When we climbed up the stairs and reached the orthopaedics word to see Nilu, a nurse whom I knew well asked me “Is he your friend?”
I nodded, “yes”.
“Poor boy!” She said clicking her tongue.
Through the half-ajar door she took me as the lone visitor, but there were three more boys, all in half-pants and tees, straight from football field hiding behind me.
“Go, speak to him but don`t fiddle with pulleys.” She said before disappearing inside the nurse`s cubicle.
We stepped inside, tiptoeing past the heavy wooden door left ajar by the nurse. Nilu was lying on a bed, covered by a white sheet, his right foot sticking out. A huge wrought iron disc hung from a pulley was connected by a complicated system of plastic ropes, which disappeared under the sheet. I suspected those ropes pulled the broken ends together for healing; funny way if you ask me! Why not fix the bones directly up like Santosh carpenter, the way he fixed the legs by hammering nails into of the wooden seat? I thought. But fixing of wood and bone, in all probability, would be different job altogether; so I thought better not to express my outrageous idea.
We stood around his bed watching the huge ward, almost empty except Nilu and another old man who was busy reading newspaper. He had his left hand plastered and hung around his neck in a sling, but his face was absolutely cheerful with no trace of agony of a broken limb. Nilu saw us entering. Actually his bed was just across the door, so he always noticed whoever entered the ward.
I found his face brightened immediately because he didn’t expect us to visit him in the hospital but he looked alarmed when he recognised I wasn’t alone. Only two people were allowed to visit at one time; the rule was known to us. But neither Khokan nor Gautam, when I suggested them to wait, agreed. I saw Nilu raising his head few inches above his pillow, quickly surveying the ward if the loud-mouth nurse was watching us. I thought that was how the tortoiseshell tomcat watched if the coast was clear before he pounced on fried fish set aside by my mother to be cooked for dinner.
“Why did you jump?” I asked.
“I had no other option.” Nilu said, shaking his head.
“You could beg for pardon, that you would never repeat the mistake again in your life!” I said.
“Do you think the end result would have been any different?” Nilu said sadly.
His father whom we called Batulbabu, from a cartoon character of ‘Batul the great’ of ‘Suktara’, was well-known for his exemplary retribution especially towards his six boys. Legends had it that on a couple of occasions Nilu`s elder brothers met with similar fate when they were caught stealing coins from shrine room or forged Batulbabu`s signature to smuggle shampoo from Ganesh`s grocery. Khokan tittered because he caught the sarcastic remark immediately while it took me some time to register. Breaking a leg for stealing a pocketful of jamun was unacceptable to me. But what was strange, given the brotherly truce we all vowed on oath, no one went thieving alone. How come Nilu, the scrawniest among us, who generally was trusted with ordinary ground duties whenever we stormed any fruit-laden tree, dare to climb up the jamun tree alone? Especially when jamun wasn’t his favourite fruit and the tree stood inside Mr Sarkar`s compound.
The story unfolded after three months when the plaster cylinder was removed and Nilu saw his crooked leg for the first time in three months. All of us went together in the afternoon to Nilu`s house, as if it were an occasion to celebrate. But we got the bad news before we had actually met him. The fifth one of Batulbabu`s offspring’s, whose nick name was Kalu, informed us that three months of plaster was a failure.
Nilu`s fracture didn’t heal and all those ropes and pulleys had failed miserably. Dr Samanta of the railway hospital blamed God for the botched treatment. He argued that somehow the pulleys or the ropes couldn’t maintain the broken ends together despite putting right amount of traction and counter traction. He couldn’t rule out sabotage as well, because he often saw the hands of his adversary`s invisible hand spoiling his good work.
Dr Samanta said that non-union of fracture of tibia was a serious thing and beyond his expertise. He suggested Batulbabu to take Nilu either to Howrah Orthopaedic Hospital near Calcutta, for which he would write a legitimate refer letter or to Dr Mukhopadhyay of Patna, who was regarded as the best orthopaedic surgeon of eastern India at his own cost.
It was during this poignant moment Nilu revealed his actual reason of climbing the jamun tree. We were flabbergasted when he said it wasn’t for jamuns why he climbed the tree. He told us that the tree offered a clear view of the bed room of the Sarkars. For those who didn’t know who the Sarkar`s were, I could only mention here that they got married recently. But I didn’t know Nilu had bedroom eyes.
