The Oraon And The Divine Tree

  Chapter 8

  I

  Work resumed after completion of the puza festivals. The bottle containing the chemical had arrived in the mean time. Dhanesh broke the seal of the bottle, poured some chemical in an earthen pot and returned the bottle to the servant who had brought it.

  The distributor had sent along a brash to apply the chemical which was irritating and harmful for the skin. Dhanesh cleared the dirt from the chink on the trunk of the tree and started applying the chemical to the spot and in a moment the tree shivered as though in pain. Dhanesh stopped short. The noxious chemical was painful for the tree, Dhanesh felt. He rubbed the chemical out and smeared the paste of Kendra at the place. But what could he do now? Nimu would query in the afternoon about the progress of the work and if it was found to be slow Dhanesh would have to explain which might sound funny and superstitious to Nimu. He had to find some alternative. Suddenly it occurred to him that the black deyo ants apply its spit to make wood soft before boring it. He knew the ant hills, but for this large cut on the trunk of the tree thousands of ants would be needed to get adequate chemical from their spit. He thought of an idea. The soil of the anthills may contain their spit and may work if he applied the soil from the anthill at the spot. Why not have a try, Dhanesh thought.

  He searched at the lowland near the lake and found an anthill of the dayos. These ants do not have stings, nor poison. They only bite with their hard jaws and it may bleed mildly but no pain remains afterwards unlike stings of the poisonous ants. Dhanesh broke off a piece of the anthill with a twig and thousands of ants came out as the broken chunk fell apart. Dhanesh drove away the ants with the twig and picked up the lump of soil. He watered it from a ditch and applied the clay to the cut of the tree. The tree did not react, i.e. it was painless. Now Dhanesh started cutting and he felt the clay had made the wood soft. He was elated to find that his guesswork had worked.

  II

  Next morning Nimu and Meghraj came to examine the progress of the work. After thorough check up Dhanesh said that the tree was not yet in a condition to fall down; a few more days’ cutting may be necessary to reach the condition when the tree would crumble on its own weight. Dhanesh resumed work after they had left.

  He looked at the water course close to the forest and memories of many sad incidents came up his mind. He remembered how he and Sita used to roam at the fringe of the forest along the bank of this sandy stream that originated from a marshy land deep inside the forest and flowed down into the larger Chawai River. The bed of the stream was about twenty feet wide but except in rainy season only a narrow line of water cut through the bed of silvery sand on both sides. That was a holiday and they were traipsing barefooted along the sandy beach. Long grasses with violet bunches were dangling from both sides of the raised bank. Sita lowered a grass to pluck a bunch of flower and in a moment she jumped backwards as a venom-less large snake moved away through her parted legs. In panic she bumped on the chest of Danesh, clasping his neck hard and Dhanesh felt her fast heart bits. He hugged Sita hard and in a moment wild passion took possession of them and they went into frenzy lying on the sandy river bed. Then Sita got up, put on the sari and ran away giggling.

  One day they crossed the stream and walked to the northern side of the horse-shoe lake. This place had now become tree less but his father told that in earlier days this side of the lake was covered with dense forest and wild animals used to drink water from the lake. There were plenty of leopards at that time and at times they used to invade the villages killing the cattle, goats and even human beings. Now the place was free from the menace of the leopards and they could sit safely on the velvety grass that covered the bank of the lake. Sita wanted to move down the gentle slope and touch the water of the lake but she returned because of slushy ground. Sita was curious to learn about the olden days and Dhanesh told her the sad story of the hunter he had heard from his father. The incident happened close to the place where they were seated now. There were then tall saal trees here which had long been cut off by the timber thieves.

  A notorious leopard was invading a village close to the forest at night and killing cattle. It was very intelligent and smart and the villagers with all their best efforts could not do anything and as the village was very close to the forest their night watches failed. Then a hunter from Siliguri was invited to kill the leopard. He was tall and muscular and his intrepid and swell gaits assured the villagers who now were confident the leopard menace would be over in a few days. The man was an expert shoot and had hunted many ferocious animals. So it was a very simple task for him to kill the leopard. But the god of fate had something else in mind. In fact we humans are helpless and at the mercy of he hands of the unknown, Dhanesh thought.

