रसाल सिंह

I am Rasal Singh, the hero of Dharaan te Dhoodaan (Ridges and Dust), which holds the tale of the declining years of Raja Shiv Dayal Singh, the jagirdar of Ramgarh. Hearing "declining years," do not make the mistake of supposing that the Raja, like Dasharatha the king of Ayodhya, was minded — at the sight of a single white hair at his temple — to retire to the forest as a vanaprasthi. No, no: he was no such craven king as to take fright at a white hair. Those who counselled Raja Dasharatha — Vasishtha, Vamadeva — were weak ministers who bowed before the ways of the world; but Raja Shiv Dayal Singh's minister was Tikka Pandit, who would say, "Walk the road we point out to you, and old age will never overtake you." Whether anyone else ever used this prescription of his or not, upon Raja Shiv Dayal Singh its magical effect was there for all to see. Even at fifty-five, during the Navratras, while worshipping the virgin girls, the kanjaks, he honoured Kamlo — the only daughter of the widow Hukmi — with a new silk dress, with money, with fruit and sweets. Tikka Pandit, standing at his side, understood the whole of it. He said in his heart: "The Raja, though to look at him he seems made of the very stuff of Shiva, has a keen eye for a pearl. And why not — when his minister is Tikka Pandit…" And within that very week Kamlo vanished from Hukmi's poor mud hut and appeared within Raja Shiv Dayal Singh's palace. Tikka Pandit's secret soldiers had cast their net, seized a weeping, wailing crane of a girl, and laid her in the service of their benefactor.

At that time I was a village lad of eighteen or twenty, unlettered. My mother and father were dead, and a widowed aunt had raised me. Kamlo, Hukmi's only daughter — Kamlo and I had been companions from childhood: playing together, quarrelling, sulking and making it up. Watching us at our games, my aunt and the widow Hukmi would steal a sidelong glance at each other and smile. We knew nothing of the world. That there might be any world at all beyond the villages about our little town — we had never so much as thought of it. In my world there was Kamlo, and Kamlo alone. And what was in Kamlo's heart — that, my heart knows. We two, both innocent, were raising the glass-palaces of our dreams in our simple love, when one morning, at the sound of the widow Hukmi's lament, my widowed aunt, wiping her eyes again and again with the end of her shawl, said to me, as it were: "You were born under an unlucky star. For you the clay pot cracks after the calamity has already come. The jagirdar's men carried Kamlo off in the night. Go and see what state Hukmi has fallen to, weeping and weeping. When will this land ever be rid of this demon?"

That day was the blackest of my life. In my heart the flames of fire blazed up — but outside, a thick dust of helplessness had settled over the whole settlement. There was not a man to be found standing near. I had become like one possessed. I writhed in fury, I cried out, I fretted, I burned — yet the dense silence spread on every side did not, you might say, so much as lift an eye toward me. The ridges silent, the streams silent, the trees silent, the settlement silent, the men silent. My breath began to catch; I began to suffocate. It seemed to me that out of that thick dust the black, ugly hands of the jagirdars were reaching toward me — and behind them rang the rattle of a hundred sticks and staves.

I fled, leaving that soil of my mother and father. To fling myself off somewhere and die, like a frog leaping into a well, was not in my making. But to flee, leaving Kamlo writhing in the jagirdar's arms, was no easy thing either. The truth is that at that time I had not yet read this book of life. I thought life was nothing but the name for sitting on the banks of the blue, clear lakes of Kamlo's eyes and singing songs — nothing but the telling of the heart's words to the morning breeze upon the notes of a flute. And when, all at once, neither those lakes remained nor that flute, then I learned that flowers have their thorns too, and that in the depths of the lakes there dwell octopuses as well. Had I stayed there in that state, I would surely have been murdered at the hands of the jagirdar's thugs, or died fretting and pining in some dungeon of his fortress-palace, or — such was my stubborn nature — died dashing my head against the harsh stones of his court. So from there I fled.

Carrying an ache in my breast, I passed twelve years, like the exile of the sons of Pandu. I enlisted in the army, wandered through many cities, met all sorts and conditions of men. I got the chance to read new pages of the book of the world. In the great tumult of that new world I would sometimes sink, and sometimes rise again to the surface — but somewhere in my heart the memory of Kamlo smouldered on, smouldered on. Wherever I went, with however many people I fell in, there I came to hear and understand a hundred new things — and went on hearing, with astonishment, that oppressors like Shiv Dayal Singh existed in other places too. Only, in those places, wherever the people united and stood against him, there Raja Shiv Dayal Singh had to taste defeat. This was a wholly new thing to me — that the Shiv Dayal Singhs too had been beaten and put to flight; and yet this fellow of mine, having strengthened his ramparts in the heart of those hills, was still fighting on. And then I would wonder — fighting which war? Who was fighting against him? To this day not a single soul had so much as laid siege to his fort. Whom did he fear? No one had yet even challenged him to battle. Even now he must be sitting in his glass-palaces, holding the court of Indra, watching the dance of the fairies. And Kamlo — [with a sigh] Rasal Singh's Kamlo — drunk on wine, pressing her to his chest, he must be asking: "And where is that Rasal Singh of yours? Was Rasal Singh going to give you these silk dresses? These jewels, these bangles, these silver platters, these ever-new delicacies — that idle, starving wretch?"

