Deflection (Story)

From dawn to dusk, Raj had not eaten a morsel of food. In the morning, he had stood in front of the hut, he knew as his home, where he lived with his father and mother, Bhajan and Bala. It was a small hut at the end of the village, that his father, a farmhand had made on the piece of land that remained with him after the landlord had confiscated their farms for not repaying his debt on time.
To Raj, the hut was his birthplace, where he had spent his childhood working in the landlord’s crop fields with his parents. When he was five years old, his mother, Bala had taken him to the village school, where the village schoolmaster had made him sit with the rest of the children from the village and made them recite the alphabets and numbers. One day, he caught Raj playing with his desk-mate instead of doing the maths exercise. He severely thrashed Raj and his classmate with a cane and that was Raj’s last day in school. He made it very clear to his parents that he would work with them in the fields, but not go to school to be beaten up by the teacher.

On his fifteenth birthday this year, his father told him to go and work in the merchant’s house, so that he could have enough money to buy medicines for his ailing mother, who was suffering from tuberculosis and could not work in the fields. Raj began working in the shop of the village merchant and very soon, he learned how to run the shop and the merchant only used to attend to the money transactions of his business and the rest, he had Raj to take care of. One day, the merchant gave all the day’s earnings to Raj and asked him to count it and keep it in the safe in the back of the shop. Raj After safely keeping all the money in the safe Raj handed over the safe keys to the merchant and returned home.

In the morning, when he reached the merchant’s shop, after having served his parents the morning breakfast, he found all the villagers crowding in front of the shop and the merchant speaking to a policeman. On seeing Raj, the merchant pointed towards him and yelled, Inspector Sahib, this boy is the thief! Yesterday, I had given him the money to keep in the safe! When I opened the safe this morning, I found the money was gone! Catch him and punish him for he has stolen my money! Raj was dumbfounded and he yelled his innocence only to find the policemen handcuff him and shove him in the police van ordering him to explain himself at the police station. No one, not even his parents believed him that he was innocent and was sent to the Remand Home for two years.

The two years were like hell for Raj. The anger and resentment simmering in him triggered him to indulge in all the vices along with most of the inmates of the Home. The inmates bullied and oppressed him. They would force him to smuggle drugs and liquor into the Home. He began gambling and even participated in group squabbles and fights.

This morning, he was released from the Remand Home and he had headed straight for the hut at the end of the village, he knew as his home. He knocked at the bamboo door. Bhajan, his father opened the door. He looked sick, frail and much older than his age. He coughed incessantly, which shook his frail body and spat blood. Bhajan looked at Raj with his wrinkled face quivering with sorrow and anger. He yelled at Raj, ‘Go away! you have killed your mother! She could not bear the shock and died within a year of your going to jail and I am as good as a living dead! My days are numbered too! There is nothing left here for you! Go away! My son died two years ago! I don’t know who you are! Go away! You don’t belong here anymore! Bhajan slammed the door on Raj’s face.

Raj had nowhere to go he wandered around aimlessly in the village, where the people recognized him and yelled at him, ‘Raj the thief is back! So, be careful!’ Raj recoiled with fear of a backlash from the villagers and hurried towards the ruins of an old temple.

The din from the village that was fast approaching the old temple and woke Raj up, who had dozed off under a tree in front of the temple. He looked up towards the dusky sky. Since dawn to dusk, he had not eaten a morsel of food. He could feel the pangs of hunger that made him dizzy too. The noise had now reached the temple. Raj looked towards the dusty track that led from the village to the temple and found a crowd chasing a frail and bedraggled old man, who was limping as fast as he could to save himself from the crowd’s fury.   As the old man and his pursuers reached the temple, Raj saw the old man’s frail body was quivering with fear. His body was battered and wounded by the stones the crowd was pelting at him. He was trying to save himself from the battery of stones while he was trying his best to limp as fast as he could to save himself from the angry mob. Raj heard the mob scream, ‘Kill this devil! He does black magic! He has killed our cattle and children! He has looted our homes! He should die! Kill him!’

Raj, looked closely at the mob and found the merchant, Raghav, the headman’s son, who used to make money from the farmhands for giving them work on his farm; Tarak, the gambler, who would take money from the village boys and let them gamble in his cowshed; Ghanshu, landlord’s muscleman, who used to beat up the villagers when they failed to repay their debt to the landlord; Jangubhai, who ran a liquor shop and also sold drugs to the village youth on the sly. He was the village money lender’s son too. They were followed by the young men who were not only their bonded laborers but also indebted to them for the unhindered supply of drugs, country liquor and a haven for gambling. All this helped them to escape from the miseries and harsh realities of their life.

 Raj once again looked at the frail figure of the victim of the mob's anger and recognized him. He was Natthu an old farmhand and his father’s friend, who often used to get medicine for his mother from the village medicine man. Natthu reminded him of his father and his father’s angry face appeared in front of his eyes and it merged with Natthu’s terrified face. He suddenly jumped up on his feet and began screaming with the mob and picked up a stone lying on the ground and vengefully hurled it at the old man. Natthu lay motionless on the ground.  Screeching sirens of the police vehicles could be heard from a distance.

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