Gate No. 2
She came
running humming a familiar song, smiled at me and asked-
“Tea or me”?
Huh! What was that? Didn’t
you miss out the coffee? Well may be you are right, no one would drinks coffee
around here, its tea all the way!
So "tea or me" would be alright, and with that sweet impish
smile of yours thrown in, I will settle for you!
"Oh ho! Just
tell me do you belong to T.E"?
She asked again slapping her forehead with
a mock exasperation.
No I do not belong to the
Tea Estate. I am on my vacation to meet my In-laws here.
Gate No.2 of Itakhuli Tea Estate is a shorter
detour to Tinsukia Town if you want to avoid the long main road. The gate
is flanked by Tingrai River, and the steel bridge across is just too narrow to
allow anything bigger than a three wheeler to cross over. The bridge, erected
during the British days, is old but in a perfect condition. Those English
fellows, not withstanding my dislike towards ‘before my birth’ Imperial rule,
did their job quite well I must say.
Standing on the bridge you
can see a large stretch of the river and the thick shrubberies covering the banks
on both sides. I was told, many have spotted a leopard or two here at night.
I have never seen one, but
many evening I have noticed faintly glowing remains of funeral pyres. In spite of the
patch being dark and spooky, people preferred taking this short cut through gate
no 2.
You may not call this contraption with a rusty iron pipe fulcrum with a large stone tied as weight and a
jute rope to close and open the boom barrier a gate, but it did work as one.
The thatch roofed
structure with bamboo pillars wedged into the earthen plinth was the quarter allotted
to the gate keeper. Like most frail, lazy and irresponsible Assamese workers, he
too was given a non productive job. Possibly most of the time he would be
sleeping, intoxicated after eating bowl full of fermented rice passing on the
job of controlling the entry to his young daughter.
And she manned the gate.
She was ten, may be
eleven.
Apart from the
members of the tea Garden local people too uses this route, which is supposed
to be discouraged here by the gate keeper.
“I remember every face I
see. I name them speckey, moochi, smiley an so on. I will remember you and will
not ask again”.
She said trying sound
serious.
“Why do you not go to
school”?
I did, stopped two years
back. But I can read, see”..
She showed me the thin
tattered ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ in her hand,
“I can write my name too
an will be able to sign in the ledger book when I will pruner as I grow up”.
Pruning is a coveted job
in tea gardens. Pruners are paid well. Most pruners belong to the workers
community originally from the tribal belts of Orissa, migrated during the
British rule. They were called Koolies. Today this term is seen as a derogatory
and they are referred Saah Majdoor.
I saw her every day as
Gate No.2 became my usual exit and entry to the estate.
She would sit on the
verandah reading her ‘Amar Chitra Katha’
over and over again,
watching for people approaching the gate. Hundred times she would run and
open the gate with zest and a wide smile on her face, never complaining, asking
the same question to every new face at the gate.
“T.E”?
I never asked her name,
but called her Tiorni. (টী অৰ নি)
“So you will open the gate
if I am from TE. What if I am not”?
“I will open the gate even
if you are not”.
“Then why do you ask”?
“I am told to ask, that’s
why”!
“Do you smile at every one
even if they do not smile back”?
“I smile at every one, I
feel good”.
Then she loosens the
rope to open the gate for me.
That was Yesterday
And today!
And every day.
“Eat one”!
She offers me a wild goose
berry she was eating.
“Don’t take the green ones,
they are sour, white ones are nice, You drink water after this, oooh the water would
taste so sweet”!
While returning from the
town that evening I brought a bar of chocolate for her.
She was not there at the
gate. She did not come running.
Eight in the evening was
night in the garden. Strange, for a country so spread out why there is only
time zone? You lose sense of time as darkness engulfs you so early in the
evening.
But that doesn’t bother Kaki-ma
our next door neighbor. Leaning over the hedge she shouted at us to break the
news.
“O’ Mooner ma, shunok to”.
She would mix Assamese and bangle in a very quaint
manner.
“Something bad has happened
to the gatekeeper’s daughter. She was found unconscious by the river bank.
Somebody has strangled her. They have taken her to the hospital, but
maybe she is dead already”.
For a moment I couldn’t
believe what I heard. I ran towards the hospital.
She was there lying on the
concrete pedestal at the hospital doorway, surrounded by crowding onlookers, stretching
and leaning over one another to get a better view.
I pushed myself through the
crowd. I could see Tiorni in the faint light from the dim dirty bulb hanging
from the porch. Her lips were dark blue. She was bleeding between her
legs and on her chest. Her shirt was torn and there was deep wound on her
chest. She would have developed a breast there, now there was flab of flesh
hanging, bitten and gnawed by someone.
The woman holding her limp
body trying to save her from cold was her mother.
With her vision getting
blurry with streams of tears rolling down she was pleading to all around.
“Please call the doctor”.
“Can someone please open
the doctors room; she is feeling cold out here”.
I knew she was not feeling
cold any more.
The blood was not
clotting, hypothermia has already set in, she was dead long ago. I prayed,
wishing she was dead before she was bitten and raped. Was she grown up enough
to understand what was being done to her? How could she have gone through the pain
of someone driving his teeth into her and biting off her breast?
The mother kept pleading. No one moved. They all
looked on with expressionless blank faces.
It took over ten minutes
for the hospital attendant to find the key to the doctor’s room.
The mother pleaded again
for help to carry Tiorni inside. There was no movement.
I stepped forward; somebody
pulled my hand and held me forcefully.
I stood there bewildered,
watching the women struggling to carry her dead daughter inside.
The Doctor has not come
yet. Someone said his driver has gone on an errand. Why can’t he come walking; why
can’t someone with a two wheeler go and fetch him?
The duty Nurse was
watching KBC, the program of knowledge powerhouse!
Feeling hopeless I
came back home. The bar of chocolate was still in my pocket.
Next day was my last stay
at Itakhuli.
As I was leaving the estate, Gate No2
was open and unmanned. She did not come running asking-
“Tea or Me”?
Last time she asked
someone decided to take her.
- Why do incident like this
happen? Who is responsible? Indians are sexually
starved. But who makes them so?
The dish of Briyani getting cold.
