THE RENEGADE

By RAMESH CHANDRA DASH

The meaning of RENEGADE is a person who changes his religion and goes to another religion. In this work renegade is used as a simile: it means to say all men are renegades - how? All men are born innocent: as children we are all innocent. We do not know the outside world; we are inwardly glad ourselves. But as we grow up, we know the world; we f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: May 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9789362614117

Book preview

Chapter-1

I

It was a fateful night for a poor man’s family in the countryside. A woman went into labour for the first time in her life. That was mid-August in the early forties. Fortunately enough, the rains had stopped from the evening. People in the hamlet consisting of some ten Brahmin families, close by the ties of blood, had gone into bed, though not fully asleep. The news of Rebati’s state jolted all from their beds. All flocked to the house of Jaydeb - half-fed people are better-suited for fellow-felling, as it were. However, only women were allowed to go inside, young girls scrupulously kept at a distance, lest they might soulfully sigh not to be mothers at all.

One year before Jaydeb had wedded Rebati, and she was going to make him a father. It appeared it would cost him her life. In those days there were no roads in the countryside. The tracks made by bullock-cart movements in summer were all submerged under the August waters. There was no area which was not waterlogged for at least three months of a year. Hence, to put a woman into labour during that season meant a veritable preparation for her funeral.

However, in anticipation of this untimely hazard for Rebati, a known sorceress had been called in. She was known for her expertise in ensuring a less painful, though not a smooth, delivery. As marked, she was also gradually exhausting herself. The elders outside heard Rebati’s wailing and screaming under excruciating pain. Words of her dying pain, repeated at infrequent intervals, made everyone fearful of her life. At about midnight her condition worsened. The room was packed full of women of all ages-few serviceable, the rest anxious about silent onlookers. She was completely dishevelled, a tuft of her hair being pushed inside her mouth to prevent her energies being dissipated through her noise, so that she exerted herself completely on her liberation. She was bleeding, groaning agonizingly and undergoing fearful spasms of senselessness - thus paying a heavy price to become a mother. The attending women along with the sorceress grew nervous. Most of them lost all hopes; tears came to some eyes, sighs at the mouths of others. Outside, men began to apprehend the news of her final collapse - without, of course, going in for any mortuary preparation. Poor Jaydeb stood leaning against a betel-nut tree in front of his house.

It was at this moment that Jaydeb’s middle-aged aunt – his parents long since dead, with tearful eyes and folded hands looked upwards supplicating the grace of the Lord-of-the World for the relief of her daughter-in-law from that gruesome condition. Others also followed her, though mildly. That complete surrender to the Divine shakes His Heavenly abode, to stand by men in their hours of distress, was still the faith of our people. Myths had conditioned their minds and prayers were wont to agitate their souls. A comparatively young-looking woman began to sing a psalm composed by a local bard. But an old dame known as barren silenced them all by her open vituperations on the Supreme Being. Probably a lifetime’s frustration out of infertility had removed her faith in God, was the first impression of all. It was, as if she was discharging all her pent-up grudge at the stimulus of those traumatic features before her. Declamatory in tone she spoke out, How devilish is that Being whom you call God! How diabolical in the acts you call creation!

This diverted the attention of all. Rebati’s aunt-in-law confronted the dame for so observing.

The old matron continued as previously, "Can’t you yourself see, why? Oh, down with those who keep womankind under such tortures! Had your God, babies, no other way of devising childbirth? But, no! He wouldn’t! Do you know the reason? Look, it is because smile will bloom on the mother’s face afterwards that such a pain is the price she must pay in advance! See His sense of justice! See, how to the tender he mercilessly hammers blows after blows just to pave the way for a little one see the world! Could not it have been made otherwise? What villainy! And see us all, how worshipful of Him despite his blatant cruelties…….

Such a blasphemy and the mode of its delivery were disliked by everybody. Only one of them said with a muted challenge, without of course being rude on that account, ‘Grandma, what exactly you want now to see His miracles?’

Rebati’s quick delivery, was the condition she implied in her retort with an equal challenge.

These words of the dame provided a different impetus and energized the drooping hopes of the amateur nurses. They began working, as it were, under a challenge by giving their all. There went on about half an hour of a greater hectic and febrile activity, yet faithful throughout. Then, after another round of mortal pangs Rebati collapsed after delivering the child. It burst out crying. The first cry was followed by, perhaps, the primordial first search. Lo, it’s a male!’ came out the native cheers. This was passed on to the elders who were wistfully waiting outside, including the father to whom darkness had so far been helping to conceal his tears from others. But oddly enough, the general sighs of relief on the men’s face were juxtaposed by the blue in the face of young mothers, for none had so far succeeded in delivering a son to their families. They were at once degraded in the eyes of their mothers-in-law. However, when some were, as in severing the umbilical cord. The young woman who had promised miracles to the dame, said, Oh, granny, now see the excellence of the Lord!’

