A great storm occurred last night. A jamun tree fell on the lawn of the Secretariat. When the gardener saw it in the morning, he realised that a man was crushed under the tree.
The gardener ran to get the peon. The peon ran to get the clerk. The clerk ran to get the superintendent. The superintendent ran onto the lawn outside. Within minutes a throng gathered around the man squashed under the tree.
‘The poor jamun tree, it was so bountiful,’a clerk said.
‘And how juicy its jamuns used to be,’ a second clerk recalled.
‘I used to carry home a pouchful during the fruit season. How joyfully my children ate its jamuns,’ a third clerk said, almost on the verge of tears.
‘But this man,’ the gardener pointed at the crushed man.
‘Yes, this man…!’ the superintendent began to ponder.
‘He must have died. Such a heavy trunk on someone’s back, how could he have survived,’ the second clerk said.
‘No, I’m alive,’ the crushed man said with difficulty, moaning.
‘We should lift the tree and move him,’ the gardener advised.
‘Seems difficult,’ a lazy and fat peon said, ‘the trunk is very large and heavy.’
‘What’s the difficulty?’ the gardener replied. ‘If the superintendent sahib gives the order, then the man under the tree can be moved out right now with fifteen-twenty gardeners, peons and clerks.’
‘The gardener is right!’ many clerks suddenly said in unison. ‘Let’s make an effort, we’re ready.’ At once many people got ready to lift the tree.
‘Wait!’ the superintendent said. ‘Let me consult the Undersecretary.’
The superintendent went to the Undersecretary. The Undersecretary went to the Deputy Secretary. The Deputy Secretary went to the Joint Secretary. The Joint Secretary went to the Chief Secretary.
The Chief Secretary spoke to the Joint Secretary. The Joint Secretary spoke to the Deputy Secretary. The Deputy Secretary spoke to the Undersecretary. A file was created.
The file began to move. The file kept moving. Half a day went by. At lunchtime, a lot of people gathered around the crushed man. People had different things to say on the matter. A few enterprising clerks wanted to take the matter into their own hands.
They were preparing to remove the tree without waiting for the decision of the government, when the superintendent came running with the file and said, ‘We ourselves cannot remove this tree from here. We are attached to the Trade Department and this is the matter concerning a tree which is in the care of the Agriculture Department. Therefore, I am marking this file ‘Urgent’ and sending it to the Agriculture Department. As soon as we receive their response, this tree will be removed.’
On the second day, the Agriculture Department replied that the tree had fallen on the lawn of the Trade Department, and therefore the responsibility of moving it lay with the latter. The Trade Department flew into a rage upon reading this response. They promptly responded that the responsibility of removing or not removing trees lay with the Agriculture Department. The Trade Department had nothing to do with the matter.
On the second day too the file kept moving back and forth. In the evening, the response came. We are submitting this matter to the Horticulture Department because this is a matter of a fruit-bearing tree and the Agriculture Department is only authorised to decide matters relating to food and farming. The jamun tree falls within the circle of authority of the Horticulture Department.
At night, the gardener fed rice and dal to the crushed man. A police guard had been set up all around the tree lest people took the law into their own hands and tried to remove it themselves. But a constable took mercy and he allowed the gardener to feed the crushed man.
The gardener told the crushed man, ‘Your file is moving. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be decided.’
The crushed man did not speak.
The gardener looked at the tree trunk carefully and said, ‘What luck that the trunk landed on your buttocks. Had it fallen on your waist, your spine would have broken.
The crushed man still did not speak.
The gardener asked, ‘If you have any heirs, tell me about them. I’ll try to give them the news.’
‘None,’ the crushed man said with great difficulty.
The gardener expressed regret and moved off.
On the third day, the response of the Horticulture Department arrived; a very stern response, and mixed with irony. The Secretary of the Horticulture Department seemed to be a man of literary temperament.
