courtesy PTI
Vishwas Patil
(Translated from Marathi by Keerti Ramachandra)
I
ncessant rain had been lashing the countryside for the last four days. Several villages including the tiny hamlet of Taliye now lay buried under the red Konkan soil, somewhere at the foot of the hill. Rescue work was in progress. Amidst the clanking of the excavators was heard the keening and wailing of the survivors.
From my government bungalow I was watching live coverage of the havoc caused by the floods in Mumbai while keeping track of the situation in my district. The Arabian Sea had taken over the streets of Mumbai like a horde of protestors. Wireless communication was erratic, public transport services had been suspended, stalled cars floated in the swiftly flowing currents and people returning home in the evening were wading through miles of waist deep water.
As the TV screen blanked out, my mind flew back seventeen years when I was the Chief Executive Officer of the Raigad Zilla Parishad. The situation was similar. Then too many villages had been ravaged and some lay under mounds of red earth. Also buried in the deepest recesses of my mind were images of a vivacious young woman, Maalan Kondiba Maldande. Seventeen years later those memories were still fresh….
It had been raining all day and the clouds seemed to have an endless supply of water they were determined to bestow on the earth below. The coconut and areca palms outside my rather modest government quarters swayed wildly in the gleeful dance of a naked she-devil, their fronds like her limp and stringy hair. I was not unfamiliar with scenes like this having grown up in the region. I had braved the flooded Warana river, undertaken hazardous forays into the forest in search of straying cattle, and rescuing chickens and small animals from the rain But that night seemed to portend something ominous. I was uneasy so I ordered the rescue operations team of my office to remain alert and told my driver to sleep in my quarters. Around midnight the insistent ringing of the phone had me scramble out of bed. “Hello?”
“Saheb, Bhalerao, Bhalerao speaking saheb…” he stammered.
He was a taluka education officer from a village near Mahad-Poladpur.
“Yes Bhalerao, what’s the urgency?”
“Saheb, I am in Mumbai … ”
“Yes, yes, Bhalerao, what is the matter?”
“The deluge, saheb, it’s the pralaya … we are finished … my entire village … buried, swallowed by the mountain …”
“Which village? How …?”
“Your jurisdiction only, saheb … Jambhulvadi village forty-one dwellings gone …lost …”
Landslides were not common in these parts, so I was surprised, “What? Were there tremors or what?”
“No no sahib, but the rain, hammering down with the strength of four elephants ..four generations haven’t seen rain like this … the stream flowing down our Vethaloba hill lost control … tore the hillside off like a piece of paper and rushed towards us. The soft dry soil drank up all the water, then slowly two hillocks ate up forty-one of our poor people’s homes, saheb…”
“When did this happen?”
“Yesterday evening, saheb … around five o’clock.”
“Then how is it we haven’t received any message from the taluka office or the police station yet?”
“If they knew they would have informed no sahib? … Streams are now rivers, roads washed away bridges and culverts submerged … phones not working …how will they know?”
“But what about you? You are in Mumbai?”
“Saheb, my brother-in-law is a high school teacher. He poor fellow went to bring back his buffaloes from grazing … he saw what was happening with his own eyes … and fell unconscious with shock. When he recovered he realised he had his mobile phone with him. But he was out of range. Like a madman he climbed half way up the other side of the hill … He could not get through to anyone in Mahad. So he called me. ”
My first task was to call my superiors at Mantralaya, the Secretariat in Mumbai. The rescue team from the district office had arrived and were awaiting orders. Just then a thin reedy voice came through the crackling line. It was the constable from the police control room. “Yaas, saheb, very terrible thing has happened near Mahad –Poladpur … very serious … yesterday … no first-hand information sir … no details about survivors, damage, sir … Better to speak to the superintendent saheb, sir…”
Within a couple of hours the district collector – who was my neighbour – and I set for the disaster site. We were getting exasperated because of the slow progress. The Mumbai-Goa National Highway was fully water-logged and the drivers had to be very careful to avoid the ditches and puddles while negotiating to prevent water . The night was almost gone and we hadn’t even reached the the Mangaon taluka border.