The dame emphatically countered her in the same tongue, No, my darling, it was only when I rebuked Him that He was brought to His senses. Only open insults make Him shower His grace. That is your God’s nature, my baby! As long as you go on worshipping Him, he would just be remaining deaf. He would recede from you. He would rather derive a pleasure to see you continue in your distress, so that He gets all your unalloyed devotion! And the more you suffer the more intense becomes your faith in Him! But He wouldn’t improve your lot, lest afterwards you should forget Him. Rather, the day you disown Him, He comes forward to vindicate His presence!

Jaydeb, who was, in the meantime, present near the door of the room and overhearing her argument, rejoined in a wan smile, Aunty, this is the most loving tribute one pays to the Creator, isn’t it?

By the time Rebati and her baby were all right, it was virtually the end of the night. Neighbours returned home - to have a brief rest for the remaining hour.

II

The male still has a distinct precedence and superiority over the female in our societies. His birth is taken as a good augury for the family. It is not only marked by jubilation, but there are celebrations too at different intervals of his growth. These are designed to propitiate the connected gods and goddesses, so that, being pleased, they take care of his greater fragility. He is considered the physical manifestation of the ‘Hiranyagarva’ - the Vedic apotheosis for the original seminal powers - a subtle but irresistible force that causes all creative multiplications by virtue of its own diffusiveness. Hence, his superiority is too deeply ingrained in the social mind to be done away with merely by a fiat of the sovereign. Of late, only rabid feminism could alone contain some of its abusive features in the social process.

Be that as it may, Mr. Jaydeb was to celebrate the Twenty-first-Day ceremony of the birth of his son. The child was to be named after - his horoscope was to be charted out. That function required but a small amount. Some ten rupees would have been enough. At home, there was no dearth of cereals and pulses, but their conversion into money was beyond the capacity of any single member in a joint family except that of the ‘Karta’ i.e. the head of the family. Besides, in such a family it was unbecoming on the part any single person to think of undertaking a social function unless it was conceived and executed at the instance of the family’s head. Jaydeb had a great hope and confidence in his uncle. He was a village School master, the most ideal and respectable social category in those times in the country-side, where people had little scope to think of the extent to which greatness could extend beyond that. Jaydeb had, so far, a feeling also that the uncle had a special liking for him. So he was sure that the uncle would arrange the function on his own initiative. But when a fortnight passed and none even uttered any such proposal, he became a little worried. With a minimum sense of self-respect, which not un-often creates a bar in reconciling oneself to certain adverse conditions, while many people having no such sense not only avoid trouble but prosper very well in life, it was impossible for Jaydeb to approach the uncle to request him to arrange the function to his son. On the other hand, he was being forewarned by the wife that unless he arranged the function himself he was certainly going to miss it, and for which she would not excuse him. Mr Jaydeb was thus between the horns of a dilemma. To initiate any action for one’s own in disregard of the will of the head of the family meant the raising of a banner of revolt, whereas complacency was certainly not going to be spared by the better-half. However, he decided to arrange money by himself without the knowledge of the members of the family. He was sure of the goodwill of his friends and relatives towards him so, he thought, they would not hesitate to lend some money in view of the occasion which needed it.

But Jaydeb was unaware that it was not due to any special quality in him that had earned for him the likeness of others but his destitution, which had rather been gratifying the egos of others for their superior fortunes, however little that might have been in comparison with his own. He could not think that the birth of a son had so alienated the sympathy of all from him. But the woman had correctly marked the change of attitude in all. In fine, the couple decided to observe the day despite the non-cooperation of others. Rebati took out the gold bangles for sale to finance the function. The ceremony was duly observed. The son was named ‘Gopalkrishna’.

This was an insult to the authority of the uncle as head of family. But he was very cunning. He did not openly ask Jaydeb to separate himself from the family. He arranged things in such a way that Jaydeb himself opted out of it. It was impossible on his part to bear with the naked discrimination wrought on himself and the wife by the elder cousins. It was likely that alone, he could have digested those humiliations as better alternatives to the possible hurdles to be confronted with in the wake of a partition; but, with another as witness, especially the woman before whom there was the only chance of claiming oneself to be the mightiest warrior on earth, he would not. He was badly hit by the partition he had himself initiated by his unilateral celebration. Instead of being divided into two shares, that is, between himself as the successor of his late father and the surviving uncle, the entire property was divided between the seven brothers - six of the same uncle and Jaydeb himself - some two acres or so falling to his lot. He had no money to vindicate his position in the civil court. With a heavy heart he had to reconcile to the injustice, harbouring a hope that God, the Great Witness, would one day vindicate it all for him.