After twelve years, these bitter pangs called me back to that soil where the heaven of my love had burned to ash — from where, on my leaving, no one had so much as kept up a two-paisa letter to me; where I had no one but that old widowed aunt; neither friend nor kinsman. And yet, after twelve years of wandering through the various regions of my country, I felt within me once more the licking flames of that very fire I had thought long since burned out. It was the fire of love for that very soil — the soil which, when my love was laid waste, had not shed a single tear of pity. But today, after twelve years, I myself can laugh at the foolishness of those days. In that jagir, whose eyes were left with tears to spare to show me sympathy? All eyes had wept themselves dry. And the sighs of those helpless hearts, the gazes bowed in powerlessness — even I had not, at that time, the wit to read them. Today I have grown a little able to make out the anguish writhing in the silence of this soil — and so my feet, of their own accord, turned toward that solid fortification of Raja Shiv Dayal Singh, where, even after the end of the jagirdari, the people still thought of themselves, as before, as the jagirdar's subjects — cowed and afraid. How greatly the times had changed elsewhere, of this they had no knowledge. Drowned in that same helplessness, I came back to Ramgarh. And there I made my mistake. At first I saw only the upper silence of that helplessness; what storm seethed beneath it, I learned only later. "Seethes" — this is a word I use knowingly. In truth, to call that region of mine so backward is itself to do it an injustice. But what fault is that of mine? — I am only telling the story in which I was made the hero. The jagirs were finished and done with; the middling harvest that lent those jagirs their bitter strength had dried up too. And yet in Ramgarh no political body was formed, nor did the people's self-respect blaze into spirit. Nowhere were even four restless lads to be found, singing songs of freedom.

Coming to Ramgarh, what I found there was the old aunt, the widow Hukmi, the widow Taro of the silk-soled slippers, Nathi the milkmaid, luckless Chhanku the water-carrier, carefree Shagoo Baba, and Nathu's wife — like fires that had smouldered down and gone cold. Somewhere a single spark might still lie buried, alive beneath the ash — from above one could not tell. And meanwhile the Raja, reading the times, had laid aside his old weapons and armour and fitted himself with new. The fort was as strong and solid as ever; Tikka Pandit was such as he had always been; the number of his thugs had even grown. Even now, as before, the Ramlila was held in the palace courtyard, and through the Navratras the dacoit-dances were performed as before. The one difference was that now, from the stage of the Ramlila, Tikka Pandit — Member of the Assembly — would be sure to make a speech in praise of, and on behalf of, Raja Shiv Dayal Singh.

After the dawn of the democratic age, the first election had already been held, in which, from this region, Raja Shiv Dayal Singh had been returned unopposed. Now he was preparing to stand in the second as well. This time he had the fear of a contest with Tulsi Ram besides.

I came and arrived there — but what was I to do? I too had no skill in fighting on this front. The way to begin the battle was shown to me by Tulsi Ram, the first graduate of the region, who had resolved to contest the old jagirdar in the coming elections. In that thick darkness he seemed to me a flickering, twinkling lamp. Meeting him and hearing him, I felt that in his words were the rallying-cries of a new age's awakening, and in his eyes the colours of new dreams. He was by nature a gentle painter, who, with great yearning, dissolving the colours of his feeling, longed to give life to the loved beauty of that region. But within a few days I began to feel that Tulsi Ram was a dreaming artist, true — but not the yogi who, in the quest of that beauty, would find his road through the thick dust and roam from ridge to ridge. To kindle in the region the flame of political awakening, to contest the jagirdar at the new elections, he had neither means nor weapon in his hand. Many a time, taking fright, he thought of falling back. But on my coming, he took a little heart. He was weak a hundredfold, true — and yet it is also true that the inspiration to build a new front in Ramgarh I had from him.

Whatever "flavour" this story of Ramgarh has owed to Hukmi, Taro, and Kamlo — on my own account, I reckon, there was no special addition to it. In me too there was little of the special stuff of a "hero." I was, in truth, the one-eyed king in the country of the blind. In my heart was my own fire, which had burned to ash my love, my youth, and the golden dreams of my household; and the helplessness of Ramgarh had only fanned it higher. The board over the great gateway of Raja — now Member of the Assembly — Shiv Dayal Singh's fortress-palace had, as it were, been changed; but within that old mansion all was just as it had been in the days of the old jagirdari.

