vaishnavite address –Baap Hè-meaning “hello father” or “hello my son”. The Bengali intelligentsia refer to the Rajbanshis as Bahè people in a pejorative sense with the intention to underline the supposed backwardness/ inferiority of the Rajbanshis in terms of the mainstream, dominant Bengali cultural identity.


In his ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’ speech Biko exhorts all his Black compatriots to investigate whether the condition of the Black is a creation of God or “an artificial fabrication of the truth by the power hungry people”. He asserts, “An anomalous situation is a deliberate creation of man”

Ethnic resurgence too is a direct response to incessant anomalies deliberately created by man. The inability of the Blacks to assume modern professional skills is the result of the system. Similarly, the inability of the ethnic entities to come to terms with the dominant counterpart is the result of subtle subjugations prompted by the deep seated racial hatred in Indian context.

In respect to the White subjugation of the Blacks in South Africa, the stance of the White intellectual institutions have been shamelessly hypocritical. Biko writes “A journalist from a liberal newspaper like The Sunday Times of Johannesburg describes a Black student- who is only telling the truth-as a “militant, impatient young man.” On the other hand the so called liberal face of the Left regime, Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya, called the ten thousand strong villagers who took on to the street demanding a state of their own-Greater Coochbehar-as militants, misguided, secessionists and called these assertion which was the first people’s movement in the post independent Bengal an act instigated by the militant outfits like the ULFA and the KLO, (Bartaman, 25 sept./2005, Siliguri edition). Like the Whites in Africa who “do not believe that Blacks can formulate thoughts without white guidance and trusteeship” (Biko); the ruling race of Bengal too can never believe that the subjugated Rajbanshi ethnic people could ever think by themselves without being tutored by the comrades of the party office.

Steve Biko evolved the Black Conscious discourse as a philosophy of life for the Blacks. He had called for the re-appropriation of the negative elements imposed by the Whites as the starting point for the assertion of identity instead of taking a future oriented move for absorption within the precincts of the White world. He identifies subversion of the native religion, history and imposition of state controlled education as the effective tools of oppression.

De Vos points out how the imposition of the religion on the conquered people lead to the wide spread loss of morale, individual and collective identity and their collective anomie. (ibid). Biko called Christianity, imposed by the Whites in South Africa as a cruel religious invasion that had tempered the native values, morality and the sense of human dignity that used to inform the mores of the native social values of the Blacks.

The Black Consciousness philosophy of Biko advocates obviation of the education system that turned the Anglo-Boer Whites as the all powerful, all knowing eternal moral supervisors over the Blacks. He underlines the factual disfiguration of the Black past in the official history prepared by the Anglo-Boers, which painted the brave Xhosa warriors as thieves; the heroes like Makana a superstitious trouble maker; the great Black nation builder like Shaka a tyrant. He calls for the destruction of the history that taught them that their history started in 1652, the year of Van Reinbeck’s landing at the Cape. Biko roars’ “We are repressed because we are Black. We must use that very concept to uniteourselves. We must realize the prophetic cry of Black students ‘Black man, you are on your own’.”


IV


The September march for the Greater Coochbehar, demanding back the territory forcibly annexed by the Bengal regime through the cunning political moves of the then Chief Minister of Bengal Dr. Bidhan Chandra Ray in 1950, turns out to be one of the greatest events of people’s movement in post-independent Bengal and Bongshi Badan Ray, the young school teacher who was one of the chief organizers of the movement, appeared as the only leader of Bengal that had actually led a movement that is truly a people’s movement by being a leader produced by its own ethnic imperatives. Some of the picketers were greeted by communist bullets, many of them were dumped in communist jails of Bengal for mindless custodian atrocities. Two police personnel were lynched by the irate mass as a symbolic ritual of expressing displaced anger against the repressive communist regime. Thousands of picketers were on fast unto death. Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the communist CM of Bengal with his inherited Brahminical flare for cuningness , called this movement as an act by the people who did not know history nor did understand they constitution (Bartaman. 25 Sept/ 2005, Siliguri edn.). The representative of the repressive communist regime, Mr. Bhatatacharya, asserted his greater truth telling warrant over the native ethnic people. But the history of Coochbehar betrays the lies that formed the truth of the official version. Dr. B.C. Roy argued for the annexure of Coochbehar in 1949 with Bengal because that would help his Congress party win elections (Letter to Patel, 11 May, 1949).

