The Oraon & the Divine Tree - A Short Novel by Ratan Lal Basu

Presenting an exclusive preview of Dr Ratan Lal Basu's novella  "The Oraon & the Divine Tree" : The entire first two chapters and synopses of the rest.

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NOVELLA

THE ORAON AND THE DIVINE TREE

RATAN LAL BASU

CHAPTER-I

The giant mango tree stood majestically, towering above the bushes, thickets and other trees in the marshy land that spread undulating between the Rosemary tea garden and the Baikunthapur forest. At noon the shadow of the tree like an enormous umbrella sheltered from the sweltering sun the thickets and bushes of akchhatti, dheki-fern, kukurshoka, datura and host of other herbs and wild plants. The burrows and ground holes sheltered variegated rodents, venomous vipers, mongooses, ichneumons, jackals, wild rabbits, foxes, porcupines, jungle cats, leopard cats and civets.

In winter the swamp glistened with multi-colored flowers embellishing the trees and creepers, and the orchids dangling merrily from the branches of the trees; the air was suffused with the fragrance of flowers and the ambience encompassing the land reverberated with chatters, squawks, clucks and screeches of migratory birds  black-naked cranes, teals, francolins, goosanders, partridges, ibis bills, fork-tails, wag-tails, red-stars, pelicans and innumerable small birds.

^{Migratory Birds visible in plenty in the locality in winter - pictures collected from Baikunthapur forest officials and edited by Ratan Lal Basu}

In summer, the marsh went alive with buzzing of fleas and insects, melodious songs of cuckoos, parakeets, popinjays; ear splitting caws of crows and shrill squawks of peacocks. While the large ripe mangoes hurtled down from the lofty branches, children, women and men from the tea garden and nearby villages jostled and hollered to collect the mangoes battering down the bushes at the bottom of the tree.

During the rains water stagnated in ditches; fishes swam merrily in the crystal water, golden-frogs played their monotonous love-songs; the cormorants and herons got busy with fishing and at night the water lilies greeted the moon that shone merrily in clear sky or peeped through the slits of the clouds like a newly wed bashful bride.

In the deep forest to the north and north-west lived elephants, Bengal tigers, leopards, wild buffaloes, gaurs (Indian bisons), dholes (wild dogs), monkeys, wild boars, antelopes, barking deer, musk deer, chital, king cobras and pythons. The wild animals except the elephants and monkeys lived in deep forest and rarely invaded the marsh, the tea garden or the villages.

Before the onset of monsoons at times, stormy winds lashed the glade mercilessly uprooting many trees but the giant tree fought off the demon heroically swaying its bushy head like a vast mace and not a single branch could be broken off by the cyclonic winds.

The monarch stood defiantly dwarfing all the trees around and could be visible from the nearest railway station at a distance of two miles. The giant tree was there from ages and from whence no body could tell. The oldest man, the nonagenerian Palisanju Roy had seen the tree the same during his childhood and the tea garden records mention the tree at the time of buying the land that included this marsh.

It was a strange tree, a rare and endangered species  the mangoes were large, round and ruddy around the stalk while ripe and the fragrance was enchanting. The local people  Rajbonshis of the villages around and the madeshia laborers of the tea gardens  had never seen such a mango tree elsewhere and it was mysterious to them how a mango tree was grown amidst the wild plants.

The mystery shrouding the colossal tree inspired local people to invent fantasy stories and myths and the local people held the mango tree sacred being planted by deities. Expert tree-climbers could climb the vast tree easily and pluck ripe mangoes, but they dared not incur displeasure of the deities by such inadvertence and therefore, everybody had to remain satisfied with the ripe mangoes offered to them by the tree itself. The marsh, rich in floral and faunal resources, contributed to the living of local people by providing firewood, pot-vegetables, herbs, fruits and small games. It had also become a part and parcel of the lives and culture of them in various ways and got inexorably associated with pleasures and pains of them.

Boys and girls of the locality used to collect offspring of birds like mainas, cuckoos doves, shaliks, parrots and parakeets from the nests and bird-holes in the trees.  Monkeys at times feasted on the ripe fruits of the trees and naughty urchins derived great fun from riling the monkeys by throwing blobs of earth and snippets of twigs at them and the enraged monkeys used to return back the stuffs and chase the boys unleashing menacing clenched teeth.

The dusty road, that separated the tea shrubs from the marsh, branched out into the small villages of the Rajbonshi peasants and paddy fields and winded through the forest toward Siliguri town. At the corner of the road close to the marsh were small temples, made by bamboo wattles and roofed with tin or straw, of various gods, goddesses and grotesque apparitions. The Ganesh temple was the largest and was roofed by corrugated tin on wooden structure. Local people used to keep large flat vessels of burnt earth full of haria in front of the temple. The liquor was an offering to the elephant-god Ganesh but virtually it was guzzled by the elephants which happened to cross over from the forests. It was a treat to watch the tipsy mastodons wobbling along after drinking the rice fermented liquor. It was not known who had first initiated this custom but everybody agreed that this was an act of myopic vision. These elephants, residing at the fringe of the forest, got addicted to haria in course of time and at times invaded the villages in quest of the liquor damaging houses and killing people.

While the tea garden was established during the 1870s, the tree was still there. William Flintwood, the founder, owned a large farmhouse near London. Mary, his young beautiful wife, whom he called Rose-Mary because of her beauty, died of tuberculosis in 1870. This frustrated the young landlord who wanted to leave England forever and get engaged in some business in a far off country so that he could forget the painful memories of his demised wife.

Bill contacted a broker cum business consultant at the latters office downtown. The broker told Bill that tea plantation in India had bright prospects and insisted that the baron buy tea garden land in India and venture into plantation business.

