To Rabindranath once again, 22 years later

This column was first published in The Asian Age on the 22nd of November, 1996. Today on Rabindranath's 158th birthday, I start this Blog where I will be republishing some of my old columns. This seems sadly suited for the times we are living in. 

It was the night of Kali puja, a dark moon night whose stark blackness wasn’t relieved by oil lamps or candles. The small hamlet couldn’t afford a night of Deepavali. The distant microphone played out songs from Hindi films that gradually grew faint. They were the only reminders of a night that was different. The celebration of Kali puja, organised by the community, caused but minor ripples among the villagers. It is a different religion. Also the following morning, they have to wake up early to  run their humble errands. Some take the train to the city to hawk their modest fare of cooked food sold from blackened pots on the wayside, or trinkets on the suburban trains. Others struggle to earn a few rupees from working on someone’s land. Women work both at home cooking gruel and on better days a few vegetables thrown in, and outside if there is any opportunity for some extra hands and a few extra rupees. The music was still playing when the flimsy doors of the thatched huts were forced open. Men walked in with arms and took away whatever little there was the families could claim their own. The men looted their possessions and they raped the women: 9 men, 9 houses and 9 women of Madartala village, not far from the city Calcutta.

Drumbeats are heard over village ponds and over the still waters of the stagnant canals. In the languid afternoon sun, the frail woman weaves a mat on frayed, yellow grass. She still keeps alive the craft learnt from her grandmother. Two lines from an anonymous rhyme come wafting to her mind lulled by the silent afternoon: ‘Drummers are beating at the drums. I have given my daughter away to the family of dacoits…’

78-year old Rabindranath Tagore recalls the smudged imagery that the doggerel evokes of placidity, of anonymity and of oblivion. It is not easy to bring back the portrait or the pain. A young bride, a small daughter on her way to her husband’s home was picked up by dacoits. She was never heard of again. Like the dust over dried leaves, she was shaken off, thrown aside and trampled over. The ache soothed, even the dull pain was forgotten. The date and time were all erased.

Suddenly reality shakes away the slumber. The local village guard came to give this tiding. Do you remember that dark girl, thin and unkempt? She brought you fruits grown in her backyard, puffed rice and such other stuff which were all trifling. But you still gave her some change. Do you hear the woman, married to the village oil-presser wailing? A few days ago, she was taken away by some village miscreants. This morning, the village was told she had been killed. She was raped before she was killed.

The silence of the afternoon is suddenly shattered; the oppressive weight of oblivion is lifted. ‘Drummers are beating at the drums...’ There is no respite, no reprieve, no remedy. It is an eventuality which even God doesn’t interfere with. The landlord’s elephant sways with the weight of power as the wail of the helpless woman is gradually muffled.

Rabindranath wrote this poem two years before he died. He dedicated the collection called Akashpradip to the young poet, Sudhindranath Dutt. He was among the few writers who despite the difference in age and generation, had not pushed Rabindranath into archaism. The elder poet hoped this collection would be able to reach out to his young peers. He asked Sudhindranath to read them from his vantage point. The collection contained the first poem that ever brought to notice an incident of rape.  If modern literature was supposed to be based on reality and realism, Rabindranath had a series to offer. The pain, the anguish, the helplessness, the loud protest against brazen oppression and the helpless surrender could not have found a better poetic expression.

Today, so many years later we read the poem and contextualise it. The poet’s genius, his reply to the group that regarded themselves belonging to the post Rabindranath Kallol age, can well serve as subjects for a modern discourse. In all the rush of print and all the debate on style the dark woman and the scars on her body lie buried.

Just as the women in the Madartala village. The villagers allege that the police were late to arrive. The police and all investigating officials attribute it to local acts of vengeance. The news claimed the front page on the first morning. Gradually it was pushed back to fourth or fifth page, single column. Investigations are on, some new officer has been entrusted with the responsibility and a jeep. It is after all some distance away. A week later, and nothing more is heard of the anguish of the husband who saw his wife being beaten and striped and raped, or the father who had to witness a similar scene. Or the pregnant woman…

The papers will be stacked away, the information may enrich the archives. Some day a research scholar may retrieve the history of the village and the women and speculate on the recent theories of power and the terms of oppression. They would prove their point and defend their arguments.

They may be immortalised, like the daughter in the faintly remembered lines of the rhyme, or like the dark granddaughter of the blind woman in a poem to prove another point.

But none of these women have any point to prove. Was it revenge on them and their families or was it mindless assertion of power, like the zamindars’ elephant walking along the edge of the village?

It does not really matter anymore. Whatever it may have been, they paid for it with their bodies.

‘Drummers beating at the drums. I have given away my daughter…’