BALLAL’S BOTHER

Nalini Bera (orig. Bengali) (trans. by. Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar)

Putus, that is, the lantana flower. His daak naam or nickname was Putus, named after the lantana flower. His bhalo naam or good name was Ballal Murmu. His father’s nickname was Balka. The names of the father and the son were almost similar.

His house was in the village; not in the middle of it, but right at the place where one entered that village. His house was a usual Santal village house. There were several groves of bamboo around the house. There were both varieties of bamboo there: the plain bamboo and the spiny bamboo. As it is said in Bangla, “Benu bone mormore dokkhina baay”—the balmy southerly breeze blew through the bamboo clumps.

The leaves of the bamboo shook and murmured in the southerly breeze. Sometimes, venomous snakes too appeared, hissing. Snakeskin was often entangled in the bamboo and swayed in the wind like pennants.

One could see Putus alias Ballal Murmu’s one-storied mud house, through the gaps in the bamboo clumps, with its roof thatched with paddy straw. Nearby was a shelter for ghusur, that is, pigs. Ballal’s pigs grunted around and dug the ground with their snouts or loitered through the bamboos, chomping noisily on bamboo shoots, making a rot rot rot rot sound.

Baansh kawrole, that is what the bamboo shoots are called. Why only pigs, even humans cooked the bamboo shoots and ate those as a delicacy. Elephants too feasted on bamboo shoots. New bamboo grew from those bamboo shoots.

At a little distance from Ballal’s hut was the primary school of the village. It had a roof made of tin sheets, and education imparted at that school was free. Adjoining the school was a small, concrete building that housed the centre of the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme of the government. Such centres are known as Anganwadi Kendra—the Anganwadi Centre or the AWC. The midday meal of the primary school was cooked at that AWC. On the days the school remained open, pots and pots of khichudi – rice cooked with dal, vegetables, turmeric, spices, and salt – were cooked there. The cooked khichudi was poured into buckets and distributed among the beneficiaries, that is, the children at the school. Some khichudi was also filled into boxes and pots and taken to houses in the village. Ballal Murmu had never gone to a school. His children too were not enrolled in one, so they were not entitled to any share of the khichudi cooked by the school. Ballal’s name was not there even in the Awas Yojana, the scheme of the government through which financial aid was given to the villagers to build their houses.

Whatever Ballal had was his own, not provided by the government. He had his hut, his bamboo groves, a plough, and a pair of oxen to pull that plough. He also had a kendri, a stringed musical instrument played with a bow, which resembled a violin. Ballal was very proud of his kendri and the pride was justified. He could play the kendri quite well and also composed songs. People walking by his house and bamboo groves were often entertained by the music he played on his kendri.And what sereng those were!

Haat em chalak baat em chalak

Sona chhata Go kirinj an me

Haat inj chalak baat inj chalak

Sona chhata Babu bainj kirinj aa

Bahuinj kirinj aam teere juge

This sereng – a song, in Santali – was a conversation between a son and his mother. The son said to his mother, ‘Mother, you are walking to the haat, the weekly market in the village. You are going to the haat, walking on the road. At the haat, buy me an umbrella made of gold.’ The mother replied, ‘I am going to the haat, walking on the road. But I will not buy you an umbrella made of gold. Instead, I will buy you a wife who will be with you your entire life.’

It is not known if the mother in Ballal’s song returned from the haat with a wife for her son or not; but Ballal did return from the annual Patabindha fair at Organda village in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal with a wife for himself. The woman was named Sombari, and Ballal Murmu forcefully rubbed sindoor – the vermilion considered as a symbol of matrimony – on her forehead and claimed her as his wife. That too was a system of marriage among the Santals, in which the man rubbed sindoor on the forehead of a woman he fancied and claimed her as his wife. In Santali, such marriage was called Or Itud Bapla. Or is the Santali word for the act of dragging, itud is Santali for rubbing the sindoor, and bapla is Santali for wedding. So, literally, Or Itud Bapla was the type of wedding in which the woman was dragged and sindoor rubbed on her forehead. In the jargon of the supposedly more civilised, the non-indigenous people, such a marriage was called Rakkhosh Bibaho—the Wedding of the Demons.