I don't know how to buy such land, Bill said.
The broker smiled affably and said, No problem sir. I've already got a lease for tea garden land from the Government of India. Now I'm in financial straits and cannot afford the initial investment needed to plant the bushes and found the factory. Furthermore, I'm to run this office here. I may sell the lease to you if youre interested.
Sure if the papers are okay.
I'll hand over all papers to your lawyer sir.
Then call on my house next morning. Heres my address. But I'm to sell my estate first.
I'll find the right buyer for you.

The broker helped Bill sell out the large estate at a good price and only a part of the proceeds was needed to buy the tea garden land at the Cachar district of Assam in India. Bill requested a friend, the manager of a tea estate of Williamson Magor & Company in Assam, to enquire into the condition of the tea-garden land. The reply came and reading the first line, No such land exists in reality Bill got extremely excited  and without reading the rest of the mail he took out his car and rushed downtown to the office of the broker but was utterly dismayed to find the office closed and a notice dangling from the shutter To Let. He went upstairs and met the owner of the premises and the man told Bill that his tenant had left leaving a note that he was closing down the office and the owner, therefore may let it to somebody else. Id already taken two months advance from him and he was paying monthly rent regularly. So there is no financial loss to me. Some tenants are like this, there are honest ones though. I was cheated once and since then I have taken the policy to let premises only after taking two months rent in advance. The man said with a shrewd smile.

In utter desperation Bill rushed to the nearest police station and was morbidly disappointed to learn that this man had a bad police record and now its not possible for the police to hunt down the culprit as he had already absconded abroad bamboozling many innocent persons like Bill. The police officer commented gravely that it was inadvertent on the part of an educated baron like Bill to give away money to an unknown person. All the way home he pondered hard and could not make out how the cheat could manage to furnish the correct papers. Anyway still I have the rest of the money and I can do good business with it, but henceforth I ought to be cautious, he said to himself. Upon returning home he started reading the mail of his friend from Assam more closely and his hope returned as he ran through the rest of the mail. You, however, need not worry. Our company had similar experience. It is a gross irregularity on the part of the land department of the India Government to grant tea estate lands to brokers without verifying whether the land exists in reality or not. So, if you pressurize, the land department, to cover up the irregularity, would grant you any vacant land you choose for the desired tea garden. You better take trouble to come over here and Ill help you. 

There is still hope, Bill thought. He right away booked seat in a liner for Bombay and, after long tedious journey in sea and from Bombay to Assam by several slow moving trains, he was almost exhausted when he arrived at his friends quarter. He was compelled to take a few days rest in the friends quarter and thereafter his friend accompanied him to the Collectors office. A Scotch official with upturned moustache and affable manners suggested Bill to claim land near Siliguri of northern Bengal to the west of the Chawai River adjacent to the Baikunthapur forest. The soil of the grassy undulating land was, the official emphasized, appropriate for cultivation of Camellia-Assamica and the land could be well irrigated by channels dug from the large horse-shoe lake left by the change of course of the river. But he would have to go to Calcutta first and meet higher officials of the Land Department. So Bill hurried to Calcutta carrying the letter of the official at Assam and the Land Department at Calcutta immediately accepted Bills proposal. With official papers he journeyed to Siliguri from where the local officials accompanied him on elephant to the land he had proposed. Over and above the thousand acres of high land, the government also granted him the adjacent marshy land bounded by the horse-shoe lake and the dense forest.

It took a few years to prepare the land, plant tea saplings and found the factory. The estate was named after Williams wife Rosemary and production started by mid 1880s. It was highly profitable, but Bill did not find any peace of mind. So he sold the garden to a managing agency house, donated all his money to a poor-fund and left for Tibet with a Lama in quest of peace.                                                                                           

CHAPTER-II

Sensation of thrill coursed through Nimchand Maheshri, shortened Nimu, as the large headline of the notice written in red ink flashed across his vision and he got closer to read the content. His wife Urmila had reminded him of the colored bangles before Nimu took the morning bus for Jalpaiguri town to pay monthly installments of his loan-repayment to the bank. So after bank job he took a rickshaw for the bangle shop at Kadamtala. The bare bodied swarthy shopkeeper grinned to welcome his old customer and spread out a heap of multi-colored glass bangles on the mat. Nimu selected twenty varieties and handed over the sample bangle for measurement and the shop keeper started selecting bangles of appropriate size from the spread out lot. It would take some time, Nimu thought and he stepped aside and his vision fell right on the interesting notice pasted on the wattle wall of the shop. He got closer and read the ad again and again. The wasteland of the Rosemary tea garden would be sold out and willing buyers were to call on Srimanta Banerjee at his office at Dinbazar between 12 noon to 4 p.m.

The ad triggered Nimu and he decided to meet the person right away and try for the land. The notice seemed to have been pasted very recently, but he should make haste before anybody else could get it. It is not too late, he thought. Nimu had learnt from his uncle, Meghraj Kalyani, a promoter and dealer of building materials at Siliguri, that the high road connecting Siliguri and Jalpaiguri through the forest, only a furlong north of the tea garden, would soon be constructed and clearing of forest had already started. So the price of land close to the road would soar to the sky in no time. Nimu, however, had no interest in land speculation. He had a plan to set up a saw mill on the plot of land.

The Forest Department had already started selling through auction sal trees, on either side of the planned road, to the timber merchants. Transport cost of logs could be reduced if they were carried to the Siliguri center after sizing in a local saw mill. Meghraj had emphasized that a saw mill near the forest would be highly profitable and Nimu should try his best to buy some land close to the site. The notice elated Nimu and he thought that the marshy land could be a good site for the saw mill. There were a large number of good trees in the land. Selling out the timber of these trees would cover the cost of clearing and filling the lowland. But whos this Srimanta Banerjee and would he agree to sell the land to me at affordable price? Nimu said to himself. Moreover, some other buyer might have already booked it. Anyway he should at least try to explore the golden opportunity which had come his way like a gift from the heaven. So he resolved to call on Mr. Banerjee right away and try his luck.