The urgency of the Rajbanshis to form a Kamatapur Consciousness is a social imperative to resist further disfiguration of their identity and culture. The systematic displacement of the Rajbanshis was affected through the typical processes of subjugation mastered, in theory and practice, by the comrades for the cold blooded butchering of the indigenous natives with brutal accuracy. The recent incidents of Singoor land loot and the Nandigram massacre by the communist comrades, backed by the current communist regime, are two of the glaring examples of the extent of brutality the communists are capable of executing on behalf of the corporate powerhouses.


The Rajbanshis in communist Bengal are forcefully evicted from their traditional homestead through the notorious land looting programme of the left regime they euphemistically called ‘Land Reform’, which turned the native Rajbanshis into virtual beggars overnight. Through the loss of land they had lost their most intimate connection with their own geography. The land snatched from them was mostly redistributed among the illegal Bengali Bangladeshi immigrants and the workers of the ruling party. This completes the task of subjugation prompted by racial disdain.

For History, the Bengal regime produces texts only to reinforce the Brahminical and racial supremacy of the ruling race at the cost of all the other micro nations. This history obliterates all traces of the Rajbanhsis rendering the entire claim of their past and history veritably provisional and seemingly unauthentic. Language wise the Rajbanshis are forced to acquire the alien Bengali language and culture making the politics of ethnic subjugation an accomplished task.

Ethnic resurgence is not a mere misguided fair, as the ruling race terms it as in the case of the Black revival as well as in the case of the Kamatapur consciousness. Nor is it a class struggle as the left rhetoricians would try to explain. This is essentially a racial conflict. Biko asks the dialectic interpreters to go to the van lenders in the Free State and drum it up into an example of class struggle. If at all we need to use the Marxist term, Biko explains, the thesis is the White racism, the anti thesis is the strong solidarity of the blacks and the synthesis is the emergence of a balanced humanity. In case of the Rajbanshi, the thesis is the Bengal racism under communist regime, the antithesis is the strong solidarity of the Rajbanshis while the synthesis is the re-emergence of Kamatapur.



v

In concluding, we have a theoretical problem. Beneditto Croce, while speaking of the position of intellectuals, shifted from his earlier position of ivory tower vantage to preach for the participation of intellectuals as organizers of cultural aspects of the given society for he realized that the Renaissance man was no longer possible in modern times “when enormous human masses actively and directly participate in history” (qtd. in Sassoon,1999). Croce in fact suggests an effective mode of appropriation at intellectual level. This is the strategy adopted by the ruling race to limit the revolutionary potential of the masses.

Against such politics of appropriation, the ethnic natives, the ethnic groups are in the urgency of creating its own intellectuals. One would ask how the subordinated ethnic group can afford to create its own intellectual forces against the backdrop of alien education, forced displacement from the homestead, distortion of culture, obliteration of history, eradication of language and disfiguration of identity. If we take a cue from Gramsci, he informs how being alienated from the native geo-cultural space, the subordinated entity ends up by being in the trade of manual labour. But no amount of subordination, however, can ever completely erase the subjugated masses. They gradually obtain mastery over their manual trade and form the basis for economic opportunities. Through this terrain of repression they gain the strength to invent their own representatives to give vent to their voices and organize their collective will for regaining their basic human dignity.

Steve Biko and Bongshi Badan Ray are a historical necessity to defeat racial politics cleverly packaged in the elusive wrappers of rhetoric.






