Reminiscing the bizarre man – Whenever I use to travel back into the vista of childhood reminiscences of my pastoral life, the name of Ram adhare often flashes repeatedly. A long time has elapsed and for last forty years, I too have not been in contact with people of that pastoral life. In fact, with the pace of development, the village of my childhood has now been transformed into a sub urban concrete colony. And natives of that bygone era now hardly to be found there, if I visit the location. No any vestige of that period of life is visible there now, but the old memories stored in the memory bank do visit again and again anguishly.
The name Ram adhare was given to him by his parents, who in his infancy left for heavenly abode, leaving him behind as an orphan. He with a fondness used to mention, his name was nomenclatured upon the advice of family’s Hindu priest. But as it had ever been the custom in our Indian rural culture, a person’s name was given into a nickname by distorting or adding something to the original name. So he was called as Adhare only.
As it was the conventional fabric of the village, it comprised of various clusters of people of different castes and cultures. Some of them migrated from the high lands, others who had come here or brought here from the distant Eastern districts of United Province during the british regime by Britishers’ sahebs as their gardener, cook or domestic help. With the passing of time such people too became the permanent denizens of the locality and entire village happened to live in a cordial knitted pattern.
The “clan” Ram adhare belonged to, was basically composed of people who long ago had migrated here from the Eastern districts of United Province ( now UP or Uttar Pradesh), along with British Sahebs. Now they entirely mixed up here. As I told, he was an orphan but his kinsmen were the denizen of my village. That was an old time, when a family bond( of whatsoever family lineage or line it happened to belong in shape) was considered enough to maintain the “clan relationship.” Ram adhare or Adhare used to stay with a family in kinship with whom he had connection in first line or second line of cousin in relation from maternal side. That family was patronized by his maternal grandfather ( in distant relations) and then down to maternal uncles and their wives as his aunts.
As far as my memories support me, when I was in my early teen age, he was a stout youth of about twenty years or more. Since, he was not in a habit to stay permanently at one place and was given to enjoy his sojourn, in his various relations intermittently. This helped make him feel not a burden on relations. He used to visit his maternal grandfather family once or twice in a year, but there his stay always got prolonged one. Might be, affection showered by grandparents and uncles induced him to prolong the stay. Also, that was a time when such old relatives did not take such orphan as a burden and happily provided food and shelter to such helpless creatures.
Another reason was, at that time, social fabric was entirely agronomy based and if such person like Adhare used to stay, had to be helpful in that field freely, merely in lieu of this obligation of shelter and food.His grand father’s family too mostly found him helping hand and useful in that way. Being an orphan, he was totally illiterate. But by virtue of his being a wanderer, he was unique of his own kind, harnessed with peculiar type of experiences. So, it was in his habit, not to feed upon as a free loader without providing some services. He in his intermittent visit happened to provide such services.
Dreaming of marriage – His favorite helping hand was to take domestic cattle for grazing at the outer grazing yard of the village that was a part of the forest. Two things were interesting in his demeanour. First, his being in rapo with grandpa’s family, this induced him prolong the stay in the village more than usual. This had made him acquainted with rest of the denizens of village rather villagers happened to take him as a family member of the maternal grandfather’s family. Second, he was in his prime youth, so as an outcome of the hormonal secretion of youthfulness, he direly wished to get married soon.
But in his this ‘wish’, some prominent hazards hampered his ways. Firstly, his ‘orphan status’, and if it could be ignored, another was, he was not an earning hand on that front. On that front he was categorized as “do nothing.” This forced him to develop a habit of daydreaming about his spousal ceremony. Whenever he found a time to take a siesta in noon time, he ever dreamt of dreams of his ‘wedding ceremony.’
In between this siesta, if his maternal aunt woke him up and ask to take cattle for grazing , he felt offended and become querulous with her in the way, “come on aunt! just, in my dreams, I was to take “seven vows” with my would be bride, you spoiled that!”or ” aunt! just I was to take my bride”s valediction from her parents after the marriage rituals, you made me awake!” Meant he would blame her for breaking up his marriage that was getting solemnized in dreams. Denizens from village, jokingly would try to sooth him and realize the ground reality, ” boy do something to become an earning hand, so your dream can come true.”
Terrific transformation – The insistent efforts of villagers in shape of advice or jibe transformed him to do something to earn the money, and he began to work upon their advice. This advice or sarcastic suggestions worked in the sense that Adhare remained absent from the scene for a considerable period of time. In between, he did not register his presence in his “maternal grandpa’s” village for a long time. But when he visited back he was another man. He was attired in new fashioned clothes, his purse was heavy with currency pronotes. People were surprised, when his maternal uncles inquired about his transformation, ” how all this happened?” He responded with a swag in his patois, “doing some business.”
