Free First Light by Sunil Gangopadhyay Page B

poetry. But the verses were getting mixed up and the lines blurred over in his mind. Why couldn’t he remember anything?
    Bharat stayed like that for three days and four nights; On the afternoon of the fourth day he heard human voices for the first time. They sounded faint as though they came from another world. He wondered if they were real. It could be that, yearning so passionately for the sound of a human voice, he was hearing it in his imagination. Sometimes it seemed to him that he could heara group of people singing; at others—a chorus of whispers. And then, an odour, delicious and familiar, came wafting in the air. Someone was cooking khichuri in the woods. This, too, he dismissed as imagined. People had such hallucinations when they were starving. He shut his eyes in weariness and utter defeat. But when he opened them again they beheld the most wonderful of sights. Two children stood close, very close to him. They were very young, may be five or six years old. They had healthy black bodies without a stitch of clothing on them. They were so beautiful they seemed to Bharat to be child gods just descended from heaven. He shook his head to dispel what he thought was a vision. But the children remained where they were. They smiled at Bharat flashing white teeth in shining black faces. Bharat tried to smile back but his mouth was tied. He couldn’t smile; he couldn’t talk. The only thing he could do to prove that he was alive was to bat his eyelids rapidly. The children, thinking this to be a game, burst out laughing. Then one said something to the other after which they ran hither and thither collecting sticks and stones in a pile.
    These they proceeded to throw at Bharat laughing merrily all the while. Though Bharat tried to dodge the blows by turning his head his way and that, he got struck several times. The stones had sharp edges and they cut deep into his shaved head sending runnels of blood down his face and neck. The children played this game for a little while longer then, tiring of it, ran into the jungle. ‘
Oré
! Why do you go?’ Bharat’s mind shouted in desperation, ‘Hit me all you want but don’t go. Don’t go leaving me here alone.’
    But all the answer he got was the rustle of leaves and the scampering of rabbits.
    Bharat’s heart sank and a terrible depression overtook him. He had come close to being saved. The children were not alone in the jungle. He was sure of that. There were adults nearby; But he had lost his chance. No one would come near him now. Sinking his head on the earth he burst out weeping. His sobs were inaudible but the tears, gushing out of his eyes and soaking the gamchha around his mouth were visible enough.

Chapter VII
    Journeying from Agartala to Calcutta was no easy task. Thanks to the arbiters of India’s destiny iron wagons with steam engines in them were carrying goods and passengers with amazing speed in many parts of the country. But Tripura lay outside British territory. The nearest rail station from Agartala was Kushthia on the border of Bengal. It took quite a few days to get there. Radharaman commenced his journey on an elephant with Shashibhushan as companion. Shashibhushan had welcomed the. chance of travelling at state expense to Calcutta where certain property disputes pertaining to his family awaited his attention.
    It was a cool bright day of early November when the two set off, sitting side by side on the howdah. There was a nip in the air and the yellowing leaves shuddered in the trees. The elephant swayed ponderously over the uneven forest track stopping, from time to time, to nuzzle the orchids that clung to the trunks and branches of trees. Every time the elephant stopped the mahut rapped his head with a stick and cried
Hee ré ré ré
. Walking behind were six coolies and two guards with guns. Shashibhushan had a gun too. He was as skilled with a gun as he was with a camera. He wore Western clothes