Nimu received the packed bangles, paid the shopkeeper and hailed a rickshaw for Dinbazar. Then he returned to the shop and asked the shopkeeper if he knew the advertiser.

The shopkeeper smiled, Oh, hes the well known Gittuda. He lowered his voice, The Gitttu mastan. You should know him. Hes now the owner of the land.

Oh my god, its Gittuda!

Nimu rode the rickshaw in an ebullient mood. Gittu knew him well and if the land had not already been booked, he stood a fair chance. His father, Babulal Kalyani (like all business men of the Maheshri community he never used his family name while in business) used to pay every year a sumptuous subscription to Gittus Kali puza at Maskalaibari and in return was protected from all the minor mastans and illegal tax collectors. Nimu was amazed to think of the high position Gittu mastan had achieved.

Gittus father was a poor priest who used to eke out his living by performing rituals and puzas in the households and clubs around Maskalaibari and Raninagar. He was an honest person and could somehow get his three beautiful daughters married to educated Brahmins. Gittu, the only son, was the youngest. From his very childhood, unlike his parents and sisters, he was notorious but his deceptive looks and smartness could easily befool anybody.  He was fair, tall with sharp nose, luminous large eyes and wispy hair. He was more interested in body building, boxing and karate than studies and had been rusticated from school after he had assaulted a teacher in the exam hall. Thereafter he took to blacking cinema tickets at cinema houses in the town, formed a group of hoodlums and soon became a bully to local people. He helped a political party to rig elections and in return was protected by a renowned political leader from police complications. He initiated a Kali puza near his house and it was patronized by the political leaders and every year an MLA or minister inaugurated the ceremony. Many shopkeepers of the town and the adjacent villages used to pay heavy subscriptions for the puza and a considerable portion of the collection that was left after meeting the puza expenses was divided among the goons, Gittu appropriating the lions share.

Soon Gittu gave up cinema ticket blacking and took to bootlegging and arranging illegal gambling. His income increased by leaps and bounds but he became a headache to his honest parents. His lifestyle injured the feelings of the dignified honest priest who with his wife became a permanent resident of an ashram at Rishikesh after bequeathing his house to Gittu.

Gittu married Nirmala, the daughter of a respectable school teacher and the beautiful girl, by her love and strong personality, could soon bring Gittu under her command. Nirmala had fallen in love with Gittu at first sight and sought the permission and blessings of the would-be in-laws promising to mend their mischievous son. Gittus parents were overwhelmingly impressed by her mail and rushed back to Jalpaiguri and arranged for the marriage right away. They, however, could not keep Nirmalas request to stay with them as it was no longer possible for then to return to the din-and-bustle of mundane life from the serenity of religious life in the Ashram. Gittu loved Nirmala deeply and was faithful and at her insistence he gave up drinking and drugs. She earned the acclaim of many persons for her power to mend the notorious mastan, but bad people used to say that she knew witchcraft and art of bashikaran. Soon after marriage, Gittu dissolved his gang and started a partnership hotel business with a friend at Kolkata.

A few years ago continuous labor trouble over huge amount of unpaid salaries and defalcation of provident fund money had destabilized production at Rosemary tea garden. The company had bribed the trade union leaders to help them overcome the crisis. But the latter, notwithstanding their utmost efforts, failed to resolve the problem because of the adamancy of two labor leaders Ganesh Tirke and Budhu Ekka who had considerable command over the laborers. They refused to heed the leaders and Albert Bhagat, a Christian Oraon lawyer, took up the matter to labor courts. At the advice of the helpless political leaders the owners sought help of Gittu who readily accepted the offer and within a month dead bodies of Tirke, Ekka and Bhagat were found in the lower shoals of Tista River and the political leaders were prompt in hushing up the case. The police recorded it as a boat mishap. As a reward Gittu demanded the marshy land which he knew would soon fetch a very high price and the owners readily transferred the ownership right of the land to Gittus name. Now Gittu had decided to sell this land, buy the partners share of the hotel with the proceeds and get settled at Kolkata where he would be free from the hangover of his misdeeds here and this would also please his wife and parents.

Notwithstanding jerks and jolts of the rickshaw along the broken road Nimu got engrossed in deep cogitation. How these worthless naughty people get high up the ladder of riches and social status! Should he follow the crooked path of Gittu or remain satisfied with moderate achievements that ethical living could ensure? But why should he follow the mischievous path that leads to disquiet of mind? The achievements vanish abruptly as they are gained. You move up fast by unfair means and fall down fast to hell, Nimu said to himself. His father has always remained honest and satisfied with moderate riches and this ensures him mental peace. He advises his sons and daughters to be righteous and religious. He narrates mythical stories of Ravana and Duryodhana and their ruin in spite of enormous prowess, and he also cites examples of present day wealthy but dishonest businessmen who had to suffer ignominy in the end.

Nimu himself has seen the miserable downfall of many nasty fear-rousing mastans. Vanta mastan was once the terror of their locality.  He was at first a taxi driver. He had joined the Naxalites and after fall of the Naxalite movement he used his past political stigma to terrorize people and gradually became the leader of a notorious gang. He got the patronization of political leaders and he was confident that no body could do him anything. He even cared a fig for the district Superintendent of Police. One evening, he was informed that a member of his gang had been beaten up severely by the rival gang. He could hardly guess it was a trap and he at once took out the motor cycle and confidently raced up to the spot alone and was beaten to death.