He spent money thriftlessly in local shops that helped establish his position. In his “clan” an immature boy got badly impressed by his boasting about his business entrepreneurship. And when he left the village, he too accompanied him or rather disappeared with him. Might whatever be the reason of the elopement of that boy. But the secret of his business got revealed after some days, when a police jeep car arrived in the village along with that boy. Not only this, police retreated back after packing his parents as accused persons and bicycles which belonged to the boy’ family as the crime property. And after that again and again this sequence of police party, appearing in the village and arresting other denizens, seizing their bicycles as a stolen property. Loading them as an accused and disappearing from the scene.
The height of the scene was, when next time police party arrested the “village headman” as an accused along with confiscating the bicycles of the family as a stolen property and locked him up in the distant police station.The situation became so worst that the owners of bicycles of the entire village in maximum got arrested and locked up in the distant district jail. Paltry some owners of bicycles were left behind and that too because of their maneuver. Now, they began to hide their bicycles in the distant cane fields or somewhere in the nearby forest. They developed a habit, proclaiming not having in possession of any bicycle whole through their life.
The only exception was, police never approached Ram adhare’s maternal grandpa’s family; but they people too as a precautionary measure hid their bicycles at some remote places. In all, entire village became divest of bicycles. That was the time, when the daily wage of a daily laborer in the village was merely rupee three per day. In those days, to own a bicycle by a poor villager was like a dream came true of having some luxurious item.
In fact, that was the era of bicycle and in rural side , bicycle in common parlance was esteemed as “paddle cart.” Even in urban life, the bicycles were the chief means of transport and people kept them under proper protection and security as a valuable item. The entire situation of the village, by the frequent raids of the police became so ridiculous. For a given long period of time, denizens had to be there in the district court compound to get their family members released on bail. They people were forced to squander the hard earned money as legal fee to lawyers.
Mysterious business – After a querimonious search, it emerged up that arresting of denizens of village was an outcome of the futuristic plan of Ram adhare’s mysterious business. About that he had boasted back in the village. In fact, when Ram adhare remained absent for long from the village site he got indulged in the crime of bicycle’s thieving in the city. With in a short span of time became so expert in doing that. In city, he daily committed the theft of minimum three bicycles and quickly sold them to “fence” who dealt in stolen property buying business.
The boy who disappeared with him too became his accomplice. Ram adhare’s big drive of stealing bicycles in the city was but to create a panic since bicycles was a must and valuable items for common citizens. In a small city when bicycles began to disappear from the public places on daily basis, that evoked an uproar and put the police administration under pressure. It was obvious that one day he was to be caught red handed by the police and when underwent through the third degree treatment of the police torture he began to confess.
In the beginning of the tortured treatment, he confessed the genuine cases he committed and revealed the names of people who happened to buy the stolen property. But as it had been the routine work culture of the Indian police system, they kept nagging him. So in hopeless and helpless situation, just to save his skin, he began to tell about the fictitious selling of bicycles by mentioning the names of denizens of village of his maternal grandpa. He knew well, back in the village who owned a bicycle. This prompted him to confess falsely that he stole the bicycle from the city and sold to such and such person in the village. His this deed made the entire village divest of bicycles. For years to come, he remained alive in the memory of villagers as a” bicycle thief.” although,never, in coming future he ventured to visit back to his maternal grandpa’s village.
It seemed, somewhere, in his mind and heart, he was deeply obliged with the feelings that his maternal grandpa’s family had provided him food and shelter in his bad circumstances. This made him not to mention the names of the members of that family during the confession before the police when undergoing inhumane police torture . But an exceptional deed too ridiculously he got registered in his account.
His status being an orphan in the world, no one opted for his release from the judicial custody on bail ( and no any such help could be expected from grandpa’s family. They were already under huge humiliation in the village because of his deeds). This made him frustrated. One day, when he was being taken from the jail to appear before the trial court in a routine business. There, in the court compound under the police custody, he ran across with an old villager. Through him he sent a message for his maternal uncles,” ask my uncles to get me out on bail, other wise I too will mention their names as the buyer of stolen property.” It was his sheer drive to intimidate under frustration. Otherwise also, he was a jail bird at that time and his any such confession was of no value. Though in fact he never realized his threat. Back in village, for long years to come, people used to talk about him occasionally and surprised where he was now but no any whereabouts of his reported in the future…… Penned by– Vinay Pharasi…
