Westward With A Sigh

Up to mid-July, there was absolutely no sign that anything in or about his life in Baripada was going to change or was to be termed ‘the old life’ hereafter. True, there was no college to go to. He had gone as far as MPC College could take him in the educational line in the mid-1970s. Studies beyond graduation would involve relocation to Bhubaneswar or Berhmapur or Sambalpur. (Delhi was out of question for reasons that will become apparent in the course of this short narrative.)

It was decided that he would journey westward to Sambalpur to study for his Masters in English at Jyoti Vihar. His father’s younger brother was the librarian there and had made the offer. But that was as yet notional. The result of the BA examination was not declared. So his life in Baripada unfolded along the familiar grooves.

The day began with Subrat rhythmically striking the hard red ball, swinging at the end of a nylon rope whose other end was tied round the square black wooden beam that supported the tiled roofing over the front veranda. It was meant to be an imitation of the real thing when at the crease in his adorable game of cricket, that is, fluent and straight-batted strokeplay.

After this, his house hopping, cricket bat in hand, would begin, first down the slope to his elder Mausi’s house and then on return, and, after another spell of cadenced thak thak, a trudge up the road to his younger Mausi’s house adjacent to the Brahma Mandir.

On the inner veranda of this second Mausi’s home and in front of their full-sized dressing table mirror – the only house in the neighbourhood to boast such a precious item of furniture – would be staged another bout of frenzied shadow practice, punctuated by sessions of self-admiration in the mirror. He would lose track of time and forget every irritant, major or minor.

He was oblivious of the surroundings while he engaged in imaginary batting. He little realised then that he had become a folkloric figure for this daily ritual carried out in the open. Cricket’s rising popularity among the Baripadias in that era without the benefit of television had something to do with his folk hero status. The summer became one endless idyll. There was no need to wake up from a hypnotic dream.

Reality intruded suddenly with the declaration of result in the third week of July. Subrat had done well, standing first in the second class. In English this was a big thing, for out of a student population of around 700 that took the English honours examination under Utkal University, only one or two got the coveted first class.

Within a week, the marksheet and provisional certificate were in his hand. This was the passport for his journey to Sambalpur later that month. And things began to race. Was the passport bolstered by the promise of money so vital to residence abroad? He would soon discover. Now was the hard time of leave taking.

Subrat found himself looking sadly and wistfully on the shards and remnants of his fast-dissolving old life, and, with simultaneous qualms at a vague and inchoate new life lurking ahead. His uncle had written to say that classes would commence from the day following Independence Day. So, it was a new life in a symbolic sense too.

But it was not sentiments alone which queered Subrat’s pitch. The question of regular monthly remittance for two years reared its head, especially given his father’s manifest inability to take the bull by the horns. That inevitably led to the begging-bowl approach. And who would his father go to for monetary help except to his own well-to-do, flush-with-cash younger brother? This was despite the fact that the two brothers had separated years ago, preferring to eat out two pots of rice rather than one.

Subrat would never be able to shake off from his mind that morning scene of his father, the eldest among the brothers, appearing before his younger brother in a posture of supplication.

The younger brother was hurriedly coming down the flight of steps from his room upstairs. It was a curving, two-part stairs, though short. He would be down in a jiffy and out of the house with no chance of a sighting until late afternoon or even night. Alerted by the mach mach sound of shod feet, the elder brother swiftly came out of his room downstairs where he sat and chatted with Subrat. The brothers met, one nearly at the end of his downward path and the other at the foot of the stairs, the former looming over and dwarfing the other.

“Manu, are you going out? Well, the boy is heading to Sambalpur next week. Just wanted to tell you that you have his back. He’s yours,” he blurted out

With an impatient nod and a ‘Yes’ uttered in a gravelly voice, the younger brother went past his brother, gained the ground and marched quickly out of the house.

The word and the nod fell like a whiplash on the back of the young adventurer embarked upon his first long journey out of Baripada.

The sting was probably sharper for a father, stuck amid the gloom and ruins of the old life.