Similar was the fate of notorious Madhu, the son of a smuggler hotel owner. He was lusty and a menace for the girls of poor families. Nobody could do him anything as he used to bribe the police and help the politicians in elections. Once he broke into the house of a poor smith, tied the man with the cot and raped his young wife before his eyes. The police as usual refused to take up the FIR. The following month Madhu was returning home tipsy from the grog shop. When he came under the shadow of a large rain tree, he heard a whistle behind and as he whipped around he was beheaded by a chopper. After murdering the mastan the smith along with the blood-stained weapon surrendered himself to the police. Honesty is the best policy and crime leads to destruction in the long run, Nimu thought.

It was not at all difficult for Nimu to find out Gittus office as the rickshaw puller knew it well and after alighting from the rickshaw Nimu in his simple attire and rustic demeanor hesitated to enter the two storied posh office.

Nimu looked un-smart in his gaits and never cared for his attires. He was the youngest son of Babulal Maheshri. Two of his sisters, one younger than him, were married to businessmen at Coochbehar and none of his three elder brothers, all of whom were brilliant students, had any interest in their family business. The eldest was a chartered accountant at Siliguri, the second a college teacher at Kolkata, and the third a lawyer practicing at Jalpaiguri court. Nimu was not good at his studies and did not like the school but he had keen business sense and liked more to work at his fathers cloth shop. In the mid-term examination in history paper he was elated to find a question on Emperor Ashoka which he had memorized the night before. However, while writing he mixed up everything and wrote stuffs like:

Emperor Ashoka used to dig up wells by the side of the highways so that passersby fall unawares into the pits..
He had provided employment to many forest animals to the government hospitals..
He had sent out Lord Buddha to Ceylon by a Boeing aircraft to propagate religion. 

The history teacher read out the ingenious script in the class inviting uproarious laughter and making Nimu the victim of ragging by the batch mates. Nimu stopped going to school. Babulal, who knew that this son was not for studies, was happy, all the more so because he needed a helping hand in his business as he had already been inflicted with hypertension and gout problems. He arranged for Nimus marriage to a girl from Bikanir and by the process got a good dowry that financed remodeling of the shop. Nimu soon took charge of the shop and his sincerity and performance was more than Babulal had expected.

At the time of marriage Urmila was a sixteen year old beautiful girl and her affable and ingratiating nature soon won the hearts of Nimu and his parents. She could make good achars and pickles and exchanged them with neighboring Bengali girls for lessons in spoken Bengali. Nimu soon started saving money to expand his business but he was very cautious. He avoided speculative business much in vogue among the young businessmen and he always sought business advice from his shrewd uncle who loved him like his own son. Recently his uncle had advised him to procure some land near the timber forest and start a saw mill. So, this opportunity was a boon for him. But would Gittu with such a posh office heed to his request? The thought made his heart sink.

But soon he braced himself up controlling, by deliberate efforts, his trembling feet and palpitating heart and stepped into the premise. The well decorated office with upholstered sofas, swinging chairs and beautiful paintings with a large photo of goddess Kali and the spiffy girls at the counter made his hear flutter again. The girls, who were busy gossiping, squinted at the crass yokel with an oddly worn dhoti, a long sleeved crumpled shirt, pox-marked silly face and parted hair soaked with amla oil emitting offensive odor. The older girl with a large chignon and chiseled face asked gruffly,
What do you want here?
I I. want to meet Gittuda, I mean, Banerjee babu, he stammered making the girls double up in laughter.
The parrot nosed younger girl stopped laughing and glowering at his shabby countenance asked, What do you want from sir? He does not give alms.
Nimu dredged out a silly smile and said politely, No, no, I have not come to seek help. I want to talk with him about the tea garden land.

The older girl raised her eyebrows in amazement, Want to buy the land, have you any idea about the price? Okay, wait on the sofa. Hes likely to come in half an hour.

Finding him still fumbling the girl said harshly, I have asked you to wait, havent you heard me?

Nimu dropped on the sofa awkwardly making the girls burst into uproarious laughter once again. He remained seated with drooping eyes trying to ignore the girls and soon his mind drifted along to religious thought. Can a notorious person like Gittu earn the favor of goddess Kali simply by hanging her photos on the wall and offering her puza and showbiz devotion? Babulal used to say that ostentatious devotion springs from guilt complex and fear of punishment for unethical deeds.

Ar-reh Nimu, youre here?

The lively address interrupted Nimus thought and he looked up to see Gittu standing in front, spruce in green stylish trousers, bright checkered shirt, a beautiful striped necktie and haircut like a Hindi film star. Nimu stood up obediently in his candid way and said ebulliently,
How are you Gittuda? I saw your ad about sale of tea garden land.
Come upstairs to my chamber. He then turned toward the bewildered receptionists and snarled,
Why have you left him seated here and did not send him right over to my chamber?
 Sir how could we know hes V.I.P? He dropped in incognito, the older girl mumbled.
After Nimu had followed Gittu upstairs, the older girl gasped, My god, how I could guess this simpleton to be someone important!
The other girl said, These blood-sucking kaiyas are like this. They amass millions by deceiving poor people but move around like beggars.

Nimu followed Gittu to his chamber through a swing door and the latter motioned him to a chair across from him. This room too had on its wall a large photo of goddess Kali along with a wall clock and photos of Ramakrishna and Rabindranath. On the costly glass cover of the table there were a small folding calendar, a pen case and a couple of cover files. Two large olive colored armoires close to the back wall, each with life size mirror on the shutter, gave the room a gorgeous look.

