PUJA, POKER AND PATAKA- THE GANGTOK HUDDLE AND DIWALI DHAMAKA

Diwali is a festival  which holds a special place in the bouquet of my childhood memories. It was probably the only festival which our father helped us to organise  - though with three young brats  he did not have much role to play after a few years. No other festival would bring out the child in him as much as  the Festival of Lights . The few times he went to market other than the Sunday mutton purchases at Manzur Miyan's shop near the Dhanbad Police Lines or the occasional visits to Famous/Perfection Tailors at Bank More were to buy the Deewali crackers.  He ensured the diyas were soaked in water and the anaars or tubris, chatayees, dhania patakas, chocolate bombs, snakes, chakrees and rockets were dried in the sun . He  taught us how to roll the wicks and place them in the diyas , how much oil to pour and  the space  to keep between them. During the years we were very small, Papa would fire  the rockets from beer bottles. After starting the proceedings , he would leave for  the teen patti house of the evening in the colony.

Since we did not have a sister,  the gharonda , or the small house of clay  seen in most Bihari houses during Diwali in which Ganesha and Laxmi are worshipped, was not made in our home . It was just as good since  it cancelled out the longish puja and  girlish giggles which could delay the more important business of bursting crackers. An  excitement to compete with lighting  lamps and bursting crackers was the set of new clothes we got every Diwali. I vividly remember that the first pair of new trousers I wore was bought during Diwali - how I had waited for Papa to reach Dhanbad from Calcutta by Coalfield Express. It was also an occasion to indulge in unrestrained gluttony  which would set  off loud tremors, starting with burps but not ending at them, of varying intensity in and around the alimentary canal well into the following day. 

In the Coal Board Colony I grew up as well as in the CPWD Colony which abutted it, the Bengalis, ever different from us, celebrated the Kali Puja instead of Diwali,  like  the Holi which was Dol to them,  on a different day. A statue, smaller than the the resplendent Durga pantheon, was placed in the Community Hall of the CPWD colony. It did not have the gaiety of the Sharadotsav and I hardly visited it. Kali was a formidable goddess with malevolent bearing and trappings. I was afraid of her in much the way kids are scared  of such frightening women like nasty lady school teachers or their buaas ( father's sisters) whom,  more often than they , their mothers could in morbid fear  of.

So when I joined the police force and came to West Bengal, it was the Kali Puja , registered  on the margins of my childhood , which came to be the dominant  strand in the mosaic of Deewali celebrations.  Kali Puja was a huge challenge to police administration. It was a time when forcible collection of chanda  or subscription would make life hell for people- definitely for outsiders passing through and quite often  for locals as well. The thana level police was quite feeble in its response, as it was in most cases of infractions, and would jump to action only when an  important  person came to grief. In my days as an SDPO, the District Magistrate of Midnapore was held up on NH-6 at Panskura. 

The menace was  not just restricted to forcible collection of subscription.  Bengalis tend to consume liquor in frightful quantities during Kali Puja and  overcome the small disadvantage of a  musical heritage of sad and sedate  songs  by blasting Hindi and Punjabi songs to accompany long sessions of frenzied dancing. Unlike other occasions when they argue passionately but fight pathetically,  the fellows become quite rumbustious and aggressive during Kali Puja. Fisticuffs, the occasional knife slash and the Asterixesque  free -for -all are reported from  many  immersion processions and gambling dens.

You could all be wondering why the law enforcers don't do something to curb this nuisance. But why should they when everyone wants to be left alone? In a hugely non- compliant society where jay walkers and fiery orators  rule the roost on the roads, where university students  do not want the police to be seen on campus  because it comes in way of a polite tete a tete with a Vice Chancellor at midnight, the police might as well enjoy their own puja.  Besides, they are a tired lot after a week of continuous duty during the Durga Puja. So but for a select few pandals where people throng to , especially in Barasat, and some other places in and around Calcutta, the police celebrate their own Kali Puja.

There are over 400 police stations in West Bengal, all of them have a Kali Mandir in the thana premises, and all celebrate the Kali Puja. Ever short of governmental budgetary support , the thanas raise  funds during Kali Puja for the  few essential jobs like  touch of paint,  floor repair, a TV for the constables'  barracks and also a  bit of social work, too- CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility for the updated. Unfortunately, most ungrateful people would say that these are occasions for  the police to collect an  annual nazrana  from local traders and businessmen. I don't blame the cynics, it is part of a mindset  to  expect the world  from the police but care not a damn about their welfare. For all those critics , I relate a true story even though I care two hoots about them.

