ISSUE 46

‘Ah Motiram, there you are!’ said Advocate Baig in his good natured way, ‘I have been waiting for you. Today you will be cross-examined. The vakeel from the other side will ask you questions.’

Motiram brought his palms together and muttered, ‘Ho Saheb.’

‘Don’t be afraid. Just stick to the story – that you are being displaced the second time by the government. Okay?’

‘Ho Saheb.’

‘Very good, you manage that bit, leave the rest to me.’

‘Ho Saheb.’

‘Chalo, see you in the court on the second floor. Don’t be afraid. Okay?’Baig Saheb added in a softer tone.

Motiram Kulmetha stood in a huddle with his brother-in-law and a distant uncle outside the courtroom. It was hot and sultry and there was a terrible stench in the corridor. There was an empty bench but they dared not sit on it. The crowd increased as the judge settled himself and the hearings commenced. The three Adivasis made themselves invisible in a corner, waiting for the pattewallah to announce in his loud, distinctive style – Mo-ti-ram-Po-chu-ram-Kul-metha!

Motiram wished he could run away. In his village, amongst his people he felt confident and light-hearted, but here he felt small and naked. He kicked himself for not crossing the southern border of Chandrapur into Telangana while he had still had the chance. Even the back breaking work in the brick kilns or construction sites or in the chilli fields was preferable to standing here, in this suffocating heat, in his grimy dhoti and thin shirt, waiting for his name to be called out.

Motiram wished Bhoju Kinnake, the Gaav Patil, had come along too, but the aged leader was having trouble with his eyes and was in no position to travel forty kilometres to the district court. All his life Bhoju Kinnake had stood as the protective wall between his people and outsiders, he was the interpreter between the Adivasi and the non-Adivasi worlds. Without the old man’s reassuring presence, Motiram felt fear rising in his chest, a mortal fear of sarkari offices and sarkari officers – policemen, revenue officials, forest officials, kharra chewing babus. He wished his entire tribe had run away.

Twenty-five years ago when Motiram was barely five- or six-years old, government vehicles had entered Pimpalgaon village one night. The drums were sounded and the all the villagers, every man, woman and child had gathered near the temple of Bheem Deva and Jango Devi under the saffron flags tied atop tall bamboo sticks. The bright headlights of the vehicles blinded the villagers who crouched under the tamarind tree listening to the officers. Nobody understood a word of the Marathi that the officers spoke except for Bhoju Kinnake who stood with folded hands, uttering a few words now and then.

Motiram was a mere child, but he clearly remembered Bhoju’s eyes widen as he turned to the villagers and translated. ‘We have to give our thumb prints to these Sahibs and then we have to leave this village in forty-eight hours. They are saying the water from the dam will enter the village on the sixth or seventh day.’

The women wailed as they bundled together their meagre belongings – clothes, utensils, the sacred drums, the string cots, two radios, fishing nets…. Pimpalgaon was the village of their forefathers. Where would they go? On the last night, they gathered at the tiny temple underneath the vast canopy of the tamarind tree, with its four beautifully carved wooden pillars and the carefully woven thatch roof. There were no walls, no doors. The vermillion smeared sacred black stones – Bheem Deva and Jango Devi – rested peacefully under the starry sky, the saffron flags fluttering in the warm wind.

‘The gods have forgotten us, but we cannot forget them,’ said Muttha ajji, Bhoju Kinnake’s mother. She started the puja which went on all night. The drums beat out the sorrow of their hearts till the first rays of dawn lightened the horizon. Motiram who had fallen asleep was woken up by his cousin Raju. Through sleepy eyes he saw two men heave the black stones out from the ground, stones that had been worshipped for as long as they could remember. As the stones were lifted from the ground, a great tearing cry of grief rose into the air.

Bheem Deva and Jango Devi were set in strong bamboos baskets and in a ceremonial way, Motiram’s father lifted one basket on his head and Raju’s father lifted the other. They followed Bhoju Patil and Muttha ajji who led the way. Behind them trudged the thirty-three families of Adivasi Kolam Moolniwasis of Pimpalgaon with their belongings stacked on bullock carts or tied to bamboo sticks that they lugged on their shoulders. By the time they entered the forest, Motiram already had a fever.

Bhoju Kinnake had heard of an open space near a village called Murthy. He brought his people there and declared that this was where they would rebuild their new village. Once again Mutthu ajji worshipped Bheem Deva and Jango Devi and before all else they installed the sacred deities, seeking their blessings. Only then did they start building the mud walls and thatched roofs of their own homes. Not everyone who started out from Pimpalgaon reached the new place. One morning while they were still on the edge of the forest, Motiram could not find his playmate Raju. He cried the whole day tugging at his mother’s sari as she tried to explain that Raju’s father had left the village with his family to seek work and shelter elsewhere.

Slowly, over a quarter of a century, the new hamlet got the name Kolamguda and life fell into a simple routine. Till a few months ago, when the vehicles returned – officers with files, papers and survey tables. The entire village gathered to watch in horror as the talathi made a hole in the ground right next to the temple and erected an ugly cement pole.