Gittu loosened his necktie, pulled it over his head and hung it on a hook projecting from the wall at the far end. He lighted a foreign brand cigarette by a Chinese lighter and queried, How is Kalyaniji?
Babuji has some gout problem and recently taking med for high pressure.
So youre now looking after the business?
Not exactly. Babuji sits at the gaddi in the morning and I help him and I do all outside jobs.
Now tell me if youre interested in the land.
Thats why I have come here. Has any other customer already approached you?
I had just pasted the ad the day before yesterday. Only two or three have contacted me but none of them seem to be solvent parties. So if youre interested, we may proceed
Certainly, I would buy it right away if the price is affordable. Are you the owner or broker?

I am the owner now, Gittu smiled proudly. I had helped the owners and they gave me the land as a reward.
Whats your offer price?
Only ten lakh plus registration cost. do not think its too high. You must have heard about the highway and land at the place now is gold.
Oh ten lakh? Nimu gasped.
Considering future prospects, its dam cheap. If I could wait a year I could have easily sold it at thrice the price. But now I badly need the money. If you simply keep the land and resell next year youll get a lucrative profit.
Then why are you selling the land right now?
I badly need the money. I have a partnership hotel in Kolkata. The partner has decided to sell his share at ten lakh and not a single rupee less. If I do not buy it now he would have freedom to sell it out to some outsider and that may create problem for me.  Besides I like to be the sole proprietor and move over to Kolkata with my family as early as possible. You know political change is likely in the next election and this may put me to trouble here. So the earlier I leave North Bengal the better. Nimu, like an elder brother, I advise you to buy the land without delay. You could do highly profitable business in the growing township.                               
Nimu hesitated a little and said politely, Gittuda, you know me well. Cant you fix it at eight?
Gittu smiled affably, Yes I know youre a very candid and honest person and Id be the happiest person if I could reduce the price. But I badly need the ten lakh.
Okay, Ill pay your price. Now I do not have money or check book with me and Ill pay the necessary advance tomorrow.                                     
No advance is needed. Your word is enough. Meet me this week with your advocate brother and Ill hand him over the preliminary papers for searching and all that. Better give my mobile number to Hemchand-da and he may talk over phone to me.

The papers were all clean and there was no problem in registering the transaction. Hemchand and Meghraj loaned Nimu a part of the money required to buy the land including searching, registration and other expenses.

Following local custom, work at the marsh was inaugurated by worship of the elephant god Ganesh, the serpent goddess Manasa and local apparitions. After the religious rituals, the laborers sang and danced merrily and thereafter haria was distributed among the laborers and they returned home tipsy. They did not forget to keep haria for the elephants in earthen vessels at different corners of the land.

At night, scores of elephants came out to drink haria potted in large earthen vessels and trampled the bushes and thickets, broke off branches of trees making the land look cyclone devastated. 

The next day before clearing started, fume of an herb was spread to chase away the snakes. The laborers started chopping off the bushes and branches of trees with axes, choppers and sickles and clearing the ground with hoes and spades. The birds on the trees fluttered away in panic and the animals in the burrows took shelter in the forest.

The clearing started with much fanfare. The small bushes of fern, kalkasandi, akchhatti, datura and akanda could be easily rooted out and small branches of all the trees except the mango tree were all cut off and the bare trees looked like skeletons spreading out their bonny limbs awkwardly. The congeries of cut off twigs and branches were useless to Nimu and he gladly permitted the Rajbonshis of the nearby villages and madeshias of the tea garden to clear them off. Some took them for herbal use and some for fuel wood. Children hollered around and collected fruits of futki, akchhatti and telekucha and nests of birds. A madeshia laborer caught an ichneumon and took it along at daybreak for a good feast. Some snakes were also killed and madeshia laborers took them for eating after chopping off their heads.

At night, against the enchanting glare of the moon, the mango tree stood like a colossus, lonesome and morose, all his dear companions being annihilated mercilessly by barbaric invaders

The following day, the laborers started felling the bare trees and the logs were carried off by open vans and small trucks to a saw mill at Siliguri. In a few days the lowlands and ditches were filled with sand carried by vans from the river bed and now the place looked neat and refreshed.

While making payments to the laborers in the evening, Nimu asked them when they would start felling off the giant mango tree. At this the laborers looked panic stricken and an aged Rajbonshi laborer took Nimu aside and told him the legends that had deified the tree and emphasised that no laborer of the locality dare fell it.

Nimu became flummoxed. How could he set up the saw mill with the tree at the middle? For the next few days he scoured through all the nearby villages but no laborer agreed to perform the sacrilegious job. Nimu too was impressed by the legends and while he related the stuff to Urmila, she too got panicked and suggested him to wait and resell the land after price increases. Nimu got disheartened. Would his long cherished dreams be shattered after so much toil? He thought it would be better to seek advice of Meghraj.

Meghraj assured Nimu that he would collect laborers from Bihar and Nepal through some labor contractors but it may take time. While Nimu mentioned the legends his uncle laughed and said, They are simply cock and bull stories fabricated by the rural folk. He explained to Nimu that this was but a rare species of mango tree that grows at some remote areas of northern Bihar. The marshy land was a site for safari camps of the Raikat kings of the Baikunthapur estate and it is quite likely that the tree had grown from some mango seed thrown out by the hunters in course of their safari camping. 

Meghrajs argument was convincing to Nimu who returned home triumphant. I am not going to set up the mill immediately, Nimu said to himself. I have already spent much of my savings to buy the land. Furthermore I am to repay loans.  So I cannot buy machineries for the mill right now.  So I may wait until the Bihari and Nepali laborers from outside are contracted. Suddenly an idea struck him. Last month Urmila had painted her hands with beautiful tattoos. Nimus mother Lakshmi Devi had paid the godna-expert madeshia girl Saiba a higher fee than usual. She, later on, told Nimu that the girl was miserable. Her husband Etwa had lost his job at the closer of the tea garden he used to work in and the company did not pay the dues of unpaid salary and provident fund. She had three children and old widower father-in-law. The husband and wife were now eking out living by performing odd jobs. 

