HARUN SALEM’S MASHI

                            

                         

                           HARUN SALEM’S MASHI

MAHASWETA DEVI

Translated from the Bangla by: Nilarko DasGupta

 

On the morning of Aghran, the cold layer on the water lay unstirred, the hearth not yet lit at the teashop near the bus stand. Hara came to Gourobi’s courtyard and stood. Even though Hara is clearly seven years old, his speech is still slurred, and he suffers repeatedly from fits of fever. He stammers frequently. Hara said, “M-Mother won’t m-move, Mashi! I tried to wake her—she doesn’t respond!”

 

Gourobi was looking for her weeding tool and her collecting pouch. With the weeding tool in their hands, stuffing their pouch into their waist-clothes or sari folds, Gourobi and Hara's mother collects Thankuni leaves and Kochi shaak on the banks of the river. They sell branches of the Yajnadumur plants, Durbo grasses, and Bel leaves—everything they can get to Jashodas. Jashoda and her companions travel to the town every day at early hours, returning in the afternoon.

 

Gourobi doesn’t go with them. One of her legs has been defective since birth. The heel and the foot are curved. The toes curved backwards. Gourobi can’t walk quickly. She has to depend on Hara’s mother for collecting leaves, creepers, and shellfish.

 

All are creations of God! There’s no harm in touching leaves and creepers. Gourobi was shocked at Hara’s words. She said, “Why doesn’t she respond?”

 

“Don’t know…”

 

“Wait!”

 

Gourobi dragged herself to Hara’s house, slowly. Hara’s father was a thatcher. He had built his hut high. One had to look up to view it. Within a few days of thatching their house, Hara’s father died. Under his pillow, glittering like a silver coin, a Niyarchanda snake was found. Its poison went quickly from his fingertips to his brain.

 

After folding up his body inside the mat and the purification ritual of the courtyard, it’s the men of his own community who spit on the floor, interjecting, “Ha! He thatched his hut as if it were a mansion!”

 

It was then that Hara’s mother realized that thatching a house so high hadn’t been taken easily by the people of their community. Your wife and child live like beggars. You’re a small thatcher. Why do you have to build your house higher than that of the Palbabus? Every night she gets a fever and weeps… covering her eyes with her palms. Gourubi was suddenly mistaken.

 

“Hey, sister! Are you crying?”

 

Saying this, Gourobi looked closer and suddenly rose. She moved back. She unbarred the door and told Hara, “Tell your Kaka! Tell him that Mashi’s calling!”

 

Hara’s uncle can be found at the bus stop sometimes, carrying loads. However, today he was not there. The afternoon passed, and with the approach of the evening, some local masons arrived to take the body of Hara’s mother, Ayechha Bibi, for her last rites. Gourobi said, “Go along with them, Hara. Bury her…”

 

In the late afternoon light, while breaking the branches of Yajnadumur, all alone, Gourobi felt sad for herself. Hara’s mother got the soil from her son’s hands at her burial; she’s so fortunate! She lay dying inside her own house; she’s lucky.

 

“Who knows where I’ll die, and who’s going to cremate me!”

 

Gourobi feels pain during these times. She’s gazing at the rail tracks. Only a distance of a few stations. The people of Gourobi’s community have acquired land, and they’ve built houses on it. Her son Nibaran lives there.

 

Gourobi, too, could have lived there. Nibaran didn’t allow her. Generally. The daughter-in-law comes and alienates her mother-in-law. But Gourobi was not so lucky. Even before her daughter-in-law could utter something, Nibaran decided, “Now you go to Puti’s. I’ll send for you sometimes.”

 

“To my daughter?”

“Why, don’t you remember?”

 

Gourobi realised at that moment, the terrible revenge of her son… He hasn't forgotten anything! Nibaran's father had to spend all the money he had earned from his thatching work to pay for the wristwatch, the bicycle, and the torch to get the bus conductor as his son-in-law. Nibaran was much younger then. Staring at the cycle, he asked, "Will you give everything to only one child?"

 

There had been a squabble between the father and the son. Gourobu retorted, “Why are you so envious? Puti’s going to feed me eventually. Which girl these days doesn’t look after her parents, huh?”

 

“Good. We’ll see in time.” Nibaran uttered.

 

Then, after so many years, Nibaran struggled to build a house; he cemented the floors, got married, and soon refused to feed his mother.

 

It was 8 years ago. The son-in-law is unemployed after losing his job as a conductor; even the daughter, now and then, keeps moving from her parental house and her in-laws into this residence. 

 

It has been 6-7 years since Gourobi started living in this village. Considering her poor condition at her daughter-in-law’s, Mukundo brought her here. Mukundo can arrange everything; he’s of inhuman strength. He has acquired lands in multiple locations from here. Nowadays, people have gone bad. A house, or a piece of land, is forcibly occupied if left uninhabited. “Clutch a piece of land, this little hut, Pishi! Nibaran would give as much as he could. Won’t you be able to boil a few leaves and creepers for yourself?”

 

“Bless you, my son!”

 

Gourobi shifted here since then. The village is situated too much in the interior. Well, you can call it a ‘village,’ if you like! Neither on the main road nor too near the ‘village,’ Gourobi couldn’t make out how she was going to survive here with even one square meal a day! Nibaran is now the ticket man of a private bus. He used to send only five rupees for the first few months, then he even stopped that.

