FICTION: THIRD ISSUE

The River Knows— Trishna Basak (Translated from the original Bengali by Rituparna Mukherjee)

There was a river. Some said it was a tributary of the Jamuna river. It was called the Jhapantali river, named after the village of the same name. Someone had said that it was never good for the village and the river to have the same name, verging on terrible some others said, that it never boded well for the village. I don’t remember who said that. It wasn’t Prasad’s grandmother.Was it Sabina who had come to the village from Natunbhanga after marrying Rasul? I just remember that whoever had said this was a woman. Womenfolk speak such myriad things. Perhaps that is why no one heeded those words. They should have. Because it’s the women who are more intimate with the river and its ways. They spend most of their daytime on its banks. They bathe in its water, fetch water for their household, invite it if there’s an auspicious occasion in their household. They call it inviting the Ganga. That’s not the case actually, where is the Ganga in this land? It is a land bereft of the Ganga. Here, any river is called the Ganga. The womenfolk address it that way. They name everything in their own fashion. They call the polybag chikchike term the city people ‘out people’. They are the ones who say that they are going to invite the Ganga when they are in fact going to invite some other river. When they head to the river, the sound of the conch shells and their ululations lets the entire village know where they are going.

Rasul’s wife Sabina had never been to a river inviting ceremony. She wouldn’t be able to stay in this village if she did. But it was her heart’s desire to attend one. That is why she followed the women of the Hindu neighborhood, when they went to the Jhapantali river for the Ganga invitation, blowing on their conch shells and ululating joyfully. Sabina would go to the river on the pretext of fetching river water. However, the fact remained that she could never allow her body to touch theirs. No matter what happened on other days, during the days of Hindu festivities, touching them, even by accident, was a sin, that would lead to a loss of caste. Everyone knew that touching would lead to a loss of caste. Only Sabina wasn’t aware of the fact. She thought that everything in this world could be properly understood only if one touched and felt things. For her humans were the same as flowers, trees, the river. Why had the Allah created each of these entities if they could not be touched? She liked coming to the river because it could be touched. But sometimes even touching the river could be a sin. Did the river care that a part of it was called pani and a part of it jal? And who has been able to divide the waters of the river equally with a rope? Who has this kind of time now-a-days? Many years ago, some Saheb had sat patiently and cut the whole nation into two parts. Perhaps he had drifted off to sleep when it was time for him to hold the ropes firmly. That is why he was not aware that someone’s kitchen lay on this side of the rope and the bathroom lay on the other side. Rasul Miya’s grandfather came over to this side of the rope from the other side due to these divisions. He had fled. His village was called Aashgram. The seeds of the birth of Rasul Miya’s father had been sown in that village and he saw the light of the world in this country. Then how can it be said with certainty which country is his? Perhaps that is why he spent his entire life in a state of oscillation. He never really figured out to which country he belonged. Who should he support in a game of cricket? Whom should he feel sorry for? Having suffered himself, Rasul’s father drilled this advice in the minds of his children- “Don’t be too involved in your life. Be unattached. Don’t keep your things scattered. Keep them close to yourself in a bundle so that when the time comes you can pick it up and leave.”

Listening to this advice, Rasul’s mother had said- “Can anyone ever live unattached? People require so many things when they start a family- pots and pans, goats and hens, a stove, even a radio. None of you need to listen to your father. He has lost his mind in grief.”

The children grew up by themselves amidst the contradictory beliefs of their father and mother. Their home was the Jhapantali village and the river belonged to the country where they lived. Besides, they didn’t think much about the river. But Sabina, who had come to this village from Natunbhanga after marriage was deeply attached to the river. She would mention the river almost with every word she spoke, such that people thought it was too much. Why did the wife of the house think so much about the river? Had she been touched by an evil spirit? Or had the river cast a dark spell on her? She couldn’t wrap her mind around how an entire river could be divided. It was soon evident that most people in the village were smarter than her. The ghats on the river demarcated boundaries as well. The Hindu women and Muslim women in the village had separate ghats. But to Sabina’s mind, the river flowed freely from one place to another. The Hindu jal became the Muslim pani at some other place.How did people prevent the loss of caste? And one could not stay in the village without a caste, perhaps the wise people in this village made arrangements for the casteless person to leave the world.

