Along Came Bonny Meghali Barua
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The River – By Meghali Barua
Hiren looked at the meandering river flowing by. It seemed angry, almost violent. The Red River, he remembered its name suddenly. “It must be bloody…that’s why the name,” little Hiren thought to himself.
Hiren’s village, a little nondescript, not-on-the-map blimp was situated adjacent to the river, a Luit paaror gaon just like hundreds of others in Assam. Hiren who had never ever visited any other place outside his tiny settlement thought that it was the most beautiful place on earth. “It is paradise,” as Mastor Koka would say. Mastor Koka was the gnarly school principal who lived his retired days in ‘peace and solitude’ in a small cottage by the olive-green rice fields, right by the ancient banyan tree. You know the tree I am talking about…the humble abode of the village ghosts and ghouls. Only last week, Poben had seen one…a toothless woman in white hanging upside down from a knotty thick branch.
Hiren brought his truant thoughts back to the river. Ghosts scared him, and the river, well…he could never understand it. “It took away your parents.” That his grandmother had been telling him ever since he could remember. An orphan, he lived with his grandmother. But how the river ‘took’ his parents were always a mystery to his mind. Perhaps they had just sailed away on a boat to a different village. But they wouldn’t have really left him behind, would they? That too with Koli Aita, his ever-berating grandmother. Koli Aita was dark-skinned, almost the color of ember and hence christened with her unique name. But Hiren thought she was charming, especially when she flashed him her rare red-stained, now toothless smile. Other than his grandmother, he thought that Rani was the other most beautiful soul in his life, his saucy goat. Rani…the queen! It was a name he had chosen. And she was quite the queen! She loved eating the slightly drying carrots and potatoes he would steal from his granny’s small kitchen cellar. He was always careful…he would steal the ones which were small and would not be missed by Aita’s always-on-the-guard eyes.
As Hiren stood on the sandy riverbank, he heard a sudden commotion. A mélange of people was positioned a little further away…hands flailing, voices angry. He spotted Mastor Koka standing in the posse, shaking his head solemnly. “Koka! What happened?” The old man held Hiren’s hands as if he needed strength. “Hiren! Study hard…go away from this place. The river is going to eat up everything.” The old man pointed his finger towards the steep river bank…a large chunk had been washed away overnight.
A mustached, pot-bellied man approached the old man. “Will our embankment stay strong this year, Koka?”
Mastor Koka looked as if he had been unnerved by the sight the gushing, grey river…muddy with silt and earth stolen from strange lands, unknown homes. “The river is swelling up fast. If it rains tonight, we’ll be in trouble.” There was a flicker of fear in Mastor Koka’s wise eyes. The trio stood silent, afraid. They could hear the anger of the roaring river…feel its mighty force as the flowing water crashed against the now vulnerable, eroding bank as if challenging its strength.
Hiren had spent the better part of the last summer with the children and women at the village ‘clubhouse.’ In better times, it was just a community hall where the whole village congregated on Sundays to watch a movie, usually run from pirated CDs. It was the only place where floodwaters hadn’t broken in, quite miraculously, that year and hence was converted into a makeshift shelter. They were able to survive on one-meal-a-day, a thin rice gruel with salt provided by their local sorkar. Koli Aita, as was her nature, grumbled all the time and only a sharp rebuke from their neighbor, a young widow on the mat next to theirs was able to do the impossible…to make Aita fall silent. Not that Aita was happy about it, but she couldn’t dare to get into a war of words just then, she was too worn out by the water, the persistent mosquitoes, and her grumbling empty stomach. She had not eaten her share but had given the tiny morsel to her grandson…the glutton.
Hiren broke free from Koka’s tight clutch and ran towards the now half-submerged-in-the-water field. That morning, he had left his goat there to feed on the grass and leaves she could forage. The rice field now resembled a lake almost, with shiny water reflecting the gloomy dark-grey sky above…just like a glowing, grey pearl. Rani stood by the edge of the water anxiously…probably angry at Hiren. She hasn’t had any grass to eat for quite a few days now. Hiren ran and caught hold of Rani’s tether. He saw that, apart from a few brazen stalks of the tall and stately Kohua bon, there was no grass. Nearby, he could see a cow and her calf trying to feed by the few mud patches that poked out from the water. “Bol…Rani!” he called. He knew how Rani must be feeling, hungry and tired…how her stomach must be crying for food because his did too. He touched Rani’s warm, twitching ears. He felt helpless. There was nothing left in the kitchen larder. Just a few rice grains and Aita would thrash him if he gave it to Rani. Suddenly a simple solution came to his mind. Happy, he lifted Rani in his arms and started running towards home.
