INDEPENDENCE

Sebabroto Banerjee

Two rows of eucalyptus run along the road joining Khanyan station to some distant villages. The inclining sun cast aside oblique shadows of them on the metalled road every morning, and those slender rows pretend to have changed into a denser, gracious forest by any strange wizardry. Setting out for the school every morning, I come across Arunda in this chiaroscuro. After three hours of exhausting newspaper and magazine selling session, he is on his way back home then. A very laborious person he is. Struggling on his old cycle, he reaches the station perfectly within five- thirty every day-break. Comes the first down train, unloads bundles of awareness in a dark corner of the platform. And goes offcreating a little vexation among the imminent dwellers by sounding its monstrous horn twice. Arunda loads his share over the cycle carrier, then presses the paddle to start another day.Day before yesterday, I noticed him painting a wooden kiosk on down-platform. I was surprised. Had he decided to switch over to a new business of running a tea and a snacks bar ? ! But how could a man habituated in perceiving the temperature of scoops succeed in measuring the same of tea-water, I approached him, and asked about my doubt. He smiled. I know that smile very well. That doesn't wipe out of his face even in intense complexities. And I believe that not only newspapers, people gathered round him every morning in the platform to purchase this very smile also, which, may be, in the hope of peeping their day-long activities as cheerful and fresh as the bright face of their favourite newspaper-seller. But there is another reason behind his great success in this profession. A very rare sort of skill he possesses, better to say he has developed, and even a fraction of that cannot any way be termed as his innate potential. He can represent headline news of various newspapers in front of the daily passengers in a very dramatic fashion, can compare the headlines of various newspapers written over a common issue. Besides, this whole package is served with a touch of his penetrating wit. Railway passengers are absorbed. Some of them compel themselves to buy four or five different papers all together, hence lose their senses in judging the logicalities. Train comes. Tries to capture the attention of those concerned by sounding its shrill cry twice. But being unsuccessful, frustratingly leaves the station in a haste. "I am opening a newspaper-stall right here, from fifteenth August" Arunda answered. His answer relieved me. A while ago, I realised that he wasn't going to create a boom as a tea-seller. Again I asked, "But you didn't tell me so far about this." "Nobody knew it, as I told none. Informing others' about any immature ambition sometimes hinders the fulfilment of it. Anyway, I believe this." He became quiet. So, I started my inspection in his kiosk. Magazine and newspaper racks, large book shelves and tabloid hangers were placed there as usual. But what drew me on were four chairs and a small centre table, arranged inside a artitioned cubicle, which seemed completely alienated from~ the ontinuous hustle-bustle of a railway platform. I looked at him with amazement. "Take it as a small discussion chamber, a dream along with launching a bookstall. It had come true after years." Arunda expressed. The station master announced the timely arrival of my train. Passengers took attention, started spreading up along the edge of the platform. Gate- staffs came down over the level-crossing. And a sleepy dog, who always takes the railway-sleepers as a fine resting place, showed no exception to its habit. Then somebody from the platform threw a stone to remove it out of the railway tracks. The dog gave a cold glance to the man, and started walking along the up-line philosophically, in search of a better world. But I remained. A lukewarm whistling breeze and the rustle of deodar leaves whispered in my ear, that a unique story awaited me behind that small kiosk. So, I started accounting for the number of casual leaves I had in my school register then and sat down on one of those four chairs. Hurriedly arrived my train, I bothered least, it departed without me in a huff and haste. "Dream of a seminar hall in a small railway bookstall is very conspicuous!" I exclaimed. Arunda looked straight at me. With a radiation in his expressive eyes, he said, "You have let the train go. So, I assume you want to listen about the background of this kiosk. Well, for the first time I'll tell it. And this is not only for I like you, but I knew that nothing, be it natural or any unwordly force, can resist me from achieving my mission now." "In the beginning", he continued, "things were not so smooth as the kiosk is. Day in and day out, I went on colleting my resource, and never faltered from my aim of having a minimal capability. I had to manage the approval of the station authority. For that, they charged a fairly large amount from me. I gave it. Then there were political and local 'dadas\ And their demand was more than the former's. I denied. My neighbours advised me not to become their subject of annoyance. But still I resisted those illegal demands. As a result, on a bright morning, I had to hear that the station-authority