Poush Mela

Courtsey: outlookinida.com

Sandhya and  I always wanted to go to Santiniketan to see the Poush Mela. It is a fair held around the last week of December. This fair marks the harvest season and is characterized by baul music, dances and tribal sports. The students of Santiniketan perform during the festival and hordes of people descend onto the peaceful town. We boarded the train at Howrah for our journey to Bolpur and were eager to reach and see the place of which we had read and heard so much but could never make it. Sandhya has a funny problem, she dozes off as soon as there is any movement of the vehicles she is on, be it a car, a plane or even a crowded bus. Today, was no exception and I smiled watching her jerk her head in front a couple of times as the train moved ahead. Jokingly I would tell her that she reads namaaz whilst on the move. I pulled out the newspaper from my bag and tapped my coat pocket once and felt fine. While the newspaper screamed before me of rapes, drugs, scandals and booming economy, my mind was travelling back in time and remembering Sujoy.

Sujoy and I studied in the same school at Kolkata. While my father worked in a semi- government organization, Sujoy’s father was a senior officer in the Indian Navy. We hit off well as we played in almost all the inter-class tournaments in the same team and, more importantly, we were the perpetual backbenchers who got into trouble often and were thrown out of the class by teachers. But there was never a dull moment with Sujoy, for he made sure I got some patty or burger from the school canteen to eat without ever having to pay for the same. When the school organized some fair or exhibition, he would share cold drinks and again, these were free for me. While others in the class often said that Sujoy had flicked their pen or notebooks, he never touched any of my stuff. When I went to his house one evening, I could not resist laughing when I saw the notice put on his lawn which read, “Grass grows by Inches and Dies by Feet- Keep off the grass.” I knew Sujoy had picked this from the school ground.

Then there was this new class teacher we had in tenth class who wreaked terror by caning students rampantly. You made the smallest of mistake, the cane called Charlie would come out of the cupboard and strike the hands and backs of students. The fine slim cane would go swoosh and touch the poor student, get bent and then spring back to the original shape, but for the victim, it hurt real badly. One winter morning, when the school started, the teacher could not find Charlie in his cupboard. He looked for it everywhere but it was not to be found. The angry teacher shouted, “I will not return to the class till the cane is returned to me!” All the students, especially the bright ones, came rushing to Sujoy and begged him to return the cane, otherwise their studies would suffer in the absence of the class teacher. Sujoy simply said, “I have not done anything so get away from me.” After two days of complete silence and absence of the teacher, the students discovered Charlie back in the cupboard, where the irate teacher would usually keep it and had searched every fold and drawer the day it went missing. Sujoy was giggling and seeing him many of us started laughing out aloud. The class prefects went to the teacher’s room to hand over the cane to the teacher who had been sulking there for the last two days. He took it in his hands as if receiving some gallantry award from the President of India. He then returned back to the class with his prized possession, happy and cheerful, ready to make life miserable for the students once again.

On our way back from school, I asked Sujoy, “How did you do it?” “It was easy, mate. I have a skeleton key with which I can open every lock. On Monday, I reached school at 6.30am before any other student arrived and before any housekeeping staff started their work. I opened up the main building door, then climbed up the stairs, opened the class room and then the cupboard. I had every intention of breaking the cane so that we would be relieved of its torture forever, but since it was getting late, I dropped it in the big dustbin outside the classroom, the one that is cleaned once a week. I did the same thing today morning to put back the dreaded Charlie in its place.” I looked at my friend in admiration and in complete awe.

While Sujoy never failed to amaze and enthrall me, his biggest heist was a couple of years later. We were in class twelve, and it was essential to pass the pre-boards, otherwise the school had a strict policy of not letting the failed students appear in the finals. Having not prepared much throughout the year, this seemed an insurmountable hurdle, especially the Accounts examination. Left with no option, some of us approached our hero for help. As planned, we all went to Sujoy’s house for group studies a day before the Accounts examination and he pulled up his school sweater and shirt, and from underneath pulled out a printed paper and lay it before us…he had got us the question paper for the next day! We studied all night, or should I say we solved all the questions and next morning reached school. The Vice Principal, led the school prayers as usual as we stood like good boys in the queue waiting to troop into the classrooms impatient to start vomiting the answers prepared overnight. After coming out of the classroom, we hugged Sujoy and wanted to know how he managed to get the paper out. He smiled and said, “It was simple. The head master keeps his window open during the day and there is a gap between his leaving the room for the day, till the housekeeping comes to shut everything down. I entered the room through the open window during this gap, saw the envelopes containing different question papers and pulled out one from the envelope on which was written Accountancy Class XII-D.”