Works Cited

Barth, Frederick. Ethnic Group and Boundaries. Boston: Little Brown, 1969


Biko ,Steve (Bantu). Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity
Special Project InterNet Material 2002

Das, Naren. “Coochbeharer Bhabishyat bhebe dekhar agé atiter kathagulo bhebé neowa bhalo”. Bartaman 9 Nov./2005

Ghosh, Pabitra Kumar. “Coochbehar diyese jharer sanket”. Bartaman. 25 Sept./2005

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections form the Prison Notebooks. London:Lawrence and Wishart, 1971

Romanucci- Ross, Lola and George A. De Vos. (Ed). Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict and Accomodation. London, New Delhi: Almitra Press. 1996

Sassoon, Anne Showstack. Gramsci and Contemporary Politics: Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect. London and NY: Routledge, 1999

ASSAMESE SHORT STORY

This is a translation of an Assamese short story by a young and highly talented writer, Manoj Goswami, who writes short stories in Assamese and is editor of an Assamese news daily, JANASADHARAN. He has won numerous literary awards including prestigious Katha award.

Homeward Bound



Manoj Goswami





Hurling a solid kick to his scooter, Anadi stood in disgust on the dust clouded street. Hopeless; the fucking scooter would not start- absolutely out of whack, bloody lifeless. The city was abuzz with the typical morning noise and the breath-choking traffic. The day was rather hot, his shirt sloshed in sweat, and his underwear clung to his body to suffocation. Right in front of him was the red traffic light forcing the vehicles to screeching halt. Amidst all this chaos one could see a flabby woman was busy applying a lurid shade of lipstick on her lips sitting inside an air conditioned car of recent model; the bike rider was ensnared by the arms of his lady pillion rider; noises of animated discussions between two Marwari businessmen came out from the Gypsy nearby; and beyond all these the impatient sound of honking horns by the annoyed and irritated drivers rolled off freely onto the street, as it were. Pulling up his scooter on the stands in the middle of the road, Anadi left the unruly scene. A couple of them looked at him brusquely. One of them screamed out, ‘Why the hell have you kept the goddamn scooter there?’ The Punjabi truck driver, right behind the scooter, went for a long irksome blow of his horn. ‘Hey you, where are you going?’ shouted the traffic police from a distance. Without bothering to look at him, Anadi murmured, almost to himself: ‘Home.’

Leaving behind the scene of commotion, Anadi found his desired object- a public telephone booth. He had spotted the phone slinging in a relatively quiet bye lane. He had no changes, but for him to make the call was of paramount importance. He proceeded towards the stationery shop, brought out a hundred rupee note that was already bedraggled in his sweat in his wallet. Amidst countless pieces of papers; address chits; phone numbers; tiny crumbs of slips with meaningless, illegible scribbles; and sundry other tit bits lay one lone hundred rupee note in his wallet.
‘Get me a cold drink’, Anadi said offering the note.
The man sitting behind the counter, almost without bothering to raise his head, looked at the hundred rupee note over his spectacle rims and said nonchalantly, ‘No change.’
-Just check it out, I’m so thirsty, believe me.


-Didn’t I tell you, It is too early to get the changes?’
The man at the counter was visibly irritated; he was rather too busy examining some of his odd accounts.
Anadi was fagged out and was absolutely drained by now. He had no changes in his pocket; on the other hand the call was so urgent for him; besides, he was genuinely thirsty. As if he was overtaken by a blinding fury. He walked towards the man inside the counter with quiet and calm strides,
-‘No changes? Why? You refuse a customer just like that?’

Anadi stared on the eyes of the man and hurled those questions. Anadi’s jawline hardened, the veins in his face were sticking out. The man in the counter was petrified and looked at him bewildered, as if he was looking at a creature from another planet. Anadi yanked the cash box opened with a single pull where the changes were normally kept, threw in his hundred rupee note into the box, deducted the price of the bottle of cold drink and picked up the changes himself. ‘Thanks’, said Anadi to the man thunderstruck by such unbelievable turn of events. He then opened the huge refrigerator, picked up a bottle of cold drink and made for the street. The day was boiling under the scorching sun coupled with the waves of blistering wind. The road in front was being repaired. The repressing smell of bitumen seized the surroundings.