Ballal Murmu was famously known in his Santal village as Dangua Kada—the Bachelor Buffalo; or a young, unmarried man with the virility of a buffalo bull. This bachelor buffalo had gone with his friends to the Patabindha fair, which was famous among the supposedly more civilised, non-indigenous people as Jouban Mela—the Fair of Youth, or the fair where young men and women met each other. It was the day of Bijoya Dashami, the day when the idol of Goddess Durga is immersed in water after Durga Puja. At the fair, Ballal first bought a noose to trap doves, the noose being made of hair from horse’s tail. Then he bought a bunch of paaton, that is, arrows with tips made of iron. After that, he purchased a tin trunk with colourful flowers and leaves painted on it for his mother, Jodumoni.

Dancing started at the fair. All sorts of dances that the Santals performed. Dong—the dance performed at weddings. Langde—the dance performed in general during occasions of pleasure irrespective of what the occasion might be. Baha—the dance performed during the Baha festival which the Santals celebrated in springtime. All sorts of musical instruments were being played. Dhomsa—the huge, bowl-shaped drum. Maadol—the cylindrical drum with one end slightly larger than the other. Kendri too. There were others playing their own kendri, and Ballal too started playing his own. In the middle of the dance, young men and women formed couples and started separating from the dancing groups. They went towards the isolated parts of the fairground. If the man fell in love with the woman, he grabbed the woman and forcefully rubbed sindoor on her forehead and claimed her as his wife. The men apparently followed the saying of the forefathers, “Mode hapdam ko reyak katha te iputud”—Rubbing sindoor on the forehead as the five revered ancestors have decreed. At some corners, men were forcing themselves on the women. There was a lot of noise, a lot of hullabaloo. Some women agreed to go with the men who’d claimed them as their wives, while there were women who were fighting back.

Ballal Murmu stayed at the fairground in Organda village till dark. The shopkeepers at the fair sold their wares in the glow of hazak lamps, hurricane lamps, and oil lamps for some time, but they too dimmed after some time. Darkness fell upon the fairground. The moonlight seemed to wane. Young men and women who had come from far off villages like Harda, Udulchuya, Dohijuri, Lodhashuli, Chondri, Chorchita, Porihati, Dharsa, and Dubrajpur fell all over the fairground, tired, in deep sleep after an entire day’s dancing and merriment. Ballal too felt drowsy. He hadn’t yet had an Or Itud Bapla. He had placed the trunk he had bought for his mother on a block of red makda stone and was sleeping with his head resting against the trunk, when he was suddenly woken up by a call. He was touched by someone’s hand. He opened his eyes wide and saw. She was a woman. But she wasn’t from Kuthighat, Topsia, Rantua, or any of the places he knew. That woman said to Ballal, ‘Get up. One does not come to the Patabindha fair to fall asleep. I see that you have a kendri. Play your kendri. I will dance.’

Ballal leapt up and began singing as he played his kendri.

Gaate gaate laang taanhekana

Uruni bir laang boloena

Gaate gaate laang balaya en

We both were friends

We entered a forest so deep

From friends, we were betrothed to one another

As he sang the song, it struck Ballal that this was the opportunity he had been waiting for the entire day. He did not delay in taking out his pouch of sindoor and forcefully rubbed a pinch on Sombari’s forehead. But what forcefully? Sombari too had shown interest in Ballal. And it was believed among the Santals that why only sindoor, if a man rubbed even dust from the earth on a woman’s forehead, that woman became his lawfully wedded wife. After that, there would be no negotiation or compromise between the man’s family and the woman’s family. Ballal’s father, Balka, paid Sombari’s family the bride price – as is the custom – and brought his daughter-in-law home.

Sombari and Ballal were at the Kumardubi Beel – a huge wetland in Kumardubi village – since morning. Sombari was plucking kajal lata greens which were named after the kajal lata—the small, narrow container made of iron which was used to keep kajal, the collyrium paste applied to the eyes. The leaves of the kajal lata were as small and delicate as the flowers and they shook gracefully in the water of the wetland. The green of the kajal lata was dotted by the blue of the aparajita flowers, the butterfly pea blooms.

Sombari had folded the end of her sari in the form of a basket and she was filling it up with the kajal lata greens. She would go home and fry those leaves with only some salt in a utensil made of clay. Then Ballal, Sombari, and their children would eat those cooked kajal lata greens with pakhal bhaat, cooked rice from which water had not been strained. After feeding the entire family, both Ballal and Sombari would go out to look for work.

