The Last Wish

“Once upon a time in a fairy land…..” No , this is not a fairytale, but it has got shades and colors of one. This is the story of a man and his passionate wish – a tale of a bygone era starting from the end-days of the British Raj and ending in the  new century in a rapidly globalized modern India, it is a unique story of Life coming full-circle; of  a man’s desperate quest for his roots and for his home which  had been snatched away from him.

My Father-In-Law was born in a small village of Kushtia, now in Bangladesh. Famous for the 19^th Century mystic Lalon Fakir, the mighty river Padma has blessed this area with an unmatched abundance.It was admist this abundance that a small boy was growing up, when all of a sudden dark clouds of tragedy visited his family.The year was 1947, Britain was in Tatters, the British were leaving India ; they decided to strike one fatal blow to their erstwhile colony. The country was to be Partitioned  on religious basis into two new countries- India and Pakistan. A sea of humanity would be uprooted and displaced, families would be wiped out and countless rendered homeless. This small boy and his family would meet such fate, although theirs would be far less tragic than that of many. They would resettle at a small sub-urban town near Calcutta, not far from Kushtia. Peering from across the barbed fence that had been erected overnight, the boy would be lost in the reverie of the home he had left behind across the barbed fence.

Fast forward to the new century , the dawn of this century saw a mighty India arise, having forgotten the pains of colonization and partition.Indian economy was  Registering a phenomenal growth rate of around 8% year after year, Indian companies started  opening up overseas offices and transforming themselves into “Indian Multinational” companies. Its footsoldiers were traversing the globe in chartered flights and Jet planes , like the retinue of Indian Merchants and sailors who had done so  ages back in Big Ship. As a child of this globalization, I was no exception. My company opened a Operations Centre  at  Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and I was transferred there for an year’s time. My Father-In-Law was one of those  few people who actually celebrated this transfer, drowning the sea of skeptical voices who questioned what I would be doing in a country which had been in the Indian public opinion  for wrong reasons. “ Settle down soon, and I am on my way” , he said, – On his way to return to his village, back to those fields where he played and frolicked, back to those days when 60 mins made an hour, back to those sunlight washed verandah of his house where the Durgapuja used to be performed every year with great pomp and grandeur.

However destiny had very different plans for all of us, my father-in-law was a cancer survivor, the effects of radiation and chemotherapy would gradually wither him away. A few weeks before his death, he made his last wish; being pleaded by his eldest daughter to come down and stay with her at Sydney for advanced medical care, he replied, “Kushtia it is, I wish to recover soon , get back to my little village and relive those golden days”.But the wish would remain a wish only, within afew days he was relieved from the unbearable pain and suffering he had so majestically borne for the last few years.

According to Hindu death rites, the lifeless Body is consigned to the flames, and the ashes floated down the River Ganga. The river which gives life to millions , also gives them solace and emancipation after death.  However my communist Father-In-Law never lived by such faith , after death when suggestions were floated for doing so, his family felt the comrade’s soul might object to our doing so , he might infact return to haunt those who carried it out. Accordingly a compromise was worked out, while a portion of the relics were to be immersed in a small river that flowed by his house, the remainder would be carried back to Bangladesh, and immersed in the Majestic Padma which flowed near his erstwhile village , and which was an offshoot of the Ganges.

It was journey time for us, journeying to the interiors of Bangladesh , a lazy morning  saw us arrive at a suburban town called “Bheramara”. Now it was a total journey into the unknown. Imagine searching for a village with only the memories of a man in  his eighties – Description of  pre-independence era Subdivison Mufassal towns , kotwalis(Small Police Outposts) and villages; story  of a small river flowing through the village  didn’t help either. We asked the locals about the village, “Jhaudia”, it turned out that there were three  villages of the same name, all within a 10 sq mile radius!!However we were lucky, the locals recognized the pre-independence era Kotwali and subdivision town still existed; the river was also identified, but sadly, like many other small rivers of this riverine country,  it had also dried up. Armed with local info, we rented a small three wheel drive, and embarked on our “Discovery of your roots” journey .Dawn was just breaking out and the serene idyllic villages of rural Bengal were just waking up. Smiling farmers on the way to their fields helped us out with directions.

After about an hours sojourn through some of the greenest landscape in the world, we were at our destination. A small motley rustic crowd surrounded us , curious to know why we were searching for a Hindu family in their village, where there was none. We explained to them the purpose of our visit, we told them about my Father-In-Law’s  grandfather   being rich landowner   in this village. An elderly man recognized him.”Oh you are searching for Nagen Babu’s house, where have you come from ?”, he asked,  On telling him that we were from India,the villagers became suspsicious, had we come to claim these lands under the infamous “Enemy Property Act”, they wondered. We could sense a certain degree of resentment in them.One person came forward and said that he has the lease papers for farming in  “Nagen babu’s” erstwhile estate land. We had to convince them that we had no such intention; that gone were rich landlords, gone was the zamnidari system itself, theirs lands gone as well. It took some time to convince them, once they were convinced , they welcomed us with open arms. We were taken around and shown the stretch of land on which stood the Huge  Mansion.Time the great leveler had razed it to dust.The remnants of the house was used as construction material by the villagers and the land used for cultivation. The villagers regaled us with anecdotes about the house, we in turn told them the story of a dead man’s “Last wish”. It touched them so much that one person exclaimed, “What a tremendous attachment and love it is – This love for one’s  land, you may leave it and travel far and wide, but be it in your lifetime or after it, you will definitely have to return”. The rustic had summarized our story like none.

Time was sparse, the purpose of our visit to this place only partially accomplished. My Father-In-Law had returned to his village, now it was time to immerse his ashes in the Padma – the sacred river formed by the confluence of two Great Sub-continental rivers- the Ganga and Bramhaputra. As the  tranquil river carried the urn containing the mortal remains in her bosom , we offered our prayers , “ Go forth to where there is no more darkness and death, go there where there is no more separation and its accompanying tears, your Last Wish has been fulfilled, now Rest in peace”.