Taking Tulsi Ram with us, two or three of us went about the surrounding villages, held meetings, met the people. Everywhere they assured us of their votes, and we were very glad, thinking success was to be found in such places. But having played the part of the "hero" in this drama — and in the final scene, that is, after committing suicide — when today I think back on those meetings, it does indeed seem that, in the matter of political mobilisation, we showed sheer childishness. We set to raising walls and ramparts without laying any solid foundation. In such a battle, what after all is the worth of one man alone? And we neither built a party of our own nor joined ourselves to any other. In that election we spoke of pure ideals, but never once thought what poor Tulsi was to do even if he did get into the Assembly — neither head nor tail of it; no sharp political vision, no considered design for works of public good. How much sympathy the people bore us, we got some inkling of only in the days when, having gone into the jagirdar's Ramlila, we lay on our cots with our heads and arms broken by the staves of Tikka Pandit's thugs. In no quarter was a single meeting held, no procession taken out; nowhere did anyone unite and raise a clamour. The townsfolk asked after us stealthily, in secret. The truth is that in that Ramlila, too, I had blundered. I looked neither at the occasion nor at my own strength, and walked into the courtyard of an enemy cunning and fully prepared, and there fell to flexing my muscles and blurting out whatever rose to my lips. This is exactly what is meant by "Come down, calamity, upon my head!" But I was the hero — and the hero must, now and then, butt his head against a stone as well. Today we can see our second blunder clearly too: we were, as it were, fighting the jagirdar while seated in his very lap.

In Ramgarh, even then, it was his rule. He had the money; he had the men. We had not so much as a foothold from which to stand against him. What went on inside his fort, we had not the least notion; but every single word of ours reached him, daily. Living twelve years away, brother, I had learned much — and yet the wit to mount a proper resistance had not come to us. Even after twelve years as the Raja's queen, Kamlo did not become a mother — and still her upbringing kept holding her back from rebelling against him; she learned neither how to live nor how to die. Such was our condition. Even after twelve years we had not grasped the jagirdar's true strength, nor our own weaknesses. Even after twelve years — on the night when, at midnight, Kamlo, sent by the Raja, came to me, I had to take up the lantern: in the light I felt fear, and in the dark I thought it wiser to grope my way along the road with searching hands. Seeing Kamlo seated beside me, I was afraid I might lose my senses. May I never forget the tears, the sighs, the sobs of the people of Ramgarh; may I never forget the black deeds of Raja Shiv Dayal Singh! How great was his strength? At midnight, sending me his own wedded young queen, he set about trying to make his peace with me. And I, for my part, was thinking to set Tulsi before me like Shikhandi — as Arjuna, in the Mahabharata, fought Bhishma Pitamah by putting Shikhandi in the front — and so topple Shiv Dayal Singh into the political pit. The truth is, today I feel anger at my own self.

That first wrestling-bout — and the match was with such a wrestler as stood worn out with age, a mere idol of a man, in whose palace, even after twelve years, Kamlo's lap stayed empty; whose jagir was gone; whose whole support was the ten or twenty thugs he kept as servants. In another five or ten years Shiv Dayal Singh would have died of himself, worn out. How long was Tikka Pandit to keep feeding him the sanjivani herb? But ours was only such a part — what could we do? At the way the "tragedy" unfolded in the final scene, I myself, in the acting of it, could not help laughing. But what was I to do? Taro, in that final scene, like the thin, mournful note rising from a sarangi, lay writhing, crushed beneath the leg of the Raja's chair. And why, after all, did I go there? In truth I followed Taro there, merely copying her, without taking any care, without any preparation, and went and got myself caught in the enemy's web. Across from me the Raja was a perfect marksman. Taro toppled at his very first bullet, and the second came straight into my heart. I fell, but I did not die — there was still more of my part to come. Raja Shiv Dayal Singh was signalling to me to creep, crawling, toward him, and on reaching him to take his neck in both my hands and press it, so that he too should fall from his chair and die.

The final scene seemed to me to be turning very unnatural; and yet I had this joy too — that the spectators had become like statues. At the sight of four deaths their breath quickened, and seemed at times to stop. As I died, I took thought for Taro: I prayed that some road, or some school, be raised in her name — this very woman whom the whole village called a slut and a harlot.

But my greatest joy of all was this: that this time we played the whole piece in our own mother tongue, Dogri. Where before we had to commit the difficult parts to memory in an Urdu-Hindi, this time we were spared that vexation. The joy of the acting came. This story is of our own region, of our own people — familiar faces, familiar laughter, familiar tears! Who else, otherwise, would tell the tale of daughters of this soil, like Taro, Hukmi, and Kamlo?

It is my wish that I may now become the "hero" of some such story as holds the new music of the people's new longings; in which, for new creation upon this soil, new Tulsi Rams may come, and Taro, Hukmi, and Kamlo find their chance to rise — in the pure air of love and affection — as the new dialects of new songs; in which, alongside the poverty and ignorance of this soil, there may be visions of new enterprise, new ardour, and new courage, to grapple with the new greeds appearing upon it. Well — now give me leave. You have heard me out with great patience: for that, my thanks to you.

("Rasal Singh" — the hero of Prof. Madan Mohan Sharma's Dogri novel 'Dharaan te Dhoodaan')