The Village and Eight Lives of Badalpur : Episode 1

Pilot (or The incident)

Prajwal

Devika, Prajwal’s 12 year old daughter

Devesh

Champa – Devesh’s mother

Lakhan – tea shop owner

Sukhinder

Giridhar – Prajwal’s brother, victim.

Titu – Giridhar’s 10 year old son

Rains don’t come to these villages any more. Sweltering heat descends in the afternoon on the few tea lovers who flock the only tea shop in the middle of the village which serves savories (jalebis and samosas) as well. Padded fields on the other side of the road and a broken cycle wheel hangs from a distraught hook outside the tea shop; a reminder to the few old timers that this was a cycle repair shop. But there were no cycles here anymore after the rich flee to the cities. The wheel remained an item of utmost curiosity to the little child Titu born after the great fire. A rotund imagery devoid of poetry and prose synonymous with the very dark that engulfs the eight people who live in the village - four from the same family. A complicated hegemony of relations lying exposed as they choose to bid farewell to Sukhinder who leaves for the city today. Seven more to go – he thinks and waves at the bus as it comes to a screeching halt next to the aforementioned tea shop, creating a mirage of dust and smoke which settles snugly on the samosas.

Sukhinder lives alone in the hut adjoining Devesh’s behind the tea shop. Three houses in the village – each a landmark for the other and the tea shop. Ah! The tea shop – a giant fuck you to the huge coffee houses in the city with posh lighting and swanky floors. This is a hell hole of ever sweltering heat, drowsy flies resting calmly on the jalebis as Lakhan wipes the tea pot every afternoon at 2 pm in patient anticipation of the 6 people who drink tea everyday. His customer bucket decreases to five from today. He weeps no tear as death is a worse agonizer. There is hope still for Sukhinder to return. No one has returned yet in the past 15 years though. ‘Hope’, he thought is a treacherous emotion, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. It mixes with the pan as he cleanses it in the brown hued water from the borewell in the backyard.

The borewell was planted seven years ago when the village had enough people to warrant a political seat. Some call it government attention but the definitions are long lost. In the first year, the water was really clean and crisp but such was no longer the case. During the fourth year, after Devesh had lost to Prajwal during an arm wrestling game for the first time in two years, the water erupted a pale yellow. The borewell was scratching earth’s surface they felt – and the earth was too eager to stay quietly in the summer heat and every now and then found a way out through the water the borewell bore. A silent act of rebellion. Devesh’s father had planted the borewell in the village seven years ago when he was still alive. He was not any more. He died of haija outside the village borders which was no more than 3 kilometers. Devesh had gone himself to ensure he stays out and dies peacefully. Wrapped in five layers of clothing he carried his father and waited for life to flicker from his eyes under the starry night. It was a good night to die. He thanked the stars when he was completely gone and buried him in the ground he had excavated in the afternoon. He felt alive albeit guilty. Late in the night he stumbled into Lakhan near the tea shop. He woke not to console him but to scratch his big belly and ask in the most innocuous of tones “Dafnaaye aaye bhaiya? Chai banau?”

Prajwal was twenty seven but looked thirty five in the lungi and baniyan he wore all day. Unlike others who had hairy faces for wont of a barber in the village, Prajwal had a cleaner countenance (cleaner of course of the hair) and donned a dirty browning moustache alone. He wiped his face clean with a knife he cut onions with. He felt Champa liked her men cleaner. Champa was Devesh’s mother and a widow. And she was fifty three. But she was the second female in the village. The first was Prajwal’s twelve year daughter, Devika, from his now dead wife. Champa had grown intuitively fond of Devika as she grew older. She sat on the floor in the open hut as she blew air into the choolha making chapatis for Devika and Devesh. He chided her affection sometimes but loved the chubby kid to hangout in the garden every evening as she played with Giridhar’s son Titu. He was growing fast but the heat made it easier to not afford new clothes. Giridhar was an old ragged man devoid of hair on his head and emotion in his heart. His wife some said never died of natural causes unless beating her every night was natural in the village. She died shortly after Titu’s birth. Giridhar was only more irritable after the incident and spent his time swatting flies outside Lakhan’s tea shop. Occasionally he spoke with his brother Prajwal about his work. They grew rice and wheat in January every month and ate it through the year.

Giridhar breathed his last a night ago when someone strangled him to death in his sleep. It was the first murder in this quiet village of nine people. It would not be two days after today that Prajwal would find his brother dead who he assumed would be asleep otherwise under the influence of hashish the grew abundantly in his backyard.

But today was a different day. Everyone except the dead Giridhar were at the bus top wishing Sukhinder farewell as he boarded the dusty bus. He sighed as the bus leapt into the oblivion the villagers called the city. Prajwal started walking towards Giridhar’s hut complaining of his sadistic pleasures only to be repulsed by a stench of the dead. For the first time someone had died in the last three years. For the first time the cause was unnatural. Prajwal stood shocked at the door as Titu played with his dead father’s beard.

(To be continued)