Beyond The Water
(Translation of Hindi Novel - Jal Tu Jalal Tu)
(9)
Next morning as soon as the sun came up, a knock from the policeman also was there. The police informed him his mother was no more in this world. There was a total darkness in Kinjan’s life which even the new rising sun could no dispel.
The door-bell rang at midday. Kinjan opened the door and saw a car in front in front of it that he knew so well. The women from New York poured out all sympathies for the failure of Kinjan’s mission and collected her dog who was like son to her. But when Kinjan offered to return the money she had paid in advance, she refused and asked him to keep it with her compliments for his mission in future.
Kinjan accepted the offer helplessly as the women had come to know all about the mishap.
Now Kinjan was longing to hear all about his mother from the old man. He knew only that much that they had come from Somalia, his father was a soldier in the American army and was killed during the war.
The old man was relived because Kinjan was no angrier with him but was treating him like a kith and kin. He told him about the incidents of bygone days which seemed like a fairy to Kinjan.
Kinjan’s mother Rasbi was basically an inhabitant of India. She was born in a very small village (hamlet) near Jaisalmer. She had never seen moon till she was four she did not know what were stars, nor she had seen flowers, leaves, tree and birds.
Sand and sand a high stone wall around and a handful of dry sun light that was all she had in her life. Her mother did a variety of menial jobs grinding, weaving making bamboo baskets or crushing stones with hammer in this hot sun shine. Her meal consisted of onion, chatni or some natery pube with four thick dry chapatise. Mother ate those chapattis and gave a few soft pieces to her little daughter whose come was not Rasbi that time but Rasbala.
In this vast dry desert there was however a small oasis , a cascade of neater like milk that flowed from the breasts of her mother. Otherwise her world was dry and colourless.
The story of Rasbala‘s birth was quite peculiar. The girl was not yet born she was still in her mother‘s womb when a man come to sell water on his camel. Her mother was mad with fury when in spite o waiting from morning to buy a pitcher of water. T6he women standing in front of her bought two pots and there was no water lift in the man’s drum. She would have scratched the other woman’s and the man’s face! Licked people, the wretched women and that water-seller, the cheater she did not have egg in her hands she would have attacked them. Just imagine this black marketing business.
She woman in front, the big show – off that she was swayed and swirled as she walked. Her elbow struck against Rasbala’s mother’s hand the three eggs she had bought to give in exchange for a pot full of water fell sown on the sand and broke. She sun was very hot and one of the broken eggs was almost cooked into an omelet, the other two become part of the sand around.
Rasbala’s mother was blind with fury devoid of any reasoning she caught the other woman’s hair and broke her pot of water. She camel ran ahead, there was commotion around.
Basically it was a war of survival! Survival against thirst a war between three broken eggs and spilled water form tow broken earthen pot in the arid area where each drop of water mattered. She mother did not and just it punches and kicks. Rasbala’s mother went on witting the woman who had broken her eggs with thick bangles repeatedly in her insane fury. Soon a pool of boiling blood began to form on the lot sand. The on lookers began to disperse and Rasbala’s mother had hand cuff round her wrist. The hands that had carried an empty pitcher in hope of getting water returned in hand cuffs. Rabala’s mother had killed the other woman.
Her husband had been a born laboure with no money to go round and arrange money for bail. She was put in jail.
So, Rasbala was born in jail. Her grandmother had not seen her but named her Rasbala. The poor old omen was sick, thin and feable hence could not afford to keep the girl with her.
And Rasbala spent her childhood playing in sun during day and in closed barracks as soon as the sun went down.
When the members of a social service group who looked after the children of prisoners came to that particular prison, Rasbala was just for. The social workers convinced the women in jail that they were spoiling the life of their children and promise to look after these children. What? Objection could the distressed mother raise? They were happy that their offspring would get out of this dark tunnel into a world that was full of light.
