Mr. Naveen Chandrakar was in a greatly joyful mood when his flight landed at the Delhi International Airport on time on a clear and pleasant day in early March. He was accompanied by his elder son Harsh on a three week visit to India. Mr. Chandrakar, 56, had been settled in the United States for the last 28 years and lived with his wife in a Boston suburb. Harsh was working for a prestigious Chicago journal after graduating from the North Western University. The younger son Abhinav was studying at the University of Minnesota. Mr Chandrakar’s widowed mother-in-law, was staying with them for about four months and for this reason Mr. Chandrakar was travelling only with his elder son for a few unavoidable social engagements.
Visits to India, usually made annually, cheered him as a rule but this time it was more special as Harsh was accompanying him after nine years. He knew well that children born in America, once grown up, fast loose interest in visits of social nature to the land of their ancestors. It would not be wrong to say that Mr Chandrakar had to do a fair bit of cajoling to make Harsh agree to this visit.
After spending four days with his brother’s family at Gurgaon, followed by a three day stay at Lucknow to attend the wedding of a niece, they had spent the last four days with his younger brother’s family in Nagpur. Both of Mr. Chandrakar’s parents had passed away in the preceding decade. He had his early schooling in a small Chhattisgarh town of Rajnandgaon and subsequently studied at the Morris College in Nagpur doing a Masters in Botany. For a brief spell of two years he was a lecturer at the prestigious Hislop college in the same city before taking a job in the Horticulture department of Government of Madhya Pradesh for about a year. He did another Masters along with some short research projects in Microbiology from the BHU before moving to the United States. He had moved around in America for a while before settling down in Boston.
The father and son were now driving in a hired Innova car from Nagpur to Pachmarhi, a picturesque hill resort in the Satpura ranges in Madhya Pradesh. With his wife and sons in the past Mr Chandrakar had occasions to visit Shimla and Nainital but not Pachmarhi. He had some old lingering memories of the area and therefore had made it a point to budget some time to visit the place this time.
They had just crossed Chhindwara and the car was now ascending the hills. The father-son duo were lost in their own thoughts admiring the dense forest that they were crossing.
Mr Chandrakar was the one who broke the silence.
“Harsh, you would be knowing that I had spent about eleven months in a government job in MP.”
“Yes Dad, I do. Wasn’t it after your lecturing stint in Nagpur” Harsh said.
“Correct. Two years of lectureship in Nagpur after my first Masters following the intermediate from Rajnandgaon. So many of our generation in India have had similar trajectories – from a small town to a bigger one and then quite probably moving abroad,” said Mr Chandrakar.
“For a brief period of about six weeks I was posted – well not exactly posted – but had to stand in for another man who had got his leave extended due to medical exigencies, at a farm about ten miles below Pachmarhi. Pagara was the name of the village – a very poor tribal hamlet.” Mr Chandrakar’s eyes carried a gleam which often appears when somebody shares a much-valued personal experience from the distant past. “The farm was spread over an area of 80 hectares and famous for a rich variety of mangoes – Bombay Green, Dashari, Langda and some uncommon fruits like mulberry, locally called Shahtoot. There were leopards in the region and the bears were common visitors to our farm. Apparently, they were rather fastidious in their choice and preferred Dashari variety over others.” Harsh gave a chuckle.
They had climbed up the small town of Tamia, at an end of a ridge, where the driver suggested that they halt for tea. The father and son also had tea and then tried a little of Bhaji-Bada which the driver told this particular eatery was famous for.
As they descended from Tamia towards Matkuli, Mr Chandrakar continued with his reminiscences. “I might have told you this before, perhaps long back, but not with such details. It has been a signal experience in my life, one I don’t talk about generally. And it happened while I was at Pagara. One afternoon when I was sitting in my log-cabin office at the Pagara farm, a few of our men rushed inside and told that one of our farm–hands, a young tribal boy, barely 20, had been attacked ferociously by a bear – his face had been ripped apart and badly bruised, and was in a very precarious condition. I rushed out and saw the boy lying unconscious and bleeding profusely and one found it hard to look at what had become of his face. I realised that there was no time to be lost if any attempt to save the boy was to be made. The boy, whose name was Dhanna, was married and had a two year old baby. On quick enquiry it was found that his father had gone deep inside the jungle to work and there were hardly any men in the village during daytime.
