Bear- hug by Madhab Kumar Bandyopadhyay (universal ebook reader txt) 📕

Three

boys and three girls led by ‘Uncle’ formed the ‘group of seven’, well-known among their peers and professors as a pure fun-loving group engaged in all sorts of conventional as well as exotic activities in search of fun. ‘Uncle’ was no uncle to anybody, he was only one among the seventy odd undergraduate students of science studying in the same class of a city college during the nineties of last century. During his early days in college, Sandip acquired the nickname ‘Uncle’ because of his moralistic stands on many issues, his level of maturity and an attitude befitting an elder member of a family. All the members of this group were much junior to me and whatever I could know about their adventures and escapades was through Sandip who would occasionally share with me the experiences of his group.
This group revived the old art of hand written wall magazines. Whenever they could publish an issue, complete with their own ornamental drawings and commentaries on different aspects of campus-life, there was no dearth of readers. Often their commentaries bordered on irreverence and the identities of the victims of their sometimes offensive observations were but thinly veiled. However, their creative energy received all round appreciation and they enjoyed some sort of encouraging indulgence from the professors so that even when it appeared that they had crossed the limit, they could get away with only a mild rebuke from the authorities.
Uncle acted as some sort of guardian and moderator of this fiercely argumentative group. Barun was always ready to pick up a quarrel and Arko was not far behind. Sudipto and Rita were the most quiet members of the group. Though no formal proposal and acceptance ever took place, they were established as lovers. It had been also in the air that Arko and Ruchika were coming to love each other. The same was true for Barun and Ria . It was an unwritten law that all friends must be treated equally by each member of the group in public; the rule was not applicable while any pair was alone.

For the first time during their college life, at the end of third year, the group decided to spend their summer vacation in the city itself. Summer was unusually hot that year and the met office went on declaring every passing day as the ‘hottest day in the last 75 years’. This led them to spend the first few nights roaming along the bank of the river on the western side of the city, mixing with drunkards and all sorts of odd personalities who take over the reins of the city after midnight.On one similar night, Rita discovered a big white horse carriage was trotting through the middle of the widest road of the business district, which at that time was almost free of other vehicles.
The old world charm of the beautifully decorated carriage with a royal touch induced in her an irresistible desire to have a ride. She broke the news to other members of the group. But the members of the group were then intoxicated with their own ideas of democracy formed by the previous nights’ intimacy with the vagabonds, beggars, drunkards and all sorts of tramps. They began a debate about the propriety of enjoying such royal luxury in a modern democracy. Sudipto, noted for his weakness towards Rita, finally opened up that there was no harm in trying provided it was democratically decided. Every body agreed and the group proceeded towards the coachman and sought his opinion about the propriety of touring a few sights in his carriage. The coach man expressed his opinion in the most democratic manner, ‘I don’t see no harm…. as long as you pay me the proper fare.’
Every body but Arko hailed this opinion as the most correct and democratic one and was preparing for a democratic negotiation of a proper fare, when Arko intervened, ‘But did we take the opinion of the horses? After all, they are the ones to carry the load.’ The Coach-man was under moderate booze and felt that there is a flaw in this argument, but he could not exactly pin point. With some hesitation, he declared, ‘but horses don’t have a….no opinion.’

This proclamation of the coachman incited a great debate. Everybody should have an opinion, horses included, argued the youngsters. For good measure, Arko threw in the remark, ‘horses are like the subaltern members of the society; nobody cares for their views.’ The horse-man was bewildered beyond his wits and could somehow mutter, ‘misters, they must have views and opinions, but they do not speak it.’ Arko bitterly censured him, ‘they must have views, a language and of course the voice. Only you did not care to learn those; your only interest has been to earn money at their expense.’ Uncle had not uttered a single word till then, but seeing that the matter was going out of hands he produced a bunch of bananas and distributed among the group, the coachman included. While the members got two bananas each, the coachman received six bananas. He protested, ‘Why six for me? Do I accept charity?’ Uncle assured him that the distribution was perfectly democratic; four bananas were meant for the two horses.

