I could not open my eyes
though I heard someone groaned in intense pain. My eyelids seemed so heavy that
I thought of pulling them up with my fingers. But I couldn’t lift my hands. My
hands were perhaps tied to the cot to prevent me from opening my wounds. I
would have to wait till someone helps me open my eyes, lift my hands. I later
realized that it was me, who was groaning, when I heard Amal and Sarsati
talking in hushed tones somewhere nearby. I wanted to know, what happened to
Chilka, Comrade Raju, Badal…I could not even remember all the names now. We had
been surrounded near Phulbani. We fought tooth and nail to create an opening
towards the jungle. That was our only chance. For last so many years we
operated from the jungle. No forest official, not even a single contractor
dared to enter the jungle dared to touch even a blade of grass; the trees
sprawled, bees and birds returned, returned the clouds and rains. But, it’s all
over now.
This was our fate. Our
ancestors cleared thorny bushes, stones, termites, snakes from the soil,
irrigated it with their sweat and blood and then hands and feet in chains we
were asked to leave the kingdom of the civilized people. Their civilization has
no place for the savages, who worship mountains, trees, rain and thunder
instead of beautiful and powerful men and women, killers of thousands of men,women,children, animal, birds,
whatever came their way. They wiped out races to reign on this earth.
Thousands of years we thrived
in the jungles, walked barefoot wearing a loin cloth, eating fruits and leaves.
Civilization brought roads and railways, buildings and bridges. Shal, segun and
Mahua trees turned into logs, mountains blasted into stone chips, lime stones
Kendu leaves rolled into ‘Biri’ (hand made cigarettes).We were told that we
plundered the forest, destroyed the ecology. The jungle needed protection of
law and they needed license to cut the trees. The jungle vanished into thin air
alongwith the monkeys, squirrels and birds leaving the sky open to young
saplings and thorny bushes.
I heard a familiar tune. It is
coming from a faraway place; a lonely man playing ‘Kendra’ and singing a song
in his drooling voice:
‘Daare vindaad ena,
Daak Atu ena,
Dhaarti ladab ena..’
(Tree fell down
Branches broken,
The earth shook to its core…)
I recognized the voice. It was
Hadam; he used to tell us the story of a world, where the tree, river,
mountain, animal were in communion with man.
‘Deota’ made the massive ‘Hensak’ tree his abode, where spirits and
animals also paid their obeisance at night; whoever goes there with pure mind
and heart is blessed with a dried leave; cured of all his woes. Goddess ‘Boram’ manifested herself under a
‘Jojo’ tree and protected the village from epidemics, famine and from the rats
inundating the paddy field.
I often hear that just before
my birth my grandfather, Hadam, had a vision of his father Matu, the great
leader, who led the exodus from the hills and jungles to curve out a place in
the civilized world. He died a cruel death; his dream remained unfulfilled. His
son, Hadam, became a victim of the same dream and lost his way in the labyrinth
of life. His grandson, Hari, took up the baton but he also lost the race
because the hurdles were enormous. Now, it is me, the great grandson of Matu,
who took the vow to shake the world out from the slumber, force it to recognize
our existence and leave the space for us to spread our roots deep inside the
earth, branch out to fetch the sunshine and touch the sky.
I often wonder, what would
have happened if Matu had not left the forest and fought the battle there and
won. He would have become a Majhi; Hadam, a singer; Joba, my mother, could have
been living happily with her first love, Rajo; and me, son of a rickshaw puller,
might have been wooing a girl in a village fair and asked her hand in marriage.
I carry my rifle in my hand
and ancestors in my rucksack alongwith the bread and bullets. They sustain me
during the arduous journey; motivate me during the dark hours of life to fight
for my right. I am Matu, Hadam and Hari besides being myself. This is the time
to recapitulate the sequence of events and find out what has gone wrong. In
this semi-conscious state I have the time and opportunity to recreate the
history from the glimpses I had………