“Could you see anything?” Gautam asked.
We huddled around him so that the revelation couldn’t be heard by invisible informers who might spill the beans to our parents and rest of us also end up here in the same fracture ward. Nilu raised his head to look above our shoulders if anybody was eavesdropping. Having satisfied that there was none except the nurse in her cubicle busy filling up some register he fell back on his pillow.
“It was going to start.” Nilu said narrowing his eyes. All of us came closer. I could make out all of us were breathing audibly. After all, watching live action was different from watching morphed photographs or reading books printed on cheap papers that were smuggled from Calcutta.
“But I lost my grip just at that time. I was perhaps too engrossed to adjust the angle to look at the scene and didn’t notice that I had shifted onto a narrow branch that was going to snap under my weight.”
“Bull shit!” Khokan exclaimed.
“Kalidas.” Gautam said.
“What happened after that? Did you fell down?” I asked.
“I slipped and fell about a foot down but during the fall, I luckily caught hold of another branch further down and then was hanging like a monkey.” Nilu said. “The commotion of snapping of the branch and the aborted fall made Mr Sarkar to come out and investigate. When he saw me dangling by a branch he shouted at me. He thought I had climbed the tree to pluck the jamuns. He said he would complain to my father.” Nilu chortled as if to praise his good luck that his real intention wasn’t recognised and he escaped harsher punishment.
“‘Come down, come down ‘Mr Sarkar shouted, but I was nervous and didn’t know what to do. Mr Sarkar went inside and came out with a stick. I knew if he could lay his hands on me he wouldn’t let me go in one piece.”
“But you didn’t steal a single jamun!”
“Stupid! He wasn’t angry for the jamuns but for disturbing him when he hated to be disturbed.” Nilu said. We all laughed out loud.
Nilu`s mother said, “You shouldn’t laugh so loudly in the twilight; otherwise the evil jinn will possess you!” She smirked at us while passing across the room where Nilu was lying. Gautam told that we were already possessed by the evil jinn but Nilu`s mother couldn’t catch his words. We laughed out loud again.
Next week we went to see Nilu off at the rail station. We watched Batulbabu talking to one railway stuff probably a TTE (Train Ticket Examiner; the person who examines ticket, if you are still curious!) wearing a black coat over his white shirt and trousers; his brows knitted, assuming a grave look in addition to his perpetual grimacing face.
We asked Nilu, “Where are you going? Howrah?”
Nilu pouted his lower lip sitting on a wheel chair. Dr Samanta was quick to put another plaster cast on his crooked leg. I bent down to watch the new pristine white cylinder around his leg. I was itching to write some parting message, maybe something euphemistic that would remind him about the jamun tree, but I had no device to write on. Besides, Batulbabu was eying us from time to time trying to assess what transpired among us.
“What will happen to your final examination? Gautam said. Then I recalled that final examination was knocking at the door.
Durga puja would start in October and when the festive month would end with Diwali and Bhaiphonta in November, hardly two weeks would be left for the examination. Every year same thing happened; and every year sitting in the hall I bit the lid of the fountain pen regretting the time I wasted in the football field. The recently acquired vice of reading porn books in the lavatory took away lot of time also. I knew at this rate I would definitely fuck up my board result. But right now it was Nilu who was facing life and death problem.
“I don`t know.” Nilu said. “You can submit sick certificate if you miss the examination. In case you come back on time, you can write the examination from hospital bed and then there are more chances that you will pass.”
“How?"
“You can hide the book beneath your bedroll and cheat when nobody was around.”
“Headmaster will send a guard, don`t worry. It`s not that easy.”
We were engrossed in our discussion and I was trying to be helpful when we heard a whistle from afar. The train that still ran in meter gauge came to a halt to the station.
We hoisted Nilu on our shoulders as he hopped in one leg somehow to board the train. Batulbabu smiled one of his rare smiles that lasted for one tenth of a second and I watched in awe the grimace disappearing from his face momentarily. Seated by a window Nilu looked sad for the first time. I saw tears in his eyes or it were mine, I wasn’t sure! For it caught the million sparks of light like a rainbow while the setting sun turned the sky crimson. The train took the speed slowly, the guard’s bogey leaving us mourning for our friend, the engine sending out another whistle before disappearing on the curve.