 

Panged by hunger, Gourobi now and then boils a field potato and eats. Sitting beside the wooden hearth, she often reflects on her days of youth—it seems like a past life to her, almost a fairy tale! The words she heard at the ghat of the pond came back to her mind.

 

“Hey, Parul’s mother! How’s the family of your daughters’ in-laws?”

 

“Nice, sister! She eats warm rice 4 times a day!”

 

Looking at her condition, Hara’s mother had said, “One should cope with whatever one comes across… You know how we manage to eat?”

 

“How?”

“Scrape coconut leaves, take a stick, and tie it up. Collect creepers, leaves, shellfish, and sticks from trees, and hand them over to Joshi. She’ll pay you in the evening.”

 

She didn’t even know Hara’s mother’s name. She could only make out when she saw her observing the Ramjaan month that they were from a different community.

 

“My leg is lame; I don’t go to the city. But why don’t you?”

 

Hara’s mother sighed… “I’m scared, sister!”

 

No, Hara’s mother had not come up to sit on Gourobi’s porch while she was cooking. But she’d sit in the courtyard, picking lice. The two sat together, picking up old cabbage leaves and crushed tomatoes from the discarded stocks of the vendors.

 

That Hara’s mother danced away and left. Gourobi felt upset. Then it occurred to her that Hara’s mother is luckier than herself.

 

“What happened to that Hara, Joshi? Did his uncle take him away?”

 

“Who knows, Mother!”

 

Joshi almost dashed away. Joshis don’t walk; they run. In fact, they carry rice and go to the town. Takes leaves, creepers, coconut sticks—everything they can. They can’t stop to talk in the morning.

Gourobi shook her head. Hara comes and sits in his courtyard quite often. He rests under the shade of the trees. He brings her a chichinge or a dhundhul from his mother’s trees.

 

Hara’s head is bigger than his thin body. He’s gotten used to being starved—that’s why he has a wise look in his eyes, as if he knows everything.

 

“Oh! Did he go away with his uncle?”

 

Thinking this brought pain to her. For a few years, Hara and his mother have completely made her forget about her loneliness. Reflecting on them, it suddenly came to Gourobi that—if she went to stand in front of Nibaran, how would that be?

 

“Give me a handful to eat, Nibaran!” – if she breaks into tears, uttering these words, could Nibaran abandon her?

 

Contemplating all this, Gourobi dragged a huge coconut branch into her hut. Scraping it to take out the sticks is a tough job. It takes a lot of time. The remaining time could be spent picking lice, by the feel of her fingers. In the evening, she could chew a mouthful of grains, drink water, and go to bed.

 

Returning home, Gourobi saw Hara sitting in her courtyard. Surprised at this, Gourobi asked, “Hara, you?”

“K-Kaka asked me to come to you…”

“Here”

“S-Said, go to hell!”

“What?”

“S-said…”

 

Hara counted on his fingers, trying hard to recollect,  “Kaki is not there at Kaka’s home. Kaka travels in a train, going from place to place, train, and”

 

“Your own uncle?”

 

“Ma used to say that he’s not my own.”

“Who’s there in your family?”

“Ma said no one!”

“Go to the porch… Eat and lie down!”

 

Gourobi ate a mouthful of grains herself and gave Hara some. Then, as she lay down on the mat and rolled around, thinking, she felt her head spin. Is Hara going to stay with her? Oh, what a disaster! Doesn’t he have anyone in his family who could look after him?

 

Gourobi thought about Hara’s mother… Tattered clothes, worn with knots all over, a very skinny woman, a head full of coarse hair, though the hair was quite nice… curly, fluffy. No ornaments except an amulet around her neck. Wretched of the wretched, poorest of the poor. Had Gourobi’s mother-in-law ever come across such a miserable fellow like her, she would feel sorry, saying, “Give her oil and water to rub on her head! Give her rice; let her eat full.”

If she’d had someone in the family, then she wouldn’t have suffered so. Gourobi got extremely worried. Hara’s mother has no family left—but what can Gourobi do about that? She herself remains half-fed most of the time. Apart from that, how could Gourobi offer shelter to Hara? Is he a boy of her own religion or her own community?

 

Hara was weeping in his sleep.

“I suppose he’s dreaming of his mother!” Gourobi uttered indistinctly. Then she went to Hara with her mat, touched him gently, and said, “Roll on to your side, Hara. It’s just a dream; why do you worry?”

 

Gourobi prayed to her goddess and closed her eyes. Whatever she fails to achieve in broad daylight, she gets them all sometimes in her dreams… Oil-rubbed hair, expensive new clothes, stomach-filling food. Nirbaran looks after her with utter care in her dreams. Tonight, in her dreams, Hara’s mother dragged her by her hand, guiding her to a strange world. All the thankuni leaves and durbo grasses grow there. There’s a forest of husking pedal under the shade of the mother trees. Coming across so many leaves and creepers, Gourobi makes out that this is paradise. Could her and Hara’s mother’s paradise be the same? Or do all the poor people have the same paradise?

[To be continued]