But soon did economic factor begin to play its deterministic role in shaping the future of the family which had just been segregated from the larger trunk. Ironically, the child came out to be a voracious consumer. Breast-feeding was insufficient for him. The father had no money either to augment lactation in the mother or purchase Baby-food for the child. It was decided by the couple that Jaydeb would leave home for a distant town to serve in a private firm. Thus, birth of the Son was not only to cause the partition of the joint family, but also to entail a separation of the parents. The heart of a father that had been feeling delighted during the preceding four months or so, underwent a profound sorrow - to find consolation only by itself in cherishing a great, distant hope in the little one lying in the cradle.

III

When a mother comes to be in sole charge of bringing up a child in the absence of father, it becomes, at times, an interesting phenomenon for a passive observer. She virtually acts under a pressure and the entire pressure she unconsciously passes on to the child. The position is more poignant if the absence is temporary and is other than death. In that case, she is under a psychic compulsion to make compliance to someone she loves, on his return. This, if she is young as well as righteous, she would take up challengingly - as a sort of bet, to see that she has excelled beyond her ken. She would be rather a bit normal in her exertions on the child if there is none to watch her, even at a distance; or whom she will have to make compliance to on account of the mite. But once she is conscious that she must make the child to be, or achieve, something in life, she would mostly be prone to overact; and in that case, the pressure on the child may assume torturous proportions.

Rebati was soon outwitted in the usual watchfulness of a mother towards a sleeping baby. She was to become very careful for it. When the child began to crawl and move, she began to keep a close guard over it without relying on others. The child appeared to her a bit problematic, for it would not excuse even a little intermission in the mother’s watchfulness over it: and in each of his, what she considered, mischief, she pictured its destruction. Quite amusingly, the more resourceful became she to ensure a normalcy in the child’s disposition, the more notorious did the child actually become. He would do exactly the opposite of what his mother would deter him from, and when the child began to stand and walk, the mother virtually lost control over him. At every waking state of the child she pictured to herself as if the child had jumped into a well, walked straight in to a pond, or jumped from a high place out of fun. Therefore, she deliberately prevented the toddler from wherever he tended to go, and thwarted him whatever he wanted to do, thereby forcing the child, as it were to start playing hide-and-seek with the mother, and derive a sadistic pleasure at the state of her mind on retracing him. Nature brooks no undue restriction in the process of her spontaneous growth.

Jaydeb came home twice a year-to become virtually a guest in his own house. His stay provided the child a temporary respite from the rigour of the mother’s watchfulness. Jaydeb had little time to bother about the tendencies of the child who would, from his own side, cease to be what he was liable to be complained against, but as soon as the father’s back was turned, he would again revert to his earlier nuisances. He was quite lovely. Everyone who came to the house would show their affection for him, or whenever the mother took him to other’s houses he would be an object of affection of all. But the mother would not appreciate even tolerate it, as if he was her exclusive possession and monopoly. She then began prompting the child to shun all neighbours and strangers alike, lest they might harm him by taking advantage of the absence of his father at home. Thus, she passed a large part of her fear complex into the growing mind without being conscious of its inhibiting effect on the ‘tabula rasa’.

But the little fellow was deaf to all those lessons and blind to all those restrictions. He began doing, and doing very zealously the very things that the mother was prohibiting him from doing. Hence, watch and guard gradually gave away to physical punishments. That then made him to spend all the waking hours in the houses of neighbours, and that too, frequently running from one house to another. There also he would not be a peaceful companion to anyone. It was not difficult, of course, on the mother’s part, to know where he had kept his footsteps, for news of his nuisance would soon be reported in the form of a complaint. That was too much a headache, hardly with Rebati’s sense of dignity and discipline, to be savoured of. She, therefore, decided to set him on learning something. A costly slate with a pencil was purchased, all shining - to make it so attractive that he would be quite interested to sit with that for hours, and thereby provide a respite to the mother from his notoriety. He was to learn the first letter of their mother tongue.

IV

Today, even in very advanced societies Brahmins still hold the traditional function for commencement of learning. An auspicious day is selected on a thorough reading of the child’s horoscope. The priest of the clan performs certain worshipful acts in the beginning. Then four substances are kept before the learner representing four options: those were, a piece of cow dung, a piece of gold, a piece of iron and some study material - symbolizing respectively Agriculture, Trade, Weaponry and Knowledge. The pupil is to select any one of these four things in token of his born preference in life, as it were.