I must have dozed off when a sudden jolt woke me and also revived a memory. Maalan Kondiba Maldande. She was working as a primary school teacher somewhere in these parts. If she knew I was visiting she would definitely come to meet me, braving the weather and the unfriendly terrain. These village girls have a profound sense of gratitude, I knew.
In my district, as in many otherparts of Maharashtra a cadre of ‘shikshan sevaks’ – teaching assistants in government schools, had been created by some wily bureaucrat so that young fresh graduates could be recruited on a contract basis, made to work long hours for three or four years for a paltry sum of Rs 3000/- per month. They would not receive any benefits that accrue to regular government employees.
Most of the candidates came from very humble rural backgrounds. Abject poverty, few employment opportunities, the burden of loans taken to pay for some teacher-training course, family responsibilities, forced many young men and women to vie for these posts. Candidates would come for the interviews from hundreds of miles away in the hope of getting selected. Many couldn’t even afford the bus fare. When the interviews spilled over to the next day, they had no money for a meal. I was disgusted by this exploitative system, but was too small a cog in the robust administrative machinery to make a difference. However I had decided that I would do everything I could to make the selection process fair and free from any ‘corrupt’ practices. During my tenure as the CEO of the Zilla Parishad, with the cooperation of my fellow officers we had appointed around six thousand shikshan sevaks without controversy or complaint.
As the CEO I was not required to sit on the interview panel, but I thought my presence would deter anyone from indulging in any kind of malpractice. I first encountered Maalan Maldande when she was sitting on the wooden bench opposite the interview panel, her eyes filled with hope and expectation. Every now and then she cast a cursory glance at the dirty white walls of the government office and the mandatory portraits of national leaders hanging there. After the panel had finished with their questions, it was my turn.
“Maldande, you are from Adarki, isn’t it(aren’t you)? Which Adarki, Khurda or Budruk? Greater or Smaller?” My question took Maalan by surprise. Involuntarily the tip of her tongue stuck out and with a shy smile she replied, “Budruk only no, saheb.”
“Very well. Tell me, who set up the Ryot Education Society and where?”
“ Karmaveer Anna – our Bhaurao Patil, in Satara only, no saheb.”
“But what is that place called … the exact locality in Satara … think …” I prompted.
Maalan was flustered. Obviously she knew the answer but could not recall it at that instant. I gave her a clue … “Think of a particular maidan or a garden, Maldande…”
“Oh yes, yes, of course, saheb … Dhanini chi Baag,” she exclaimed and in typical village girl fashion, bit her tongue and uttered a relieved ‘bayio!’ under her breath. The next three-four questions elicited quick and correct answers from her.
Maalan Maldande, a tall, slender, wheat- complexioned girl, with an oval face, very thick, long black, tightly braided hair, an open, cheerful expression and a warm endearing smile was extremely bright, vivacious and spirited. There was absolutely no reason not to appoint her as a shikshan sevika. Once the interviews were done and the list of selected candidates pasted on the wall, I walked out. I saw Maalan standing there looking worried. I went off to attend to other impending matters.
About a week later I had a visitor. The name on the piece of paper he had sent in and face when he walked in, seemed familiar. Before he could sit down, I exclaimed, “Arrey Baliram, you! What brings you here?” Baliram used to occupy the room next to mine in the hostel when I was doing my MA. I had not seen him in years. Behind him stood a young girl bubbling with childlike excitement. It was Maalan.
“VM, this is my niece Malu …”
“Yes I remember you … did you see the list put up outside? You looked worried that day … Never mind, you can try again next time …” I consoled Maalan.
Immediately Maalan bit the tip of her tongue. “Baiyo, saheb, I have not failed I am among the top fifteen-twenty – selected on merit, saheb!” There was pride in her voice.
“So, what can I do for you, Bali?” I asked. I gathered that he was worried about his niece having to live so far away from home.
I turned to Maalan. “Which school have you been assigned to?”
“ Vidyamandir, Jambhulwadi, post Karnjawane, taluka Mahad.”
I picked up the list on my table.
