This story was first published as a winner of Muse of the Month, September 2016, at Women's Web here.
This was a small town in Chhattisgarh, about a hundred kilometres
away from the remote village that was home for her. Kamayani Bose was here on
her monthly visit to buy school stationery and medicines. This was also where
she sometimes used the internet at a Cyber Café to look up current affairs and
government policies or the fate of her various Right to information
applications lying pending with this system in slumber.
Today was momentous, as she was reading an article on upcoming
public food supplies policy on a news website a familiar face stared at her
from a pop-up window- Subroto Ray, an advertisement for his next book launch in
Kolkata.
She looked at his receding hairline, the grey curls, and the sly
smile and finally into the eyes of that face, they were still the same,
charming and deceptive. Kamayani smiled to herself as an old chapter from her
story was reshuffled by that face. She had forgiven him and moved on, yet
memories shall remain.
It was the early 80s in the most prestigious university in Delhi
that Kamayani had first seen those eyes following her and observing her
intently as she went about the political meetings and protests by his side. She
was the only child of two famous communist ideologues and living up to that
reputation had joined socialist student groups in college and university. He -
the Che Guevara of Delhi as he was famously known then was one of the most
famous faces of the students’ movement - the much-respected, idealised Subroto
Da.
Like all other ‘petit bourgeois’ kids of the 70s and 80s they were
all high on the idea of rebellion. Other than her marriage-seeking relationship
with Subroto, Kamayani had broken all traditional rules- short hair, smoking in
public, pre-marital sex, abusive language, her mother worried that no good
Bengali family would accept her as their son’s spouse, she feared that the
well-reputed, politically and financially powerful Rays would only accept her
if she changed her ways to become a proper ‘Bhadralok’ daughter-in-law.
But Kamayani was blinded by love and ideals and she rarely cared,
she lived her ideology, at least she thought so, everything about her was so
anti-establishment. She was inspired by the Paris’ Sorbonne university
upheavals and anti-Vietnam protests across US campuses.
Soon they started travelling in groups to villages with their lofty
ideals of a revolution by the commoners. She dreamed of setting up an idyllic
country home somewhere as Mrs. Subroto Ray and then show-off her tribal and
organic lifestyle when they travelled back to their elite families in Kolkata
and Delhi respectively.
She imagined them travelling together to International Conferences
and in her tribal-patterned kurtas
and jeans walking to the prestigious podiums becoming the face of the rebellion
against the oppressive government in India. Teaching English, Marxism and
Feminism to villagers and bringing back international prizes for the work.
Unfortunately her dreams had a lifespan of only a few months.
Subroto, the Ray scion could not bear with the heat, mosquitoes and unhygienic
living conditions in the rural areas. The recurrent news of police atrocities on
members of the group if caught with Marxist literature or any other association
with the movement heightened his blood pressure so much that her rushed back to
Kolkata for a short stint to regain health, but never came back.
Next Kamayani knew he had flown to Boston for a Doctorate and she
was left alone to stay on if she wished. She survived the abortion by an
untrained midwife in the village and realised for the first time what a real
revolution here demanded- a lifetime. Being a true revolutionary she had to
overcome all her traditional ideas of marriage, family, and society and start
her life afresh as someone who had undergone a radical soul-transformation.
A decade later, the radical movement had fizzled out, Kamayani Di as
she was now known ran a school for girls and a few friends ran a small clinic
in the village. She had realised the system could only be changed from within.
Her father had passed away and her mother had moved to live with her
uncle’s family in Kolkata. Kamayani had sold their house and every piece of
precious heirloom to buy infrastructure for her school.
Her long lustrous hair had greyed in corners and edges, her crude
cotton saris were woven right here in
this village by a women’s cooperative, she had forgotten all her elite swagger
and now spoke their language, ate their food. She never went to any conferences
even if invited, just sent articles by post to a few publications and
periodicals about their projects.
Her screen had turned on a screensaver of bouncing balls by the time
her reverie broke; she clicked back into her email-account and was happy to receive
another contribution from a friend in Delhi for the hospital they were planning
to build in place of the clinic.
Kamayani no longer wanted a handsome, intelligent, go-getter husband
or a perfect idyllic home; she did not crave for recognition or acclaim all she
wanted was a better life for the tribals she lived with and this was now her
only lifelong commitment.
As Nilanjana Roy says in The
Girl Who Ate Books,” It was a choice
that turned in another direction from the freedoms she had so often longed for
and fought for….” , but Kamayani now knew for sure it was a worthy choice
and now her life was her revolution.
