The old lady Haarbhangani returned from the bank of the wetland.
The whole village is getting crazy for fishing in the wetland. It does not matter how many fishes they are catching, what matters here is the enthusiasm of the villagers concerning this goings-on.
Haarbhangani is coming back since it was difficult for her to keep standing there for long. The sun is rising. The old lady is worried about her pregnant goat. It is impossible to control the goat even by tethering. Only she knows how she manages to enter inside the garden through the small square hole of the bamboo fence.
Only a few days left for her delivery. One can even notice the baby’s existence from outside. But she is still as wild as before. There is no wall in this world that can hamper her free roving. The old lady’s only concern is the damages that might occur to her neighbors because of the goat. Where from Haarbhangani will compensate her neighbours?
She was named as Haarbhangani from the day of her marriage which was derived from the name of her native place ‘Haarbhanga’, means the ‘broken bones’. Recently a boy of her grandson’s age threatened ‘the old lady with broken bones’ that he will break all her bones out of the skeleton; and she remained seated helplessly in the dark corner of her bed putting some oil and water on her head to control her emotions. Before that, she even sold the goat once. And the son of the butcher took her by tagging with a rope; but after a couple of days, she was seen again in the courtyard of Haarbhabgani.
It was dawn. Hearing the sound of hoof beats the old lady opened the door and she was surprised by seeing the goat in the center of the courtyard, with a bunch of betel leaves in her mouth. From whose plot did she get the betel leaves? No, this bunch of betel leaves is not that important for Haarbhangani; but how come this goat is here in her patio that she left across the village and has taken money after a thorough counting from the butcher and spent two sleepless nights with the thought of selling the goat to the butcher? And now the goat has come back after damaging other’s garden and is standing in her courtyard, chewing unworriedly. The old lady rushed towards the center of the courtyard. One leaf has fallen down with the creeper and the goat is trying to reach it with her tongue.
Haarbhangani bent down and slapped hard with all her strength on the sharp muzzle of the goat chewing betel leaves. The goat closed her eyes as if she was keen to feel the hotness of the creeper.
The old lady tightened the loose knot of her methoni1 and ran to the gateway. The moment she took up a nongola2 to hit the goat, the usual incident happened. Whenever she takes up the roller, or the broom, or the flat strip from her loom to hit her, the goat bends her back and bows down her head. The old lady is always gets stopped by that particular behavior of the goat. Her anger disappears. She throws away all that she took up to hit the goat. She abuses the goat like anything and her whole nervous system becomes crazy. She roams around the house, goes out to pick up greens, and sweeps the platform of the basil plant, dust the reeling machine… and she does many works in a restless way. The goat remains standing in her courtyard with a huge dakur3 in her neck which cannot be moved.
Wind blows… It rains… Moving her legs here and there the goat looks up to the old lady. Raindrops fall. Every living being in this world can get wet in the rain and can think of rain as just some drops of water. But the cat and the goat can never take rain so easily. For them every drop of rain is a piece of burning charcoal. But surprisingly this old lady’s goat still keeps standing in the courtyard. Apart from making a gentle bleat and some beats with her hoofs, she does not do anything as if she was tied down tightly and the rain is not rain but the shiny Dao of the butcher.
The old lady can’t stand any more. She makes up a place on the veranda for the goat with old cloths and closes the door without fixing the bamboo lock. Then she went to the kitchen and grumbles.
The goat jumps up to the veranda. She got completely wet in the rain. She lies down on the bed made for her. She knows, good times will come, even though her offspring are sent away one after another, she has got an affectionate and permanent place in this house. She keeps waiting for the good times to come. Only for this firm belief she came back from the butcher’s place.
It’s not clear whether mother Haarbhangani is living for the goat or for the mother, the goat needs to come back to this place leaving the whole world behind. She does not know whether this green leaves grow to become her food or her tongue gets excited since they exist. After all, the work needs to be done. She knows very well how to keep standing till her mother opens the door, or how to pass on her back when the old lady comes to hit her with a stick, a broom or with an umbrella. She waits. This time also she was waiting with a rope in her neck that was bound in Rahmat’s house.