had withdrawn their permission". "But the fight went on. From my house to railway platform, and from there to the railway court, almost everyday. Around them, the girl, whom I loved and was supposed to marry, deserted me. She doubted whether I had become mad. Or why else could a person expect warmth over an extinguished furnace!" "However, after a strenuous period of eight years the court came in favour of me. Ended those frustrating dawns, the painful sessions of saying, ‘cheer up' to myself frequently. But now I can understand well what helped me survive those days. Blessings, and only blessings". Arunda took a pause. Meanwhile the loudspeakers had informed about the approaching of another down train. The philosophic dog came back to the place of its prime choice. Downwards tilted the gate staffs. Though I was struggling to digest how in this world of bewilderism, a most ordinary man like him could perfectlv aim at his destination. Who could have imagined of such a fiery fight behind his meek and inoffensive features suddenly the slow and relaxed prospective of this village railway station started estranging before my eyes. And each of those broken fragments, the stones, iron railings, benches, the tipsy cabin-man or even the pair of his long gate-staffs seemed to whisper about their own stories in ether. I lost myself in that silent concert, confused and to be rescued, asked Arunda about the secret stimulant which kept him optimistic for eight long years. "Yes, yet you have listened only one side of the story". He lit up his eyes once again, and said, "Here we go to the beginning. You may know, my father was a school teacher. He gifted his youth to Indian National Movement, enioved the proximitv of some very eminent and reputed leaders, and even much after the independence helped advancing himself according.to their ideologies. Above all, he was a voracious reader of many subjects, and a master debater, who believed in rather whetting his arguments than lift his voice". He dreamt of owning a book shop where people would not only buy books of their choice, but would sit together and discuss freely about various political, social or educational matters amongst themselves, so much did he like the concept of freedom of speech and knowledge. But he was wrong in judging through the glass of his own ideals and beliefs. The world in fact, was changing, it had moved far from his theories. Standing right here for a train to Calcutta, in a winter morning he was talking to one of his senior students. A local leader of the then ruling party was also present. Whilst talking, somehow, they opened discussions about two fresh Five- Years Plans of India. And in this context, my father remarked that the second planning was nothing else but a plagiarised one very shrewdly, copied by Mr. R C. Mahalanobish from the works of a Soviet economist. "His comment wasn't followed by any immediate reaction. But the next morning, the leader came to the school, and started insulting my father in the prayer meeting, before the whole assembly of students and teachers. The leader accused him of vilificating important persons intentionally and thus misleading students. “This had a grim effect on my father. That evening entered home a different man. Ransacked, dragged along the evils of life. He kept on saying, 'We haven't achieved the freedom yet, we haven't. At midnight, I noticed him nowhere in our house. I came out and started running frantically to look for him. A very dense and chilled night was that, and a thorough search operation by our neighbours also could yield no result. Next morning we found his body over the rail line, bisected by a Delhi bound Rajdhani Express." "My eldest brother died after birth. The other suffered an infection of polio in his very childhood, and became an invalid. I was the third, a student of class nine then, and the only able member of the family. To save the family, I took up this profession and began to cherish the dream of fulfilling my father's wishes. Rest you know. But can you fathom my happiness today ? Do you know, I may be the only man in India to have created freedom at least in this six feet by six feet kiosk! Well I will show you one object." An emotional Arunda escaped to search for something. Passengers were getting ready for the train. I touched a wall of that wooden kiosk. And don't know how, an invisible stream flew downwards through my body. I looked up at the sky. Such a blue. I thought of going to school then, dared to seek a half day casual leave for being late by forty minutes. But what made me change my decision? Arunda came back with a old newspaper in his hand. Coming in front of me, he unfolded it, and said, "See, this article has recently been published.

They say that Mr. Mahalanobish had actually plagiarised the idea of the second plan. My father was right." My train arrived. I got on the last compartment. And then a thought flashed across my mind 1 had completely forgotten to ask the name of his bookstall. I rushed to the door, and shouted towards the man in tears, "Hey, what are you naming it ?" "Independence?' Or what else had he said from that fugitive point? Well, I'll try to make it out from him afterwards.

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