While Sombari was plucking kajal lata greens, Ballal Murmu – a turban tied around his head, a bamboo basket with a lid in his hands, and knee deep in the muddy water of the wetland – was catching kuchiya, the snake-like swamp eel. It was a fact well-known that eating the meat of the swamp eel increased the blood in one’s body. The entire region around the wetland knew it. If Ballal Murmu was catching swamp eels seeking to have some blood generated in his body from their flesh, his co-seekers too perhaps sought the same; but Ballal could not be sure as those co-seekers were white egrets wading stealthily in the water of the wetland. On their heads, they had combs which swayed in the gentle breeze. It was still the summer month of Jyeshtha—May-June.

Ballal caught a kuchiya and stuffed it in the basket. Then he called out to Sombari, ‘Come! Come quickly.’

The commotion made the egrets fly away.

Sombari came stomping in the muddy wetland, and was taken aback upon seeing the swamp eel. ‘It is just like a snake! You sure it isn’t a snake?’ was all Sombari could say.

Ballal touched Somabri’s cheek lovingly with his mud-stained hand and asked, ‘Despite being a Santal you haven’t yet learnt to distinguish a swamp eel from a snake?’

‘I am sorry, so sorry,’ Sombari pretended to be contrite and pleaded with Ballal. ‘Don’t be angry now, don’t be angry.’

In the meantime, Ballal trapped another swamp eel in his basket. He whooped in joy. Then there was one more, and yet one more. In his happiness, Ballal thanked the deity Marang Buru and exclaimed, ‘Whose auspicious face did I see after getting up this morning?’

‘Who else?’ Sombari chided. ‘Mine, of course.’

Ballal laughed and stroked Sombari’s face again with his mud-stained hand and said, ‘I think there is some other good news too coming our way today.’

‘Yes, you can become a king or a minister today,’ Sombari laughed at Ballal’s prediction, then told him sternly, ‘But don’t you touch my face again with your dirty hands. So many people must be here in this wetland, carrying out their daily business. If they see you touching me so, what will they think?’

But Ballal was totally unmindful of Sombari’s concern. Instead, his attention had been grabbed solely by what Sombari told him laughing: that he might become a king.

‘What?’ he demanded. ‘What did you say? That I will become a king? What is it that they say? That when a crow caws, a fox becomes a king. Of course, I am that fox king of my bamboo groves.’

Then Ballal laughed loudly. It was clear from his laugh that he had, early in the morning, taken some swigs of handiya – the rice homebrew – or some other fermented drink.

Sombari saw that they were getting late to go looking for work. In the afternoon, there was the programme of Duaare Ration in their village. Duaare Ration—a government initiative in which ration was brought to the doorsteps of the beneficiaries; that is, at a common place in a village from where beneficiaries could come and collect their ration conveniently. Sombari dragged Ballal out of the wetland and reminded him that they would have to collect their ration in the afternoon. Ballal too remembered that he would have to get a new ration card that day. Dilip, who was the brother of the ration dealer, Harihar, had told Ballal. It was Dilip who drove the vehicle in which ration was brought to their village. Dilip had also informed the majhi, the Santal head of their village. No sooner did Ballal remember his responsibility for the day that his intoxication vanished.

‘Yes, yes, it’s getting late,’ Ballal said and let go of Sombari’s hand and ran towards the river to take a bath. At the river, Ballal and Sombari bathed at the spot marked for the Santals, a little away from the spot marked for villagers of other communities to bathe. After bathing and washing their clothes, they spread their washed clothes on the bank of the river to dry. In the strong sun of the month of Jyeshtha, the clothes dried in minutes. They wore their clean, dry clothes and returned home.

Ballal and Sombari sang a song as they walked towards their home, a song that several passers-by too heard and enjoyed.

Sodok sodok teinj chalak kana

Tala sodok reinj tengo ena

Niya kore Putus menam khan

Pitol tol kendri Putus orong letam

I was walking on the road

When I stopped in the middle of the road

Putus, if you are somewhere nearby

Play that brass metal-studded kendri of yours

At home, cooking, eating, feeding the kids, and feeding the pigs in the pen outside took some more time, and Ballal and Sombari were delayed in going to the rajmistry – the lead mason – to seek work as labourers at a construction site.

Zahir, the lead mason, saw them and hollered, ‘So, the lord and the lady finally got the time to come to work! Are you going to work full-time today or half-time? Do you think our work is like government work or what, where you can come and go as you please? Today I will pay you only half, do you understand?’

Ballal kept staring at Zahir, said nothing, and pushed Sombari ahead to speak on both their behalf.

Sombari rolled a piece of cloth and placed it on her head like a cushion to carry bricks upon it and, beating her chest, said to Zahir, ‘Mistry, look, don’t say words like half and full before us. If you want to pay us, pay us full. We’ll work till our bones break but we’ll repay every penny.’