The old lady came out and surprised to see the goat. The goat felt ashamed for taking two days to escape. She should have smashed the rope and come back from half the way! The old lady came out of the shock only after the goat clicked her front hoofs on the ground. She immediately tied the goat tight with a post of the veranda. She washed her face with a pot of water and went out wearing a gotala4 on her chest. After a while Bilash came riding a bicycle.
Following the old lady he went inside the courtyard and fixed a bunch and some banana leaves with the seat of the bicycle. He forcefully brought the goat out and tied her with his bicycle with a rope. The wheels of the bicycle moved. The goat looked back to the old lady…, the old lady, who was then praying with her joined hands looking towards the sky. Then the goat started following the bicycle and walked towards Rahmat’s house chewing the banana leaves.
But, Rahmat did not open the gate even. Abusing harshly, he sent his son along with Bilash. The old lady was feeling some kinds of anxiety, related to the money that she had taken from the butcher. She was taking a bath in the pond. But the moment she went into the water, the boy has arrived asking the money back. The money was kept under the pillow. It was kept under the pillow of the old lady Haarbhangani.
Money that kept under the pillow never grows. The old lady with her lifelong experiences knows it very well. From the day Silkha Pandit took his bed, the old lady Haarbhangani had taken a lot of troubles to bring money under the pillow, but all got vaporised with Pandit’s stomach pain. Then Pandit was taken to the crematorium by four people carrying him on their shoulders.
All his precious books and his favourite cloths were floated in the river. Everybody saw how they followed Pandit after his eternal journey, but nobody noticed how the money that was kept by Haarbhangani under the pillow followed him. They had not left any mark behind. Pandit too had not left any mark behind. The currency notes never keep any mark behind. Haarbhangani keeps seated helplessly on the veranda. Somebody comes to her courtyard and threatens her that the goat will be eaten in a feast. She puts a new dakur in her neck and tethers her in the middle of the vacant farmland.
Rahmat’s son started shouting…, keep her in paddy fields or in your house, keep her wherever you want. Keep your goat with yourself and give our money back with an interest of ten rupees. Ten rupees for the expenditures of two days… The helpless old lady put her hands under the pillow. She already has spent forty rupees by paying her debts in the grocery shop. What to do! The muzzle of the goat became sharper. Her back was completely bent. The old lady pleaded Rahmat’s son to give her time and promised that she will pay the forty rupees the next month. He complained and said that it’s not forty, but she will have to pay fifty. He left. Bilash sat on the veranda.
He felt thirsty. “Give me a cup of salty black tea, grandma!” The old lady boiled water blowing air through pipe to lit the fire with great difficulties since the woods were not completely dry.
She gave him tea in a bowl. The goat also heard the sound of her blowing nose. Perhaps thinking of helping the old lady, or to bring some money to her hands somehow, the goat went out slowly from the house. May be only for that reason she became pregnant again. At least the old lady will be able to earn some money by selling her milk or her kids. But the old lady lost all the interest. She keeps sitting on the veranda without wearing the gotala and with her calf uncovered.
She eats the leftovers of the previous nights and keeps a portion of it aside for the goat. From last few days she is getting problems in her right eye and hardly can see anything when darkness falls. As the evening stars sparkle on the sky, Haarbhangani lights up her earthen lamp in her prayer room. The old lady gets shaken with the stirring of the rays of the lamp. Whose fence the goat is going to break this time, nothing is left with her to compensate. Therefore she listens to whatever people say to her. She hears the abuses, the threatening. She does not have any other option.
The helpless old lady Haarbhangani felt like the ribs from the cage that shelters her heart became loose. She does not have her own child, nor for Pandit did she ever hear such bitter words from anybody. Now at this age she has been bearing all these maltreatments only for this goat. One nephew of the old lady suggested her to sell the goat to a butcher once again, but she did not feel like doing it. But then he again gave a confused statement, “Who will buy her meat? The goat is too old!”