He had written, ‘What a surprise! At a time when we are running the ‘Darakht Ugao’ (Grow Trees) scheme on a big scale, we have such government officers in our country who advise us to cut trees and that too fruit-bearing trees. Furthermore, a jamun tree, whose fruit the people eat with great pleasure. Our department cannot allow the cutting of this fruit-bearing tree under any condition.’
‘Now what to do,’ one of the enterprising fellows said. ‘If the tree cannot be cut, then this man should be cut to take him out. Look here,’ he added, pointing, ‘If this man is cut in the middle, meaning from his waist, then one half of the man will come out from here, and the other half of the man will come out from there and the tree will stay where it is.’
‘But then, I will die,’ the crushed man protested.
‘He too is right!’ a clerk said.
The man who was suggesting cutting the crushed man in half said aggressively, ‘You don’t know. Plastic surgery has progressed so far these days that that this man can be put together again.’
Now the file was sent to the Medical Department. The Medical Department took action on it at once and the day the file reached their department, the same day, they sent their most competent plastic surgeon to investigate.
The surgeon, examined the crushed man soundly, looked at his health, blood pressure, the circulation of his breath, his heart and lungs, and sent a report that plastic surgery could indeed be performed on the man and it would be successful, but the man would die.
So, this proposal too was rejected.
In the night, the gardener told the crushed man while putting morsels of khichdi in his mouth, ‘Now the matter has gone to the higher-ups. It has been said that there will be a meeting of all the secretaries of the Secretariat tomorrow. Your case will be placed there. Hopefully everything will be all right.’
The crushed man slowly recited a Ghalib verse with a sigh, ‘Hum ne maana ke taghaaful na karoge lekin/Khaak ho jaayenge hum tum ko khabar hone tak’ (I know that you won’t shy away from responding/ but before you do, I will have turned to ash).
The gardener raised his finger to his mouth in amazement, ‘Are you a poet?’
The crushed man slowly nodded his head.
The next day the gardener told the peon. The peon, the clerk and the clerk, the head-clerk. In a short time the rumour spread through the Secretariat that the crushed man was a poet.
As expected, people began arriving in droves to see the poet. News of him spread throughout the city, and by evening poets from every quarter began to assemble. The Secretariat lawn filled with poets of every variety. A mushaira was organised around the crushed man. Many clerks and even the undersecretaries of the Secretariat who had a taste for literature and verse stayed.
A few poets began to recite their ghazals and poems to the crushed man.
When it became known that the crushed man was a poet, the subcommittee of the Secretariat decided that since the crushed man was a poet, his file was neither related to the Agriculture Department nor the Horticulture Department, but to the Culture Department.
The Culture Department was requested to decide the matter as soon as possible so that the unfortunate poet could be delivered from under the punishing shadow of the tree.
The file, moving from various sections of the Culture Department, reached the Secretary of the Literary Academy. The poor Secretary reached the Secretariat in his car at once, and began to interview the crushed man.
‘You are a poet,’ he asked?
‘Oh yes!’ the crushed man replied.
‘What pen name do you use?’
‘Oas!’
‘Oas.’ The Secretary screamed loudly. ‘Are you the same Oas whose poetry collection ‘Oas ke Phool’ (Flowers of Dew) has been published recently?’
The crushed man nodded in assent.
‘Are you a member of our Academy,’ the Secretary asked?
‘No’
‘Strange, the Secretary exclaimed forcefully, ‘Such a great poet, author of ‘Flowers of Dew’ and not a member of our Academy. Uff, uff! What a mistake we have committed, such a great poet and how he is crushed within a corner of obscurity.’
‘Not within obscurity! Crushed under a tree. Please take me out from under this tree.’
‘I will make arrangements straight away!’ the Secretary said. And immediately reported back to his Department.
The next day, the Secretary came running to the poet and said, ‘Congratulations! Sweets are due to you now. Our Academy has chosen you as the member of its central committee. Here, take your order of selection.’