It wasn’t clear if Zahir understood clearly all that Sombari said to him in her broken Bangla, but he laughed like an animal as he asked Sombari, ‘Sombari, I had told you to bring me a pot of handiya. Did you bring it?’

‘Oh! Is that it?’ Sombari laughed.

Ballal could not speak so much with the Diku—all those people who were not Santals and came, possibly, from the higher castes. Ballal could only stare at the non-Santals, not knowing what to say to them. That is why he pushed forward the more outgoing Sombari.

That day, both Ballal and Sombari, man and wife, had to work doubly hard. Nearly all their acquaintances at the construction site talked not about the building that was being built but of the Duaare Ration programme in their village. On top of that, it was also the day of the weekly haat. People were coming in hordes to the haat, bringing with them or taking away grains, vegetables, groceries, ornaments, and intoxicating drinks.

Remembering the Duaare Ration programme and the haat, Ballal and Sombari took permission from Zahir and left work early. Sombari went to the haat, while Ballal went to the Duaare Ration programme. Dilip had parked his ration vehicle in the football ground of the village. All those days ago, villagers had to go very far, to the ration dealer Harihar’s house, to collect their ration. But now, with the introduction of the Duaare Ration programme, people had ration being delivered almost at their doorsteps, at the football ground in their village.

There was a long queue of ration card-holders before Dilip’s ration vehicle. Ballal was standing anxiously in the queue. Twice, he had run out of the line to check how long it was, then he had again joined the queue. Some people scolded him, ‘Hey! Putus! Stand quietly in the queue. Otherwise go to the wetland and catch some more kuchiya!’ Everyone knew that Ballal Murmu was an expert, almost a king, at catching swamp eel. Why a king, an emperor. Also, so many people standing in the queue had seen what he was up to with Sombari at the wetland.

In the meantime, the workers at the ration vehicle were rapidly going on emptying gunny bags of rice into the bags of the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries too were deftly tying the mouths of their bags and carrying those away, either on their backs or on their bicycles and motorcycles. Some beneficiaries were getting 20 kilogrammes of rice, some were receiving 25 kilogrammes, some were getting even more. Some beneficiaries were selling off portions of their ration to some people right there and walking away with cash. And Ballal, still, was shifting nervously as he stood in the queue.

There were some beneficiaries who were returning empty-handed, disappointed. None of their fingerprints was matching in the Aadhaar-enabled machine that was being used in the distribution of the ration. Fingerprints not matching in the Aadhaar-enabled system was a huge issue in distribution of ration. Ballal was scared his fingerprints too would not match and he too would have to return home empty-handed.

‘Oh! Mother!’ Ballal, unmindful that he was in the midst of people, shouted in desperation.

The beneficiaries around him laughed, ‘What happened, Putus? Is standing in queue making you lose your sense?’

Ballal just stared at them with his big eyes. He couldn’t speak a word.

Finally, just before sunset, Ballal was called. It was Dilip who called out his name. But instead of calling out “Ballal Murmu”, Dilip called out, “Ballal Sen.”

The beneficiaries standing there laughed out loudly. The laughter lingered for some time and, unable to understand the head or tail of it despite his name having been called, Ballal Murmu just stared at the faces of all and sundry.

Already desperate, and puzzled on top of it, Ballal braced himself and hollered at Dilip, ‘Hey, Dilpa! Don’t keep me standing here. Give me my ration and let me go.’

‘Why do you need the ration, Ballal?’ Dilip laughed as he said. ‘You are now Ballal Sen, the king!’

‘Not a king,’ some beneficiaries said. ‘An emperor.’

Dilip packed the ration for Ballal, Sombari, and their children for a month, and handing Ballal’s ration card back to him, explained to Ballal as well as to the crowd that while replacing Ballal’s old ration card with the new, digital one, mistakenly Ballal’s name was entered as BALLAL SEN instead of BALLAL MURMU. Ballal Sen was an emperor from Bengal in the eleventh century of the Common Era.

Ballal Murmu had neither seen the inside of a school nor did he know history, so he was not aware of the emperor Ballal Sen. He just took his ration, tied the mouth of his bag, and began walking towards home.

As he walked away from the queue, some beneficiaries called out to him, ‘Ballal Sen! Ballal Sen!’

Some others called out, ‘King Ballal Sen! King Ballal Sen!’

While some others called out, ‘Emperor Ballal Sen! Emperor Ballal Sen!’