There was an old Jeep at the farm in a tolerably drivable condition. I had never driven it. In any case I had just learnt driving and was certainly not confident of driving through the curves and slopes of the hills. But seeing no other alternative I asked our men to place Dhanna on the backseat while I took the steering. One man had placed Dhanna’s head on his lap and covered it with a towel. The second man sat on the other end holding Dhanna’s legs. Our best chance was to hope that he survived till we reached the small hospital at Pipariya some ninety minutes away.
He did. But the doctor or whosoever was proxying for him there, after having a quick look at the injured man, told us in no uncertain terms that the case was beyond the handling capacity of their small hospital and should be taken to Hoshangabad, the district headquarters, another two hours away.
In a state of great dejection but with a stock of strength I never thought I had within me we continued to drive towards Hoshangabad. The towel had become red in blood. Every five minutes or so I kept asking the men whether Dhanna was still breathing. Sometimes they took quite a few moments to answer and to me it seemed that all had ended. We knew he would not last till Hoshangabad and I soon stopped asking anything but just kept on driving. The men also did not speak anything. I thought Dhanna was already dead but I experienced that any feeling of agitation in my mind had completely disappeared and a feeling of immense calmness had descended upon me. My mind had become strangely abstracted when we finally reached Hoshangabad.
I stopped the Jeep just outside the hospital gate to make one final enquiry. Trying to sound nonchalant, I asked, ‘Is he still brerathing?’ To my utter surprise they meekly replied in the affirmative. With a sudden rush of hope and energy I drove the Jeep to the porch of the hospital and hurried to get a stretcher and doctor on duty. To our good fortune the doctors and attendants came out quickly and presently Dhanna was taken on a stretcher to the emergency room.
The doctor remarked that there was a substantial loss of blood and the chances of his survival were very slim. But I thought I had already done my best. It was already seven in the evening and the doctor had taken charge and there was not much that we could now do. I left the two men outside the ward and drove to the Sethani Ghat, the town’s main ghat on the Narmada. Lamps, lights and incense sticks were floating on the Narmada waters and there were sounds of temple bells and devotional hymns. I kept looking at the Narmada. I do not think I uttered any prayers. But then often some of our deepest prayers are unspoken or perhaps not even assume any form of thought.
After about fifteen minutes at the Ghat I returned to the hospital. The doctor had arranged for blood infusion – thankfully these arrangements were there at the place. I had communicated to the main Farm office of Pachmarhi – there was no phone at the Pagara farm – to have Dhanna’s family sent to the hospital in the morning.
It was already quite late. Two of my companions after a light meal had retired to a general hall where several attendants and family members of the hospital patients were lying down. I spent a few hours in the Jeep and the remaining part of the night reclining myself against the wall in the general hall.
By noon Dhanna’s family – his father, who was about 45 but looked much older, his mother and wife, all had come. No sooner had I had even started to speak than the three of them began to cry. The father kept bowing down to me saying, “ Sahab, bacche ko bacha leejiye.” It was very difficult to explain to them that I was not the doctor and had no say in the hospital affairs. Dhanna’s wife was carrying the two year old baby supported by her left arm and waist. The baby was without a single thread of any garment. She placed her head on my toes and began to cry inconsolably. I did not know how to handle the situation. After all, I was only twenty-five and single. I made them sit and asked one of our farm men to get them some food. The doctor told me that the case was very difficult and even if Dhanna survived it would take many days till he could be pronounced as being out of danger.
Since I did not have much to do now, I thought of paying a visit to the District Collector office and just inform him of this case; a word from a high official to the hospital would not hurt. You see I was trying to do whatever I could under the circumstances. The Collector was a kind officer – a young man in his thirties, who was appreciative of the efforts I had taken. When I told him that I would want to stay at least for a day or two more to see that Dhanna’s family was not left without any support, he promptly instructed that a room be allotted to me at a forest rest house outside the town. As I had not brought anything with me I went to buy a pair of clothing and a few other essential items. I had also given some money to one of our farm men to take care of fooding and other needs of Dhanna’s family.
On the afternoon of the third day, I drove back to Pagara as I could not leave the farm unsupervised for long. Through our Pachmarhi office I managed to maintain some contact with the hospital. I remember travelling two or three times more over the next one week and on the eleventh day the doctor told that Dhanna was in a condition to receive visitors and have a little conversation.
I remember when I entered, after his family was already inside for some time, his father remarked – ‘Dhanna, ye Sahab ne tujhko bacha liya.’ I murmured something like ‘Bhagvaan ne bachaya hai.’ I could not make much conversation and came out. I went straight to the Sethani Ghat and this time tears rolled down my cheeks. Images of the drive from Pagara to Pipariya and then against all odds to Hoshangabad, the wailing of his wife and mother – everything was flashing before my eyes. I got an incense stick and offered it to Narmada like all others at the Ghat were doing.