Haarbhangani was relieved. It’s not just a goat but a pain of her body that she will have to suffer till her last breath. But who will die first, the old lady or the goat? If she dies before, people will not spare the goat. She will be killed with all the sufferings of hell… the villagers often warn it. And, what if the goat dies before her?
…Oh God! No man should ever suffer the pain of departing from one’s partner. After the final journey of Pandit no grass has grown in this courtyard, the basil leaves have fallen down, parts of her loom have started breaking, she has to come back empty handed when she goes out to collect firewood, rice production has decreased, crops have been destroyed by floods, mice are establishing their territories in her storage. Above all, she has become lonely.
Though she visits her neighbors sometimes, but the moment she seats in their courtyards and start pounding the betel nuts with the mortar and pestle, after a few curtsy talks they start complaining about the goat. It has destroyed somebody’s cloth while drying, attacked the innocent boy from his back, often disturbs the incubating ducks, does not spare a single leaf and even people can’t plant anything because of this goat… Haarbhangani returns home with a heavy heart. She cannot punish the pregnant goat either by hitting her or by leaving her without food.
The helpless old lady seats on her veranda. At her regular time the goat appears at the middle of the courtyard making her muzzle sharper, and looks at the old lady with those innocent eyes. In such times crows and magpie birds come to the courtyard. Otherwise forget about birds, not even the cats and dogs dare to enter Haarbhangani’s compound.
The goat even behaves aggressively with the powerful local dog and the dog realizes that there in no point barking at her and lets her go. And what about the thieves? Who is not aware about the pathetic condition that Kaliya had to face while trying to steel the brass lamp? The old lady kept the lamp near the well and was changing her cloths after taking a bath behind the wall made of husks (dhakua). Suddenly the lamp went off. Without thinking about the reason for the lamp going off, the old lady hardly could express her annoyance for it; she heard a screaming followed by the sounds of somebody falling and then the goat’s hoof beats. Haarbhangani understood what is needed to be aware of.
Shouting as thief, thief… she came out with the wet cloths and reached her gateway. People came and saw Kaliya lying down and one of his calves is bleeding. The brass lamp is in lying beside him. The old lady’s eyes searched for the goat. Is she going to be killed by Kaliya’s friend? She came out from the crowd and made a couple of rounds in search of the goat and finally found it under the bed. Till then everybody left for home.
The lamp that was fallen from the thief’s hands dripped its oil and became empty. The old lady was too tired to light the lamp again but she could realize that the goat is under the bed without having a look on it. Taking the name of God she went to sleep. The goat was also lying down inactively. Next day the goat ran out the moment she opened the door; but she returned and swiftly went under the bed again. The old lady tried a lot to bring her out by poking her with sticks but failed. She got irritated and started moaning like anything. Not finding any way out she finally threw a fistful of cooked rice under the bed and got engaged with her own works.
She is the wife of a Brahmin Pandit, and it’s her old habit to prepare the scared thread. While doing it a soft smile appeared on her face. Oh God, how naughty this goat is! The goat has not come out as she was scared of the punishment she might get from the old lady for hurting Kaliya. “How long will you be able to hide yourself? Won’t Kaliya find you out?” But as soon as she uttered the words, she became upset. Haarbhangani knows that this goat is not cowered. The goat is pregnant now. She is saving herself from the possible danger. She is performing the duty of motherhood. The old lady exhaled audibly in a long deep breath. She has no experience of having children but she can realise motherhood. She went inside, took a bowl of water and put it under the bed. From then Haarbhangani’s responsibility increased automatically.
It’s the responsibility of an old mother towards her expecting daughter. She goes out in search of the goat if she does not see her for long. She observes the neighbourhood very minutely. Is there any cloth getting damaged by the goat, is anybody abusing the goat with harsh words… She tries to spread her blurred vision as far as possible.
