~Hari Har Khanal ~
Along with the chirping of Cicadas, the darkness fell and the towering hills gradually disappeared from sight. The chilly wind blew from the jagged icy peaks in the northeast. Gradually the huts in the neighborhood grew dimmer. Nevertheless, one could hear the constant babbling sound of the Madi River flowing towards south, even in the darkest night.
Early in the morning, even before the dawn, the cock-a-doodle-doo gave a momentum to the huts and slowly the atmosphere would turn noisy. There were several huts, poorly fenced with dry leaves, on the feet of the towering hill. Some of them were cleansed with white clay and others with red. In one corner, another miserable hut has been added today, barely giving any shelter to Kale Gharti, his beloved wife, two sons and the daughter Bhunti.
That very hut of Kale Gharti was neither joined with others nor it was too far away from them. The head of the village, Kaji Sainla’s house, was on the other end of the brook, and there were some other houses spreading out on the bank. It seemed as if Kale Gharti was a human machine. The villagers would have no hesitation to make him carry their loads or make him chop firewood for them. He was in a miserable condition without a home, and his empty stomach always remained the same no matter how hard he ploughed the field. There seemed no sign of improvements. He had been hardly surviving the sun and the rain for the past forty years and would have to sleep under whatever space he found.
But today the situation was not the same. There was landslide in 1951. And the sandbank of Majuwa, lying on the foot of the towering hill, had been filled with the mass of rock and earth ever since. Then Kale built a hut of his own on the top of it, which he could claim without any hesitation.
Kale, enraptured with pleasure and delight at his new home, slept happily and woke up the next day with a new determination. He slowly came out, stood by the edge of the yard, yawned and stretched his body. Before him was the widespread sandbank of the Majuwa brook, with some shrubs and bushes here and there. He took the scene into his heart, stones laid a wall on the edge of Majuwa and the land was terraced. Wheat, maize and millets seemed to be gradually flourishing in the soil. Then a sudden, dreadful thought arrested Kale. He blinked his eyes with disappointment and wiped them. The field was the same and so was his wrinkled face. The thought of his former land came dancing into his head. He could not persuade himself that he had turned the bleak land into lush green fields.
“It used to be very much like this one…”
“But who would believe me now?”
“These …are the hands…”
His hands were the concrete evidences right there. With a strict obligation he had chosen the substitute in order to escape from the torrents of rain and scorching rays of the sun. Kale was thinking more and more.
“But what if I loose this land just like the last one?” A terrifying question concealing some sort of truth and reality vexed him. “How could Kanchha Baje drive me away from here? He has convinced me to get my name registered in the land distribution program for the land-less. I have devoted my full strength for him throughout my life. Won’t he be kind to me?” Kale tried to soothe himself.
There were some villagers assembled in the Majuwa chock. Kale Gharti sat at one end and tried to mix himself among the crowd.
“You have done a good job by building a hut,” an old villager said.
“A big tree certainly provides shelter during the rain,” the next one added.
“So Kale got Majuwa for free.” The other said.
“Kanchha Baje did show his generosity,” another added. Kale tried to circulate a feeling of satisfaction in his face, though his heart didn’t smile. In a nook of his heart, the turbulent clouds of suspicion were hovering. Soon someone broke the silence and said, “Can’t a tree fall upon the poor fellow during the wind and squeeze him?”
It sharpened his suspicion like a razor and his face grew pale, His former field was as good as Majuwa but Kanchha Baje had banished him away from there. Similar thoughts kept on writhing constantly in his mind. At last, defeated by feelings and circumstances, Kale ascribed everything to God.
Kale, who had spent all his life bounded within the shackles of slavery, could hardly sleep comfortably for few hours. But Kanchha Baje, who never had to do any work, was accumulating lots of money and fame. Kale was conscious that such were the treats of unseen Gods. The thought of such partial Gods perplexed him. Still he would remember the God whenever he faced any problem. At these sensations, he would feel like a criminal and again he would start working. Bhunti, his daughter, always asked, “Father, is it our own house? Is the field ours too?”
“Of Course, yes!” Kale used to reply. But he well knew the fact that the land may or may not be his own.