‘Hello, Oly.’ Anadi screamed at the receiver in the telephone booth by the road.‘Hello...’
There was no response from the other side of the receiver. Anadi knew that this was Oly who had actually picked up the phone. His voice in the phone, amidst the typical morning chaos, might have shocked her to an uneasy pause. She might be holding Pinu with her other arm. Pinu would be in his school uniform, yet to comb his hair, tie up his shoe laces.
‘Oly-- how are you, Oly?’, Anadi would intently make the enquiries. ‘Hasn’t Pinu gone to school yet?’
There was distressing silence in the other end. Is she weeping? Anadi made fervent efforts to hear the sounds over the receiver. ‘Oly, Oly…’ Time wore on, then a cluck. She put down the receiver. Anadi leaned against the glass pane of the telephone booth. He brought out the handkerchief from inside his pocket to wipe his face sopping wet in sweat. He quietly dialled the numbers once again. The phone rang for quite some time, but there was no response. Oly would no more pick up the phone. Finally the phone turned dumb by itself.

Anadi made for the road aimlessly with the cold drink bottle in hand. The fresh wrinkles crossed his forty years old face. The signs of his ill health made its mark through the dark pouches below his eyes, the tiny silver streaks by his sideboards would often reveal themselves while combing. Anadi was swallowed by the listless despair of a demolished man.

Leaving behind the main road, he moved languidly towards the park which was like an oasis in the middle of the town. A tramp was lying on one of the benches in that green park. A boy and a girl were taking a stroll on the grassy patch huddling each other. An old man was sitting leisurely under the soothing shadow of a tree, and a pair of darkish horses were standing nearby very much like bronze statues….Pinu had been haunting him. From next month would begin Pinu’s class terminals. Was he studying enough? Or was he wasting time watching cartoons in the TV as usual? Did Oly have enough time to look after all this? He recalled, once Pinu returned home with a wound on his forehead after a brawl in school. It had caused quite an uproar. Anadi even went up to the Principal and Oly to the guardian of the boy with her gripe. It was hardly a couple of years back, wasn’t it? What might have gone wrong within these few days that he was suddenly out of orbit, like that of a devastated man in hopeless ruins?

-‘Hello mister, where are you off to?’
Anadi was stunned by the voice of a stranger. Some street loafers were sitting on the concrete wall with their legs dangling insolently. They looked like college goers. Two motor bikes were parked by the wall. A couple of them were flaunting their beer bottles in their hands, one or two of them were blowing smoke from their cigarette twigs. Anadi was a stranger among them. He made moves to go ahead.
-‘Hey you, where are you going, man?’ The haughty call by one of them forced Anadi to stop. Even his heart cringed in apprehension of some portentous danger.
-‘I am going home’, replied Anadi in his quiet and calm voice.
Soon the air was rippled apart by the vulgar and crude outburst of their laughter.
-‘Going home my boy? Fine, please go ahead, but before you go would you please leave that bottle of cold drink for our benefit?’, one of them said ludicrously. The boy should be in his twenties.
-‘No, no, the oldie must have bought the bottle to entertain one of his sluts. Why you guys are making a mess of it?’ commented another with cocky giggles.
Anadi stood firm. He kept staring at something far removed. The ejar tree was abuzz with the noisy twittering of a flock of birds. The sky was blue, cloudless. Pinu kept haunting his mind time and again. He was raring to go home.

-‘Hello mister, have you become a philosopher or what?’ Someone pushed and shoved him, he noticed one of them even tried to snatch away his bottle. Anadi clung to the bottle with all his force.
-‘Yah,’ hoarsely shouted one of the boys. ‘So brother, you’ve got so much of strength, don’t you?’ Someone had jabbed him sharply, he just fell short of tumbling on the ground. He could feel they were pelting blows on his face, chest and belly. His face twisted in agony. He was flung on the wall. He felt absolutely helpless amidst their chortles, screams and euphoria. He realised that the bottle was still in his tight grip, as if that was the only resort in that state of his wretched destitution.
When the boys boxed him in with inane aggression, all of a sudden his blinding rage reached a boiling point. He smashed the bottle against the wall. The boy with long tresses of hair was his first victim. The sharp edges of the broken bottle smeared parts of his face and neck with blood. He attacked rest of the pack with mad fury. The boys were taken aback being exposed to such unexpected aggression. One of them was nursing his wounded eye soaked in blood; the other had his hand badly injured. All of them made a retreat. Anadi ran after them like a man in trance. They were at their full pelt when Anadi made a wild charge. His hands and shirt were stained in blood; the heady smell of the warm blood got him over.
Soon Anadi realised all of them had fled- there was tranquillity all around. He was all alone in the street. Only then he threw away his broken bottle of cold drink.