The recollection made Nimu ebullient and hopeful. He would offer unemployed Etwa the job of a permanent porter in the shop if the latter agrees to fell the tree and to come out of financial problems Etwa would gladly accept the offer for sure. Next morning he took a rickshaw for the shanty of the laborer.

The shack with thatched overhanging roof stood on a small plot of occupied railway land. The rickshaw could not move along the narrow path leading to the house and Nimu had to walk over to the house and while he called the laborers name aloud, Etwa and Saiba came out with smiling faces revealing their ivory-white well-set teeth and were astonished to sea the rich Marwari at their doors. The children also jostled around their mother. Saiba who wore a red bordered white pandhat, the sari worn from above the breasts up to the knees with neck and legs bare, brought up a bamboo mora but hesitated to ask a rich Marwari like Nimu to sit on it. Nimu smiled affably to watch her embarrassment and promptly took the mora from her hand and sat right down on it. Then he went forthright to the job stuff. The faces of both of them were brightened to hear about the job and they were also a bit puzzled why shethji himself had come all the way over to their house to give the information. He could as well have sent for Etwa to his gaddi through some servant. Both of them, however, were delighted at the golden offer and thought that God had heeded to their prayers.    

Nimu, however, was honest enough to disclose unequivocally the string attached to the offer and the reason why he could not find local laborers for the job. This made the faces of Etwa and Saiba pale. The tree was planted by the deities. How could Etwa fell down such a sacred tree? Saiba said unequivocally, Sethji, we are poor, but considering the well being of my kids I cannot let my husband fell a divine tree and incur the curse of the deities. You ask us to do anything else and we would oblige, but not felling the sacred tree.

Utterly disappointed, Nimu made for the rickshaw and noticed Etwas old father Dhanesh beckoning him from behind. He stopped short and Dhanesh coming close to him asked straight away, If I myself perform the assignment would you offer my son the job?                
Certainly, but at this age, can you fell a vast tree?
Yes I still have the prowess. I am the best axe-man around here. I have lost strength with age no doubt but I could compensate with skill and technique.
Have you seen the tree? Nimu queried.
Hundreds of times, Dhanesh smiled.  Id been an employee of Rosemary garden and used to see the tree everyday. Then there was labor trouble and I was among the retrenched. Fortunately my son then got a job at another garden. Now he too has lost it.
But people say its a divine tree.                                                                                
I do not buy it. Dharmesh and Singbonga reside in sal trees, not in mango trees. Moreover, my wife was a Birsait Munda and their family influenced me to become a Birsait in faith and since then I do not subscribe to the tribal superstitions. I, however, stick to the basics of sarna to love nature and plants.
If you love plants, how could you kill a vast tree? Nimu said jokingly.
You know the thieves, sponsored by the politicians of the ruling party, are destroying the entire forest. What additional harm could be done by felling an isolated mango tree?
Better consult your son and daughter-in-law before taking final decision.
No need. Ill do the job anyway if you promise my sons job.
Then come to my gaddi tomorrow and Ill take you right over to the spot.

SYNOPSIS OF THE REMAINING CHAPTERS

CHAPTER-III

By examining the tree closely it was found that it had a distinct bent and if cut halfway through on the opposite side of the bent, the tree would crumble on its own weight. On the day felling was to commence, Nimu accompanied Dhanesh to the spot and after Nimu had left, Dhanesh looked at the tree which he had held as his friend of old age and felt sad and guilty and prayed for forgiveness to the tree. Then his mind drifted back to the history of their race and how his ancestors had been deceptively lured away from Santhal Parganas to the slavery of tea garden jobs. The agents of the tea companies promised highly paid and prestigious jobs at the tea gardens and many youths enlisted their names by giving thumb impressions on the contract forms the subject matter of which were unknown to them as they could not read English, the language of the forms. The initial enthusiasm started fading out as soon as the enlisted Kurukh youths were transported to the gardens like cattle and many died and others morbidly sick in course of the horrible journey. Arriving at the gardens they realized that they had been tricked into eternal slavery, and because of distance of their homeland and stringent rules against absconding they had no alternative but to accept slavery and they tried to get accustomed to the new environment of poverty, humiliation, misery and exploitation.                                                    

CHAPTER-IV

Dhanesh returned from the obsession with the past and commenced to cut the thick bark of the tree and the reddish gum dripping from the trunk appeared like blood to him and to stop bleeding and relieve pain of the tree he administered liniment made from the herbs in the nearby bush. He neatly removed the bark and it was almost evening when he had started cutting the inner bonny part. Nimu came with snacks and dinner packet and was highly satisfied with the progress of work. Returning to his temporary dwelling, a store room of grains at the nearest village, he fell fast asleep and dreamt of a very old man who he thought was none but the tree. The tree-man in his dream assured Dhanesh that there was no sin in killing him who was too old and would feel fortunate to have the opportunity to sacrifice his senile life for the benefit of his friends family. To dispel Dhaneshs moroseness the tree-man told him the funny story of a naughty leopardess. 

CHAPTER-V

The next day Dhanesh rubbed clean the accumulated gum from the cut of the trunk and administered pastes of herbs in order to lessen the pain of the tree. Dhanesh talked aloud     to himself while cutting the tree splitting himself into two: Dhanesh and the tree and in course of the lively conversation unraveled the history, heard from his parent and other aged men, of the Kurukh race.