  Two platforms with timber were prepared high up on two adjacent tall trees at the fringe of the forest. The larger one was for the hunter and the smaller one for his attendant who would focus a powerful torch into the eyes of the animal whenever it would come near the bait at the bottom of the hunter’s tree. Strong lights make animals befuddled and motionless. A small goat was tied as the bait to the trunk of a tree clearly within the range of the rifle of the hunter. The leopard came at night without guessing that it was trapped. As soon as the leopard took hold of the goat with his teeth, the servant focused the torch into its eyes and it got transfixed. The hunter then made the gun ready, but his gun did not work after several trials. Then he got impatient and in anger threw down the gun and the shot was fired as soon as the gun touched the ground and the torch fell down from the hand of the servant. The leopard at first ran toward the deep forest but came back soon, climbed the tree and killed the helpless hunter. The attendant climbed down after the leopard had left with the body of the hunter and alerted all the villagers who came out with whatever weapon they got close at hand. A large group of villagers invaded the forest with kerosene torches, clubs and choppers. Being chased by the mob, the leopard left leaving behind the half eaten corpse of the hunter.

  The sun had now gone further down and turned red and shadows were lengthening. Sita after listening to the story with rapt attention looked panicked and insisted Dhanesh to return home notwithstanding his assurances that no leopard was likely to come to that place and attack them. She got up and made for home. Dhanesh tried to stop her and she started running. Dhanesh could catch hold of the corner of her sari and she rolled down on the sand as he pulled at the sari. She got up and started giggling and running again with only the bra and the underclothes. But at last she got tired and surrendered to the passionate love of Dhanesh and the orgy of the two robust tribals went on for hours. They rose up and walked leisurely for home when the moon had gone high up in the sky and Sita felt embarrassed for the cut in her lower lip as it would be difficult for her now to appear before her in laws. She started admonishing Dhanesh for not being careful but Dhanesh laughed away the allegations and tried to grab her again but this time she could push him down and run away giggling.

  Sita was lively and passionate but always liked to tease Dhanesh before surrendering and this game intensified his passion and gave him immense pleasure. But she was no longer in this world. Where had she gone? Who knows! Dhanesh felt the salty test of tears dripping down his cheeks.

  III

  Nimu as usual arrived with lunch packet and insisted Dhanesh to exert less and work only in the morning. Dhanesh arranged his bag and accoutrement and made for the temporary residence after Nimu had left.

  The sun went down the horizon sprinkling glimmer of orange on the clouds around. A large bird came down from a tree. These birds are called ratichara. They look like storks but because of photophobia they do not like moving around at day time when they sleep and like the owl and the bat they roam around collecting their food at night.

  At night after an hour’s dreamless sleep Dhanesh had fragments of incoherent dreams: He and Sita are at the Jalpesh mela organized to celebrate the Shivaratiri, the great festival in the name of Lord Shiva. Thousands of people are jostling, mer
ry making and buying dainties, children are hollering and Rajbonshi devotees dressed as Shiva, Parvati and other gods and goddesses dancing and playing gajan songs. The background dissolves into a vast field engulfed in dense fog and he hears the meek voice of Sita and sees her silhouette beckoning him. He runs toward her but she vanishes in the fog and Dhanesh discovers himself sitting on a terrace in front of the old tree man who is now too sick to talk and the scene again changes and he finds him again with Sita watching the bishahara-pala eulogizing the serpent goddess Mansa and again he finds themselves standing on the hanging bridge of Karala at Jalpaiguri watching the bhasan (immersion ceremony) of goddess Durga. Hundreds of boats carrying the images of the goddess from the town and adjacent villages are floating on the still water of the river and in the semi-darkness the boats lighted by lanterns looks like floating dots of light. The bank of the river gets congested with thousands of visitors and the place becomes joyous with hollering of children, dancing by the young ones and makeshift shops and peddlers selling balloons, toys, tea and dainties. More and more people now flow into the bridge which now starts swaying frantically at the weight of thousands of people and all of a sudden the chords holding the bridge snaps and the bridge with Dhanesh and Sita collapses.

  His sleep broke at this moment and for the rest of the night he could not sleep. His mind drifted to the past, reminiscing the nuances of his association with the tree from his very childhood. The moribund old man in his dream was none but the tree and it was going to die simply for the greed of Dhanesh. He felt sad and hollow.