Assamse Short Story: "Co-Exixtance "

Assamese Short Story

CO-EXISTANCE

Sibananda Kakoti

Translated by Bibhas Choudhury

Basanta almost ran down the stairs. Moving towards the telephone in the casualty room in the storey below, he covered two-three steps at a time as he descended the flight of stairs. Basanta’s mind was now filled with a great sense of relief, peace and satisfaction. He felt immense joy today, as the long eleven years of sterility were brought to an end by Roma’s labour. It was as if he had been having this feeling constantly in all its intensity. Since the child was not actually due today, there was no one beside Roma this evening except Basanta. The pain started suddenly in the afternoon. This pain, which was the outcome of constant exertion and hope, was awaited all these years by Roma and Basanta together. That was why, taking long leave, Basanta had brought Roma to her mother’s home in Guwahati at a safe period, for her situation was delicate and needed care. Roma’s maternal home was close to the Gauhati Medical College Hospital.

The pain, which started in the afternoon, did not cease, and by evening she was taken into the labour room. Basanta was all alone and felt nervous. Roma within and Basanta without. These moments, which were so long hoped for, were anxious moments indeed. But Basanta did not have to wait for long. A nurse opened the door slightly, and looking at everybody, announced, “Roma Dutta, Basanta Dutta.” Basanta rushed to the door, but had hardly reached it when the nurse, saying, “It’s a son” with complete indifference and abruptly closed the door. The nurse did utter Basanta and Roma’s name properly. That meant it was about him and Roma. A glow spread over Basanta’s countenance, and he closed his palms unknowingly. Unclear, yet audible, he uttered in a broken voice – “It’s a son”– and moving forward to the door, asked, “Roma’s all right, isn’t she?” Of course, there was no reply from within. It was only then that he became a little conscious and tried to be normal. Roma was surely doing well, and besides, there was a lot of time for her to be released from the labour room. So the news had to be conveyed to his mother-in-law immediately. He came down to the phone in the casualty, two-three steps at a time.

A joyous and emotional Basanta soon reached the ground floor. A long corridor. He started walking fast. As he got closer, a gradually increasing hum could be heard. Humming of this kind was quite normal in hospital premises. Moreover, in the evening, as the number of visitors grew, the humming naturally increased. But today, when Basanta reached the casualty ward, instead of the regular hum, he discerned an uproar, a clear hue and cry. What was this tumult? The casualty, and the open field outside was filled with people. Why was there such a crowd? Basanta, however, did not need much time to understand the situation. Some moments ago, there had been a bomb blast in the market nearby. The blast was so devastating that even now the number of the dead could not be ascertained, and already about two hundred injured persons had been brought to the hospital. How many people had died? A hundred, two hundred, fifty, ten? The sound was so intense, everything was scattered so far and wide. Could only ten persons be dead? Whether it was ten or two hundred, surely people had died– some were already gone, and many others half-dead. As the news spread, the crowd was growing larger. Everybody was trying to see the faces of the wounded, maybe there was someone of their own among them.

Suddenly, Basanta had some news. One personal, and the other involved the society in which he lived. The news of personal release from the long bondage of sterility received just now, and the news of some extremists playing with the lives of ordinary people, killing and injuring them, just for the sake of some political objective. The culmination of personal sterility and the advent of a social one – Basanta felt as if both of these were his own news. Even then, it seemed that the news of the birth, as against that of the deaths, was a piece of more meaningful social news. Hence, he ploughed his way through the crowd to the phone.

Just when he was about to reach the phone, there was chaos all around again. Two trucks arrived at the hospital gate. No one failed to guess the contents of the trucks. It was as if all the people were trying to jump onto the trucks at once. The crowd surged forward in such a manner that Basanta was forced to move back.

The people surrounded the trucks and started looking inside. Eh! eh!, only eh! No other word escaped their lips. Just one word— eh! and the totally pale and speechless faces expressed all the feelings of guilt, disgust, affliction, consciousness and utter helplessness of the people. Looking at the shaken people who came down from the trucks, Basanta could only now detach himself from his personal elation and happiness. By this time, propelled by the crowd, he reached the gate. All this while, although he was associated with the pain around him, his feeling of intense happiness and joy remained his own. But the arrival of the corpse-laden trucks just now made him too a part of the present atmosphere. It was said that many dead bodies were scattered all around the market even now. Basanta had not seen any dead body properly before. His father died when he was in college— it was a natural death, and besides, he was quite old. Apart from the indispensable ceremony, there was nothing to be sorrowful about. But these people who were suddenly transformed into corpses! Basanta automatically went towards the truck. Peering into the truck, he closed his eyes immediately as he saw the dumped bodies inside. He could not even utter an ‘eh!’ in response. Were these people? If so, were people really like this? Where have these people come from? Holding the wooden plank by the truck with both hands, he started looking from outside to the others in silence. The bodies lay one on top of the other in total disorder, and the floor of the truck was all red with blood. Just adjacent to him, pressed against the plank lay a beautiful girl who appeared to be about ten-twelve years old. She was lying calmly and had an attractive hair cut. It was as if she was just asleep. How did she die then? The lower half of her body was not in this truck. Perhaps it was in the other truck, or maybe it lay beside some grocer’s shed in the market, or it may even be by some butcher’s block. Even though he wanted to come away, Basanta stopped a while. The girl was so close to him that he could have touched her cheeks, but he did not do so, even though he had a desire to do so. He observed the scene once again. Who are these playthings? For whom are these deaths? Where have these people come from? Whose father or mother, whose children, whose husband or the sole earning member of some family? Where are the people who ought to shed tears for these corpses? When will they arrive? How will they know that the man who had come to the market is now sleeping in this truck? How or when will they know? Basanta placed his hand on his shirt-pocket. It was there. He knew that his identity card was there without putting his hand inside the pocket. These were troubled times. Since Basanta moved around all alone in Guwahati, Roma had been telling him to make an identity card. Finally, he had made the card a couple of months ago. Nowadays, he kept the card with him all the time. At least, if he died, the news would reach home soon. Whether the thought just occurred to him or was occasioned by grief, he did not exactly know. He got down from the truck. Gradually, the crowd grew, and he came back to Roma without making the call. Roma had still not come out from the labour room.