On the eighteenth day Dhanna was discharged from the hospital. He had several bandages and was advised to visit the Pipariya hospital for regular dressings over the next fortnight. I drove Dhanna and his family back to Pagara.
The next day when I was sitting in my log-cabin, Dhanna’s father suddenly appeared before me. For a few moments he did not say anything. He was holding what looked like a stick made of bamboo in his hand which he presently offered to me – it had on one end a finely carved face of a bird with a protruding beak. He said, “ Sahab, is Chhadi ko main aapke liye apne haatho se bana ke laaya hoon. Main gareeb aadmi aapko aur kya de sakta hu”. He began to weep profusely and I too fought my tears. I held him in a long embrace with his face against my chest. I could feel his tear drops on my shirt. After he had left I came to my living quarters and this time I did not force myself to hold back. I broke into tears.
There was a silence and Mr Chandrakar’s eyes had welled up. Harsh held his father’s hand for a moment. The vehicle was now nearing Matkuli. In another half an hour they would reach Pagara.
“That stick I presented to Babuji, who I believe used it for his walks quite regularly. I wonder where it would be now. I kept sending a Dhoti for Dhanna’s old father and some dresses for his little boy for the next three years I was in India. From the barely sufficient stipend I received for some projects I did at the BHU, I tried to send them something once or twice a year, through our Pagara office. I had thought of sponsoring the education of Dhanna’s boy till higher education – I had many such grand plans of having him admitted in some boarding school etc, but after coming to America I just could not follow upon them. I procrastinated the idea thinking that Dhanna’s boy would still be too small to be sent to a boarding school and that I would explore some arrangements after a few years. Whenever I thought of initiating something, my thoughts got stultified by real or imagined logistical snags. But of course, at the end of the day these are merely excuses. Had I really got the will nothing could have prevented me from pursuing this. But with being entangled in the chase of the ‘American Dream’ and raising a family of my own, all this slowly withered away. My visits to India too became infrequent, particularly after Maa and Babuji passed away.”
“So are you visiting this area for the first time after that?” Harsh asked.
“Yes,” replied Mr Chandrakar. “And let us see if we can find Dhanna and his family. I don’t suppose his father who had gifted the stick to me would be around anymore.”
Their vehicle had arrived at the Pagara farm and Mr Chandrakar asked for the farm superintendent. After they had introduced themselves they were given a round of the farm. The mango trees were still like the earlier times. Mr Chandrakar trying to sound insouciant, asked those present whether they knew of Dhanna. One of the workers suggested that they visit the hamlet to enquire.
In a decidedly stirred state, Mr Chandrakar and Harsh walked towards the hamlet. A man guided them towards the hut saying “ Dhanna, wo to paanch-saat saal pehle mar gaya. Bahut daaru peeta tha Sahab.” When asked about Dhanna’s eldest boy, they said, he must have gone to the forest and they would bring him in sometime.
The guests were offered a few chairs collected from a few different households. They were given glasses half filled with black tea. After about half an hour a thin man with salt and pepper hair, half of whose teeth were missing and the other half distinctly brownish, came and bowed down before Mr Chandrakar. “Ye Dhanna ka bada ladka hai”. Mr Chandrakar got a strong feeling of sinking in desolation, almost choking with shame. Was this the baby perched on his mother’s waist to whom he had gifted dresses, and once nurtured some dreams? Was this the cost of his neglect – a little effort from his side could have made the picture so different? The man before him would be thirty-five or so but was almost looking Mr Chandrakar’s age.
A village elder said, “Babua, ye Sahab ne hi tere baap ki jaan bachayi thi, tu tab bahut chhota tha, tujhe yaad nahi hoga”. Babua bowed down again and touched Mr Chandrakar’s feet and also did the same to Harsh who quickly receded a few steps in visibly discomfiture.
An awkward silence followed. Neither of the two parties knew what to say. Soon there were some indistinct murmurs from inside the hut and some sort of consultation between Babua and the village elders. As Mr Chandrakar was about to rise and leave, Babua gently said, “ Mataji bhi darshan karna chahti hain.” During this while Mr Chandrakar had totally forgotten about Dhanna’s wife – Babua’s mother. Babua hurried inside the house and brought a half-clad emaciated old woman. She was trudging forward gingerly with small steps supported by Babua on one side and a stick in her other hand.
Mr Chandrakar had a quick look at the stick she was carrying. It had on its one end a finely carved design of a bird face with a protruding beak.