THE TRIBUTE
- DASH BENHUR
1. As I reached my desk in the office, my eyes stopped over a letter. It contained
that familiar, petite handwriting of my elder brother. After a very long time he had written to me. I shrank within for not writing letters home, all these days.
2. In my student days, it was almost a routine affair. I used to go home to that distant village on a rickety bus, caring nothing for the strain of the journey. My home- my village- they used to pull me away from the moribund city life. Now things have changed an I too have changed, a great deal at that! A lot of cobwebs have settled around me. I am swept by that invisible tide of time, and business. I was studying at Bhubaneshwar, where I got my job and now for these two years, I have thought of home not even once. Many a time my mother has written letters complaining about my negligence in writing to her. She has even reminded me of those pre- marriage days of mine.
3. Yet I have never been able to break those strands of complacency which have coiled around me. I have kept quiet to prove that I am busy and preoccupied. Now she does not complain. Probably, she understands my position.
4. Usually my elder brother does not write to me. He does not need anything from me. He has never sought a token from me in lieu o his concern for me as an elder brother. In those days when I was a student, the only thing that he enquired about was my well- being. During my stay at home, he would catch fish for me from the pond behind our house and would ask his wife to prepare a good dish, for I loved fish. When the catch was scanty, the dish would be prepared exclusively for me. He would say to his wife: ''You must make the dish as delicious as possible, using mustard paste for Babuli.'' Even now, he is the same man with the same tone of love and compassion. Nothing has changed him- his seven children, father, mother, cattle, fields, household responsibilities. He is the same- my elder brother.
5. I handled the letter carefully. He had asked me to come home. Some feud had cropped up. The two sisters-in-law had quarreled. Our paddy fields, the cottage and all the movables and immovables were to be divided into three parts amongst us. My presence was indispensable.
6. It was my second brother who was so particular and adamant about the division. He wanted it at any cost.
7. I finished reading the letter. A cold sweat drenched me. I felt helpless, orphaned. A sort of despair haunted me for a long time. Quite relentlessly, I tried to drive them away, yawning helplessly in a chair.
8. In the evening when I told my wife about the partition that was to take place, I found her totally unperturbed. She just asked me: ''When?" as if she was all prepared and waiting for this event to take place! "In a week's time," I said.
9. In bed that night my wife asked me all sorts of questions. What would be our share and how much would it fetch us on selling it? I said nothing for a while but in order to satisfy her, at last guessed that it should be around twenty thousand rupees. She came closer to me said, "We don't need any land in the village. What shall we do with it? Let's sell it and take the money. Remember, when you sell it, hand over to me the entire twenty thousand. I will make proper use of it. We need a fridge, you know. Summer is approaching. You need not go to the office riding a bicycle. You must have a scooter. And the rest we will put in a bank. There is no use keeping land in the village. We can't look after it, and why should others draw benefits out of our land? ".
10. I listened to all this like an innocent lamb looking into the darkness. I felt as if the butcher was sharpening his knife, humming a tune and waiting to tear me into large chunks of meat and consoling me saying that there is a better life after death.
11. Gone are those days ; gone are those feelings, when the word "Home" filled my heart with emotion. And that affectionate word "Brother"! What feeling it had! How it used to make my heart pound with love! Recollecting all these things, I feel weak, pathetic.
12. Where is the heart gone? Where are those days? Where has that spontaneity of feelings gone? I just can't understand how a stranger could all of a sudden become so intimate, only sharing a little warmth by giving a silent promise of keeping close.
13. But I became my normal self in two days. I grew used to what had been a shock. Later on, in the market- place, keeping pace with my wife, I enquired about the prices of the different things she intended to buy. Buying a fridge was almost certain. A second-hand scooter, a stereo set and some gold ornaments. I prepared a list of the prices. She kept reminding me about her intentions, and was showing lot of impatience.
14. It was Sunday afternoon, I left for my village. The same bus was there, inspiring in me the old familiar feeling. I rushed to occupy the seat just behind the driver, my favourite seat. In my hurry I bruised my knee against the door. It hurt me. The brief-case fell off and the little packet containing the prasad of Lord Lingraj, meant for my dear mother, was scattered over the ground. I felt as if the entire bus was screeching aloud the question: "After how many years? You have not bothered in the least to retain that tender love you had in your heart for your home! Instead you have sold it to the butcher to help yourself become a city Baboo!! Curse be on you! "
15. I boarded the bus, collecting the brief-case and the content of the soiled packet, wearing a shameless smile for the cleaner and the conductor of the bus.
16. It was five in the evening when I got down; I had written beforehand. My elder brother was there to meet me at the bus-stop. He appeared a little tired and worn out. "Give that brief-case to me. That must be heavy. " He almost snatched it away from me. I forgot even to touch his feet. This had never happened earlier. He was walking in front of me.