That day was also selected for Gopalkrishna soon after he completed the fourth year. The father had come a week before the appointed day to make necessary arrangements for the function. Gopalkrishna preferred learning. Everyone was happy. The mother was the happiest of all in that she was assured of a spontaneous diversion of the child from fickleness to concentration. The next morning Jaydeb went back to his place of work. As Gopalkrishna got up, he was made to brush his teeth, have some breakfast and then sit down to learning. The mother inscribed the first letter of the native tongue on the slate asking the boy to go on drawing on it, and also by calling aloud its name by which, as she told, the letter could be reproduced very early. In fact, that was to serve a double purpose for the mother- to make her sure that the fellow had not moved out of the place of study, and also to confirm her that he was not just going on doodling aimlessly, but his loudness was really preserving what was but disposed to stray away from his mind

Gopalkrishna, still appearing to carry the pious fervour of the preceding function, attended to learning the way instructed. He appeared very faithful and committed in continuing the task as watched from a distance by the vigilant mother. But the moment he marked that he was beyond her watchfulness, he turned the other side of the slate, still aloud in the tone. The slate was all shining. He saw his face, saw it for the first time in life, as it were. It was quite lovable, hazy though it was on that surface He was gratified to see his face. After sometime he was conscious of his default. He looked around to see whether he was being watched by anyone. However, he tried to turn the right side of the slate, but could not, as if sprung back of itself to the other side. The more minutely he saw to appear clearer despite the haziness, the more he was glued to it. The parents had really celebrated the inauguration of ‘self-love’ in the boy the preceding day.

Continuously for six months the boy went on doodling on the first letter. But it eluded his grasp. The mother was seriously worried for him. She offered many things to many deities to obtain their grace for the son. She tried to inculcate a pious religiosity into the son who did not evince any serious interest in it either. Of course every morning and evening he would prostrate before the home-deity, praying in folded-hands in a manner of persuading the goddess of learning to be merciful on him. The mother would sit by him in his place of study for hours together, cane in hand- to see where he defaulted, to be corrected by the cane. Every morning, as he was virtually lifted from bed, made to clean his face, brush the teeth and gulp down something as a prelude to sitting with slate and pencil, it would have appeared to a third person as if an innocent lamb was being dragged to a slaughter house. Hence all the above were of no avail to set the child in right order. They were rather counter-productive. At last, good sense prevailed over the mother- she sent him to school. That had not been done so far, lest teachers and students in the school might speak ill of her in failing to teach even the first letter of the mother-tongue before sending him to school.

The primary school to which Gopalkrishna was sent was situated at a distance of about half a mile from home. It was a great respite for the boy from the clutches of the mother for the major part of the day. In the morning he would avoid the mother in the name of doing home-tasks given at school. In the afternoon he would play with the children of his age. Hard games were his preference, no matter if he was bruised or bled. In the evening he would take something and sleep for the whole night. Gopalkrishna was admitted into the pupil’s class, meant for beginners. During a period of six months or so he did so excellently well that he was directly prompted to class II, because he was quite above class I standard. He loved the school life. There was absolute freedom to grow the way he liked; so much so, that he stood first in class II. Praises were showered on him. Everyone encouraged him to prove better. The mother gave him the freedom to read and play as he liked. He did not even neglect studies during the summer vacation. The parents began to see dreams about their son’s future.

The school was to have a new Head-pundit at the beginning of the new academic session. He was notorious for his extreme sternness. Talks spread towards the end of the vacation that the pundit had been facing frequent transfers owing to his indiscriminate beating of the students - boys and girls alike - that he carried a special cane for the purpose; and also that, to whichever school he had gone he had made it a scholarship winner, at least to one of its students.

Human heart has a peculiar quality of sending to the mind a message of coming miseries. The mind would be overcast with clouds of depression. Talks about the coming Head-pundit made Gopalkrishna terribly nervous. He anticipated the end of all happiness in school life. He regretted for doing so well in the preceding two years. He was visibly unhappy. Nothing could please him. He felt like abandoning studies once for all. This sudden change in the boy worried the mother; for how could she be a passive spectator to the unhappy state of her blue-eyed boy? She tried to know the reason from him. She could not link the cessation of all mirthfulness in the boy with the posting of new Head-pundit. The son would not reveal his mind. The voice of freedom is not always audible, intimacy or closeness notwithstanding.

As reported, the Head-pundit joined the day the school reopened after the summer vacation. He was on the wrong side of fifty. His first work was a search for scholars. He went on telling that he would make the school a model one - to be famous in the District, by producing the highest number of scholarship-winners for it that year. He selected the first five students of Class-III to give special coaching beyond school hours. There was a separate room for the Head-pundit inside the premises of that school. The old man was used to reside alone; and so, perhaps, was quite prone to exert his total thrust on the pupils, absolutely hardened and relentless in his bent of mind towards the little generations. These boys were to come to school early morning; have breakfast, bath, and midday meal under the direct supervision of the Head-pundit. During those days people would send rice, vegetables, cooking materials and provisions to the Head-pundit. Those were more than enough for a single man. People at large were very interested to see that their sons and daughters were made literate ones unlike themselves, who had only the thumb to impress upon wherever they were asked for-ignorance has a typical way of worshipping enlightenment, howsoever little the latter might come.