This race known as Kurukh or Oraon were originally the residents of Rohtasgarh which was attacked by the Turks at the time of Sharul and Karam festivals while all male members used to be dead drunk. However, the female warriors could defeat the Turks twelve times, but in the thirteenth invasion the Turks won and the Kurukhs fled and traversing many lands eventually settled down at Santhal Parganas. The story telling was interrupted by the approach of a peasant boy grazing buffaloes and Dhanesh talked with the boy for a while. After the boy had left Dhanesh resumed his work and conversation and he mentioned about his visit of Santhal parganas where he had come upon a beautiful Munda girl with whom he fell in love. The love story could not be continued as evening approached, Nimu came over and work had to be stopped for the day.

His sleep at night was interrupted several times by bad dreams and he was eventually waken at mid night by rumbling of thunder and felt chilly as the heavy rain lashed on the roof and walls of the house and cold wind with rain water invaded the room through the open window. He shut down the window, lumped up clothes and pieces of canvas over his body and went to sleep again, now dreamless. He woke at dawn as usual and found that rain had subsided but fever and bad headache prevented him from going out to work. Nimu came early to his dwelling and took Dhanesh along to the gaddi where the doctor administered medicine for fever and Dhanesh was advised to take rest for some time. In the evening, alone in the gaddi, Dhanesh recollected the sweet memories of his encounter with the Munda girl Sita, his love and marriage with her and their happy conjugal life that ended at Sitas untimely death. He remembered how after Sitas death he had sought solace from the mango tree which he had always held as his most trusted friend. He now felt prick that he was going to kill such a friend simply to gratify narrow self interest.

CHAPTER-VI

The following day he felt better and his son Etwa and daughter-in-law Saiba came over to the gaddi to take him along to home. They insisted that he eschew the work as theyd already been assured by Nimu of employment and new outside laborers could easily do the rest of the job. But Dhanesh declined flatly as he would not permit anybody else to fell the tree as, unlike him, none would treat the tree as humanoid and take any trouble to lessen its sufferings in course of cutting. Babulal and Meghraj also subscribed to the same view as Etwa and Saiba, considering the health and age of Dhanesh, but Nimu appreciated the sentiments of Dhanesh and decided against doing the rest of the work by new laborers from Bihar and Nepal. Gittu came to the gaddi before his departure for Kolkata and met Nimu and Dhanesh. He suggested a chemical that makes tree cutting easier by making the wood soft but the chemical could not be found at North Bengal. Gittu promised that he would buy it from Kolkata and send it to Nimu.  Durga puza came close by to be followed by other puzas and festivals and Nimu decided that work be postponed till the festivals terminated. Preparations for the gorgeous Durga puza were around and nature too became jubilant. Dhanesh was appointed temporarily at the gaddi to help Nimu and his father tackle the heavy rush of buyers of garments for the puzas. Like other years, Etwa and Saiba got temporary jobs at the house of a local landlord. Every morning Etwa and Saiba used to go with children to the house of the landlord and returned in the evening bringing along packets containing delicious Bengali food. Saiba was quite voluble describing in detail the well dressed educated relatives of the landlord, their tawdry garments, swell manners, strange food habits and English talks like the sahibs.

A large television set had been installed at a local club and Etwa and Saiba watched T.V. shows at the club every evening. Dhanesh never liked the cinema box as he had learnt how this cinema machine could spoil human minds and destroy family peace. He remembered how a happy family of a Bengali clerk in whose house he worked as a servant, was ruined owing to the influence of T. V. serials on his wife.

CHAPTER-VII

Durga puza started with all its fanfare and gorgeousness. Dhanesh used to sit alone in his house after work at the cloth shop and in the quiet evening at the tree shaded place, his mind drifted back to the past; how he with Sita used to visit places during the puza and enjoy the mythical stories about goddess Durga, told to them by Sisir master, a local school teacher. He also recollected the funny stories about the deities invented by intelligent boys at a puza pandal.

Kali puza was held a few days after the Durga puza and all the houses were adorned with earthen lamps. Dhaneshs mind again glided back to the old days. To escape the earsplitting sounds of the crackers displayed by the jubilant puza goers, Dhanesh and Sisir master used to sit in the calm and quiet atmosphere under the mango tree and in darkness under the star studded new moon sky they told each other stories of various ghosts. Most of the stories were sheer fabrications. Some of the stories, however, had some truth in them but what the victims had been terrified by were later discovered to be the shadows of trees, forest animals or pieces of cloth carried by air to the spot.

Streams of incidents and stories started flashing across the mind of Dhanesh. In course of long association, the mango tree had become an inalienable part of his life. Most of the people associated with his past were either dead or had gone away to other places, but the mango tree embodying his past was still there. The mango tree had been associated with many golden moments of his life. It would soon perish along with the nostalgic past of Dhanesh. He felt morose and hollow.

CHAPTER VIII

Work resumed after Kali puza. The can containing the chemical had already arrived. Administering the chemical to the cut of the tree Dhanesh sensed that it was unendurably painful to the tree and so he devised an alternative from his experience to soften the wood  the soil of anthills and it worked according to his expectation.

The next morning Nimu and Meghraj came over to examine the progress of the work. After thorough check up Dhanesh emphasized that the tree was not yet in a condition to crumble down; a few more days cutting may be necessary. Dhanesh resumed work after they had left. He looked at the dense forest embellished with blossoms of sal and teak and many sad episodes sprang up from the knolls and dales of memory  the incident of an intrepid Rajbonshi hunter being killed by wild buffaloes, the sad incident of a widows son being drowned and an expert hunter from Siliguri being killed by a leopard. In fact we humans are helpless and at the mercy of the unknown, Dhanesh thought.

Nimu came over again in the afternoon with some Nepali and Bihari laborers. Examining the tree intently, Dhanesh explained to them that cutting of one or two more days may be needed to make the tree fall down on it own weight. The laborers were overwhelmed by the stupendous job done by the old man single handed only in a few days. It could have taken them months to do the enormous job. Nimu discussed with the laborers the enormous tasks after the tree crumbles down.