(To be continued)

Sibananda Kakoti









When one day he came back, leaving Roma and the three month old infant at home, only then did the lonely Basanta realise that life was becoming increasingly difficult and terrible. He was not alien to a solitary life; but the loneliness was different this time. During these three months with Roma together, not a single day passed when the thought of death did not occur to him in some way. The more he tried to spend the days with his wife and newborn child in natural joy and happiness, the more vividly the heap of bodies after the blast appeared in his mind’s eye; and the mutilated, injured people too. It was as if that picture and his son were attached to each other, and were complementary in nature. He could not isolate one from the other in his mind. Basanta’s son was just like a witness to the whole situation, the entire incident— which he has not been able to or, in fact, cannot forget.

Now that he was all alone, his mental world was peopled only by Roma, his son, and those injured and dead in the bomb blast. The news of murders and deaths had so enveloped the entire environment that it appeared as if everyone was just awaiting further murders and deaths. Deaths and murders had become so commonplace that it could happen in any manner, at any time. It was as if this completely immutable situation was gradually overwhelming him.

Inhibited by the terrible fear of death, Basanta felt that he, too, could die at any moment now. Or the news of somebody else’s death could come to him. Basanta very fearfully moved ahead through this unnatural process of the pathetic condition which was becoming natural to him day by day. In order to be certain about the identity card, he put his hand in his pocket regularly. Any summon like “Sir, there’s a call for you”, made him hasten to the phone. Even when there was a courtesy call, he first suspected that it could be bad news.

Death, in this situation, was no longer bad news. Now, when every news was terrible, death was just ordinary news. In this uneasy yet now natural situation, Basanta was trying very hard to run away from death as much as he could. All the people that he met, worked together with, lived with, walked alongside on the streets, saw shopping in the markets – it was as if a bullet each had been released for everyone. It was as if all the people were trying as much as they could to run away from, and avoid being hit by the bullets in their breasts. He shivered in apprehension whenever he saw unaccounted bags in empty seats of buses or in the grocery markets. It was as if the scattered splinters after the blast from the bag near the tomatoes would come and penetrate his belly. He also feared that a bullet from the swiftly passing motorcycle would go right through the middle of his forehead. The bus in which he was travelling would now fall to pieces, that was how he felt. Basanta, who went home to Tezpur on Saturdays and holidays, during the time of fun and frolic there and on his return to Guwahati, thought quietly— “I will really be seeing them next Saturday, won’t I ?” or “Would they, my mother, my wife and my son, who’s slowly learning to crawl, really see me again?” – and thinking about this, he trembled in trepidation. A troubled and fearful Basanta nowadays even took God’s name.

Basanta waited for the man, even though the office hours were over, in the office itself. A man had come to meet him during his absence at noon. He was told that the man had come quite a few times during the day. The man’s description did not tally with those people who usually came looking for him. Then, who could he be? What kind of news could he have? The man left no message. He kept on waiting for the man by the office phone.

A disturbed and worried Basanta arrived home quite late that evening. He expected the man at home, but he was not there. There was no sign of the man ever being there. In the evening, Basanta was usually very lonely in his large house. Today’s tension made him more fatigued than usual. He was now all alone in this large house, the fast life of the city unable to reach him. Never before had he felt so lonely. Even though he did go to make a cup of tea, he did not light the gas burner. He threw himself on the large double bed in the bedroom without changing his office clothes. After some time, getting up from the bed, he put on the TV, only to turn it off immediately afterwards. An agriculture-related programme. Going out to the balcony outside, he held on to the railing and just waited a while. But he came in soon, his mind restless. This time he went to the cloth-stand, and changing his clothes, put on the half-pant that he usually wore at home. With an inexplicable restlessness, once again he fell on the bed, his body bare except for the half-pant. He did not even want to hold a pillow. What was happening to him? Such an uneasy feeling, such restlessness! He then got up from his sleeping position and just sat down on the bed. Now he came to the study table. Unknown even to Roma, Basanta kept a book in the interior of the lowest drawer of the large table. Taking the book, he lay in the bed again, and started turning the pages of this Scandinavian production. Although every picture in the pages of the book was familiar to him, he felt a natural excitement and thrill every time he went through it. But today he just turned the pictured pages, there was no excitement, no feeling.

