Jaihind made the Cobbler a Novelist

By Muntazir Imam

The early 1980s in a village called Dalmapur is seemingly perfect. But decades since the country attained its independence, vestiges of untouchability and caste-based discrimination still remain.

Twelve-year-old Aryali, born in a family of cobblers, is not spared from the prejudices. As an illiterate boy belonging to a lower caste, his name is constantly distorted. He is forced to respectfully address boys of the same age as ‘babu’, the name he secretly wishes for himself.

Amid poverty and struggle, with his parents and grandparents wishing him to be an expert cobbler soon, he is doing all that he should while keeping aside all that he wants.

But a chance discovery of an old, tattered book, which stirs something deep in Aryali’s heart, followed by an unfortunate situation that forces his family to move to a town called Jaihind, might change the direction of his life forever.

After all, isn’t that the need of the hour? Change.

Jaihind Made the Cobbler a Novelist is a story that gives a voice to the lowest strata of our society and appeals to our conscience, emotions and need for betterment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Jan 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9789354589010

Muntazir Imam

Muntazir Imam is an Indian journalist who is working with the editorial team of Gulf Today in Sharjah. Prior to joining the newspaper in 2007, he was an assistant editor of Page3 Tabloid in Delhi. He began his journalistic career in the mid-1990s in Bihar and wrote extensively for The Indian Nation, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph (Kolkata) and many other dailies and periodicals. He has covered numerous events of social, political and cultural importance. On one occasion, the External Service Division of All India Radio also broadcast his story. The Rashtriya Sahara (English Magazine), India Today – Hindi and Mid-Day, New Delhi also carried his stories in the late 1990s.Muntazir Imam has a master’s degree in English literature from Magadh University, Bodh Gaya. He gained his matriculation from V. M. High School, Gopalganj. His full name is Syed Muntazir Imam Rizvi.Born and brought up in a remote village of Bihar, Muntazir Imam has observed the vibrancy of the region closely. His rural background exerts a great influence on his way of thinking.

Book preview

Introduction

The story begins in the early 1980s. Some readers of the Indian subcontinent may find in the pages of it the story of their villages. To feel the pulse of one such village, one will have to grow there. And not all the places are like the villages of my novel.

A few years ago, in Munger, a news anchor distorted the name of a big leader, who is not less popular than all the existing top leaders of the subcontinent. This suggests that the practice of distorting the names still continues. When such a big leader, who lives in the hearts of tens of millions of people, is not spared by the prejudiced mind, what about the ordinary folks of the lowest strata of the society?

This book is a voice of those downtrodden proletarians who are subjected to all sorts of humiliations. Big writers dwell mostly in cities, and for this reason none has touched this appalling practice in their books. It is a biting satire on a serious social system.

Aryali, the main character of the novel, becomes a role model for all those whose names are vulnerable to distortion.

Chapter 1

Aryali held a book in his hand for the first time at being compelled by a force within him that wanted to transform his life. It was the picture which had caught his eye. He had grabbed many torn pages from books in the past but never a whole book. He had thrown away countless pages before, after eating bhunja or snacks in them.

Aryali had a very strong desire to be called babu. But in the land where he lived, he could not be called a babu. Nobody, not even the members of his family could call him that. ‘Babu’ was a title of respect reserved only for the members of the so-called upper-caste communities. As always, he tried to strangulate the strong emotions which had taken hold of him, but somewhere in his mind this thought had taken a permanent place that only through books he could become a babu. The book in his hand felt like a creature rescued from the grip of a butcher, but it couldn’t be killed even after being slaughtered as it never lived at one place. Someone somewhere must have not only read another copy but they must have also covered it with some kind of ornamental papers. And someone else must have kept it safe not just in their head but also over it. Not everybody wanted to destroy it.

Now Aryali could understand many things easily because the adversities of his life had made this twelve-year-old boy both a deep thinker and a sincere observer. He could sense clearly what hurt him and what healed him and what made him feel low. He compared the book with himself as it started from Page 11. The missing pages had been torn by the bhunjawala. Though the torn sheets could not return to the book, it was still the book of the missing pages as once that had been part of it. The touch of the book brought Aryali a great deal of relief. For him, all the letters in the world were just black marks but he could understand the numbers and feel the language of the pictures. It seemed as if he did not know how to turn the sheet. His fingers had virtually stuck to its body with hesitation. He fixedly gawked at the image and felt as if he were in an entirely different world. For a moment, his fingers forgot their existence and with the curiosity to see something more of the new world, gently they headed towards the next page.

Aryali’s parents and grandparents feared books like many other downtrodden folks whose world was different and the presence of books was as rare as the word babu being used for any member of the lower castes. He was the first member of his family to even touch a book. However friendly to the upper-caste people, they were never called babu by them and this taboo troubled Aryali. Two years back, he discovered that it was this very word that made him feel low and that it had made many others feel much worse. He repaired his feelings by calling himself babu at isolated places.

