Spring and Fall

Many years ago, when the  Durgapur Expressway had not been laid out, the  Grand Trunk Road, also Dilli Road,  was the main arterial route  as one travelled from Bardhaman to Calcutta via  Shaktigarh (of the over rated lyangcha fame), Memari, Devipur, Bainchi, Mogra, etc.The journeys were punctuated by a few bovine and canine hurdles,   one  brief,  throw -a -coin roadside mandir stopover around Devipur, and a few  level crossings  where,  depending on the season, you could buy cucumber or roasted maize from young boys and girls.

But my favourite stretch  was the one which bisected   miles of banana orchards in Hooghly district.

The banana tree is actually not quite  a spectacular one but when thousands grow side by side , the look is so refreshing. After rains, the  leaves shine and sway with gay abandon, like women in their  saawan  best. Hundreds of maroon  coloured inflorescences or mochas and fruit bunches or kolar kandi convey a sense of heightened  fecundity which is emblematic of the land and its people.  The GT Road evoked a strong sense of history, our children had still not come to the world, the Willys jeep looked more spacious,we travelled canvasses rolled up,  the air redolent with the smell of soil, of paddy and mustard, of rain on parched land, and even of firewood  and cow dung smoke wafting across  in diaphanous  sheets from  the village hearths. 

But recently when I turned into this road, taking a right turn before Dankuni, I was in for a major disappointment. Beginning from the turn itself, on either side of the road, cocking a snook at all rules and regulations, stood, in severe disorderliness, ugly looking garages with their vehicles and mechanics in different stages of undress.A large number of  tea- paan- bidi-gutka   and bicycle repair shops, roadside eateries - all  liberally  serviced with child labour- had sprouted up. Further down, a few factories had come up with their high boundary walls, trussed and tinned sheds.  Clearly, these had eaten up a substantial portion of the banana orchards.  

The water in the odd pukhur and  the water hyacinth covered  noyonjalis ( road side canals)  looked  a dirty black, and  at 15 meters above the surface,  on leafless branches, the semul or the silk cotton flowers, even in their bloom,  appeared to be dull red, brushed with dust.  As we travelled down   further, a huge stretch was being flattened on the sides  as the backhoes of huge, bright yellow coloured JCB loaders, under the careful vigilance of fluorescent red and silver jacketed workers, went  about their work with quiet but efficient insensitivity, uprooting trees and filling up the noyonjalis- snuffing out life  and removing the shades. So it was with a sense of foreboding that I soldiered on for a job that is one of the most unpleasant.

I turned left into Sahaganj, motored down a decrepit  bazaar, and was struck by a general air of melancholy as I entered into a colony.This was the Dunlop factory premise,  where once were manufactured aircraft tyres- now closed for over a decade. The whole atmosphere was  one of dispute. Disputed severance packets, disputed  claims, infact a disputed destiny.  It was in this setting that I alighted and walked in to meet the widow of a constable who had died a week ago in an IED blast triggered by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh.  

It was good that I did not meet her at  first. I am still at loss for words to face the widows in such situations even though I have been meeting  them for quite some time now, the latest being when a colleague had  died, across that lazy  River Morora, next to a knoll near the dreaded Chakarbandha area , in Gaya district, to an IED blast. As the twenty  odd people came forward, I could easily make out the immediate family by the tonsured heads of an old man of nearly seventy and a young lad of six to seven years - the father and son. The boy had a sister, about three years older.  The girl appeared to be exceptionally bright, and even  cheerful. The  enormity of death of their father  had probably not dawned upon them and when thrust forward towards me, they animatedly answered  my polite questions on school and friends and pranks and games.  I gained time to prepare myself  to meet the one person who understood it so well .

I stepped aside to enter the  house, part of a row of ten such houses, each of two  small rooms with no sunshine, an aangan, a kitchen and a toilet. Young, almost thirty,  now a bit composed  in her grief after a week of wailing, head covered with a dupatta which hid her vermillion- less hair, hands on the the heads of her two children, wistfully gazing at the photographs of her late husband which were peering down at us in the  proudest khakis, she spoke not a word about what she had lost. Her father- in - law  talked. I listened, I consoled, I comforted. I assured. I gave my telephone number. I came out. 

More words of  comfort, a few cheques to the parents and the widow. More assurances. A final running of my hands over the children's heads, a holding of hands with the  father, a few instructions to my service colleagues,  commiserating with the local ward commissioner and other close relatives , and I was off, musing over the request of my Deputy Commandant about not disclosing to the outside world the compensation amount. How correct he was about his apprehension.

The widow was already vulnerable on account of the money she was to receive which could be close to half a crore. Young and now unattached , she could possibly  attract a lot of 'well-wishers'  with "helping hands' and 'caring eyes'. Helpless parents of the martyr would resist attempt by his widow to remarry  outside lest the pension/compensation go away from them. Who would look after them? "The government compensates the widow disproportionately, not the old parents " a complaint  I had heard on numerous occasions earlier. 

There could even be attempts  to marry her off , probably against her will, to her late husband's younger brotherso as to keep the money in the family.  After all the unwedded  sister had to be married off.  The widow was no more the daughter in - law or the sister-in-law. She was a bank account. Or probably I was being unduly pessimistic.

When exactIy did I  hit the Durgapur Expressway on my return I cannot  register as all these dark clouds of  misgivings swirled uncomfortably. And I thought about Sonu, the little, fatherless , sprightly girl who  had even recited a small poem at my playful bidding.