“Baliram,” I said, “there are a few vacancies in the nearby Panvel taluka. I can allot her a school of her choice …”
“No,no … saheb …”Maalan interjected. “Don’t do anything like that …”
“Really? People are making desperate trips to Mantralaya every day to get their schools changed to the Uran–Panvel region …”
“ Mahad is good for me, saheb … it is like this, saheb …. On Saturdays when school gets over I can just have get on the State transport, ST bus, and in two, maximum three hours I am home … There are other buses too , to Pandharpur or Phaltan or via Pune–Panvel–Shirwal …”
“Theek ahey very well, then,” I said cutting her short, “If you have any other problem, come and see me.” With that assurance I ended the discussion.
As Baliram stood up to take leave, his eyes filled with gratitude Maalan had lifted the latch of the half-door and rushed out. I could hear her arguing with my peon seated there. In a couple of minutes he had entered the cabin carrying a faded brown cloth bag containing six or seven fresh green corn cobs. Before any of us could speak, Maalan said excitedly, “This ‘fruit of the field’ is sent by my mother, saheb… Aba, my father, picked them himself early this morning. They are very fresh. Tell Vahinisaheb, (my wife) not to roast them on the gas stove, but in the embers of the coal shekoti. They exude the flavour of our burnt earth, these cobs …”
“Come on, Malu, saheb has lots of work Baliram shepherded Malan away.
When an entire hamlet called Jambhulwadi becomes ‘was’ from ‘is’ thanks to a sliding mountain face, what does one make of it?
The normally benign Savitri river had dragged the ocean into the hills and valleys of Konkan and in her fury she had devastated vast stretches of fertile land and destroyed the lives of the hapless human beings who dwelt on her banks. Death had performed its macabre dance. The silence of the graveyard greeted us when we finally reached there.
We were under tremendous pressure. Our efforts to get in the heavy machinery continued. With no direct access to Jambhulwadi the JCBs, Poclain excavators, and other earth-moving equipment would take hours to get there, circumnavigating the hills. Helicopters from Mumbai could not land in the slushy ground. The sky was still overcast with heavily pregnant rainclouds We had managed to get there with a jeep and two trucks. The first batch of rescue workers and officials had reached Jambhulwadi before us. As i looked around all I could see at the foot of Vetaloba’s hill was about a kilometres of brownish red clay. Beyond was an expanse of swirling turbid water … Just then three men from the neighbouring village ran towards us, soaked to the skin. Pointing to the uneven heaps of mud they wailed, “Here it was, see, it was here, that Jambhulwadi …”anguish writ large on their faces, despair in their cries. Then suddenly as if knifed in the stomach they collapsed onto the soggy ground. Through sobbed out the story of Jambhulwadi. Their heart-rending cries rent Nature’s eardrums and then disappeared into oblivion. What had been a vibrant prosperous settlement with its plump milch cattle, lively children hunting crabs in the paddy flats, hardworking men and women of the soil was now a pile of rubble and debris. I looked back again at the hillock. One side of it, where its flank had been sliced off, was exposed, pink like the flesh of a skinned animal.
Above loomed the drooping sky, below lay the unfeeling earth.
Local government officials were doing their job of reporting to us cold statistics. ‘Total population 90; Houses 41, Milch cattle 120, 125 sheep and pens missing. Goats and chickens, no count.’
Jambhulwadi now in eternal sleep beneath the red earth was Nature’s symbolic slap on the face of the rapacious human race. Steam and vapour was rising from the ground. Were they the sighs of the interred dead?
While we awaited the arrival of the heavy machinery, some men from neighbouring villagers came with two tractors and started digging in the dim light of lanterns and the flickering cloth-wick torches. Darkness like a predatory beast was preying on their effort.
The numbers of relatives and people from nearby villages had started reaching the site with the innocent faith that their family members were safe. And nurturing that hope they waited in the pouring rain until the bodies were recovered and identified, dashing their hopes.
On the second night two policemen riding a motorcycle brought more bad news. Four more villages in the same taluka had been swallowed up by another landslide. This geological disaster had shocked everyone. All of Maharashtra was shaken. BreakingNews banners snaked across the bottom of TV screens across the country.