Having established democracy on all fronts, the group occupied the carriage and directed the owner to proceed towards Victoria Memorial, which reminds one of the beautiful Taj Mahal of Agra. With the blue sky as background, sight of the white marble silhouette of the Memorial made Rita uncontrollably romantic. She whispered to Sudipto, ‘ Did you ever think of building something like this marble -wonder for me? Think of the great lover Shahjahan the Emperor…how fortunate must have been Mumtaj, his love!’ Ruchika overheard and expressed her indignation, ‘dumbest of ideas! How does it affect you….whether your lover spends tons of money to build a memorial after your death? Try to live and enjoy, child!’While the beauty of the Memorial was being thus appreciated, a police jeep screeched to halt by the side of the carriage and an officer in starched uniform emerged, equipped with gadgets like a baton, a gun and a whistle.

Now Barun had the fixed idea that every Policeman is a thief or a robber patronized by the Government. He took it upon himself to protect his friends, particularly the girls, from the indignity and harassment that this thug of an officer was going to hand out. He always sported a costly chronometer, his only possession of any worth. With the chronometer in the palm of his stretched right hand, he humbly invited the officer to accept it and leave them in peace. The furious officer, convinced that he was accosting a band of seasoned criminals, shouted to his subordinates, ‘Search the persons of these goons and make a seizure list first!’

Uncle was a quick thinker. He took the officer aside and whispered, ‘this friend of mine has just been released from mental asylum. It’s a long tragic story, officer! We are just trying to keep him in good humor so he does not relapse into depression. He is a brilliant student, in fact we all are. Please let us go.’ The officer let them go with a golden piece of advice, ‘Next time when you travel with your nutty friends, ask them not to try bribing an officer with any chronometer.’ Uncle readily agreed, ‘Yes, officer! Useless things,….. I mean these chronometers.’
Uncle ordered the coach-man to drive fast, if necessary by whipping the horses, to his apartment. All the members of the group agreed that the sultry summer heat was unbearable, police force had established the ‘rule

of jungle’ in the city, and they must leave the city forthwith. After much argument and counter argument they decided that the jungle was a much better place than the city and they must start for the capital of the neighboring state from where they could go to Naturehut, a picturesque hill town with pristine jungle.

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Next

day it was well into the afternoon that the group of seven got down from the omnibus at the terminus of the capital town of neighboring state. The first thing about the town that gladdened their hearts was complete absence of any uniformed law-enforcers. ‘At last, we have reached the paradise of freedom’, Barun observed and everybody nodded. Just then, a motorcycle, with two pillion riders openly brandishing loaded guns, passed by them. Uncle, horrified at the sight of gun- brandishing criminals roaming openly, came back to the terminus and cautiously queried the tea-stall boy about the identities of the pillion riders. The boy couldn’t care less, ‘who bothers? Some operators of the mafia gangs…they must be.’ All the boys and the girls reached the stall in time to receive this piece of information. ‘So, we are from frying pan into the fire,’ uncle muttered while dropping on a chair.
Discreet queries from other customers revealed that so long as there was daylight, members of the mafia wouldn’t touch an innocent person. After sunset it was a different story, not that they were at fault all the time, you know, sometimes it became impossible to distinguish other gang members from unconcerned citizens. ‘Is there no police here?’ asked Barun. ‘Plenty of them,’ replied a customer, ‘otherwise, who would guard the members of the cabinet and high officials? Besides, FIR’s have to be lodged every day and every night after gun battles and court cases have to be fought.’
Naturehut was about one hundred and fifty kilometers from the town and the group could start only in the next morning. The stall-owner advised, ‘quickly move into a hotel before sunset and venture to come out only after day-break.’ ‘How safe are the hotels? You see, we have three girls in our group……,’ queried Arko. ‘Reasonably safe,’ assured the stall-owner, ‘we, who do business here, pay protection money regularly …. to the dominating gangs… also to the police.’
They checked into the nearest hotel. It was a rather cheap one, considering the ‘other’ expenses that the owner had to shoulder. Food was served in their rooms for there was no dining hall or a separate restaurant and the customers wouldn’t venture out at night. They spent the night peacefully in the extremely hot and humid dingy rooms of the hotel; their own sweat almost boiled them. Occasionally, sound of gun-shots in nearby streets disturbed them but more bothersome were two hugely built bearded persons drinking and singing in unison in a neighbouring room with two revolvers kept on the table by the side of bottles of whisky. They hugged each other tightly, talked and sang and even sobbed throughout the course of their interminable drinking session. The manager had assured that they were a perfectly peace-loving couple and ‘if the law permitted, they could live happily as a married couple free from all sorts of ignominy and harassment.’


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