Djinns in the fields

Djinns in the fields

Dr Sanhita Kanungo

Shyambali peered through the living room window. Rinki di was watching the television program
intently. He felt puzzled , seeing the photo of a burning pyre and people arguing intermittently.
What was so interesting about it ,he wondered.
He resorted to his extreme measure of tapping on the window pane. He was the gardener and
had finished his work. Nobody knew how he kept time. He wore no watch but managed to be
uncanilly punctual at each of the bungalows where he tended to the gardens for an hour slot.
He was entitled to a cup of tea and snacks after his duty. He usually signalled his departure by
coughing and hacking ,if the sound of washing up and closing the shed failed to attract the
attention of the maid or the memsaabs. Once that failed, he tapped window panes, something
he disliked doing.
Rinki di rushed out and smiled at him. Wait Mali bhai.. I didn’t hear you. She started making the
tea hurriedly.
Who died Rinki di? Anyone from here, he enquired. Rinki di then told him that it was a young girl
who died at Hathras,a place in UP. Bad men had harmed the girl and the police instead of
helping had forcibly cremated her at the dead of night..her parents couldn’t even do the last
rites.She angrily abused the people and system..as she put a steaming hot cup of tea, biscuits
and a banana in front of him,in the veranda where he sat haunched on his knees.
Shyambali looked sad and thoughtful as he sipped his tea. Old events flashed through his mind
as he finished his tea ,washed his dish and placed in in the allotted shelf.
He had finished for the day.
He had to fetch the goats from the hill behind his quarters, feed his hens and then take his bath
before heading home for the day.
The image on the TV perturbed him and he sat on the hillock and lighted up a bidi.
He was a Harijan, in fact that was his surname. That girl was also from the backward
community. No last rites, her soul would wander. Ram Ram..he thought.
He too hailed from a village near Buxar. Was it Bihar or Jharkhand,he wondered. Everything had
changed. He had been there thirty years ago. The last time, he had promised and he had kept
his promise till date.
It had been years since he had gone to the village to fetch his wife. He was dark and plain and
was amazed to see his pretty and fair wife. His bhabhi had grumbled that they had got a cheap
bargain, only a thousand rupees and a gold ring and the bride was definitely subnormal.
Shyambali didn’t mind. He was over the moon and came back to Assam with his bride. He was
proud to have two quarters. They were cramped, damp and dark but home nevertheless. He
didn’t mind that his pretty wife was slow. But for years they had no offspring. They had visited all
the nearby shrines and temples in vain.
Finally they were blessed with a daughter, Kamala. To his dismay she was dark unlike his pretty
wife but with time her sharp features and beauty became apparent.
She was smart ,a chatterbox and a born gardener. Books however puzzled her. She could
barely make it to the third grade and then played truant, going fishing and hunting for berries
with her disreputable friends in the other quarters and local farms.
In despair Shyambali hired tutors to help her but besides beatings and tears , nothing productive
came of it. She was then hired for light housework by one of the memsahibs and so began her
life as an earner.
Kamala’s mother had started nagging him to find a match for her. She was nearly 10 and her
unmarried state would bring shame to their community. They could send her to her in law’s later,
she said. After letters and exchange of photos to and fro from the ancestral village, Shankar
Balmiki was chosen for her. He was fair, to Shyambali’s satisfaction and was still in school. A
sum of five thousand rupees and gold ring was agreed on and a bike to be given later,after the
Gouna ritual.
Shyambali and his family took the train to Buxar. His wife had been cooking for days and had
bought gifts for her family from the travelling salesmen. He shuddered to think, how much he
would have to pay back to them later. The memsabs had given some money to him but most
were disapproving of the child marriage. Kamala was excited at the prospect of the travel to the
unknown places and at being the centre of attention. She was happiest at the thought of coming
back with her parents. Though her adolescent husband looked like a hero, she had heard about
in laws making the wives work like slaves.
The wedding was soon over and Kamala was bewildered amidst the crowd of relatives,the
unfamiliar dialect ,the snide remarks at her dark complexion and tomboyish behavior. She