After school we parted company. I went on to study Sociology and later ended up doing law, Sujoy went off to the UK to study journalism. He returned after a couple of years and kept in touch. Now it was my time to pay off the debts. Sujoy would off and on call me up and ask for help, whenever he would get into trouble. Sometimes, it was a case of shoplifting from a supermarket, on another he was caught with some stuff hidden inside his jacket…every time he would call. “Dipesh, brother I am at so and so police station. Please come and get me released. I have not done anything but these buggers will not listen. You have to help me.” Once, he even stole his case file from the court where his bail plea was being heard! I had a few friends in the police who I could count upon and managed to have him out. I could never tell him that he needed professional help, just helped him for old time sake.

A week ago, there was an article in the newspaper of a theft of an ancient bronze axe from the Indian Museum at Kolkata. The CCTV camera recordings showed a man who was later identified as Sujoy Sanyal who picked up the artefact as if it was a flower in a neighbour’s garden, admired it, put it in his pocket and walked away. The museum had handed over the video footage to Kolkata Police, who wasted no time to reach Sujoy’s sprawling house in the outskirts of the Kolkata beyond the airport. When the police reached his home, the newspaper said that the culprit set upon them eight ferocious dogs and tried to sneak away from behind, but was eventually nabbed.

As expected, the call came. “Dipesh, my Brother, I need your help one last time. I promise I will give up all this and will never ever do anything wrong. You know, I am sick and I do not mean any harm to anyone, it is just that I cannot control myself.”

“Sujoy, this time it looks difficult, with the police set against you. Why did you set the dogs on them? Some of the cops are injured as well and they are now determined to deny any bail request.”

“Dipesh, my Brother, I did not set the dogs on anyone. These are stray dogs that I feed, and when they saw police entering my house, they thought some intruders were there. The sticks in the hands of the cops made them feel threatened, and they started protecting me and my house. You are the best lawyer in town and I know if you try, I will be out of this place. There is no better lawyer than you. Please do this for me one last time!”

When a friend seeks help, no matter how bad a crime he may have committed, you just cannot hold yourself back and so it was with me. I went and made a strong plea of mental illness and got a psychiatrist to strengthen the case. Sujoy finally got out on bail but I lost some good friends in uniform that day. Sujoy invited me to his house that evening and I went. The dogs seemed pretty friendly to me, and were sitting on the sofa and piano. After a few drinks to celebrate his release, Sujoy handed over a small packet and asked me not to open it there but to take it home. “This is the most precious thing I have and today am handing it over to you as a mark of my gratitude for all you have done for me. From tomorrow, I am starting a new chapter and will be visiting the doctor, taking professional help to overcome this long standing ailment. So thank you my friend for standing by me.”

I went home and sat down on the bed with Sandhya standing and watching as I opened up the packet. Inside was a wooden box with a knob. There was no lock. I opened the knob and lifted the lid, and my eyes popped out when I saw the content. Sandhya put her hand over her mouth in complete amazement…I know she wanted to shout out aloud or may have even fainted had I not given her a strong shake on her shoulders. She controlled herself and spoke in hushed voice, “What do we do with this?” “We will return it to the rightful owners soon,” I replied.

The train was rolling into the station and I once again shook the slumbering Sandhya into an awakening position. As we got down from the train, the air seemed so much cleaner, the place looked so green and colourful. A man with a placard was waiting and he picked up the suitcases and put them in the boot of the car which he drove and took us to Santiniketan. The driver took us straight to the Vice Chancellor’s office where the VC himself, and a few senior staff members were waiting to welcome us with folded hands. We went inside and sat down in the huge room with pictures of Rabindranath and Devendranath Tagore looking down on us. We were offered gol sherbet and then I stood up and pulled out the wooden box from my coat pocket and handed it over to the Vice Chancellor. The VC opened the box and was in tears. The other members of the staff gathered there surrounded the VC as they took turns to hold the box and then touch their foreheads in complete reverence. It was not a surprise for Sandhya and me, seeing their reaction, after all Gurudev’s original Nobel Prize was back home today, after 17 years, when it went missing from the vault at Santiniketan in 2004. No questions were asked about how we got it. Today it was about getting back the pride and the glory that belonged to Bengal’s most famous son, whose talent knew no bounds and his relevance and legacy immortal.

SS