Batul babu came back after two weeks.
I met Malu, the third brother I guess, who was two year`s senior in the bazaar following his father with one tote bag in each hand. Batulbabu was walking past the Promod`s cycle repair shop, New Ghosh Diary, Ganesh`s grocery and other shops up along the inclined dart tract that had the coal depot at the end. If you are little confused, then I must tell you this was mid seventies and most of the households of our little town still cooked their meal on coal stoves. I walked fast to catch Malu from behind and whispered, “When did Nilu come back home?”
Malu frowned at me as if I was an untouchable.
“I am Amit” I said. “Nilu and I study in the same class.” I added.
“Nilu hasn’t come.” He said sombre-faced. “He got his leg operated. They haven’t released him yet.” I wanted to ask him when he would come back home, but by then Batulbabu heard us and looked over his shoulder. I noticed his habitually grimaced face became sterner as if I were responsible for all the misfortune that befell upon Nilu and his family. Before he used his Mahendra Dutt umbrella as a fly-swat to get rid of me, I fled.
But Nilu didn’t come next month also. Then Mahalaya came and on the dawn of Mahalaya when three of us were sitting on the culvert squatting like monkeys, Khokan said, “does anybody know what happened to Nilu?”
I said what Malu told me, “Nilu underwent surgery and still in the hospital.”
“Who knows what happened this time?” Gautam said
“I will find out from Kalu, the youngest one.” Khokan said.
I suddenly felt nostalgic about Nilu. For some unknown reason I began believing that Nilu didn’t survive his surgery. There was no reason to think like that, but his absence for months together from our life made me feel he wasn’t anymore in this world. I often thought like that without any apparent indication. Many a time I saw myself dead, getting lowered to a grave in a coffin made of chestnut wood, shinning with wreathes of daffodils and roses as if I were a Christian. Whenever I told it to my mother next morning she came up with glass of green liquid, freshly made bitter-guard juice that she believed would cure my indigestion and blasphemous dreams together because she believed former was the cause of the later.
“Do people die during fracture operation? I asked.
“Haven’t heard any!” Gautam said.
“Hey! Why are you asking this? Khokan asked.
“What makes you think our Nilu died during operation?”
“I don`t know why the thought came to me! “ I said.
I nodded, “yes”.
“Poor boy!” She said clicking her tongue.
Through the half-ajar door she took me as the lone visitor, but there were three more boys, all in half-pants and tees, straight from football field hiding behind me.
“Go, speak to him but don`t fiddle with pulleys.” She said before disappearing inside the nurse`s cubicle.
We stepped inside, tiptoeing past the heavy wooden door left ajar by the nurse. Nilu was lying on a bed, covered by a white sheet, his right foot sticking out. A huge wrought iron disc hung from a pulley was connected by a complicated system of plastic ropes, which disappeared under the sheet. I suspected those ropes pulled the broken ends together for healing; funny way if you ask me! Why not fix the bones directly up like Santosh carpenter, the way he fixed the legs by hammering nails into of the wooden seat? I thought. But fixing of wood and bone, in all probability, would be different job altogether; so I thought better not to express my outrageous idea.
We stood around his bed watching the huge ward, almost empty except Nilu and another old man who was busy reading newspaper. He had his left hand plastered and hung around his neck in a sling, but his face was absolutely cheerful with no trace of agony of a broken limb. Nilu saw us entering. Actually his bed was just across the door, so he always noticed whoever entered the ward.
I found his face brightened immediately because he didn’t expect us to visit him in the hospital but he looked alarmed when he recognised I wasn’t alone. Only two people were allowed to visit at one time; the rule was known to us. But neither Khokan nor Gautam, when I suggested them to wait, agreed. I saw Nilu raising his head few inches above his pillow, quickly surveying the ward if the loud-mouth nurse was watching us. I thought that was how the tortoiseshell tomcat watched if the coast was clear before he pounced on fried fish set aside by my mother to be cooked for dinner.
“Why did you jump?” I asked.
“I had no other option.” Nilu said, shaking his head.
“You could beg for pardon, that you would never repeat the mistake again in your life!” I said.
“Do you think the end result would have been any different?” Nilu said sadly.