Anadi ambled down a relatively quiet lane by the city suburb. He was getting hungry. He was sweating and feeling terribly tired. His shirt was marked with blotches of blood, his hair all tousled up. The pedestrians looked at him aghast. A police man was casually strolling at his post nearby, Anadi decided not to make towards that direction. Not even a drop could he drink from the cold drink bottle. Just as he thought of drinking some water from the municipality hydrant, he saw the motorcycles coming towards him with two pillion riders each. One of them pointed towards Anadi. He made a dash in utter desperation. Yes, he guessed it right- he could see it well, the boys on the bikes were racing down towards him. They were brandishing sharpened weapons dazzled against the sun. The motorbikes zipped past him with grave noise and then they swished back to confront him head on menacingly. Anadi kept running to save himself. He thought of rushing towards the police man at the cross road, at that he just could manage to avoid a collision with a speeding city bus. Before he could get to the cross road, he was virtually crushed by the two motorbikes from either sides. As Anadi tried to wriggle out off the first bike, he could manage to hit the second one with a kick using the entire force of his body. Both bikes went into skid with their pillion riders tumbling down. The two sliding bikes hit on the pedestrians and knocked them down. There broke out a pandemonium. Two of the boys were rather seriously injured. They screamed their heads off with horrifying wail. The wheels of the upturned bikes kept whirling with incessant whine. The police posted at the cross road came running to the spot. Anadi went towards the police man.
‘Hands up, you son of a bitch.’
Anadi was startled at this sudden outburst. He saw the skinny police officer flashing his revolver at him. Pointing the gun at him he tried to get hold of Anadi. The officer was tottering in excitement. At that moment Anadi came back to his senses. He had his shirt with the blotches of blood; his hands too were muddled in blood. He looked like a typical villain in the movies. Anadi felt helpless. The officer in front was repeatedly screaming with the revolver pointing at him, ‘Hands up.’
Anadi was clueless about the immense strength that suddenly overtaken him. With ferocious vigour he pushed the officer. He did it with so much of strength that the act even had Anadi’s head reeling. He could only see with his bleary eyes the police officer falling on the ground, his cap tossed off his head and even the revolver slung off his grip.
Anadi was dumbstruck. He was motionless for a while. The revolver was lying right by his feet. He never saw any live arms in his life so far. Picking up the gun carefully, Anadi realised the weight of the arm was much more than what he had actually presumed. It was not as easy to play with it by the sleight of fingers the way the heroes in the movies do. Yet he carefully picked up the gun from the ground. Then he tucked the gun in the waist of his trousers and hurriedly left the spot.

***



Mr. Bhadra Phukan would retire from his service today. After a long career in police service, he would retire as an O.C. from this police station itself in a few hours from now. An eventful phase of service life would come to an end. The country had turned into a land of thieves and rogues, the common citizens were in constant fear of the terrorists and the kidnappers. He had to work too hard during the last ten years of his life in police service. On occasions he would feel the pressure of fatigue and exhaustion. Sometimes he had to give in to the lures, yet Bhadra Phukan had not turned into an amoeba like creature unlike plenty of other policemen in the department. Still he could stand straight on his spine, would think of the denizens of the under world with compassion and sympathy, but at the hour of need his hands would not shake to pull the trigger of the gun. For his valedictory, his colleagues in the police station arranged a modest party with tea and sweets. One of them even offered him a bouquet. Mr. Dutta, the newly transferred Sub Inspector to the police station, said with dottiness,
-‘Sir, you should not sit in your desk at least for today. You must enjoy the day with madam, go for an outing together. Rather we’d come to your place in the evening.’ The enthusiastic Mr. Ravi Dev added, ‘We’re actually planning to arrange for a small sitting in the evening.’
The telephone in the police station was ringing with regular intervals. Information about murder, rape, kidnap –barbarism of man against fellow human beings-poured in incessantly. Sub Inspector Bipin Dutta picked up the phone and informed the office, ‘One unidentified man at the Club cross roads had attacked one of our officers, snatched away his service revolver, four to five people were injured. It seems to be an act by extremists.
O.C., Mr. Phukan, jumped off his chair. ‘Lets go. Is the vehicle ready? Mr. Dutta, come along.’ Everybody jumped on their feet. ‘At least for today no need to be on your duty, Sir.’
Mr. Phukan just smiled in response. He took Mr. Dutta along and hurriedly got in to the jeep parked inside the compound.