The task confronting us was daunting. My colleagues and I prepared a priority list for the deployment of emergency services and equipment and assigned teams of of officials and volunteers specific duties.
Our efforts were hampered by continuous queries from the Secretariat in Mumbai, and meeting VIPs rushing to the spot with flashing red beacons on their cars and an escort of insolent police vehicles screaming their arrival. . Through the night we went from location to location supervising relief and rescue operations, maintaining and updating a status reports, while being alert for new developments. Arrangements had also to be made for food and lodging of the rescue workers, volunteers as well as the relatives of the deceased.
Quick to arrive on the scene were newspapermen and self important TV reporters with their accusatory questions: What is the government doing? Is the administration sleeping or what? Where are the officials?
On the third day the Poclains and JCBs finally arrived. Excavation work began in the early hours of the morning. Mounds of wet mud, silt and sediment being lifted by the dumpers were referred to by the TV crew as ‘malba’!
As the piles of malba grew higher, the numbers of the dead grew bigger. The raucous grinding of the machines and the heartbroken cries of the humans created a strange symphony. Long shadows of devastation and gloom spread far and wide.
Local politicians came into their own in the glare of TV cameras. With expressions of deep concern and words of sympathy for the community, they made the most of the publicity they received. In that atmosphere of tragedy, a bizarre kind of jatra, a fair, was unfolding.
Suddenly my driver came up to me. “Saheb,” he whispered, “that young teacher- lady, your friend’s niece who used to come and see you…?”
“Who are you talking about?”
“She who used to boast that she was going to make her young cousin collector one day…”
“Oh Maalan Maldande! What about her?”
“She used to live here, saheb, here in Jambhulwadi…”
“What are you saying!”
I felt a tight knot forming in my stomach. Bhausaheb, the talathi from the village office was standing next to me. I grabbed the Missing Persons list from him. Maalan Kondiba Maldande. The name stood out. Also Shirish Babu Jaitapkar. My mouth went dry. Where in that expanse of mud, slush, stones and gravel was that unfortunate girl lying? Where had she disappeared? How had she faced the collapsing earth? What was she thinking about as she took her last breath? Was she afraid? Did she panic? And Shirish? What had become of him?
Maalan Kondiba Maldande. So many images came to mind. In the two years she was here she used to strut as if she was my own niece. Once she had come to attend a meeting in the Zilla Parishad office next door so dropped by to see me. I noticed her eyes and the tip of her nose were red, her expression, one of indignation Apparently some lady staff members had seen her carry ripe yellow jackfruit pods and had laughed at the unusual gift. Maalan had been most offended! So I called my wife told her a young woman would come to the bungalow to see her. That crack in the door was enough for Maalan! She addressed my wife as Vahinisaheb, and started visiting our home on some pretext or other.
About three months ago, Maalan had come by one afternoon with a fair bright faced boy in tow. Having come to the town for the first time, his eyes were round with wonder, hers, full of affection. Even today that image is vivid before me.
Knowing I was in the hall, Maalan had come in and sat demurely on the sofa. Quietly she had said, “This is Shirish, okay, my older aunt’s middle son, very smart he is, okay …”
“Have you brought him here for a holiday?” my wife asked.
“Oh no, no Vahinisaheb … it’s not like that. I said to him, why you want to roam around with cows and goats in the village? Come with me. I will educate you properly. Make you a direct IPS or IAS hapisar like our big sahebs.” Maalan’s eyes shone with enthusiasm.
“Why do you want him to be a collector only?”
“To repay an obligation, madam. It is like this, Vahinisaheb … I was in seventh standard, see. I had come first in the whole school. But there was no high school in our village. Father would have sent me to graze cattle, then two-three years later he would have found some good -for-nothing fellow and married me off. That would have ruined my life only, no madam? My mavshi, mother’s older sister, lived in a taluka town. She came and took me with her to study. That debt must be repaid, no madam? This here Shirya is her son only, you know…”
“But Maalan, what about plans for your own life… your marriage…” my mother asked her.