The importance of being recognized as a prospective scholarship-holder paled before the accompanying rigour of studious austerities. Every day was a day of ordeal, the cane refusing to leave its indelible impression from the thighs or the back. On the other side, at home, the mother was to be shown a smiling face, lest she might react against the Head-pundit. But the latter was a skilful teacher. He would, at times, convince the tearful scholars that, as gold bullion endures indiscriminate strokes of a goldsmith before being appreciated as ornament, they should similarly bear with his condign punishments to deserve an honour denied to thousands.

Thus, the old man was merely prompting the boys to pursue what was not their wont in that tender age; but, what mostly men of his age are prone to run after - honour or glory as a means of being immortal. Gopalkrishna became the worst casualty of this ambition in the teacher; as, in course of the year, he alone was selected for the scholarship. In fact, there was no day on which he was not put to the cane. He became severely suffocated under the pressure of study and felt terribly tortured under indiscriminate physical assaults. It was then that he began to react within. He marked that there were students who were defaulters of home-tasks, or who were failing to answer simple questions in the class, nevertheless not subjected to such severity of the pundit; whereas, for very minor mistakes of his, he was subjected to all mercilessness. In what way he could claim to be the best student of the school he failed to understand. Rather, why he should not feel ashamed of himself, he began to question within. How the teacher was missing a simple point that his treatment was having the effect of humiliating him before others, he could not understand. Tortures made him analytical. He grew jealous of the freedom of others who were playing, laughing, frolicking and doing things as per their sweet wills. They were a fortunate lot, was his conclusion. He repented of doing himself well in study. He regretted of coming into the forefront by being recognized as a scholar.

The Annual Scholarship Examination was scheduled to be held in the succeeding March. With each advance of time from the arrival of the programme in the school, a picture of his persecution at the hands of the Head-pundit on account of failure loomed larger in his mind than chances of reception or glory on success could encourage him to intensify concentration. He strained every nerve, burnt midnight oil to get lessons by heart for exact reproduction on the papers, nevertheless remaining apprehensive that on failure to get the scholarship, the teacher might detain him in the school for another one year to take a second attempt. As a result, he grew increasingly nervous and desperate. During the examination his memory failed him. In utter fear and confusion, most of the sums of Arithmetic went wrong. There was another essential item. Every scholar had to sing a song of his own choice. As his term came, Gopalkrishna stood up to sing the very one he had long rehearsed before the Pundit. The melodious tone melted away as his eyes fell on the eyes watching him from a distance. The voice cracked under rolling tears. He broke out sobbing and sat down abruptly. Thus were the first hope of distinction in the boy and the last chance of honour for the teacher, foundered.

Gopalkrishna considered himself extremely fortunate in finding admission in Class IV affiliated to a High English School in that, he could escape the octopus hands of a demoniac Head-pundit. He felt completely relaxed in the changed atmosphere. The Headmaster and all the Asst. Teachers of reckoning were taking Matriculation classes. The teachers in charge of lower classes were very good, and affectionate to the students. The school hours were very interesting for the new entrant. There the boy earned a name as a very good singer. Probably, the voice that had seized under a psychic pressure became reconditioned of itself under a fresh air of freedom. He came to be so loved by all-teachers as well as students for his cherubic appearance; and so humorous was he in his dispositions, that he was playfully called ‘GK’- an abbreviation of his name. It still continues to be an abbreviation for ‘General Knowledge’. The quaint abbreviation thereby added a sort of fun to his nickname. One year after his entrance in the High school, at home, the traditional rite of ‘initiation’ - ‘the sacred-thread’ ceremony, was solemnly performed in token of a new lease of life.

Chapter-2

I

Puberty came up a little earlier, but came like a landslide. The world appeared different. Everything began to look beautiful. Everything awful became pleasant. The eyes lost the distinctions between beauty and ugliness. Everything was pregnant with pleasure. Nothing was fearful. Every sound was melodious. Every touch brought new sensations. The elements kindled heroic spirit. Stagnant water was a bed to be swum across or sail upon. Its surface was also to be dived into at one point for crawling across the muddy bottom to erupt at another point as a regular sport, by that making the body immune to cough or cold in and out of season. Running stream was to be swum across, so as to be hailed by acclaiming onlookers. Long stretches of water on way to school were just to be waded through as a matter of delight, ignoring what lay beneath to injure the submerged limbs. It was exciting to walk under heavy downpours. Thunders scarcely sent any tremor into the heart. Lightning was never pregnant with fatal strokes. Fire devoid of destructive fervour became resplendent. Long stretches of thorny plants set up to guard corn fields against bovine inroads, were set ablaze, the young miscreant to dance before it for hours together in tune with its rising embers, ignoring the vulgar abuses of the owners of adjacent land. Birds were envied as sole occupants of the air-space. No part of the earth from the inner-yard to the freshly ploughed fields was unfit to be used as a playground, no matter what part of the body was injured by spatial congestion or what part bruised by boulders; for, by the time the footsteps were kept onto the threshold, sands must have filled the wounds to cure what antibiotic power may be insufficient to heal today. No part of the day or no part of the night was either inauspicious or inconvenient to carry on any playful activity as impulses prompted from within or external stimuli propelled from without. No human being was bad or harmful, everyone was confided in. Every boy of like age was a potential friend. Every maiden was pretty, but of what sort of relation she could be worth, was unknown. Their proximity brought sensations not known before what for; something was remaining suspended, boisterous within, but refusing impetuosity without. On the contrary, whoever was associated with discipline and control became repulsive, to be either frowned upon or fought sight of.

