Lakhiram was sitting on a moorha on the long verandah facing the road when some women from the neighbourhood opened the bamboo gate and entered the compound. On seeing him, a few of them covered their heads pulling up the loose ends of their chadars. He rose to his feet in acknowledgement when they got to the verandah, and directed them to go in without any change in expression. Then, he sat back on the moorha, keeping his gaze fixed on the road.
It had become a custom for the neighbouring women to visit their house at least once a day, ever since the news had spread that his wife, Edhan, was possessed by a Mata. Edhan sat on the floor in one of their rooms the entire day. She had ordered the furniture to be shifted out as she preferred to have some open space in front of her. Occasionally she closed her eyes and muttered, but nobody could decipher her obscure incantations. The visitors reverentially knelt at the threshold and touched the floor with their foreheads before they entered Edhan’s room, as if they were entering a temple. They then sat cross-legged in the open space and kept looking at her for hours with folded hands. At times they whispered to each other and shared their assumptions on the things that she was muttering.
Sometimes, Edhan leaned back against the wall and talked to the women absent-mindedly while looking at the ceiling. The visitors did not disturb her by asking random questions. For the sake of conversation, however, they gently asked her things such as whether she’d had something to eat in the morning or if she needed a glass of water. Edhan replied to them in monosyllables with a rigid and unyielding face. Once in a while, her behaviour was more normal and she also asked the women what they had cooked for breakfast or lunch, and about other household chores. While leaving, the visitors followed the same ritual of kneeling at the threshold and touching the floor with their foreheads.
Lakhiram found it tough to digest what people said about his wife. He was unable to accept that Edhan was possessed by a Mata or any other spirit. With her temperamental nature she kept showing some spirit’s presence every now and then and that had become quite normal to him in the twenty-five years of their married life. So even if the real Mata had decided to come to the village, he reflected, she would not have chosen his wife to show her presence. He was almost certain that his wife was behaving abnormally for some other reasons, but he did not have the guts to express this to anyone in the village. So he had decided to keep quiet and not to interfere in what other people believed. He stayed on the verandah and occasionally chatted with the people who came out after seeing his wife.
That day, for some reason, Edhan was in a relatively better mood and she talked more than usual. When the women entered, she responded with a faint smile and asked them to sit. The women folded their hands and smiled back nervously. After they settled on the floor she looked at the ceiling and inquired about their routine affairs in a matter-of-fact way. The women were a little confused and now it was their turn to reply in monosyllables. They looked at each other and in soft voices shared the changes they had observed in her.
‘This is how Mata behaves when she dwells in a human body. The person’s behaviour keeps changing from time to time,’ said one of them.
At one point Edhan shifted her gaze from the ceiling to the women with a serious expression on her face. It was impossible for anyone to guess what she was going to say next. There was a mysterious silence in the room and the women started getting goose bumps when she looked at their faces one after another. Her appearance was abnormally stern. Everyone eagerly waited for a possible word that might come out of her lips.
‘I am going to tell you all something today,’ Edhan said without changing her expression.
Nervous, the women said nothing, their hands still folded.
‘For the past few days a voice has been constantly telling me that there’s something hidden in our backyard. It is exactly under the guava tree behind the well. Someone should dig there to find out what it is. I will show them the place to dig,’ Edhan said, without a pause between words.
The women looked at each other in surprise again, and they sent one of their group to call in a young fellow from the adjacent house. Meanwhile, Edhan led the other women to the backyard. For a few moments, she wandered under the guava tree and then pulled up at one spot. She remained transfixed in thought for a while and then asked the man to dig right there.
Lakhiram, who learnt about the development after sometime, rushed to the backyard and stood at a distance from the crowd. He kept looking at the man who was digging and removing the soil. Was his wife really possessed by some spirit? After digging for a few minutes, the man spotted a piece of golden metal in the ground and he informed Edhan about it. On hearing that, the onlookers tried to get closer to the spot, but Edhan asked them to stay away by waving her hands. She then asked the man to bring out the golden thing and took it in her hands. It was an idol of Lord Krishna with a flute above his right shoulder.
The faces of the women beamed with joy and devotion when they saw the idol and they began to chant the name of the Lord as they approached it. Edhan cleaned it with some water and then draped it with a piece of white cloth. The women followed her with folded hands as she entered the house with the idol.
Lakhiram, was even more puzzled when he caught sight of the idol. He kept gaping at his wife in surprise when she was cleaning it near the well, but said nothing. He did not show any trace of joy or devotion on his face as the others did. He did not follow his wife with the crowd, and instead, went around the side of the house to the front verandah. He started sweating profusely. He wiped his face with the gamosa he had on his shoulder and sat on the moorha, lost in his thoughts.
The news of the golden idol spread in the village like wildfire. Villagers, men and women alike, thronged the house to have a glance at it. When more and more people started streaming in, Edhan took out the idol and kept it on a wooden platform in their front yard and sat on a mat next to it. People knelt and bowed before the idol in devotion and then stood nearby, looking at it. In soft voices they discussed if the idol was made of real gold or some other metal. They also estimated its length, weight and other characteristics. By the afternoon, the front yard got crowded as the visitors did not want to leave the sight of the god. After several hours, when they reluctantly decided to leave, they knelt and bowed devotedly and, this time, not only before the idol, but before Edhan too. After all it was she, who was chosen to inform them about the idol that had been lying underground, probably for centuries. Edhan muttered something wishing health, wealth and good luck to everyone. New groups of devotees kept coming till the evening.