His father whom we called Batulbabu, from a cartoon character of ‘Batul the great’ of ‘Suktara’, was well-known for his exemplary retribution especially towards his six boys. Legends had it that on a couple of occasions Nilu`s elder brothers met with similar fate when they were caught stealing coins from shrine room or forged Batulbabu`s signature to smuggle shampoo from Ganesh`s grocery. Khokan tittered because he caught the sarcastic remark immediately while it took me some time to register. Breaking a leg for stealing a pocketful of jamun was unacceptable to me. But what was strange, given the brotherly truce we all vowed on oath, no one went thieving alone. How come Nilu, the scrawniest among us, who generally was trusted with ordinary ground duties whenever we stormed any fruit-laden tree, dare to climb up the jamun tree alone? Especially when jamun wasn’t his favourite fruit and the tree stood inside Mr Sarkar`s compound.
The story unfolded after three months when the plaster cylinder was removed and Nilu saw his crooked leg for the first time in three months. All of us went together in the afternoon to Nilu`s house, as if it were an occasion to celebrate. But we got the bad news before we had actually met him. The fifth one of Batulbabu`s offspring’s, whose nick name was Kalu, informed us that three months of plaster was a failure.
Nilu`s fracture didn’t heal and all those ropes and pulleys had failed miserably. Dr Samanta of the railway hospital blamed God for the botched treatment. He argued that somehow the pulleys or the ropes couldn’t maintain the broken ends together despite putting right amount of traction and counter traction. He couldn’t rule out sabotage as well, because he often saw the hands of his adversary`s invisible hand spoiling his good work.
Dr Samanta said that non-union of fracture of tibia was a serious thing and beyond his expertise. He suggested Batulbabu to take Nilu either to Howrah Orthopaedic Hospital near Calcutta, for which he would write a legitimate refer letter or to Dr Mukhopadhyay of Patna, who was regarded as the best orthopaedic surgeon of eastern India at his own cost.
It was during this poignant moment Nilu revealed his actual reason of climbing the jamun tree. We were flabbergasted when he said it wasn’t for jamuns why he climbed the tree. He told us that the tree offered a clear view of the bed room of the Sarkars. For those who didn’t know who the Sarkar`s were, I could only mention here that they got married recently. But I didn’t know Nilu had bedroom eyes.
“Could you see anything?” Gautam asked.
We huddled around him so that the revelation couldn’t be heard by invisible informers who might spill the beans to our parents and rest of us also end up here in the same fracture ward. Nilu raised his head to look above our shoulders if anybody was eavesdropping. Having satisfied that there was none except the nurse in her cubicle busy filling up some register he fell back on his pillow.
“It was going to start.” Nilu said narrowing his eyes. All of us came closer. I could make out all of us were breathing audibly. After all, watching live action was different from watching morphed photographs or reading books printed on cheap papers that were smuggled from Calcutta.
“But I lost my grip just at that time. I was perhaps too engrossed to adjust the angle to look at the scene and didn’t notice that I had shifted onto a narrow branch that was going to snap under my weight.”
“Bull shit!” Khokan exclaimed.
“Kalidas.” Gautam said.
“What happened after that? Did you fell down?” I asked.
“I slipped and fell about a foot down but during the fall, I luckily caught hold of another branch further down and then was hanging like a monkey.” Nilu said. “The commotion of snapping of the branch and the aborted fall made Mr Sarkar to come out and investigate. When he saw me dangling by a branch he shouted at me. He thought I had climbed the tree to pluck the jamuns. He said he would complain to my father.” Nilu chortled as if to praise his good luck that his real intention wasn’t recognised and he escaped harsher punishment.
“‘Come down, come down ‘Mr Sarkar shouted, but I was nervous and didn’t know what to do. Mr Sarkar went inside and came out with a stick. I knew if he could lay his hands on me he wouldn’t let me go in one piece.”
“But you didn’t steal a single jamun!”
“Stupid! He wasn’t angry for the jamuns but for disturbing him when he hated to be disturbed.” Nilu said. We all laughed out loud.
Nilu`s mother said, “You shouldn’t laugh so loudly in the twilight; otherwise the evil jinn will possess you!” She smirked at us while passing across the room where Nilu was lying. Gautam told that we were already possessed by the evil jinn but Nilu`s mother couldn’t catch his words. We laughed out loud again.