In the initial days, the mother acted as a sort of brake against the son’s erratic manners. But, in course of time, she realized that she was losing her grip over the boy. In her eyes, there was none to come to the rescue of the disturbed boy in the outside world except their village deity-Lord Shiva, to whom not only were the people of that village, but also those of the adjoining villages used to worship and offer libations with all devotion. The mother tried to dilute the passions of the youth by inculcating a sense of devotion to the deity. The boy of course obeyed the mother in that he developed a sincere habit of lying prostrate before Him and offering his prayers each time before leaving the village as well as on entering it.

But, later on it appeared as if all the distractions in the boy were fused to form a single channel - the young fellow exhibited an abnormal urge for opera shows. The annual fairs held in many places in the area throughout the spring and the summer seasons provided many opportunities for enjoying such shows. In fact, the biggest was the first of its kind in the seasons. It was held in a place which was not very far from the High School of which Gopalkrishina was a student - Rampur H.E. School. It was celebrated in the following way:

On the inaugural night, brass-made idols of the surrounding big villages, as seated in wooden temple-like chariots and borne by traditionally engaged porters were carried towards the fairground with all pomp and splendour. Every village would come out competing with the rest, to show how much veneration they had had for their deity. The chariots were following attractive processions of beating drums, blowing trumpets, bursting crackers, burning fireworks and shooting rockets. Right from the time of congregation of the deities, there followed an unbroken chain of prayers, worships and all sorts of sacred rites. After three days the deities were carried back to their return; since by the time they left, the devout had turned themselves into a band of pleasure-seekers.

In point of fact, that particular fair, unlike other small ones held later on in different rural centres in the same area had long assumed the shape of a centre of socio-economic importance. Toiling prisoners of their homes and fields, the people found it as an excellent package for change- social intercourse, marketing, relaxation and entertainment. They came to find in that fair the only opportunity of coming across distant relatives unseen for years. Marriage negotiations were initiated and or carried forward and or finalized. People made bulk purchases like timber for construction of houses, live-stock for cultivation, cosmetics and textiles for social ceremony-so on and so forth. The entire area was leased out by way of auction to the highest bidder, who, in turn, would let it on rent to intending traders. For each important commodity, there was a separate lane or bye-lane. The business gathered momentum right from the departure of the deities as indicated earlier. There came hoteliers to offer well-cooked, non-vegetarian meals with fresh stokes of fish, meat and eggs, to enable people, to go for a change in their taste. Confectioners displayed sweet-meats of different shapes and colours to attract the drooling lips of children- the most disciplined ones were even found turning recalcitrant when denied their due gratification. Different circus parties/magicians would perch their tents to provide a series of entertainments to all- the young and the old alike. Due to limited span of the fair, and lack of adequate means of transport, goods accumulating there became dear in the beginning and cheaper towards the end, but more or less exhausting all the pockets that had been bulging out of the proceeds of the preceding harvest. The most exciting item of entertainment was the opera shows. Outstanding opera houses of the State were hired on contract basis. Different proportions of the sale proceeds of tickets were to be shared between the opera companies and the organizing youth clubs. Evening announcement of the play accompanied with melodious advertisements was pulling men from all walks of life to enjoy the shows. Above all, youth was youth’s greatest attraction.

The mother became seriously worried for the son as he wanted to spend nights together away home to enjoy each and every such show. Therefore, initially, whenever he sought her permission, she would refuse at first, only to yield at last to his constant pestering. As a matter of fact, his growing age made the mother helpless before his firmness. In spite of that, as he would showily prepare himself in the evening as a means of reading her reaction towards his programme of that night, she would close in upon him and start forbidding him to observe opera shows without assigning any rhyme and reason. To the youth’s utter chagrin, he discovered that the more he was determined in his decision, the more she was vehement in her refusal. That prompted him to be sneaky. He would slip out of home when everyone would fall asleep. His neighbouring uncle under the same strain became his companion in darkness. They would go out by keeping their outer doors just closed from outside, to enter through it quietly on return before the crack of dawn, even if the show was not over. Poverty had freed them from the fear of burglary. The poor mother keeping a watchful eye for some hours more was the last one to get up in the morning, to find that the apple of her eye was as asleep as she had seen him before closing the same for the night. But, at times, it was the late rising of the opera lovers, with their red eyes in token of preceding sleeplessness, which was betraying them before their elders, without of course any adverse effect on their subsequent programmes.