The next day there was an even a larger crowd in their front yard. People from the neighbouring villages also came to see the idol. After following the ritual of kneeling and bowing they asked Edhan different things about it. Edhan narrated the story how someone had whispered to her when she was half asleep and had told her about the idol lying behind their well. She repeated the same story to each new group, but the people who had been there since the morning, also listened quietly as if she was recounting a brand new story each time. Later in the day, some space was vacated and a few mats were rolled out near the idol. The village women sat on the mats and started singing ‘diha naam’ in chorus. Now, in addition to viewing the idol, the people had one more reason to linger in the front yard. This turned Lakhiram’s house a proper place of devotion. Bubul, a fellow villager, closed his shop at the nearby market and started a temporary one with betel nuts and leaves, roasted chickpeas and other fried things near Lakhiram’s house. His business soared as people kept coming from far off places on the following days. Edhan never seemed to get tired of wishing the visitors’ health, wealth and good luck.
In the midst of all of this, Lakhiram played the role of a mute spectator, with little enthusiasm for the happenings in his house. As a courtesy, he greeted people with a dry smile and helped them with this and that, but mentally he could never get involved in the affair. Occasionally, he loitered in the backyard and then returned to the verandah. Once in a while, he went inside and searched for something in the rooms. It seemed he never found what he was looking for. There was no one paying attention to him in that festival like atmosphere.
On fifth day, he felt suffocated and desired to get away for some fresh air. He was in the habit of smoking ganja, but he had not taken a single puff since his wife started attracting attention. That day, he felt an irresistible urge to smoke a chillum of ganja. If nothing else, it would distract his mind for a while and he would be in a better position to tolerate the visitors, he thought to himself. In the afternoon he went quietly to his neighbour Kaniya’s place by crossing the bamboo grove behind his house. There was a small lane running through the grove and he purposely chose that lane to avoid drawing attention. He carried a pouch of ganja with him, and asked Kaniya to accompany him to the deserted house near the village temple. They occasionally went there to smoke in the afternoon. Sometimes their friends also joined them, but that day Lakhiram was in no mood to bear with anyone except Kaniya.
After they got to the house, Kaniya squatted on the floor and started preparing the chillum. Lakhiram sat on a piece of wood and leaned back against the wall. The calmness of that deserted place started quietening his mind. He looked at Kaniya, who was contentedly grinding the ganja. Kaniya’s life also had revolved around the idol over the past five days. Like everyone else in the village, he too was in awe of Edhan and admired the supernatural powers she displayed. Once the ganja was ready, he put it in the chillum whose lower part he wrapped with a small piece of dampened red cloth. He then struck a match and set the top layer of the ganja alight.
‘People say that ours is a poor country. Now see what we have hidden in our land. The great kings ruled this country centuries ago and their treasures are scattered across this land,’ Kaniya said offering the chillum to Lakhiram. He continued, ‘I believe there are a huge number of such idols and other valuables hidden in our village itself. It seems to me that Mata has chosen your wife to reveal those secret treasures. Your wife, the great lady, may do a lot of miracles now. I think, very soon she will find more such idols.’
‘May be after three months…’ said Lakhiram without looking at Kaniya’s eyes.
‘After three months? How can you predict the exact time? Has Mata chosen both the husband and wife for the task?’ Kaniya asked, surprised.
Lakhiram took a long puff and blew the smoke out slowly. The thick white smoke covered almost his entire face obscuring it from Kaniya. Kaniya struggled and waited impatiently to have a clear sight of Lakhiram’s face. He felt the smoke was taking an unusually long time to disperse and he gently waved his hand to remove it. Lakhiram’s face, which he had known since childhood, suddenly appeared enigmatic to him. He silently prayed that Lakhiram had not been possessed by a spirit too. It would be frightening to sit with such a person in that deserted area, he thought. Lakhiram, however, appeared normal after a while and Kaniya heaved a sigh of relief.
Lakhiram spent a few more moments in silence and then said, ‘Our son works at a factory somewhere near Benaras. He brought a golden idol when he came home last time. I have not seen it in the house in the past couple of weeks.’
He was silent for a short while before adding, ‘He is coming home after three months again. But I am not sure if he is carrying one more such idol this time too.’
Kaniya was confused. He gawked at Lakhiram as his mind struggled to connect the dots. Gradually his expression started changing and he stared at his childhood friend with his mouth open.
Lakhiram realised that his words had conveyed the right message. He looked at Kaniya apologetically. He gently held his hand out and said, ‘My son is innocent.’
Kaniya had nothing to say, he quietly took the chillum and started smoking.
*
Pranab Jyoti Bhuyan is a journalist based in Mumbai. Originally from Nagaon in Assam, he has been in Mumbai for the past twelve years. He writes short stories in his free time.