Next week we went to see Nilu off at the rail station. We watched Batulbabu talking to one railway stuff probably a TTE (Train Ticket Examiner; the person who examines ticket, if you are still curious!) wearing a black coat over his white shirt and trousers; his brows knitted, assuming a grave look in addition to his perpetual grimacing face.
We asked Nilu, “Where are you going? Howrah?”
Nilu pouted his lower lip sitting on a wheel chair. Dr Samanta was quick to put another plaster cast on his crooked leg. I bent down to watch the new pristine white cylinder around his leg. I was itching to write some parting message, maybe something euphemistic that would remind him about the jamun tree, but I had no device to write on. Besides, Batulbabu was eying us from time to time trying to assess what transpired among us.
“What will happen to your final examination? Gautam said. Then I recalled that final examination was knocking at the door.
Durga puja would start in October and when the festive month would end with Diwali and Bhaiphonta in November, hardly two weeks would be left for the examination. Every year same thing happened; and every year sitting in the hall I bit the lid of the fountain pen regretting the time I wasted in the football field. The recently acquired vice of reading porn books in the lavatory took away lot of time also. I knew at this rate I would definitely fuck up my board result. But right now it was Nilu who was facing life and death problem.
“I don`t know.” Nilu said. “You can submit sick certificate if you miss the examination. In case you come back on time, you can write the examination from hospital bed and then there are more chances that you will pass.”
“How?"
“You can hide the book beneath your bedroll and cheat when nobody was around.”
“Headmaster will send a guard, don`t worry. It`s not that easy.”
We were engrossed in our discussion and I was trying to be helpful when we heard a whistle from afar. The train that still ran in meter gauge came to a halt to the station.
We hoisted Nilu on our shoulders as he hopped in one leg somehow to board the train. Batulbabu smiled one of his rare smiles that lasted for one tenth of a second and I watched in awe the grimace disappearing from his face momentarily. Seated by a window Nilu looked sad for the first time. I saw tears in his eyes or it were mine, I wasn’t sure! For it caught the million sparks of light like a rainbow while the setting sun turned the sky crimson. The train took the speed slowly, the guard’s bogey leaving us mourning for our friend, the engine sending out another whistle before disappearing on the curve.
Batul babu came back after two weeks.
I met Malu, the third brother I guess, who was two year`s senior in the bazaar following his father with one tote bag in each hand. Batulbabu was walking past the Promod`s cycle repair shop, New Ghosh Diary, Ganesh`s grocery and other shops up along the inclined dart tract that had the coal depot at the end. If you are little confused, then I must tell you this was mid seventies and most of the households of our little town still cooked their meal on coal stoves. I walked fast to catch Malu from behind and whispered, “When did Nilu come back home?”
Malu frowned at me as if I was an untouchable.
“I am Amit” I said. “Nilu and I study in the same class.” I added.
“Nilu hasn’t come.” He said sombre-faced. “He got his leg operated. They haven’t released him yet.” I wanted to ask him when he would come back home, but by then Batulbabu heard us and looked over his shoulder. I noticed his habitually grimaced face became sterner as if I were responsible for all the misfortune that befell upon Nilu and his family. Before he used his Mahendra Dutt umbrella as a fly-swat to get rid of me, I fled.
But Nilu didn’t come next month also. Then Mahalaya came and on the dawn of Mahalaya when three of us were sitting on the culvert squatting like monkeys, Khokan said, “does anybody know what happened to Nilu?”
I said what Malu told me, “Nilu underwent surgery and still in the hospital.”
“Who knows what happened this time?” Gautam said
“I will find out from Kalu, the youngest one.” Khokan said.
I suddenly felt nostalgic about Nilu. For some unknown reason I began believing that Nilu didn’t survive his surgery. There was no reason to think like that, but his absence for months together from our life made me feel he wasn’t anymore in this world. I often thought like that without any apparent indication. Many a time I saw myself dead, getting lowered to a grave in a coffin made of chestnut wood, shinning with wreathes of daffodils and roses as if I were a Christian. Whenever I told it to my mother next morning she came up with glass of green liquid, freshly made bitter-guard juice that she believed would cure my indigestion and blasphemous dreams together because she believed former was the cause of the later.
“Do people die during fracture operation? I asked.
“Haven’t heard any!” Gautam said.
“Hey! Why are you asking this? Khokan asked.
“What makes you think our Nilu died during operation?”
“I don`t know why the thought came to me! “ I said.
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