17. We were walking on the village road, dusty and ever the same. I remembered my childhood days.
18. I was usually crossing the street alone to go to a teacher in the evening for tuition. It was generally late and dark when I returned from my studies. Unfailingly my elder brother would be there to escort me back home lest I should be frightened. He would carry the lantern, my bag of books and notes. I had to follow him to do so. If I lagged behind, he would ask, "Why! You are perhaps tired. Come, hold my hand and walk with me. " He sometimes used to carry me on his shoulders while going to the fields for a stroll.
19. The bus-stop was some distance from the village. I had fallen behind him. He stopped and asked the same old question he used to ask. I just could not speak.
20. The past was sprouting up in me. The childhood days and the days now! Time has coagulated for me. I have changed. But my elder brother? Time could not bring upon him any change. As in those days, he was still walking in front of me, carrying my bag. I felt so small!
21. Hesitatingly I said, "Brother! Give me that brief-case. Let me carry it for a while. "
22. "Don't you worry, " he said, "It is heavy, and you are tired. Let us quicken our steps. You must be feeling hungry. It is time for the evening meal. " I followed him in silence.
23. We reached home. It was already dark, the time for the lighting of wicks before the sacred Tulsi plant. Unlike those days, none of my nephews rushed towards me howling, "Here's uncle. " My sister-in-law did not run from the kitchen to receive me. It was all quiet and calm. Only my mother came and stood near me. The second brother and his wife were nowhere to be seen. In the entire house, there was an air of unusualness - rather the stillness of the graveyard. As if the house was preparing for its ultimate collapse!
24. I tried to be normal with everyone. But there was that abominable lull all around. My second brother and his wife, in spite of their presence at home, showed no emotion. They were all set for the partition and they cared for nothing else. I could not sleep that night. And the following morning passed quite uneventfully.
25. It was mid-day. Seven or eight people had gathered in our courtyard to supervise the division. We three brothers were present. Mother was not to be seen anywhere in the vicinity.
26. We were waiting for the final separation, as if ready to slice out the flesh of the domestic body which our parents had nourished since the day of their marriage. And then we would run away in three different directions clutching a piece each.
27. All the household articles were heaped in the family courtyard. These were to be divided into three parts; all the small things of the house, almost everything movable starting from the ladles made out of coconut shells and bamboo to the little box, where father used to keep his betels. The axe and the old radio set too had been produced. A long list of all the items was made. Nothing was spared, neither the dhinki ( wooden- rice - crusher) nor the little figures of the family idols.
28. I saw my elder brother rise. He stopped for a moment near the pile of things and unfastened the strap of his wrist-watch and placed it on the heap with the other things. Perhaps a tear trickled down his cheek. With a heavy sigh he left the place.
29. I had often heard him say that father had bought him that wrist-watch when he was in his eleventh class. But I also remember well - in my M. A. final year he had mortgaged that watch to send me money to go to Delhi for an interview. He had sent me an amount of one hundred and fifty rupees - I remember clearly. No one knows whether the wrist-watch would come back to him or not. His action seemed symbolic of his snapping all his attachment with the past.
30. I was silent. My elder sister- in - law was in the backyard. My second brother was often whispering things into his wife's ear and was there taking his place with us. It was like the butcher's knife going to the stone to sharpen itself. The elder brother was calm and composed. Like a perfect gentleman he was looking at the proceedings dispassionately, exactly as he had done on the day of the sacred thread ceremony of his son and on the day of my marriage. It was the same preoccupied and grave manner, attending sincerely to his duty. While discussing anything with my second brother, he had that same calm and composed voice. Not a sign of disgust and regret.
31. I remember, the year father died, we had to live under a great financial strain. It was winter. The chill was at its height. We had a limited number of blankets. The cold was so biting, particularly at midnight, that one blanket was not enough for one.
32. That night, I was sleeping in the passage room. When I woke up in the morning I found my elder brother's blanket on me, added to mine. Early at dawn he had left for the fields without a blanket on his shoulders. If he had been asked why, he would have surely said in his usual manner, thatbhe did not feel the cold. Now I have a comfortable income. Yet it had never occurred to me to think of buying any warm cloth for my elder brother. He is still satisfied and happy with that old tattered blanket that he had covered me with once. The same blanket was there before me, with all the other things.
33. I shivered with the cold, and my own ingratitude. The process of division was finally over. Whatever the second brother demanded, my elder brother agreed to it with a smile. My second brother proposed to buy the share of land that was given to me and offered eighteen thousand rupees as the price.
34. In the evening, my elder brother took me along with him to show me the paddy fields that were to be mine. I quietly followed him. We moved from boundary to boundary. Everywhere, I could feel the imprints of his feet, his palm and his fingers. On the bosom of the paddy fields sparkled the pearls of my elder brother's sweat. He was showing me the fields, as a father would introduce a stranger to family members.
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