‘But first take me out from under this tree.’ The crushed man said with a groan. He was breathing with great difficulty and from his eyes it appeared that he was in extreme pain and anguish.
‘This we cannot do!’ the Secretary said, ‘and what we can do, we have done. In fact, we have gone to the extent that if you die, we can give your wife a stipend. If you submit a request, indeed we can do that too.’
‘I am still alive’, the poet spoke haltingly, ‘keep me alive.’
‘The problem is this’, the Secretary of the official Literary Academy said, folding his hands together, ‘our Department only deals with Culture. Cutting trees is not a matter of pen and inkpot but saw and axe and therefore, we have written to the Forest Department and marked it ‘urgent’.’
That evening, the gardener told the crushed man that the men from the Forest Department would come the very next day and cut the tree and the man’s life would be saved.
The gardener was very happy that the crushed man, despite everything, was fighting for his life – somehow he had to survive the night.
The next day, when the men from the Forest Department arrived with saws and axes, they were prevented from cutting the tree. An order had come from the Foreign Affairs Department that prohibited the cutting of the tree.
The reason was that the tree had been planted in the Secretariat lawn a decade previously by the Prime Minister of Petunia. If the tree was cut now, there was a risk that relations with the Government of Petunia would be damaged forever.
‘But this is a question of a man’s life’, shouted one clerk, in anger.
‘On the other hand, it is a question of relationships between two countries’, a second clerk admonished the first. ‘Try to understand how much aid the Petunian government gives to ours. Can’t we sacrifice even one man’s life for their friendship?’
‘The poet should die.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
The Undersecretary told the Superintendent, ‘The Prime Minister has returned from a foreign visit this morning. The Foreign Affairs Department will present this tree’s file before him at four pm today. Whatever he decides will be accepted by all.’
At five pm the superintendent himself brought over the poet’s file, ‘Do you hear?’ he shouted as soon as he arrived, waving the file, ‘The Prime Minister has ordered us to cut the tree and has taken full international responsibility for this incident upon himself. Tomorrow this tree will be cut, and you’ll be rid of this trouble.
‘Do you hear? Today your file is complete’, the superintendent said, shaking the poet’s arm. But the poet’s arm was cold. His eyes were lifeless and a long line of ants was going into his mouth.
The file of his life had also been completed.
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Translator’s note: Krishan Chander’s famous novel Ek Gadhe ki Atm Katha (Autobiography of a Donkey) is devoted to the insensitivity of the bureaucracy, so evident in the subcontinent. His short story, ‘Jamun ka Ped’ (The Jamun Tree), a powerful denunciation of bureaucracy proudly stands, in my opinion, in the same league as Gogol’s ‘The Nose’. ‘Jamun ka Ped’, and Krishan Chander’s work by extension, attained a new lease of life in the wake of the decision by Indian Certificate of Secondary Education’s decision to remove it from the Class X Hindi syllabus on the 4th of November, 2019. It seemed imperative, to me, to translate it into English for a new generation of South Asian readers.
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Krishan Chander (1914-1977) was one of India’s foremost Hindi and Urdu writers. He wrote over twenty novels, thirty collections of short stories and many radio plays. He also wrote screenplays for Hindi films. His novels include the classic Ek Gadhe Ki Sarguzasht or Ek Gadhe ki Atm Katha (Autobiography of a Donkey), 1957. His works have been translated into over sixteen languages.
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Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic, and an award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently living in Lahore, where he is the President of the Progressive Writers Association. He has been translating Krishan Chander since 2014, beginning with Naye Ghulam (New Slaves), and has published a comprehensive review of Krishan Chander’s partition stories collected in Hum Vehshi Hen (We Are Savages), 1948). His most recent translation of Krishan Chander is Amritsar, Azadi Se Pehle (Amritsar, Before Independence) for the edited collection Jallianwala Bagh: Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry (Niyogi Books, 2019). His translations have appeared in Out of Print. He can be reached at razanaeem@hotmail.com.