It was Class VII Gopalkrishna was reading in. He was barely fourteen. He was also to sit for the M.E. Scholarship Examination of that year which was to follow the annual school examination after a week or so. There came that annual fair. That time he had made up his mind to defy the mother if she created a bar against his programme. But, in her wisdom, the mother had realized the delicacy of desisting him from what he was so sanguine about. But she herself was not one to shirk the duty of a mother. As Gopalkrishna got ready in the evening, she called him near her and made him sit by her side to explain him the demerits of opera shows. Her purpose, as she indicated, was that she had many things to tell him that day. The son had well anticipated the maternal tuition. So he had prepared his counter. What many things she had stored for him or the substance of all that she was to say, he could guess very well. Therefore, he patiently sat by her side by expressing his eagerness to hear from her. Finding that the boy was in a mood to listen, she explained to him the demerits of opera shows. Her main points were, opera shows are all lies, lies artificially made up to appear true, in order to make the audience cry or laugh as intended. Opera people are themselves bad people who remain awake at night and sleep all day, and they make the lives of viewers irregular, for which students who are to be regular in every way, should not see them. Only village people, who grope in the dark for want of money to buy a candle or matchbox, and also who are fed up with the croaking of frogs, become interested to see the shining light of the stage or the melodious music and songs below it. She stressed on the point that such shows affect the tender brains very adversely, and to her knowledge, many tender boys leave studies only by becoming intoxicated for opera shows. She asked him to cite a single show if he had remembered any and the good lesson he had derived from it for himself.

The son then narrated the following episode from an historical play he had seen some a couple of days before.

The play opens with an old Brahmin coming over the stage. A lone father, he bewails the long absence of his only son. Twelve years back the son was been forced away from him to join a battle against a Muslim horde. The father is dead sure the son has been killed in the battle. In fact, that is the last day of the prescribed period of twelve years which treats a continuous absence of such duration as death, warranting necessary obsequies.

At this time there enters the son. The unexpectedness overwhelms both the father and son. They hold each other in tight embrace for a minute, shedding tears of an inestimable joy. The father then enquires about the cause of the other’s prolonged absence.

The son explains that he was taken captive with many during the battle. They were asked to opt for Islam or death. Under his very nose, one by one, many of his compatriots were put to the sword for refusing to embrace Islam. But he saved his life by becoming a Muslim and marrying a daughter of an Ameer.

The father at once releases himself from the embrace excitedly and pours down a bucketful of water on himself, in token of his reaction to the death news of his son, as it were. In a similarly angry state, he then rummages around for something in a trunk. He takes out the son’s horoscope scribbled on a palm leaf. The father then sets fire to the son’s horoscope symbolizing the latter’s death for him.

The son is so far standing still. Then he reacts. He utters no speech. He grows tremendously angry- to turn completely red in the face, quivering right from the toe to the tips of hair which stand up in an uncontrollable excitement.

After finishing his story, the son asked the mother as to whether one’s life or one’s religion - which is actually greater.

The mother was sitting like a statue, completely dumbfounded. Thereafter, neither did she forbid him to go for the opera nor was he ever in need of her permission- the mother perhaps sensing that the son had slipped into the seraglio of individuation; and the son, as it were, pre-sentient, that too much externality might dislodge him from his new settlement.

The word Examination was an abomination to young Gopalkrishna, in spite of his occupying the first position every year, as, he thought, it really rusticated those who had no ability to get books by heart - as if talent consisted only in that singular capacity. To the extent he was glued to studies he felt a kind of denial of freedom. He would at times sigh that he was poor in extra-curricular activities like sports, games, music, handicraft, etc. In each of those areas he saw brilliant performances by students-boys and girls alike, nevertheless relegated to insignificance once the results of an examination were out. He wished he were equally an adept at extra-curricular activities and these were given due weight during assessment of one’s annual performance for promotion to the next higher class. The prevailing system of education or for that matter, examination, was doing more harm than good as it was derecognizing every other worth, was his faint feeling. As the results of the Annual Exam came, his joy at the announcement of his first position vanished, when there was no mention of one Jogesh in the list of successful candidates. Jogesh had been the fastest boy in the school from Class IV. He had been covering the distance of one hundred meters within ten seconds in the Annual Sports, to elicit the highest acclamation of all. Every such time the Sports Teacher would physically lift him above the ground, exclaiming Olympic Record! - Olympic Record! Jogesh is forced to the crooked plough!’ Gopalkrishna sighed within. He could not reconcile himself to that, what he took, as a dastardly devaluation of man on this land. He followed the teachers to their Common Room and said to them, Sirs, were this land America or England, a Jogesh would never have been forced to the fields!