As the bhunjawala, who was called Lalji, prepared the snacks, its earthy smell disrupted Aryali’s attention, filling his eyes with tears and mouth with water. The delicious and hot bhunja prepared using mustard oil, roasted gram, roasted corn, puffed rice, salt, onion and green chilli was ready. Lalji served the snacks in the pages torn from books. When he was busy chopping a chilli, Aryali had picked up the book from his portable stall. Lalji moved from place to place with his stall to make a living.

Lalji was a poor upper-caste elderly man and had torn numerous books in his life. Like Aryali, he too was not literate. And he knew that Aryali, a regular customer of his, was the son of a cobbler.

Like buffalo, black letters, commented Lalji scornfully. I have torn hundreds of books to make a living. One could say, tearing books is also a part of my job in some way. That book in your hand is helping my family by destroying its own existence. For the sake of saying something, Lalji had uttered these words. But soon he realised that whatever he had said held some weight.

He is my customer so I should be polite.

Did you understand what I said? asked Lalji softly.

Books save people by destroying themselves, said Aryali quickly.

Lalji’s brows furrowed and his eyes turned to stone. This happened to him when something touched his heart profoundly. He did not say another word but took the book from Aryali and looked at the page he was to tear. Quick and merciless his fingers moved and the paper wept at being separated from the book. The cry shook Aryali. Lalji then twisted the torn paper and shaped it into a cone in which he stuffed the tempting bhunja. Aryali bought it and then Lalji was off, carrying the jars-laden wooden tray and the damaru-shaped bamboo stand, which together formed his portable stall—the tray resting on his right shoulder and the stand tucked under his left arm.

The picture on the eleventh page, which had earlier drawn Aryali’s gaze, was now curved inside the paper cone. He turned the cone slowly to see it clearly and began to feel a sense of restlessness. He felt as if something very precious had been snatched from him. He also felt as if the book had melted him and was trying to become his soul. He was about to empty the cone by throwing away the food but he couldn’t bring himself to do so as he was very hungry. He finished the snack quickly, spread the oil-stained paper open and began to observe the picture closely. Some prettily built magnificent buildings, a wide and tidy street and well-dressed, tall, good-looking people walking along the broad pavements dotted with trees of nearly the same height. Few vehicles, mostly cars, passing by could be seen very clearly. Though the picture was in black and white, it spoke volumes about a world that was very colourful.

It was quite a different world where everyone seemed to be an equal. Aryali tried to find any lower-caste individual among them with the help of the images he had in his mind. But one thing was quite clear—they looked superior to all the people Aryali had ever seen. They were not just comely but their attires were lovely too, with impressive cars and buildings around them. Aryali rolled the paper and put it in the pocket of his kameez. Now the entire picture was in his head, as clear as on the page.

His head was full of images, both good and bad. Among the bad things were the rude people of the upper-caste communities. And it was difficult to recognise the polite and gentle people simply from their clothing. Engrossed in his deliberation, he walked slowly along the quiet street. In his eyes, not all the people of the upper-caste communities were impolite. He also admired those who did not look down upon him and his kind.

Soft, muted sounds of screaming reached his ears. Though the book was not in front of him, he realized it was the source of the scream playing in his ears. He looked around, holding his breath. Lalji was nowhere in that street. Aryali could walk most of the lanes of Mairwa Bazaar in around half an hour but he was tired after eight hours of work in a brick kiln. Wherever he went to work as a labourer, he usually returned home much before dusk set in. Though mending footwear was his ancestral occupation, he did almost every manual work he could do. Nearly crazy with shock at the screams still playing in his head, Aryali looked up at the sky and ran down the street, slipping into the narrow lane that came first. Fear took hold of his heart, afraid that Lalji must have torn some more sheets from the book. He desperately looked for him as he ran. Frustrated, he dug his hand into his pocket that had some coins. One-tenth of them would be more than enough for the torn book.

Aryali was in a fix, where to go and where not to go to locate Lalji, as he was to find him in an hour-long remaining light of the sky. He glanced across the lane to see if anybody held a cone of bhunja in their hand. Lalji sold his snacks mostly in the areas of the upper-caste people. The lane was a market of gold and Aryali did not ask any visitors there about him, as he would have to call them babu. He felt wounded when he called somebody that.

"Call them babu, if only to help you reach the book," Aryali said to himself anxiously, looking at the people around him. He approached a middle-aged man, who instantly took a coin from his kurta’s pocket to give it to him. From his tattered kameez and pyjamas, Aryali looked like a pauper.

Babu, I am not a beggar, said Aryali nervously as the man tried to put the coin in his hand. "Have you seen any hawker selling bhunja in this lane?"

Looking at him strangely for a few seconds, the man soon recognised him as Aryali had once polished his shoes at a cobbler’s corner in Mairwa Bazaar. Yes, I saw one in the vegetable market a little while ago, he said politely.