Basanta’s fear increased all the more. Closing the book immediately, he got up from the bed and sat down once again. He just could not make life so horrible and lifeless. Discarding the half-pant in the bedroom itself, he slowly went to the bathroom. He started observing himself from his chest upwards in the bathroom light. He stood looking at his own image for some time in the same manner. It was as if he could see his completely bare body in this daily scene – but in another way. Opening the shower to the maximum, he placed himself under it. The shower water which came down in great force upon his body, brought a sense of great peace and pleasure to Basanta, but his fears returned immediately. He felt that the water would press him to death. He came out of the water shaking his head. Wrapping the towel around his body, he came to the balcony and waited for some moments. Holding the railing, he just looked outside. The busy city with its vehicles, the barely. audible sounds of the city, and that the dark skies with the twinkling stars - he spent quite some time in this atmosphere just as he was. Quietly, he decided that he would take long leave and go home.

Just when he was about to take the pen after putting the card in his pocket, the calling bell began to ring. His heart skipped a beat— no one is supposed to come at this moment! He was relieved only on opening the door. It was Aranya, the eldest daughter of his neighbour, Uday Barua. Barua, a high-ranking income-tax officer, lived alone in Dibrugarh, just like Basanta. Mrs. Barua, a lecturer in a local college, lived here with the three grown-up children. Aranya was an engineering student, and the boy had now joined a big firm after completing his computer science course, while the other girl was doing her MA in English at the University. Although Dibrugarh was quite far off, Barua usually came home on Saturdays. They were indeed a happy family in the beautiful bunglow just in front of his house.

“Uncle, am I disturbing you?”

“No, not at all. come.”

“You know, mother’s brought some good cassettes today.” Aranya went on without any preface – “One is Spielberg’s, another based on a novel by Milan Kundera, and the third is Govind Nihalani’s. Mother has invited you to join us in the evening.”

Basanta sometimes used to get invitations like this from Barua’s family. Everybody in Barua’s family knew that he was interested in good cinema.

Arriving from the office a little early, Basanta went to Barua’s house in the evening. Signs of upper middle class taste and maintenance were discernible in the large and attractive drawing room. Everyone was ready. As soon as Basanta came, a new film by Spielberg began— a horror fantasy.

Gradually, the film’s excitement pervaded the entire drawing room. Aranya, with a pillow on her lap, was seated alongside her sister on the divan. Mrs. Barua was on the other side. Basanta and the boy were seated on the sofa in front. All of them were thoroughly enjoying Spielberg’s wonderfully imagined story. Suddenly, the calling bell rang. Glances were exchanged among one another. Eventually, though evidently irritated, Aranya went to the door. There was a police Sub-Inspector outside.

“This is Uday Barua’s house, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“He works in Dibrugarh? In the Tax Department?”

“Yes.” Aranya replied quite loudly.

Mrs Barua came to the door. “What’s the matter?” The police officer held Barua’s card in his hand. “There has been a huge bomb blast in the Guwahati-bound Assam State Transport Corporation bus today. Barua has died in the blast, instantly.”

The sudden and swift transformation of the whole situation took place before Basanta’s eyes. With heart-rending shrieks, all the people ran to the police van in the street. The cassette player was still going on. Spielberg’s fictitious horror now enveloped the whole house in reality. The ascending excitement and joy suddenly collapsed, fell flat and dissolved.

Basanta stopped the film. Watching the tearful members of the family, he began to wonder whether the moments of happiness enjoyed a little earlier would ever come back. Would they ever be able to sit together with such abandon without feeling Barua’s absence? Ah! How stifling, cruel and ruthless is time. The I-card was so unfortunate. It was as if the card was responsible for the entire situation— so quickly did it reveal the dead Barua’s identity. Otherwise— the four, three, two or even half an hour time which could have been enjoyed by the family was only reduced by the card. It did not even allow the film to come to an end. An evening of certain and calm enjoyment was suddenly cut short and everybody was hurled into the depths of eternal darkness.

The entire incident troubled Basanta as he returned from the cremation ground. Everything, from Aranya’s invitation in the morning till the end — the whole situation kept on coming to his mind. Nowadays, when time was becoming so intolerable and hard to get, a few moments of enjoyment were indeed a lot of time ; this was the time of great luck and fortune.

Having prepared himself for the office with the briefcase, pen, purse, etc. Basanta took the card from its place on the table. Just as he was about to put it into his pocket, something stopped him. With one hand on the latch of the door, he threw the card on the table with his free one. The small card bounced around and finally, in a half-open, half-shut manner, stood against a book on the table.

Closing the door, he went out to his office.

• Concluded

Sibananda Kakoti