Ira Pande

IN 1999, long before Swachh Bharat cleaned up India and Bharat, Gyan Chaturvedi wrote a hilarious satire and called it ‘Baramasa’. The title was a sly spoof on the classical art and music tradition that celebrates the cycle of seasons in romantic compositions and genteel ways. A doctor who lives in Bundelkhand, Chaturvedi’s sharp eye, alert to every register of the human voice and each sound of the village, captures the comic and tragic aspects of such forgotten terrains in a way that no writer in English can hope to portray.

Let me give you a brief idea of how this area, a forgotten relic of what was once called United Provinces, fell off the map. Many decades ago, my grandfather was the Dewan of Orchha and my parents were married in Tikamgarh, after my grandfather passed on. In the generous manner of those feudal times, my mamu was employed as the secretary to the Maharaja of Orchha and my mother’s kanyadaan was performed by the ruler himself. For all these reasons, our family held Bundelkhand very close to its heart and the bond, as I discovered while reading ‘Baramasa’, is as strong even now.

As a child, I heard wonderful stories about the dacoits (who were venerated like Robin Hood) because they stole from the rich to help the poor. They had huge moustaches, and walked about fearlessly with their guns slung from their shoulders in the ravines of the Chambal until a few decades ago. Those who have seen ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, a biopic with the brilliant Irrfan Khan as the lead character, may recall the concept of the ‘baghi’, a man who spurns the sarkari establishment to dish out his own brand of public justice. In fact, it was believed that the rulers of Orchha were themselves descendants of the rebels and ‘baghis’ who troubled the Mughal empire and that Jahangir Mahal (their palace now run as a heritage hotel) was built to provide sanctuary to Prince Salim (later Jahangir) when he rebelled against his father, Akbar. Legends abound here and troubadours sing the glories of these braves in a form of ballad called the ‘Alah-Udal’, in memory of two legendary ‘baghi’ brothers. Teejan Bai, another folk artiste, performed the Pandav-vani, where she enacted the valour of the Pandavas in a folk version of the great epic. Most of Habib Tanvir’s actors in his Naya Natak company, that shook the mannered plays of the 1960s and 1970s, were from Chhattisgarh (from the MP side of Bundelkhand).

Uma Bharati, the firebrand sadhvi who was once very visible and active on the national political scene, came from there. The Bundelkhandi dialect is both a sweet and rough version of Hindi and colourfully peppered with swear words and scatological terms. It has a rhythm and style that is compelling in a way that the softer tones of the official languages lack. It asks to be heard.

The focus in ‘Baramasa’ is the family of a widow who has five sons and a daughter she is desperate to get married. However, it is actually a portrait of life in a village that time forgot. From the opening chapter, where he conveys the mood of his ‘Baramasa’ through the sights and smells of a village waking up to a new day, the reader is drawn into the intimate lives of the characters to establish a rhythm of life that has not changed for millennia. I cannot describe in a few words what I felt as I read about the five brothers (perhaps the epic Pandava story in a lower key), the filth and squalor of the open drains (this was written in 1999, long before Swachh Bharat) and the lack of any avenue of employment except watching Dharmendra films and aspiring to pass school somehow to get a sarkari naukri. Or the pathetic life of the unmarried daughter, who is plain and dark and has no dowry to offer. Chaturvedi manages to draw the reader into a world that lies so near and yet is so far from urban India.

This is an India that we do not see on our television channels, nor one that has any attraction that draws tourists hither. Its dusty landscape, its rough life and harsh consonants can never appeal to the millennials, who prefer to travel to those parts to seek rural bliss that have been combed and carded into picture-book destinations. In the saga of the glorious nation that is now being created, there is little space left for legends and stories that have never been acknowledged in our urbane accounts of official history. Perhaps, they were left out because they are folk legends, not verifiable facts, or perhaps, they were the story of an India that we all chose to overlook. Whatever the reason, it would be worthwhile for our woke millennials — who take the knee for all those who have been exploited, spurned and denied their share of human dignity — to widen their horizon to ensure such lives matter as well.

There is a splendid English translation of the novel now, available as ‘Alipura’, which carries the mood of the original well. However, if you really want to understand what our liberals and secularists are unable to see, read Gyan Chaturvedi in Hindi.

This is the India that fell into the lap of our radical Hindutva champions like a ripe fruit.