A Night of Fate

The night had set in early that day. It almost always did. 

Tucked away in an obscure countryside in Bengal, Keshavpur was a small semi-rural set-up. A beaten down railway station, two old rails cutting across the seemingly endless paddy fields en-marked in inadequately small plots by short embankments of wet mud, 20 odd families in their thatched huts, and the forest department area-an inspection bungalow, 2 quarters and a check post on the rugged road which marked the end of habitation and led to that narrow trail snaking into the forests and up the jutting hills.

“And it is not even 8!” Aditya marvelled at how time cunningly tuned in to the demands of nature. He had arrived at Keshavpur in the morning, on a department jeep along with a local boy, Prosanto, a driver cum helper in the Inspection Bungalow. He had been putting off this inspection for months. Ultimately running out of excuses, he finally had to take the 10 hour trip to the place.

***

On the verandah, by the light of a flickering hurricane lamp, Aditya savoured the silence of the night. The rains had just subsided and the smell of wet earth was pouring into the air. The constant chirping of the crickets was broken only by an occasional raucous horn from one of the bull frogs in the compound. He took a light and smoked away. 

A dimmed brightness came from one of the quarters. The bedroom in all probability. Faint, broken sounds of a sweet lullaby floated on into Aditya’s ears. 

“A Lovely voice...” In the stillness of the night, Aditya had forgotten how thoughts uncontrollably turn into words.

“That is Sanyal Didi, Aditya Babu..” Aditya’s nightly reverie was broken by Prosanto’s contribution to the happenings. “Mrs. Neha Sanyal”.

“They live all alone here?”

“Yes. Mahesh Babu is the in-charge of the four check posts around this area. It’s been a year since he came here. They married around four months back. The child is from her previous marriage.”

“She was married before?” His interest stirred, Aditya felt the lullaby-voice coming in more clearly now.

“Yes. She was expecting at the time when her former husband was convicted of a murder. He got into bad company, they said. Since he had no family, she went to live with her parents in Belampur. Two years later, her father too died. She had no option but to remarry, for the sake of her newborn and her ailing mother”

Prosanto’s matter-of-fact narration of Mrs. Neha’s story, added more poignancy to the night. For a change, Aditya began to sense, how, in the midst of such commonplace circumstances, there was always something that was distanced from normal. Something that could take hold of someone’s life by its wings, and put it on an entirely different course. Tired of his musings, he decided to sleep.

Around midnight, Aditya’s subconscious was on a roll. Tonight, it was a car with him on the wheel. He was fleeing from someone he didn’t know. Downhill, swerving dangerously around the tight corners and finally the cliff emerged out of nowhere. He missed like every time. Falling into the unfathomable depths of the gorge, he felt his insides rising.

The silence of the midnight was disturbed by a scream.

**

Aditya woke up with a start, even before he made it to the bottom of the fall. He heard the shrill cries of a woman, interspersed with the crying of a baby.

“Someone has broken into the other house, Aditya Babu!” Prosanto came running out to the porch. 

“We must call the nearby chowki! Get me that telephone!” After 3 failed attempts, Aditya was explaining to a reluctant sleepy havildar the events of the night in Keshavpur.

His attention now on the house, he realized the sounds were coming in more muffled tones now. Something inside of him, perhaps an irrational pity for Mrs. Neha, willed him to go and save her. He wasted no more time. Groping in the darkness, and cursing the erratic power supply, he took the poker from the kitchen and slowly stole up to the house.

The sounds were now coming from the front room. Nobody heard the click as the door slowly opened and Aditya’s shadow entered. 

“Please go! Please leave us alone! I beg of you!”

“But Neha...”

Nobody got to hear anything more than those last two words. Aditya flung his full might on to the burly form on his right. It fell with a thud. More shadows entered the room now, perhaps of the policemen from the chowki. Two of them carelessly picked up the man lying on the floor and dragged him to their jeep. Aditya almost began to revel in self-pride.

For some reason though, Mrs. Neha’s screams never stopped.

**

On the doorstep of that little house, Aditya stumbled over a broken chappal. Bending down to throw away the last dirty remnant of the intruder, he noticed a little toy in the corner, behind the door hinges. And a hand written note, stuck on it by some cheap glue.

“Neha...Hope you are well... Perhaps I may never get to meet you again, so I took a chance at an escape...2 years now and they still do not believe that I did not commit the murder. Not that it matters anymore. They now say I am dying of some disease. I am tired of these games now.... How is the baby?... Will you please give this to her? ...Who knows when we’ll meet again....

Time stretched out in long guilty painful moments as Aditya dragged himself to the Inspection Bungalow, the note caressed in his fist. Mrs. Neha’s sobs continued to pound the night. Even the crickets and the frogs gave their music a miss.

Except a content Prosanto, still proud at his master’s bravery, nobody slept that night in that small corner of Keshavpur.

-Palash

August 2012, Lumding