Aryali ran towards the vegetable market. On the way he saw a boy eating something from a paper cone. He was reminded of the incident where a hungry man was lynched by a mob for snatching a cake from the mouth of a wealthy man’s dog. Aryali did not dare approach the boy and risk being mistaken for someone hungry enough to snatch his cone. He kept a safe distance from the boy who seemed rich from his clothes and shoes, and his hair shone like bright coal. He passed the boy cautiously and as he took a few more steps along the road, he saw Lalji standing in the distance near a roadside hand pump. Three youngsters were standing in front of his stall. Soon, Aryali joined his little group and Lalji, taken by surprise, stared at him.

Aryali took the torn book from the tray and quickly dropped all his coins in its place. Then he gazed at the book for a moment. Lalji had torn some more sheets and now the book started from Page 33. It looked much worn from before but Aryali felt as if he had something very precious in his hand. The number on its last page was 248. If one looked carefully, they would see the remnants of the torn pages on the backside of the book as well. There was no picture on the last page.

I want this book, Aryali said to Lalji boldly. These coins are in exchange for it. Take them and allow me to leave here with this book.

Lalji scowled. Are you mad!

Do you think a mad person will ever say that he is mad? Aryali asked him fearlessly.

Then why do you want to take this book? he asked, staring at Aryali’s seemingly fearless face. He believed Aryali would take the coins back and return the book.

Lalji poured mustard oil into the aluminium mug he had stuffed with the other ingredients for the bhunja. He would then tear three more pages to make paper cones. It was clear that Aryali didn’t want to give the book back, so he immediately came up with a story to scare Lalji.

Take the coins back and give me the book, Lalji raised his voice.

You can’t take the book from me now, Aryali said to Lalji firmly. "A seasoned sorcerer has ordered me to buy a torn book from any hawker. I have become his disciple. He is teaching me the art of sorcery through the torn book he had purchased around fifty years ago from a bhunjawala, who became a lakhpati within no time. My guru has told me to keep a personal torn book."

Lalji stopped whisking and blinked, his train of thoughts already on him as a millionaire, just as Aryali had anticipated.

He is giving me a chance to become rich. I should not miss this opportunity, Lalji murmured to himself. Only a well-wisher can do this. I should be thankful to him! Without wasting even a single second, he returned Aryali’s coins and let him leave with the book. Aryali was now a sorcerer in his eyes.

On his way home, Aryali’s hand felt the pulse of the book and he assured it that no hand would ever tear it again. I will give you all my love. I believe you can grow fresh words and pages in you, he lovingly said to the book, feeling an unusual energy travel through his spine as he caressed it. You are not in weak hands.

If I had not lied you would not be with me, Aryali said to the book in apology, as an explanation.

His village, Dalmapur, was about three kilometres away from Mairwa Bazaar. He stopped under an old, impressively gigantic banyan tree after covering almost half the distance. No other trees of the area could become like it without emulating it. Almost all the locals believed its breeze charged the atmosphere with extra energy.

Aryali put the book on the buttress root, looked across the wheat fields and the pastures before sitting down. A butterfly appeared, touched the book and flew away. It seemed as if it had come to kiss it. He watched it flutter towards the sky and soon disappear from his sight.

Nobody can separate you from me—today, tomorrow or at any time in the future, the boy said to the book, moving his hand over it delicately. Forget whatever ill-treatments have been meted out to you so far. Start a new life now. I am not different from you; we will begin a new life together. Don’t be disheartened. We will win. We will surely win. You will see my words coming true.

He could not read but turned a few pages just to glimpse some more pictures. He then let his book relax, just as he was under the tree. Delving deep into the book without turning its pages, he felt the treasures hidden inside it. He looked up at the rustling branches. It seemed as if the leaves were singing and dancing in the wind, welcoming the book and turning its pages to kiss them.

He got emotional, stood up and yelled babu thrice, not so loudly as he would usually do. Nobody in the vicinity could hear it. He did so to assure himself that a day would come when all the people of upper castes would call him babu. He did so to become a babu. The word pinched him whenever he called somebody else that. In his village, it was the title of honour used only for the members of upper castes either along with their names or without their names. No member of lower castes could call the name of any member of an upper caste without using the title. Aryali considered the babu system an albatross around the neck of his section of society. Though reluctantly, he had to follow the system like his parents and grandparents.

A few moments later, he picked up the book and started for his village.

Their inaction allowed the babu system to grow. Only their action could stop its further growth. The system is nothing but a deliberate attempt to keep their minds inactive. I too am slowly becoming like them, Aryali said to himself as he made his way through a pasture, lamenting the plight of the downtrodden folks.

He had never heard even a single person of his caste talking about a book, much less touch one.

Suddenly, a herd of buffaloes ran past him. Scared, the book nearly fell from his hand while his