***



A huge pack of loaves of bread. Homa was its brand name. The details of the loaf were so minutely painted as if the aroma of the bread was oozing out off the hoarding. A young lady with alluring smile, with her breasts covered by a blue apron, was holding the loaf on a tray. Anadi kept looking at the advertisement hoarding for quite some time. He had not taken anything apart from a cup of tea and a biscuit in the morning. He was terribly hungry. Anadi stood by the showcase of the restaurant and ordered the sales man, pointing at the hoarding, ‘Get me that loaf.’
One waiter brought loaves of bread for him. Removing the wrapper of the pack, Anadi was again taken over by a raging fury.
-‘What the hell is this?’
-‘Why? You’ve got what you’d ordered for.’
- ‘Are you joking? I want exactly what I had ordered for,’ Anadi screamed.
-Hey, what’s up? Hey you.’ The owner of the restaurant came towards Anadi. A fat, short, scanty haired man.
-‘I wanted that loaf.’ Anadi pointed towards the hoarding. ‘I had even paid the price written there in the picture. But instead of that what have you served me? A goddamn squidgy fungal stuff? Look at the picture, how nicely puffed up, how delicious it looks! Look at the body of the bread, how sinuous, and through which all carbon dioxide gets finely released.’
-‘You ain’t crazy, are you?’ the Manager asked Anadi staring at him with a panic stricken look. ‘Can the bread in the advertisement and the one for sale ever be the same?’
-‘Why not?’ Anadi yelled with a shriek. ‘Why not? The price for the fucking thing is exactly what it is mentioned in the picture. Is this a joke or what?’
-‘You, please go out’ the Manager said with a rude voice. ‘Don’t disturb other customers.’
At this Anadi went crazy, went hacked off. All of a sudden he pulled out his gun from the tuck of his trousers, pointed it at the Manager and screamed, ‘You bloody swindler, cheating on people. I’ll kill all of you.’
The bald man turned pale. He trembled feverishly. There broke out an uproar in the bustling restaurant. Anadi found it awkward. He tried to assure them by raising his hands. He said to a couple of young boys and girls, ‘Don’t worry kids.’ He even tore a part of the loaf and offered them to eat. In the tone of a public speech he tried to exhort the customers present there, ‘Look here. The things they advertise they don’t serve us. Are these colourful advertisements of any utility for us then? Isn’t it cheating?’
Taking a bite of the loaf, Anadi came out of the restaurant. The revolver was tucked in his trousers. He was elated to feel the chilled touch of the gun, he thought, ‘Oh, how powerful this thing is!’

He again tried to make a call to Oly from a PCO. It rang for a number of times but there was no answer. He moved about aimlessly like a possessed man. He went to the other end of the city in a city bus. Then he mingled in a procession. One of the city roads was being repaired, an over bridge might be coming up. Huge wells were dug up. A couple of individuals, looked quite like engineers, were giving instructions to the labourers. Some young boys were playing cricket in the ground nearby. The ball kept rolling towards those giant gorges. Anadi came forward, ‘You dug up these wells but don’t bother to put fences around them.’ The one looking like an engineer looked at him disdainfully. ‘What are you doing here? Move it, move it.’ Anadi shouted furiously, ‘You can’t do like this. Stop the work.’ The boys playing nearby thronged the place excited at the prospect of a showdown. Anadi brandished the gun, he was exalted to see the people around him were getting frightened. He tried to blank fire, but failed to do it. The gun was locked. One young boy came running towards him and advised, ‘Pull up that spring.’
Anadi was astonished, ‘How do you know?’
The boy replied casually, ‘Saw it in the TV.’ Anadi opened the lock and blank fired-one, two, three. The young boys were thrilled, they jumped and clapped cheerfully.