Okay, this is a story set in Jharkhand but it could very well have been of a  police station in Bengal. It is  a tale set in 1960s but it can be spot on in the present times as well. It was narrated to a huddle of officers by  a retired colleague, after much mirth and merriment, on the sides of the Indian Police Congress on a cold night at  Mayfair, Gangtok. Let us call him  'Senior Pro'  as a mark of respect for his age and wisdom,  for the love of my favourite game and as an  acknowledgment of the genius of PG Wodehouse -  though not necessarily in that order. The Senior Pro hailed from a long lineage of Kannauj Brahmins whose services  had been requisitioned a few centuries ago by a princely family in Odisha from where a branch had settled somewhere around Ranchi. His  father was  a pious man of great local repute who also ran a school. The tale he told was about the  time he had just returned from his district training in Uttar Pradesh after finishing his basic training at Mount Abu.

On his arrival in the  village , the Senior Pro heard that the local thanedar  or police station in charge had organised community  card gambling sessions  ( juaa) in the thana premises. This was like a slap in the eye, as the Senior Pro  quite adored the thanedar whom he called Baleshar Chacha. The thanedar also harboured an avuncular affection for Senior Pro whom he  called Bauaa. 

"What is this I have heard, Baleshar Chacha? You organised juaa   in the thana?" 

" Bauaa Sahib, please listen to me, " the thanedar started. 

The Senior Pro remained unmoved , not mollified by the  Sahib which had been suffixed to the affectionate Bauaa. The thanedar  went on to explain that on joining the police station he had made a detailed study of  crime. He had found that that in various parts of the hamlet where the thana was located,  a large number of teen patti  or card gambling addas sprang up during the week prior to Diwali. These addas would become theatres of public nuisance, robbery and stabbing. So he ordered  that all teen patti  addaas be shifted to the thana premises where cards would be played for a nominal fee of one rupee per  board to the thana.

"Bauaa Sahib, aap ko hum kya batayein, ek chakku nahin chala, koi maar peet nahin, koi ho halla nahin." 

" Even SP sahib was so pleased," he added.

" But I am told that that the thana made a lot of money from this," Baua Saheb prodded indignantly, these were early days in service and anything out of the rule book was not quite cricket.

" Bauaa Sahib, please believe me, I have not pocketed a single anna to profit me, " he continued.

" We earned about ek hazaar rupaiyya.  For Rs. 200/- I brought a few razais for the constables in the barracks who earlier used to shiver in the cold winters of Simdega. For about five hundred I repaired that khaprail roof of that barrack," he pointed towards a a large hut  with a red tiled roof.

"Aur agar gustakhi maaf ho then should I tell  to whom I gave the remaining three hundred, Bauaa sahib ?" saying this  he caught the hand of the young IPS officer.

" Boliye Baleshar Chacha," the Senior Pro relented, rather gingerly.

" That money I gave  to  your Babuji," 

The Gangtok Huddle spat out  a mouthful of stunned surprise . Out of respectful embarrassment,  its members  avoided eye contact with the bulging  eyes of Senior Pro. Each member gulped deeply  from the glass and sucked hard at the cigarette  to steady himself. 

Such doubts about his father's integrity had to be removed immediately. So the narration continued.

"Babuji ko paisa diye aap?" Bauaa Saheb ejaculated, his voice betraying incredulous agony, not anger. 

"School ka library ke liye, but please don't tell him that it was from the juaa money," he said with folded hands. 

Senior Pro triumphantly threw the thanedar's reply  at the Gangtok Huddle . The Huddle exchanged looks amongst itself, conceded that the thanedar had a point, and in unanimity shouted at the the SSP of Gangtok to play the Beedi Jalai Le. Such occasions of acuity and wisdom had to be celebrated. 

And it was done with great energy and  fervour. The Senior Pro capered with both the index fingers even as his muffler went flying and the Kashmiri topee almost flew off the perch. Some of the Huddle did a jig with hands on their  hips, a few gyrated like  cobras in heat, some copied the fellows gyrating like cobras in heat to debut as pole dancers .The rest wolf whistled.