By now all of us had become fond of Maalan. There was a childlike candour about her.
“It’s like this see, Aji, Shirya’s education comes first. He must pass the big exam. If my marriage is delayed or cancelled because of that, it doesn’t matter. You know Aji what Gondavalekar Maharaj says …”
“What does he say?”
“Nurture people as you would plants in a garden … Besides, what’s so great about marriage?” she said dismissively. “Some wise elders have declared that the progress or decline of a woman’s life depends on what kind of he-buffalo she gets for a husband. That’s why I have to set up Shirya’s career and life first. As Maharaj says, I want to grow a big tree.”
That day we felt respect for Maalan. As they were leaving, she told the boy, “Come along child, pay your respects to saheb…” Disciplined by his sister, he knelt and bowed down, then with his fingers touching his temple, saluted me smartly.
“Maalan, you have come this far … a humble assistant school teacher determined to make her brother a collector is truly remarkable. Such commitment is rare even among educated people. Keep it up. May your dream of planting a big tree come true,” I said and in her tear-filled eyes I saw a new kind of sparkle.
That was my last, most recent meeting with Maalan.
Eventually the waters receded, the roads and pathways were cleared but we still had no success. The families were getting desperate. They needed to get back to work, but the desire to get a last glimpse of their dear ones kept them in that slushy rain-soaked region. Maalan’s family was among them. I couldn’t bear to look at those distraught faces, broken in mind and body. Their tears had dried up; their eyes were blank and disbelieving. They looked at me and greeted me with a heartfelt namaskar. They carried their grief deep within themselves like a river holding a great sorrow within its depths. I asked where they were camped and they said along the walls of the Ambabai temple nearby. We had distributed blankets to all the people there. My assistant offered them to Kondiba, Maalan’s father. The old man shrank back. Without touching them he joined his hands and said thickly, “Sayeb, we have them. Many others are shivering out there. They need them.”
I was amazed by Kondiba, Maalan’s father’s composure. There was an air of quiet dignity about him despite the tragedy that had struck him. Having weathered many seasons, his face resembled the bare rock face ravaged by the elements. Maalan’s mother was thin and emaciated. Her sister a little stronger but similar in appearance. Every now and then Maalan’s mother would wail, ‘My daughter is gone, but she dragged your boy to the jaws of death … instead of making him a hapisar … aaaayeeee!”
All day Kondiba, and Maalan’s mother and her sister, Shirish’s mother sat on a wet boulder by the excavation site or under a tree, their eyes were trained always on the diggers. Occasionally they would stare at the hill of Vetaloba, the heartless god of ghosts and spirits. And the serenely flowing Savitri river.
I found myself staring with inexplicable rage at the Sahyadri mountains in front of me.
For four days the excavation work had been going on relentlessly. Only a very few bodies were recovered. on very few bodies. The engineers, the contractors and the officials were frustrated and disheartened. The machinery too was guzzling barrels of diesel with little to show for it.
On the fifth day, there was a sign of hope. There was some indication where the forty-one dwellings had been shoved by the cascading mud, stones and rocks. After some furious digging, beams and rafters, tiles, utensils and household effects along with dead buffaloes, rotting remains of goats and hens began to surface. One by one more bodies were recovered. The surroundings reverberated with heartrending sounds which seemed to have frightened the rain away. Soon most names had been crossed off the Missing Persons list. Only four names remained. That evening the army engineer had declared that there was nothing more to be done. The excavators would operate for only two hours the following morning. If the four dead were found, well and good. If not, the equipment would be withdrawn.
When I reached Jambhulwadi the next morning, i was told that Maalan’s parents had left the previous night.
“The old man was jabbering wildly … something about buffaloes, buffaloes …”
A sharp pain stabbed my heart. Why had these three people been denied the final glimpse of their beloved children? Was it fair?