Nothing in this land will thrive or prosper except crooked politics and abject flattery, returned the English Teacher.

However, the success of one Bipin, his sole opponent in song competitions, but his most intimate friend in the class, provided immediate consolation to attenuate the depression on account of Jogesh’s failure. Current at that time was there a peculiar sport in the student circles. It was recitation of a verse that commenced with the end-letter of the immediately preceding verse recited by the opponent. This was preferred to recitation of complete poems, as the latter was not to be interesting without rhythmic accompaniments, and it was not always possible to arrange them. Moreover, it could continue at best for one hour, and that too, limited to a few good singers only. But the end-letter contest lasted for hours together, involving many participants ranging from amateurs to experts. To be prolific in that skill, one was required to collect an incredible number of verses from a wide range of selections. From folk songs to poetic works, nothing was to be left as useless.

This was encouraged in the students to enrich not only their literature, but also their memory power. Every month such contests were held in their school - between different classes; between different sections of the same class; and even, between two sides of every section as divided according to their sitting arrangements. Bipin and Gopalkrishna were invincible each for the other. When the two became opponents, the contest would never end. Both had a singular quality in that each had so ordered their collection as to commence or end with any letter they desired. They had a systematic preparation for this. The vacations were their main time to add more items to their existing stock. Mechanical reproduction of verses by others as and when those occurred to them in a group was very often dull and boring. And the appropriate intonations and sweet voices of both Gopalkrishna and Bipin were the main attractions of the listeners. It provided a regular bonanza of small entertainment to all music lovers in the school - from the Headmaster to the Craft-teacher, except of course the Mathematics and Science teachers, who would leave for home as soon as the match started.

The drop-outs and failures up to Class-VII of the High School were supplemented by fresh additions to Class-VIII. Almost all the best students of the Middle English Schools situated within a radius of ten to fifteen kilometres from the High School came to take admission into Class VIII. Most of them became boarders as they hailed from distant villages. Admissions were usually taking about one month. During that time, it was seen that, more often than not, the aliens beat the reigning natives in every sphere of activity – curricular and extra-curricular.

That summer, every well-wisher of Gopalkrishna including his mother persuaded him to utilize the vacation for advance study, to cover up half of the lessons of Class VIII in order to be able to beat the coming stalwarts in studies. But the more he was told about this, the more defiant did he become to all. He was busy in his verse collections too overawe the newcomers first, long before the Annual Examination gave scope to surpass them in studies.

That was the first day in Class VIII after the admissions were over. Gopalkrishna was sitting in the front row, adjacent to the entrance. Through the window nearby he marked the approach of five grown up boys towards the classroom. Their age and height did not commensurate with their class of admission. In the countryside many parents were used to leave their sons to primary school after they crossed ten. The said five’s uniform spoke out their common descent – each one under a half-pant and a green half-shirt. In their strides, they somehow appeared to the natives who were watching them similarly, a bit careless in their manners. As the said five reached the door-step, to come within the sight of the first-row, one boy from the class loudly said, with a faked panic in his voice, Hey, GK, locusts!

Actually, during the preceding season their area had borne the onslaughts of different swarms of locusts, stripping the fields of all the crops of pulses. The students then were advised to avoid wearing green-coloured dresses, lest they might similarly be the victims of the outpouring horde. Therefore, by his aforesaid remarks the boy was just making a humour by hinting at the oddness of the dresses the newcomers had put on. But GK, nickname for Gopalkrishna, was, by nature, a bit intolerant of superior airs in others of his kind. So what he did, he became a bit vociferous for what the other boy was rather discreetly oblique about. As the five passed in front of him, he looked at them from top to toe, and with a deliberate intention of embarrassing them, said to the leading one, in a quite sarcastic tone, From which village, brothers?

From Prem-Nagar, Brother General Knowledge, came out an instant reply.

I’m Gopalkrishna, eh! Then looking back to the class, he said, Hey friends! I’m General Knowledge, says the rustic, ha, ha, ha ha!

With that the whole class burst laughing, the strangers were visibly offended. With heads downcast they straight went and occupied the back bench. But Gopalkrishna became unmindful. The name Pema-Nagar, meaning ‘City of Love’ had stuck in his gullet - transmitting absolutely an unknown message, without he being actually aware of what exactly it connoted. It appeared to him ironically, as if the laughter was more a direct appreciation of the stranger’s retort than what he had thought in the beginning as due to his humour. He tried his level best to comprehend the meaning of the term; but the more he strained himself, the more he felt ridiculed. Ignore it also he could not; for there also, the more he tried, the more penetrating became the echo thereof deep down in his soul. Consciousness was demanding an explanation, but the message baffled all articulation. He thought of getting it clarified from the Class Teacher who had a great liking for him, but the voice was chocked - someone was snatching his power of