***


All the police stations and the out posts in the city were alerted. One dreaded insurgent attacked a police officer in broad day light; injured common citizens; snatched away his service revolver. Soon the news of that tragic incident got the circulation all over the city through telephone and wireless sets. Search parties were posted at all the exit points of the city. According to the eye witnesses, the militant was very violent type; he had already threatened people at a restaurant with his gun, and was spotted at several places in the city holding the revolver. According to one of the vital sources of the police, the dreaded militant was a member of the death squad of an insurgent outfit. Already the abandoned scooter used by the militant was recovered from one of the city streets. Perhaps this recovery would throw crucial lights on the further details about the attacker. An operation was underway under the OC of the police station concerned to nab the terrorist.
The jeep of the O.C., Mr. Phukan, dashed off leaving behind billowing smoke of dust. Mr. Dutta was by his next seat. By the end of the day, his life in the police would also be over. Just for a few hours he didn’t want to be lax with his duties. He had already gathered some information about the man. He was past his forties, married, had one son, was going through a rough patch with his wife, proceedings for divorce was on. A bit mentally depressed, a cynic kind of a man. Lived with his mother in a village, few kilometres away from the city. His father had died when he was young. Through search operation in his village house it was learnt that he worked for a private company. One resignation letter was found, that meant he had resigned from the job a few days back. He responded to the rude behaviour of his boss in that vitriolic letter, but every morning he would leave for his job taking leave from his mother. But the company had already confirmed that he was discharged from his job.
‘How come this man turned like this all of a sudden?’ Bhadra Phukan wondered and found it difficult to comprehend. He had also tried to verify whether the man was actually used by some militant outfit as a stooge. Already contacts established with his wife. She informed that the man had tried twice to communicate with her over telephone, but she did not respond to the calls on both occasions. Nevertheless, his wife had already been warned about the developments and was instructed to leave the house and shift to a safer place to avert any possible unwarranted eventuality. The man had become dangerous.

***


The house was locked. Anadi looked around. Even the windows were closed. ‘Pinu, Pinu.’ Anadi shouted loudly. There was no response. Anadi stood still in the pale glow of the afternoon. He took out the revolver in dismay and with his skilled hand shot twice to break the lock. There was nobody inside. He could feel the smell of Oly’s hair. Pinu’s toys were strewn all over. The house was in complete disarray. He sat there for a while and kept aside his revolver to take a look at Pinu’s toys. He picked up a toy gun looked like an automatic Kalashnikov. He tucked the gun in his waist and stood in front of the mirror. He smiled wryly at his own image. At that moment he heard a vehicle stopped at the front yard. A troop of policemen got down off a jeep. He leapt on his feet, opened the rear door and began to run frenetically. He ran through the intestine of the city. He kept running by the filthy river flowing through the city. He got into a moored ferry boat and tried to hide there. The light of the day’s last sun sparkled in the quiet water of the evening river. Anadi could hear the approaching thud of boots.
-‘Surrender, you have no path to escape.’ He uttered the words in grave voice.
Anadi looked at the man- an aged police office with an authoritative voice.
-‘Move it, raise your hands and come with us.’ He was yet to bring out his revolver from his holster.
-‘I will go home’ said Anadi in exhaustion.
-‘Alright, but before that you must come with us’, said Mr. Bhadra Phukan. ‘Raise your hands. You are under arrest.’
-‘But I want to go home.’ Anadi said again, ‘I haven’t seen Pinu for such a long time. He has become so naughty these days. This toy gun of his….’ As he placed his hand to pull out Pinu’s gun, hordes of policemen rushed to the boat and took position. ‘Hey you, be careful,’ shouted Sub Inspector, Mr. Dutta. Soon followed an avalanche of gun shots. Mr. Phukan could stop none of them despite his frantic efforts with his raised hands.
The river became all crimson in the light of the setting sun. The day came to the verge of a closure. Anadi’s lifeless body meekly rolled off the ferry and fell into the river water.

***





Translated by Dr. Jyotirmoy Prodhani