The Silver Bracelet (Part 1)

Today is Special.

That was the first thought that struck him as he lay in his bed, woken up by the 5:00 am arati . Like every morning, the chants of the medieval mantras, the beating of the khols and the tinkling of the manjiraas, had together spun a magical weave into his dreams, even before he himself got out of them and embraced the risen world. The distance between the temple where the morning arati was going on, and his house was about one average-sized pond long, which, for you educated lot means about 50 metres or so. Every morning, he wakes up and slowly walks to the hand-pump in his front-yard, brushes his teeth and gargles loudly, frightening the sparrows gathered around the water source. And then on most days, he solemnly looks around, not particularly at anything. By the time the temple crowd disperses after the arati session, he wanders into the vegetable garden. He checks for new coconuts on the palm tree, young lady’s-fingers hanging upside-down on the rough-stemmed plants, and his favorite: pumpkin flowers on the pumpkin vines. Now you must not think that just because he is old, retired, often-forgotten, mostly-lonely, and almost perpetually suffering from one ailment to another, that he is slow, and that he looks unhappy. In fact, today he, our beloved Lelin-dadu, is very happy.

Here in the village of two-lakes, we have always known Lelin-dadu as our “dadu”. If you are wondering about his peculiar name, let me tell you that his real name is Lenin Chandra Das, after the great Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. But as it happens with village-distortions, Lenin became Lelin, and Lelin later became Lelin-dadu. In his own way, he was a revolutionary too. He was the first school-teacher at the only school ever built here. He was the first to go to college. He was also the first to actually earn a salary and the first one to retire.

Forty years ago, when I was still a school-going kid, Lelin-dadu was known as the unstoppable teacher that would plead with villagers to send their kids to school during the harvest season. In those days, when we had dirt roads ( since the newer brick roads were built only during the Bangladesh liberation war), boys stopped going to school during the harvest season, because the dirt roads were still flooded with waters from the annual floods. And when he was tired of persuading the parents of the kids without much success, he would bribe us kids with batasas, that are nothing more than coagulated lumps of sugar. To you kids of today, I am sure that isn’t that big an incentive, but back then, we willingly walked the mile and a half through muddy waters ridden by frogs and misdirected snakes, to school everyday for our share of soggy batasas. Aaahh ! as I tell you the story my mouth almost waters to the taste of those forgotten batasas ! But I know that I have been appointed to tell you the story of Lelin-dadu and the Silver bracelet, and will hence forsake my own desires to proceed in the right direction………..

To be Continued................

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arati : hindu prayer
khol: Traditional drums popular in east India, esp. Bengal
manjiraas: Indian percussion instrument, hand cymbals
dadu: Grandfather