Sabina used to say that a village should never be named after a river. To her mind, it left the people of the village excitable and restless like young adolescent girls. Why just girls, the women were no less! She talked of a Hindu woman in some village who threw away the water from her pitcher as soon as she heard her nephew play the flute by the waters. She would leave her husband, mother-in-law and sister-in-law behind and go to the river to fetch water. Sabina didn’t know, however, if that village was named after the river. She felt that whenever a village had the name of its river, the women of the village heard the splashing waters of the river in their ears and they could not bring themselves to concentrate on anything else. They heard the music of the waters while they cooked, grinded the masalas, cut the vegetables, laid out the jars of pickles in the courtyard, ran out to the courtyard to save the half dried clothes from the oncoming rain, the music was persistent in their ears. Their mundane work was similar, their experience with the music of the waters was the same, then who separated their drinking water, their bathing water, the water they felt so deeply for?

Which is the older entity- the village or the river? Who was named first? No one knows. No one wants to know. People don’t remember their parents’ names, the river pales in significance. Hindus remember their ancestors for any of their ceremonies- be it a wedding or a funeral. People remember their father’s name, at most their grandfather’s, after which everything else is merely pictures. What if they have to utter the river’s name in the midst! Never mind. Just like people throw garbage at the river- soiled clothes, stale flowers used for worship, broken glass or shell bangles, ashes from the stove, embryos from the womb- people also leave their innermost thoughts, suspicions and hesitations at the banks of the river.

They also leave their happiness by its banks on the pretext of betel leaves and supari. Why did Sabina follow the women of the Bhattacharya household that day when they were going for the Ganga invitation? She was such a foolish woman! She wasn’t the only half-witted one though. Prasad’s wife, who was walking last, handed her plate to Sabina because it felt too heavy. Well, even if she gave Sabina the plate, why did Sabina have to take it? The long line for the Ganga invitation scattered in an instant. Everybody shivered in fear. “What will happen now? A Muslim’s touch has smeared our auspicious occasion. What do the scriptures ask us to do in such a case? Let us ask the priest and our elders at home. Naru listen, run home immediately. Come before your spit dries on the path.“

Prasad’s wife exclaimed, “Leave your scriptures. I woke up at the crack of dawn, organized everything, there’s a lot of work once we return, and the haldi ceremony to finish as well. Even though we don’t need to cook, we will have to serve the food, and then in the evening don’t we need to deck ourselves a little as well? Now if I need to return all the way and again come here with freshly decorated plates, I wouldn’t be able to tie my hair fashionably into a bun anymore.”

Everyone agreed with her words. After all, they too had to tie their hair into buns. And those who did not have enough hair had purchased an artificial bun from the city many days back. They remembered the efforts they had put in to get those false buns. And it wasn’t enough to just tie the bun, flower strands were required as well. Now where would one find jasmine flowers in this village. When they had told Sabina, she promised to get them some roses from her garden secretly. Prasad’s wife had seen Sabina’s long, lustrous hair, what a big bun that used to make! But even if she tied that bun, no one in the Bhattacharya family would invite her to the occasion, everyone knew that. Prasad’s wife felt sorry for the wasted opportunity of Sabina’s beautiful hair.

It is often said that good and evil spirits notice whatever people are up to. And that is what happened. Sabina disappeared suddenly while she was picking roses. No one knew where she went. Prasad’s wife waited a long time and then tied a string of artificial pearls on her bun. Sabina did not get Prasad’s wife roses in the yellow evening. Never after that day. The Jhapantali river, however, carried in its chest loads and loads of rose petals. It flowed with the petals in its own cadence, never asking where they had come from or where they were destined to go.

*** Chikmiki: Something shiny: A shining object

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