SONS OF THE SOIL

Sons of the Soil

Advocate’s office was located on a junction in the clumsy labyrinth of narrow pathways surrounding the cluster of buildings of The Patiala House Court of New Delhi. Next to advocate’s office, there was Xerox machine installed on a wooden table in the open, and the operator there appeared to seldom have any free moments. The advocate too appeared to remain always engaged with clients, While the clients would talk at length about their cases, occasionally they would slip into emotions and tell the lawyer how with utter sleight they were wronged by their opponent. The lawyer would never interrupt to eschew these wasteful blocks of his busy time; rather he would add himself with his consolations to ease them out of their emotional agony. He would perform this with his visible involvement, though it would be as counterfeit as the work of a good actor. At the end of his day, when the lawyer would reach home , exactly the reverse would be there for him to encounter. The two sons and the father, mother having succumbed to cancer two years before, won’t make a very happy and communicative lot. The elder, Avatar, had one leg disabled by Polio; the younger Praveen was suffering from acute depression. The lawyer had not spared any effort to lessen the physical and mental agonies of his sons; he was genuine here to the point till where a father could lead himself for the welfare of his sons, and as well the lawyer was flimsy to same extreme order about his sons. While his life shuttled in this contradictory pair of ambiences of his office and home life, he sometimes thought that his life was like a river that ended into a dam. The dam is artificial but always full with water; the river is natural but can be seen going almost dry.

After completing his BE from Delhi College of Engineering, Avatar joined IIT, Kharagpur for his ME. On a Sunday, traveled to nearby Calcutta with a friend just to see the city. The friend was a resident of Calcutta ; his place was in Barrokpur. Avatar had come to Barrokpur station to take a train for the city. Just outside the station, Avatar sat on a bench sipping tea from the tiny earthenware cup and watched intently the procession on the road. They were shouting slogans, though they walked peacefully and orderly in the procession in the middle of the road, prohibiting entire road traffic. They all appeared committed fully to their cause, though Avatar could not have even a crass guess what it was, as Bengali language was Arabian to him. At 6 PM they dispersed with their communist red flags and soon, restoration of normalcy appeared in the works in the market. Avatar dropped the idea of going to the city, walked down the road lined on both sides with shops. He stopped near a cinema hall showing posters of ` Bay of Wolf ’. He had read about the film. He bought a ticket and walked up the stairs to the balcony.

The film was an arrant unbelievable story with very remarkable action and photography skills packed in every scene. Though fictitious and unbelievable, every scene of the film clearly indicated the perfection that could have been achieved only by the kind of commitment to cause and involvement that Avatar saw in the procession on the road outside in the slogan shouting marchers. Both held Avatar’s mind in a kind of duality he had never been in before. Both together had the mix of oppositeness and similarity like two oppositely meaning words formed using the same alphabets in the same number.

After his ME, Avatar got admission and scholarship for his postgraduate studies in Tennessee Technological University . He studied even harder than earlier and showed impressive results. He qualified for lecturer ship position in the same university.

Avatar waited impatiently outside the vice-chancellor’s office. The formalities were over and he had just to receive his appointment letter from the Vice-Chancellor.

The VC was barely over five and a half feet. His eyes remained half closed as he talked in his impressive speech with Avatar. At some regular lapse of time, the VC would open his eyes full and look at Avatar. His this intermittent act would spray a stream of authority to augment the captivation of his visitor. It reminded one of a quick and impacting drag of the line shifter lever of a manual typewriter after completion of typing of a line.

Praveen had somehow completed his BA and had become even more depressive in his unsuccessful search for a job. The lawyer father, whenever he would talk with Avatar, asked Avatar to take his brother the US , where the boy could be treated better for his depression to rid him of his ailment. Then perhaps the boy could settle in some kind of a career.

Finally the father became successful in breaking the hesitation of Avatar, and Praveen reached the US . The doctors there diagnosed him as a maniac depressive. Praveen remained on drugs. Praveen would always be asking Avatar for money. He would return home every night heavily drunk. Avatar would not argue with Praveen to eschew unseemly scenes. Praveen’s demands for money were going high as he was now spending on girls also in addition to drinking.

Professor Avatar , now heading the department of mech. Engineering in his college, rose from his chair and proceeded towards the projector to give a clarification on a point raised by someone from the participants of the paper meeting. As he walked, his Polio-stricken leg made him little off balance. He looked at this disabled leg and smiled. How insignificant had his physical disability become in the pall of his intellectual abilities that enveloped his personality; how weak or dying it had become to rule out and restrict any embarrassment to him. How similar it was, Avatar thought in his amusement, to the role of digits in places of hundreds, tens, and beyond decimal in a currency amount of the order of millions written in some financial statement; hundreds, tens and beyond decimal digits mean nothing, yet they have to remain in the statement of the amount.

This morning, the usually calm and composed Avatar almost showed up indignation in his behavior. The night before, there had been a serious altercation between him and Praveen. Avatar, seeing Praveen ruining himself, was insisting on having Praveen returned to India , whereas Praveen was not in the least interested in departing from this land of booze and beauty. Finally, Avatar gave his last warning to Praveen to mend his ways, take his medication and remain clean so that efforts could be made to find a job for him. He asked Praveen to explain all his spending. A furious Praveen, yelling invectives on his brother left the house and returned only in the morning, heavily drunk as usual.

While taking his class that morning, Avatar almost shouted at a research student, who wanted a point to be explained again. Avatar didn’t repeat the matter; he asked the student to come see him in his room after the class was over.

Avatar was explaining in detail and clarifying the doubts of the student in his room. Suddenly, Praveen stormed into the room , and ignoring presence of the student, asked Avatar to give him two hundred dollars. Avatar indignantly rose from his seat and asked Praveen to clear out from the room. The two brothers looked into the eyes of each other. Then Avatar looked away to control his anger. Seeing Praveen not in the least having intention to fade away from there, Avatar looked again into the eyes of his brother to repeat his ordering him out, but he suddenly stopped short. There stood Praveen with the violence of a wild animal in his eyes. Avatar froze in his place as he saw Praveen taking out a gun from jacket’s pocket. Avatar immediately sensed it was too late to try calming down that surge of violence and hatred in the eyes of his brother. Praveen elevated his gun holding hand to direct the barrel towards Avatar, and without any sign of a last minute indecision, pulled the trigger. The student just looked on in his horror. As Avatar dropped down tilting his chair from his unruly descent, Praveen looked for a long moment disdainfully at the dead body of his brother and then headed for the door to go out.