Aita was in the kitchen, boiling rice in their old iron pot. Apart from the red-hued flame from the gas stove, as Hiren peered inside, he couldn’t make out Aita’s silhouette in the dark. “Perhaps she has gone out?” he thought, not too hopeful. Hiren went to the back…he spotted the rickety ladder lying abandoned by the wall. Carefully he pulled it and placed it by their hut’s side. After carefully scanning the courtyard for his grandmother’s familiar figure, Hiren climbed up the shaky, protesting ladder. As quickly he could, he pulled a few straws and stuffed them in his small fist. Rani bleated plaintively from below. Hiren climbed down and fed the wet hay to Rani. “The poor goat,” thought Hiren as he watched Rani gobble up the hay. “Rani…when the rains stop, Aita and I will go to the market and get you carrots.” A hot tear escaped from his eye…he knew that he was lying but he had to.
Still as a statue, Koli Aita sat on the mud floor listening to her grandson’s monologue through the thin walls of the hut. Her throbbing heart ached…she had known for a long time now that he had been feeding Rani hay from the roof. But she didn’t have the heart to scold him. After all, when the heavy rains come pouring down and their flimsy straw roof starts leaking, it didn’t really matter if the water came down through a few more holes. A leaky roof can be fixed someday but a broken heart is difficult to. She looked at the rice boiling in the cauldron. They had stopped eating at night. She had to make the ration last. They had rice for a few more days but after that, only the Gods knew where she was going to get more. But she knew that Gods always helped…somehow…in some form.
The day ended without much fanfare and the night fell. The two tired souls, one old, broken and aged and one not even a decade old, felt into a dreamless slumber. But both had no fantasies…no hope for the future. Their only ‘plan’ was how to survive the water that summer.
Somewhere in the dead of the night, Aita was suddenly jolted out of sleep. Rani’s loud, frantic bleats had broken her sound slumber. “Have the jackals come again?” Aita thought angrily. Rani bleated again, clearly distressed. “I am coming,” Aita called out comfortingly.
As she got up from the cot, her feet recoiled at the sudden touch of cold water. Aita looked down and saw that river water had seeped in the hut without any warning like a crafty night prowler and was now rising dangerously fast. Even as she stared, stupefied, at the rising water, she felt that it had already risen a few inches more. “Hiren,” Aita called out, willing her voice not to break and tremble in front of her sleeping grandson. Hiren! She shook him vigorously. Hiren opened his eyes, confused and scared. Koli Aita whispered, “Water has come in. We have to get out.” Aita pointed towards the muddy water now entering their hut with an unmasked contempt for the inmates, claiming every inch and corner as its own. A small shudder ran through little Hiren’s body.
In the pitch dark, the gurgle of the water seemed even more sinister. Hiren hugged his grandmother tightly. “Has the river come for me?” “No…never,” a hoarse cry escaped from Aita’s lips. Aita grabbed Hiren in her arms. She could see water everywhere. She had no time to save her possessions…the carefully saved mound of rice and a few tattered clothes.
“We have to get up on the roof,” she whispered urgently. Hiren tightened his arms around his grandmother’s neck. Somehow, Aita managed to open the broken door and wade out through the surging waters. It seemed that their whole neighborhood had been swallowed by the raging river. As far as her eyes fell, there was water everywhere. Loud thunder broke over their heads and rain fell upon them with such malevolence as if it was determined to wash off their very existence. They could hear wild screams in the distance. And then all they could hear was the roar of the water and the wind.
Struggling against the treacherous water, Aita caught hold of the ladder that Hiren had used just that afternoon to pull out hay from the roof. With a mighty heave and trembling steps, she climbed up the ladder slowly and managed to get on the swaying roof with Hiren hanging on her back. As she made Hiren sit on the edge of their falling roof, a terrified Hiren looked down and started to cry. “Aita…Rani will die…we have to get her…the river will take her away.”
Koli Aita hugged Hiren, their drenched bodies huddled against the falling rain. “Hiren…Sit here. I will get Rani.” Stroking his head gently, Aita looked at her sobbing grandson, icy water streaming down his wobbly chin. With a quick kiss on Hiren’s feverish forehead, Koli Aita climbed down. The last glimpse Hiren saw of his grandmother was of her pale, gnarled hands clutching the side of the roof before she vanished in the howling, strange night. Wiping water from his blurry eyes, Hiren crawled to the edge of the roof. His eyes tried to pierce through the engulfing pitch-blackness. He screamed…Aita…Rani. But all he could see was the putrid swirling water…and he kept screaming.