She collects the soft and fresh leaves of jackfruits that come easily to her hands and let the goat to eat. She pats her back and advises not to be disobedient. Her neighbours also noticed that there is no point complaining about the goat to Haarbhangani. She just listens to them and does nothing. They have not even heard the abuses and curses the old lady utters for the goat for long. At that time she used to change the dakur, punished her by tethering in the middle of a vacant paddy field.
But now it’s not the same. The goat goes out as if she is going to her office, roams around for the whole day and does whatever she feels like and returns home in her usual time and seats beside Haarbhangani’s feet in a gullible way. Oh, what a scene! The villagers’ eyes get burnt in anger. Of course Haarbhangani can realise that. And can the goat too. Therefore, both of them are cautious. The mother and daughter duo preferred to stay away from the villagers.
She told her repeatedly not to go far away, but she didn’t listen to her at all. Around noon, the old lady heard some sounds, quite expected by her. She had piled up some dried banana plants near the well. The sounds are coming from there. The old lady rushed there. Yes, she was right. The goat has delivered kids. The old lady became so happy seeing the spotty cute little babies. But how is the mother? Haarbhangani started calling her neighbours. The goat’s water has not broken yet.
Her eyes became dull and the muzzle that she makes sharp the moment she looks at the old lady has turned square shaped. Two people from the neighbourhood came. They lifted the kids and gave them in the hands of the old lady. It’s not like she has not lifted such kids before, but this time they gave her a feeling of holding a human baby.
Her eyes filled with tears. At that very time she heard a sound. Yes, the goat is making the sound. It’s not a sound of suffering, but a clear bleating of relief. “O my dear daughter! My sweetheart! My baby, Mysana!” There heard the sound of the old lady Haarbhangani. Leaving the kids, she is now taking care of the goat. Yes, her water is breaking. She is getting relief from the extreme pain. Haarbhangani affectionately touched on her head and face. Wiping her tears with the reverse side of her hands, she called, “My dear, Mysana!”
The goat’s muzzle turned a bit sharper. Probably the old lady was quite loud when she was talking to her goat that her niece Mysana complained from the other side of the fence for giving her name to the goat.
Didn’t she find any other name in this world to call the goat? “From all the years you could not find a single name for this rebellious goat and now giving my name to her!” she objected. It has become a routine for Haarbhangani to hear harsh words related to this goat. She always remains silent. Without wearing the gotala she keeps sitting on the veranda with no charm in her life. After the death of her husband, the lonely old lady lives her life in this tiresome world only for this goat…
She has lost her voice, her smile.
Life is no more alluring for her. People have made her life miserable.
But, why this happened? It should not have happened to the wife of a Pandit. Isn’t the goat is responsible for making her suffer so much? Yes, she knows it very well. Yet, she calls her ‘Mysana’. A loving name, an affectionate word…My baby… Mysana!
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NOTES:
1. Methoni: Assamese women’s lower garment when worn from the chest 2. Nongola: solid bamboo bars used as a gate 3. Dakur: a piece of wood tied round the neck of a goat to prevent its straying into the fenced place. 4. Gotala :A piece of cloth-
Written by Manikuntala Bhattacharjya and Translated from the original Assamese story ‘Apatya’ by Puja Rajkumari. Manikuntala Bahattacharjya is an award winning Assamese poet, short story writer, script writer and novelist with five short story collections, two poetry collections, one article collection and two children’s novels in her credit. Her works have been translated into English, Hindi and other regional languages of India. Her book ‘Chitrapat’ is the first autobiography in verse in Assamese literature.
Puja Rajkumari is Ecxecutive Editor of ‘North East Business Reporter’ and Co-founder of ‘The MindSpace’ (www.themindspacemag.com). Earlier she worked with the prestigious ‘The Little Magazine’ and Foreign Policy journal ‘Diplomatist Plus’. Her works have been published in various national and international journals and newspapers.
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