enjoyed wearing bangles, mehendi and the sparkly lehenga but slept through the wedding held
at the auspicious but late hour. Shyambali enjoyed meeting his family but they seemed rustic
and rigid, now that he had seen the world outside. He had hardly seen his wife and was eagerly
waiting to go back home. He liked his son in law. He was educated and wanted to join the army.
Shyambali woke up to a hushed commotion one morning a few days later. Both the men and
the women folk had to go to the field for their ablutions. Something had happened to one of the
women. Shyambali had gone to enquire but he was sent away. Kamala came to him in tears
saying that her mother was unconscious. Shyambali was in a panic and tried to go inside the
house but his bhabhi and the others reassured him saying that it was a woman’ s problem and
they were looking after her. Sometimes there were evil spirits and djinns in the fields and they
had got to her. They had called the ojha and he would see to it. All his pleas about doctors and
hospitals were waved away.
Shyambali and Kamala spent the day worried ,yet helpless in their ignorance.
In the evening, his brother and an elder accompanied him to the upper caste area. A Seth,
whose fields they tended to and his wife came out to meet them. They were concerned about
his wife. They too reassured him that evil spirits sometimes caused illness and all would be well
soon. They advised him to take her back to her familiar surroundings as soon as possible. A
sum of a thousand rupees in crisp notes was pushed in his hands. As they returned to their part
of the village in eerie silence, Shyambali remembered two young men, relatives of the Seth
smirking and he knew that something was wrong. He was frustrated at his inability to help her
but helpless not knowing what to do.
He and his family were put on the train in unseemly haste. His wife was in a trance. Silent and
zombie like,she ate nothing and never spoke a word throughout the journey. Kamala seemed
confused and it was an uncharacteristically sombre return from the wedding.
His pretty wife changed completely. She talked seldom and started washing her hands and feet
compulsively. She would clean the house and herself all day. Her ghunghat touched her knees
almost and nobody could see her face.He was not allowed inside the quarter and had to sleep
outside or in the other one, where he kept his goats. In the incessant cleaning, there was no
fixed time for lunch and dinner. Shyambali could not be angry with her. He felt guilty and
embarrassed at failing her with her battle with the djinns.
He often asked her to go to the company hospital where there were good doctors, but she
refused. He had taken her once by force but she refused to communicate and doctor saab had
prescribed a tonic. But the tonic was too weak for the djinns who captured his pretty wife and
left a shell of a woman who haunted his home and his life silently.
Shyambali made a promise to himself then. Kamala would never return there. His son in law
would have to come here and live with them or she would remain single. He could not lose his
beautiful daughter to spirits. And after years of conflict with the people of the village and his in
law’s, Shankar had finally settled here with them. He was working as a driver in the company.
Kamala was a trusted help at Rinki Di’s house and they were blessed with a son and a
daughter.
Shyambali now knew that there were djinns at Hathras too..the kind that destroyed his wife. He
wished that there had been TV people back then too ..to help him out but then a sobering
thought came to his mind. His wife was still there,a flesh and blood person. She washed
compulsively, was not a good homemaker but she smiled and talked with her grandchildren and
with her family too. There were bad days but good days too. Time had healed the curse of the
spirits and they were still a family. In Hathras the girl was in a pyre. One could never win with the
djinns.
After his dinner,as he warmed his hand in the fire outside,he saw Kamala’s mother come out
and sit outside. He went to his room and from his battered trunk took out a plastic wrapped
thousand rupees bundle of old and yellowed hundred rupee notes.
He beckoned his wife and silently put the notes one by one into the fire. His wife stared at him
and tears ran down her sad but still pretty eyes.
As the greedy flames died down after gorging down the offering, Shyambali hoped that the
djinns were sated and would leave their family alone.

Dr Sanhita Kanungo lives in Kolkata and is a medical professional. She is an avid reader and is an observer of the complexities of modern life.