Ballal Murmu could understand nothing of it, but he was sure that something was happening or something had already happened. His house was not very far. He could see his bamboo groves, the plain bamboo and the spiny bamboo. The sun had set, but it wasn’t dark yet. The fireflies hadn’t started glowing. There were people returning from the haat.

All of a sudden, nearly everyone – the beneficiaries standing before the ration vehicle in the football ground, the villagers returning from the haat, and also the children playing around – started calling out in unison, ‘Ballal Sen! Ballal Sen! King Ballal Sen! King Ballal Sen! Emperor Ballal Sen! Emperor Ballal Sen!’

Ballal Murmu just stared at everyone, then hurried towards his house.

No sooner had he entered that Sombari told him somewhat worriedly, ‘Didn’t I tell you? That you’d become a king today. See, you’ve turned into Emperor Ballal Sen!’

Both of them kept staring at one another for some time. Then Sombari came closer and asked her husband, ‘What will happen now? I asked at the haat and was told to go to the panchayat. Then someone told me to go to the ration dealer and hand him your card. I was told that the ration dealer would go to the block office and get the card corrected.’

Ballal said nothing. He just listened quietly to all that Sombari said.

Ballal was so quiet and so still that Sombari was worried even more.

‘What happened?’ she shook her husband. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’

‘Hmm…’ It was as if Ballal had been shaken out of stupor. ‘Of course…I’m saying. I’m saying that…that…come, let’s see why the pigs are crying in the pen.’

Then he held Sombari’s arm and took her to the shed where the pigs had been kept.

The next day, Sombari got news from somewhere that the Duaare Ration programme would again be held the day after tomorrow at the school near their house. The errors in Ballal’s ration card could be fixed there. Sombari was delighted to hear that news, but it hardly had any effect on Ballal Murmu. He just took out his kendri and began singing a song as he played:

Aayu to lilo jhilimili sari ho

Baba to lilo mutha bhori taka ho

Bhai to lilo barada

Ek paila dhanakera

Ek puriya sindoor

Mother took a shiny sari

Father took a fistful of money

Brother took a young bull

A measure of rice

And a pouch of sindoor

Then he called out to Sombari, ‘Come, if you want to dance.’ Sombari didn’t go. Instead, she faked anger and went out of the house to go to the wetland. With nothing else to do, Ballal followed her.

The path to the wetland passed beside the school. And something happened to Ballal Murmu as he passed by the school! The same Ballal Murmu, who had never gone to a school, who could not look a Diku in the eye and speak to them. That Ballal Murmu alias Putus just barged into the school and went to the first teacher he saw there and asked him, ‘Master baba, what is this Ballal Sen? Please tell me.’

As it turned out, the teacher who Ballal Murmu went to was actually a parateacher who taught History and who knew all that had happened to Ballal Murmu during the last Duaare Ration at the football ground. He immediately made Ballal Murmu sit before him and said, ‘About 850 years ago, in the year 1159, King Vijay Sen’s son, Ballal Sen, was crowned the new king. And he turned out to be not just a king, but an emperor. For, under his rule, Emperor Ballal Sen expanded his kingdom wide. Which kingdoms did he have under his rule? Bengal, Rarh, Varendri, Mithila, and Bagri. Bengal means Gour Bengal; some parts of Bangladesh and some parts of our country. Rarh is Bardhaman, Birbhum, Bankura, and Murshidabad. Varendri is Assam and Kamrup. Bagri is the Sunderbans and Medinipur. Magadh-Mithila is Bihar and Jharkhand.’

‘Say no more, say no more,’ Ballal Murmu jumped up from his seat. ‘I have understood. I have understood.’

Before the young parateacher could understand what had happened to Ballal Murmu, Ballal Murmu had jumped out of the school compound and darted towards the wetland.

On the day of the Duaare Ration programme at the school, the civic volunteer came to Ballal Murmu’s house to call him to get the details on his ration card corrected. Ballal stayed hidden in a dark corner of his house. Finally, Sombari dragged him out of hiding and to the school at the Duaare Ration programme.

‘What is your name?’ an official from the Food Supply and Distribution department asked Ballal.

‘Ballal Sen, here, look, just like the king!’ Ballal Murmu extended his ration card towards the official and said. ‘No correction is needed. If you wish to give me ration, give me on this card only, or else you may go to hell!’

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Nalini Bera’s Bengali short story, “Ballaali Baalaai”, was first published in print in Bartaman Sharodiya 1430 (the Bartaman Durga Puja Annual of the year 2023).

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