‘This here is the centre of the three hundred acres to be acquired by government for the airport. Do not touch this pillar. Do you understand?’ the talathi warned. The babus then proceeded to take the mandatory thumb prints – they sat outside Bhoju Kinnake’s hut and called the villagers one by one. The clerks held left thumbs and firmly rubbed them on the ink pad before placing them on the papers where required. Two hours later, after a lunch of chicken curry and rice, they left after reminding Bhoju Kinnake that he would be held personally responsible if anything happened to the cement pole. Women did not light stoves that night, no one cooked, no one ate. A shroud of mourning descended on the hamlet.

This time, things were different – there were journalists, cameras, social workers. Someone took the old Gaav Patil to a lawyer’s office and the matter reached the courts. The community pooled together their meagre earnings to fight the Airport Authority. These were the events that eventually landed Motiram in the wooden witness box next to the podium of the Senior Division Judge, Chandrapur District Court. He saw Baig Saheb, his lawyer in the front row talking to someone. The judge was signing a paper that the clerk held before him. A lady was tapping at a typewriter. The room was somewhat cooler than the corridor outside, but Motiram felt hot and nervous.

A lawyer stood before Motiram and straightened the black coat over his shoulders. Then he proceeded to lightly finger his white neck band while intently turning over a page in his thick file, underlining a sentence with the click of a silver pen. Motiram felt thirsty, his throat was stuffed with a ball of dry cotton. Before he could swallow, the lawyer turned on his heels and said, ‘Motiram Kulmetha?’

‘Ho Saheb,’ said Motiram miserably, and thus started the cross examination of the witness.

After assessing that he was indeed Motiram Kulmetha son of the deceased Pochuram, presently living in Murthy Kolamguda and that he undoubtedly belonged to the Kolam Adivasi tribe and had an education up to the first standard, the lawyer took a long pause to check his notes. Motiram was sweating. His thin shirt stuck to his back. He wiped his face with the yellow cotton dupatta on his shoulder.

‘Motiram Kulmetha, would you not agree that you are lying about being twice displaced because you and your tribal people intend to extract double compensation from the Airport Authority?’

Motiram stood silent, squinting with concentration, trying to decipher the lawyer’s chaste Marathi. He desperately struggled to formulate a response in Kolami and translate it into Marathi inside his head, before uttering a word from his mouth.

The lawyer barked, ‘Bagha, mazyaprashnachya uttardya. Answer my question.’ Motiram swallowed a bit of the cotton stuffed in his throat and prepared to answer. But before he could do so, Baig Saheb was on his feet. The two lawyers argued, the judge said something. Motiram wanted to run away and never return; instead he looked down at his bare feet.

The lawyer glared at Motiram. ‘Let me frame it differently in case you didn’t understand – is it not true that in order to get double compensation you and your co-plaintiffs decided to file this false story that you were previously displaced from another village? Barobar?’

Motiram’s mind was trained over years of working under labour contractors to say ‘Ho Saheb’ for every question he was asked. Ho Saheb. Yes sir. The two words were introduced early into his vocabulary as an assurance against trouble. When the lawyer said ‘Barobar?’ Motiram was on the verge of answering ‘Ho Saheb’ but again Baig Saheb was on his feet before Motiram could answer. The two lawyers were arguing at the tops of their voices. The courtroom was now filled with people whispering. In his long practice of twenty years, no one had seen Baig Saheb ever lose his temper – not like this!

Then the Judge looked at Motiram and said, ‘E paha, look here, you have to answer.’

A cold bead of sweat rolled off Motiram’s forehead to the floor. He shifted on his feet and raised his joined palms towards the judge – a gesture that could be interpreted either as his willingness to answer or his inability to do so. With great difficulty he looked at the lawyer.

‘Look, I am asking again. Is it not true that you and your co-plaintiffs together filed this false suit of being twice displaced because you plan to extract a big amount from the Airport Authority?’

Motiram shifted on his feet and prepared to answer.

‘Come on, let us hear the truth.’

Yes, truth was something that Motiram could easily tell.

‘My father and Raju’s father carried the gods on their heads…’ Motiram began in his limited Marathi.

‘Please answer my question with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’,’ the lawyer insisted, ‘Your Honour, the witness is unnecessarily…’

Motiram continued with the truth. ‘After a few years Muttha ajji died. She was crying for Raju till the end.’

‘Don’t you understand ‘yes’ or ‘no’? None of these things you are saying is in the plaint…’ the lawyer glowered.

The judge signalled Baig Saheb.

‘Motiram, please answer the question they are asking,’ Baig Saheb came close to the witness box and lowered his voice.

‘Ho Saheb,’ answered Motiram and continued, ‘Muttha ajji was the only one who could talk to gods, but now we don’t have anyone. Bhoju Kaka is the Gaav Patil but even he can’t do what Muttha ajji could.’

The judge’s gavel hit the table, then he turned to Motiram and asked, ‘Motiram Kulmetha did you come from Pimpalgaon to Kolamguda?’

Motiram answered clearly, ‘Ho Saheb. We came from the Pimpalgaon to Kolamguda.’ Then he added the important, heart-breaking truth, ‘We all came from Pimpalgaon to Kolamguda and stayed except for Raju. Raju went away and never returned.’

The judge nodded – a gesture that may be interpreted as reflecting his total frustration at Motiram’s nonsense evidence. Or perhaps it dawned on him that there are losses which can never be compensated.