Then the word buffalo rang a bell. About a year ago Maalan had to visit us and was chatting with my mother. “Aji, you know what … my mother loved buffalo milk tea . But her mother-in-law was so mean, I tell you … she never let my mother have it. Poor mother, survived on black tea till when my aaji died, my father bought a buffalo. I was very small then and I used to laugh at the way she slurped her tea! When I was in seventh class, our buffalo dies … some disease they said. The cowshed lay empty …”
“You are a big working girl now , child, ” said my mother, “ Go buy another buffalo!”
“That’s what I am telling you, no Aji! I got my first five salaries in a lump sum. We had a bit of land which I pledged with the bank.”
“What? You went and bought a buffalo or what?” I interjected.
“Not one, saheb, two!” she said with pride in her voice.
“Two?”
“Then what, saheb … The bank officer who came to survey the property said that two animals could be covered by one security. That’s why I dared to do it!”
Now why would that old father of hers remember the buffaloes at this time?
Thinking all these thoughts I suddenly heard someone shout, “Arrey two more found!” “Come and see … how fresh they look …” I rushed forward and stepped into the pit.
What I saw was indeed very strange. Under the debris was the roof of a concrete structure, still intact. Tied to it was a large piece of tarpaulin. A huge cavity seemed to have been created under the roof. And in that sheltered hollow lay Maalan, and clinging to her, little Shirya. Their bodies were entwined, like a woven rope. The men found it impossible to lift them out separately. Their lives and death inextricably linked. The civil surgeon Dr Morey who was also present, shouted “Don’t … don’t try to separate them … the bodies will get mangled … bring them up as they are.”
“It must have been the oxygen in the cavity that kept them alive for a longer time,” He remarked. To see Maalan’s calm, expressionless face, the long black braid lying by her side, was nothing less than a cruel punishment!
“Morey sahib,” I said “I know these people. Can we wait for a day more before we …? I will get the girl’s father from their village as soon as possible.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you keep the two bodies in the mortuary for one day?”
“ Of course. I will arrange for an ambulance to shift them to the taluka hospital immediately. “
I departed for Mahad and immediately put my officers to work to trace Kondiba Maldande. After much effort we were able to contact him through the bank manager. We had been trying to call but the line was dead. Finally, Maalan’s father’s voice came through the crackling telephone line. Even before I could say anything, he sobbed, “What to say, sayeb, I have been roaming around from this field to that, from maidan to river bank since last night …”
“Why Baba?”
“For the two buffaloes our daughter had bought, sayeb … While we were waiting for her body, the buffaloes were tied up here. The neighbours’ boys took them out to graze for four days. Yesterday they did not bring them back …Both buffaloes are gone …”
“Baap re!” I exclaimed..
“I will sell them off sayeb, and repay the bank loan … But what if I don’t find them, sayeb? Yamadev, the god of death, may give me time, but the bank people will grab my throat … how much more can I endure sayeb…”
I did not know what to say. After a couple of minutes i said as calmly as i could, “Baba, come here immediately. We will arrange it … come and see your daughter’s face one last time.”
Kondiba sobbed for a long moment. Then he gathered himself together. “Sayeb,” he said unemotionally, “it is our bad luck, our fate … I must first find the buffaloes … otherwise …”
“But Baba … Maalan’s body …”
“Let it be, sayeb … you be her mai-baap …”
Before I could say anything he added, “Only one thing, sayeb … spread two fistfuls of earth on her grave … one for me and one for her ailing mother…”
And the line snapped.
*******
Note Don Muthi Maati by Vishwas Patil, translated from Marathi by Keerti Ramachandra (Abridgedwith permission from the author, to suit the word limit of the Commonwealth Short Story contest 2021)
Vishwas Patil is one of the most acclaimed Marathi writers today. He has written iconic novelslike Mahanayak,
Chandramukhi, Pangira, Zadazadati, Panipat, Sambhaji, Nagkeshar and Lust for Lalbaug. He has received the Priyadarshini National Award, the Vikhe Patil Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award for Zadazadati and the Gadkari Award for Mahanayak. Panipat has received thirty-eight awards since its publication in 1988
Keerti Ramachandra is a multi-lingual editor and translator based in Bangalore. Among others she has translated Vishwas Patil’s A Dirge for the Damned. She is also on the panel of Editors with The Beacon
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