At night, after an hours dreamless sleep, Dhanesh was tortured by fragments of incoherent bad dreams and was waken by a nightmare. He remained awake for the rest of the night and his mind nestled in the past, reminiscing the nuances of his association with the tree from his very childhood. He also reminisced how he and Sita used to visit the festivals of the Rabonshis: the Jalpesh mela, the gajan songs, the dham-gans, the Tista-buri and chor-churni dances and the bisahara-pala.

Once they had gone with Sisir master to Jalpaiguri town to watch the bhasan (immersion ceremony) of goddess Durga in the Karala River at Jalpaiguri town and a funny incident happened at a sweet shop.

CHAPTER IX

Starting the next days work, moroseness again took possession of the soul of Dhsanesh. It could be the penultimate day of the sad incident, the death of his friend at his hand. He started cutting slowly with a heavy heart. Before the tree falls, he would have to move fast to a safe distance. He was assailed by reminiscences of Etwas birth, growing up, marriage and the gradual chasm between the father and the son. Loneliness and sense of abandonment overpowered Dhanesh. His last true friend was this tree and he was going to kill it himself. Guilt consciousness assailed him.
In the evening he talked in detail with Nimu and the new laborers about the necessaries at the last stage and at night he had bad dreams again.

CHAPTER X

Dhanesh took a days rest as Nimu insisted, considering the health of the former. Dhanesh spent all the day in the gaddi and talked with various people, customers and intruders. While alone his mind glided back to the past again and he personalized the myths about their race at Rohtasgarh. He felt sad again and at night dreamed of Sita. It rained mildly at night and work had to be postponed the next day too. Dhanesh accompanied Nimu to Jalpaiguri town and visited various offices and people. While Nimu was engaged in official work he came upon a barber known to him and at a tea stall they had pep talks till Nimu completed his official work.

CHAPTER XI

The sky was overcast and it indicated heavy rain, but a wind carried away the clouds and work could be started late in the morning. In the evening Dhanesh and Nimu checked up the tree intensively and from sixth sense Dhanesh could tell that a few more hours would be enough to get on to the crucial stage. Once again his mind winded back to the past and the emptiness of his heart increased.
At night Dhanesh had a bad dream being accused by a congregation of men, plants and animals and adjudged to be banished for defiling the sanctity of the place by his heinous crime of killing a benevolent divine tree. He woke with a jolt and could not sleep for the rest of the night being pricked by conscience.

CHAPTER XII

The following day, Nimu, Babulal, Meghraj and the laborers came early over to the spot and congregated around the tee. The sky looked murky and Nimu was a bit worried lest the last days crucial job was spoilt by sudden rain. It, however, did not rain but the sky remained overcast and the ambience wore a somber look. A humid breeze from the north greeted them occasionally as though it was raining hard in the hills.
After a few hours cutting a sudden creaking sound alerted Dhanesh and he promptly scooted away to a safe distance. The intervals of the successive monotonous sounds shortened continuously, the tree started careening and eventually collapsed with an earsplitting thud and sending tremors like an earthquake. Birds in the trees fluttered away and animals in the forest started running helter-skelter in panic as though some natural disaster had befallen them. Dhanesh decided to stay at his temporary dwelling for the night.

After everybody had departed, Dhanesh went back to his room and to get rid of his moroseness took a few glasses of haria and went in to stupor. His slumber broke at mid night.  He came out of the room and waddled down to the felled tree unmindfully. Dollops of cirrus were traipsing across the sky and mellow light of the crescent moon, seeping through the translucent clouds, had made the ambience uncanny.

The tree lay prostrate like a colossal giant killed in a war. Dhanesh was tormented with remorse. He sat down at the place for a while. The judgment at the congregation in his dream was justified, he thought. Indeed he had no right to defile this sacred land. He returned to his room and came out with his belongings and the axe. He walked up to the river and threw down the axe which plopped down the water in a moment.  Dhanesh crossed the river at a place where it was shallow and took the narrow path to Ambari Falakata railway station. Following the rail track from there he would reach New Jalpaiguri station and in the evening he would board the train for Patna, the capital of Bihar.

At Patna he would find out some job and after saving some money he would undertake his last pilgrimage. Querying people on the way he would find out the path and one day he would reach Rohtasgarh, the homeland of the Kurukhs.

The straw cottages scattered on the paddy fields rich with ripen crop were in deep slumber in the mellow light of the moon; bushes and trees looked like apparitions and Dhanesh felt as though he was wafting across a mystic fairy land. He whipped around and looked with sad eyes at the dark forest girdling the lofty mountain bathing in the moonshine that escaped through the crevices of the clouds. He was leaving behind Etwa, Saiba and the children, memories of the old-tree and of his chando Sita. He felt terribly lonely and hollow. The nimbus, lurking in the horizon, had now spread across the entire sky like an unfurling dark blanket. Lightning tore the sky from end to end and the rumble that followed sent tremors around. It started raining in torrents.

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Ratan Lal Basu, Ph.D. (Economics) is an ex-Reader in Economics and Teacher-in-Charge, Bhairab Ganguly College, Kolkata, India. Dr. Basu has written & edited several books on Economics.

Apart from his passion for the field of Economics, Dr. Basu's other interests are Boxing & Small Game Hunting (gave up the nasty games during college life); Swimming in Turbulent Rivers (physically impossible now); Himalayan Treks, Adventure in Dense Forests, Singing Tagore Songs and also writing travelogues and fiction in Bengali and English.

Dr. Ratan Lal Basu can be reached at rlbasu [at] rediffmail.com.