Chapter 11
I
On the penultimate day moroseness mingled with physical weariness due to scanty sleep during the night before. He started cutting slowly with a heavy heart and his mind once again drifted to the past. Reminiscences of Etwa’s birth and every nuances of his childhood became vivid as though they had happened only a few moments ago. Then he grew up and found his own friend circles. After the death of Sita he had come closer to Dhanesh once again. Then he was married to Saiba and became an alien to Dhanesh. His last friend in this world would perish in no time. Loneliness and sense of abandonment took possession of his soul.
After days’ work Nimu came and examining the tree closely he agreed with Dhanesh that only a few more hours’ cutting would be necessary.
At night sleep of Dhanesh was interrupted by fragmented dreams and the famished and sickly tree- man appeared in his dream again and again. It rained at midnight and the sky was overcast next morning. Dhanesh spent the pre-lunch hours at the gaddi and accompanied Nimu to Jalpaiguri in the afternoon.
The next day the sky was clear and work started late in the morning. One more day was needed as he had to cut slowly now. After the morning’s cutting it was felt that the tree would crumble the next day.
At night Dhanesh had a bad dream. He was going to meet the tree-man at the bank of the lake for the last time, but while he got close to the place he heard an uproar and found large numbers of men, animals and tree-men had congregated around the moribund old tree-man. Noticing Dhanesh they thundered in hateful loud voice, ‘shame with the betrayer, the killer, the dirty old selfish Kurukh.’
They ordered Dhanesh in menacing uproar, ‘leave this place at once and leave our locality. You don’t have any right to defile our sacred place.’
The hatred and anger in their voices and eyes frightened Dhanesh and his sleep broke and he found being drenched in sweat. He could not sleep for the rest of the night.
II
The next day, Nimu, Babulal, Meghraj and the laborers came early in the morning. The sky was murky and Nimu was worried lest the last day’s crucial job is spoilt by sudden rain, but nothing happened. The sky remained gloomy and there was no sign of any rain. Only a humid breeze from the north greeted them occasionally as though it had rained at the hills. Dhanesh pasted the spot of the tree with his anthill-clay and started cutting. Everyone watched him with alert eyes. The tree may crumble at any moment. Every ten minutes Nimu stopped Dhanesh and asked him to examine the condition of the tree. They were all tense for the crucial moment that might come at anytime and might be unawares. Dhanesh was not worried at all, but he remained sullen in grief. The dream of the night before started assailing him again and again and he felt himself guilty. They were right. He was the betrayer, the selfish killer. An hour passed and there was still no sign of the tree to give way. Nimu asked Dhanesh to take rest. His father and uncle tried to keep Nimu free from tension. Dhanesh took tea and had some rest.
Dhanesh now started the final cutting. He knew soon he would get the signal and in fifteen minutes he clearly heard the whisper of the tree, ‘move away my friend, I’m dying.’ Dhanesh at once stopped cutting and hastily retreated back to a safe distance. Before Nimu could ask him what had happened, the creaking sound came from the tree drowning everyone into deep silence. The monotonous sound became louder and louder, the tree started bending and then came the earsplitting thud. The ground trembled as though in an earthquake, birds in the trees fluttered and animals in the deep forest started running helter-skelter in panic as though some natural disaster had befallen them.
Nimu, Babulal, Meghraj and the laborers applauded Dhanesh for the heroic job he had accomplished, but instead of being triumphant he looked sad and they took it to be due to long toil at his old age. There was joyous uproar among all of them and many people from the tea garden and the villages, who had been startled by the thud and tremor, gathered around the spot. Nimu now felt relieved and happy. The last obstacle on the path of fulfilling his long cherished desire had now been removed. He invited the local people to his gaddi next Sunday in a feast to celebrate the occasion. After they had dispersed, the laborers were served rich lunch in plates made of saal leaves. Dhanesh took his lunch packet along to be eaten at his room after some rest. Nimu gave him five hundred rupees and told him to join work at his shop from the next day. It was a simple job to assist Babulal at the gaddi in the morning shift. Saiba and Etwa came and insisted Dhanesh to go home with them but he told them that he would go home the next day after taking night’s rest in his room here. Nimu suggested that his men would pick him up the next morning and take him right to his shop, where Etwa and Saiba had already been working.
After they had departed, Dhanesh went back to his room and to get rid of his moroseness drank a few glasses of haria and went into stupor. His slumber broke at mid night and he felt hungry. He took some food from the lunch packet and being stale it tasted sour. He came out of the room and walked toward the felled tree unmindfully. The sky was cloudy and mellow light seeping through the translucent clouds had made the ambience uncanny.
III
The tree lay prostrate like a colossal giant killed in a war. Dhanesh genuflected and wished the soul of his last friend rest in peace in heaven. He asked for forgiveness to the soul of the dead tree and the Supreme Lord Dharmesh for his mischief. He felt a deep sorrow coursing down him and devouring him. He sat at the place for a while. The judgment in the congregation in his dream was justified. Indeed he had no right to defile this sacred land. He went back to his room and came out with his belongings and the axe. He walked up to the Chawai River and threw down the axe which went down the water with a plop. Dhanesh crossed the river at a place where water level was shallow and took the narrow path to Ambari Falakata railway station. Following the rail track from there he would reach New Jalpaiguri station. Etwa, Saiba and Nimu must look for him frantically when they would not find him in his room next morning and for sure they would search Siliguri and New Jalpaiguri stations. So he should be in hiding for the day somewhere near the 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 go out on foot for 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 he was walking across a mystic fairy land. He looked back. The dark forest looked like an enormous serpent girdling the lofty mountain brightened by 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 could not hold himself. Lightning tore the sky from end to end and the rumble made the world shake and it started raining and the tears of the sky mingled with that of Dhanesh.
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The Author
The author of this novella is a Ph.D. in economics and professionally an economist but his passion for literature occasionally robs him out of the dry arena of economics to the world of love romance and adventure. From his very childhood his favorite hobbies included swimming in turbulent rivers during the rains, small game hunting, boxing, hill trekking and adventure in wild animal infested deep forests. Later on he gave up hunting and boxing considering them to be cruel sports. In course of his hill treks and adventures in deep forests he came in contact with various tribes, in the hills, the bottom hill forests and the adjacent tea estates and he could feel the heart bits of these honest and simple people. Dr. Basu may be contacted at
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