Rasbala, along with other children of the jailed women, went to a residential school. The life of these little girls was no latter then that of stray dogs and eats on roads. They got dry rotis (chapatis) at the fixed time alright but there seemed nothing else to determine a bright future. In the thick forest there were encampments, no better then bushes growing near stones. And for members of and the staff, the workers and officers, who gave their services in the name of ‘social service’ there was no difference between a girl of four and a women of twenty four. For them, they were just a female body created by nature to serve just one purpose. No one was there to listen to complaints. The little girls, after drinking watery dal that was not even properly cooked wiped the soup like water flowing down their arms with their fellows in the same way as they wiped blood, dripping on their thighs by rubbing palms against it. She children of other women prisoners who were her play mates too as well as the employee of the jail, removed their clothes along with their own clothes whenever they wanted, this hell like life would have continued but as luck would have it a Muslim family who wanted to adopt an orphaned girl came there. Rasbala was in the queue too.
The women of the Muslim family took a fancy for Rasbala. The process of adoption was not easy. There were so many complication, but when the in charge of the orphanage saw that a well to do women was so much uninterested in Rasbala and the girl might have a good future, he took personal interest in the case. He few changes in the record, now Rasbala was not a prisoners daughter but an orphan. If god can be unfair in writing people fate what of a mere human!
The Muslim couple has this school a heavy donation and got a water tank installed so that children could get water to drink. Thus they spent thousands of rupees. The little girl had a new identify now. She was no more Rasbala but was called Rasbano.
Now she was in a well to do family. This new father dealt with horses and camels, he purchased foals of good Arabian breed. Trained and reared then and then sold them at a high price. The animals of good treed were quite cheap in eastern parts as there was never enough to feed. During famine, they were just left by themselves. You could get them at throw away price. But in west, there was a big demand for horse and camels of high breed. She well fed and well trained animals come fetch very good price, Almost a fortune.
Rasbano’s family visited the quiet Countries regularly in a year or two. By the time she was twelve, she had been to pilgrimage on holy ‘Haj’. She loved going to Makka - Madina and Jeddan. She observed her father’s business very carefully and with great interest. Like her mother. Feminine activities did not attract her much.
The family was so big that even Rasbano’s mother did no know how many members were there in different cities. She was always among her own people everywhere. Slowly she was attaining an age when everyone has a personal liking for a girl. Her own people want to limit her activities while the outsiders want her to be free from all bonds and he available. Why don’t the boys face this situation, Rasbano often thought.
Rasbano never turned back to reflect over the life she had spent. No one asked her about her past nor she herself related anything.
And yet, whenever she came back to India to her home everything seemed to draw her towards it. She did not know why this attachment was there.
Yes, once, the nature, the essence and the sensitivity of this attachment peeped and entered her life like a fragrance fr9om a little went when her heart felt a bond and beat for a young man who had come from Somalia. Just one in a group of so many. The other unrestrained young soldiers made vulgar signs while this one towered his eyes whenever he saw Rasbano. This gesture of the man put Rasbano on her guard. Whenever she lifited her face reflecting her emotions, unconstrained like boiling milk, this shy young man lowered his eyes and shrank in himself like a sunflower in the dark.
That is all about the story of Rasbano who was now Rasbi.
Some soldiers were staying near the Farm House Rasbano, along with her a mother and some other relatives was enjoying holidays. She came to know thought boys who were working at the farm house that an American ship that was transporting oil had anchored in the bay not far from them. The employees of the ship and the soldiers were often in communication with one another.
The soldiers were interested in local market and sightseeing while the workers of the farm house were curious to know about America and found the articles the soldiers carried very interesting.
Just as the starts shining in sky somehow come down to touch the spring of trees near the horizon, the vast ocean and earth meet at some shore and brench each other, just as sailing vessels. Flooting on waves from one country to another, kiss its shore, in the same way, mischievous impish eyes, an inseparable part of a body correspond with another pair of eyes, just as a bird alights and sits on a twig for a minute or two.
And when a bird chooses a branch to sit it takes no time in gathering slender sticks and making its next. Such snug abodes can be on ground in water and even in airy loner.
Hence the fate of Rasbano was entwined with a Somalian soldier in American army like particle of flower dust that float in soft breeze. After a few months she too got a chance to go to America. Somalia was just her husband‘s native land. And Rasbala, born in a certain country become Rasbano of gulf Countries and finally came and settled with here soldier partner in this country forever.
This country gave her a new name Rasbi and above all, a son, Kinjan.
She old man, who said he was Rasbi’s brother and was now getting all the respect from Kinjan as his uncle had met his father just once in the Farm House of Rasbi because her father had married twice, he was an expert in buying and selling of horses, knew all about breed of horses so helped this father in his trade and often came there.
***