As days slipped by, more wrinkles were added to Kale’s face. Majuwa field was also enlarged. After four years, the news of the ‘Land Distribution Program’ stirred the village. Few traces of hope dawned in Kale’s heart too. When the government officers came into his village, Kancha Baje once again tried to get his own name registered for the land. Kale moaned and wept awfully. But all his vehement protests were guided roughly by the gusts of cold air blowing from the abode of white snow in the North and vanished thereby. He shuddered, and felt like as though he was falling down from one of the towering peaks. The surveyor demanded evidence of the ownership. Kancha Baje produced them, but Kale was empty-handed. His evidences, though, were dissolved in the form of his own perspiration, lost in the beach. His labor was still reflected by the terraces. Nobody spoke a word. They just looked at each other mutely. Few were whispering,” Kancha Baje … victimized …Poor Kale…”
Like a wounded deer, Kale dragged himself down to the Panchayat, the local governing unit. The chief of the village council suggested he write an application. With a pale face seemingly suppressed by the huge sky, he went to Binod for help.
“Could you write a letter for the Panchyat in favor of me?” He requested Binod. All the people in the Verandah lent their rapt attention to Kale.
“I am being squeezed by the big tree. Please help me.”
Hearing such a sentiment, Binod tried to elucidate the fact, ”You mean Kancha Baje is going to grasp the land supposed to be yours?”
“ It seems so. But the Panchayat is asking for an application.”
With a face withering with sorrow, Binod said, “How can just a piece of paper favor you and defeat him? His fame is widespread with all the round bellies. Nobody knows you. Who will support you? How can you go against Baje?”
“Isn’t the land the reward to my own diligence? Did Baje make the land? Is all my dedications to this land worthless…” Kale blazed tremendously as if a hot wind of divine sensation was inspiring him.
“What you are saying is absolutely true, but in government’s paper, in the form of rules and regulation it is just null and void. If you and those like you are tolerant, there will always be Kancha Bajes to exploit you?”
Kale felt as if he had just fallen from a New World into the earth, and before him were the vague and hazardous tracks blocked with innumerable thorns and tough challenges. His eyelashes were fixed and immovable. Vivid feeling floated in his heart brimming with sad regret and desperate thoughts. And so he spoke at once, “Are all the men living in the shade of this hill animals? Is only Kanchha Baje a human? Don’t poor people have the reward for their hardship?”
With wide open eyes, Binod Watched kale for a moment and said,” Poor people also have the meaning of their labor, but it utterly depends upon the hands of human like Kanchha Baje. For that we should shout against them, then only it would be possible.”
Kale didn’t understand all what Binod said but he had no courage to ask him to repeat the words. All the houses under the hill seemed to be listening to Binod speak.
Still there were numbers of questions dwelling in Kale’s face. After thinking for long, Kale decided to go to the Panchayat with an application. So he said, “Just write an application for me although I’m sure that my efforts won’t bear fruits. I want to leave everything to God, he’ll show the right path.”
Kale stretched his head and adjusted his cap. His white cap with a lost edge was almost brown with sweats and dirt.
“Well, writing an application is not a problem for me, but it is impossible for Kanchha Baje to leave the land for you.”
Kale shook his head in ignorance at the truth spoken by Binod. Memories of his former land being looted came as a flash of lightening into his head. At that time too, there were similar rumors about land distribution to the land-less, but it turned out to be a joke for Kale. Everybody who favored Kale suggested him writing an application Kale then had asked Binod for an application, but Binod who had well known what an application would be worth, had refused to do so.
“Struggle as you might, the claws of devil are too big for you,” Binod was still advising the same thing to poor Kale.
“When would such miseries of our society overcome?” Kale was just speechless at this question. To lead the helpless is also a job of great trouble. Nobody likes to sacrifice themselves in matters unimportant to them. Death is inevitable in this mortal life; it will sweep all of us away, yet the fear of death pricked Kale. So he strongly felt the necessity of Binod in such a society, living under the tyranny of monsters like Kanchha Baje.
Various thoughts started battling violently in his head, and Kale hesitated to obey all the advice of Binod at once. Kale gradually stood from there and went to the Panchayat with a pitiful scrawny face. The Panchayat didn’t sanction his application in the lack of legal proof. Now Kale was no more than a weak tree about to fall during a turbulent storm.
At a leisurely pace, Kale went to the chief of the land distribution program and expressed all the brutal realities of his life. But the chief who was also confined by the stiff chains of rules and regulations could do nothing against the partial law. Hearing his decision, he returned to his home with a face marked with signs of defeat.
“If so, wouldn’t the people who confronted the landslides and built the emerald green lands have right to live in this world? When will the poor, who enjoy the company of the plough throughout their life, have any space to stand on this earth?” Such questions raced into his mind overtaking one another. But he couldn’t find the real answer. He once again remembered Binod. Memories of the past again appeared and stuck into his head-
“Do not poor have the worth of their toil?”
“Yes, they do … but only when all of us are aware and ready to fight back…”
***
Hari Har Khanal
Bharatpur, Chitwan, Nepal
Volume V:: May, 2002
(Source : Pardesh.com)
