THE STRANGER IN THE TENT

(Short story)

MANOJ DAS

We had just settled down after lighting our stove when the stranger thrust his huge beard into our tent.

Nature was in her elements. We had perched our tents, luckily, before the sunset and before it had become ominously gloomy.

No doubt, we were in the mood for a yard or two of yarn, about spooks and ghosts if you like, but we were by no means prepared to encounter such a formidable apparition.

The woods in the outskirts of Dehradun were much more dense than they are today. In fact, then the town itself was nothing more than a sophisticated village.

The shrill and weird whistling from all around sounded like the cries of a host of captive demon women of darkness-tormented. Such sounds always sent currents of foreboding through your veins although you might be sure of your safety in your cosy shelter.

He crawled in. “I will go away as soon as the storm subsides,” he consoled us as he took off his tattered gloves and spread his eerie fingers around the stove and made himself comfortable. There was no apology in his tone. We were obliged to readjust our positions in order to allow his legs the stretch they needed.

His stinking overcoat made us uncomfortable. But we could do hardly anything than sit blinking.

After five minutes it occurred to us that it was too much to keep quiet.

“Look here, man, only if you had been a little courteous and had asked whether you had at all our permission to come in, we would perhaps have been, under the circumstance, discourteous enough to say ‘No’. But here you are–obviously the reincarnation of the infamous camel of the fable who had taken a little longer to achieve his objective,” one of us observed gingerly.

The stranger did not seem to care two hoots. What he muttered to himself was inaudible to us. But looking at our teacher, the old Mr. Dash who still went strong, he suddenly asked, “You are from Samirpur, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“The festoon on your bus said so, didn’t it?”

“That’s right,” we remembered. He then made sure that ours was the same Samirpur that he had in his mind.

“So Samirpur has even a college! By now it must be sporting several other things too!” mused the stranger nostalgically. We could not make up our mind if we should encourage him to babble about his interest in Samirpur.

“Yes, Samirpur has grown to a sort of town,” informed Mr. Dash after a while.

“But it was only an unknown village during Bhanu Goonda’s time!”

“Bhanu Goonda!” Mr. Dash visibly started. We too grew curious, although Mr. Dash, excepting none of us, had seen Bhanu Goonda–Bhanu the Ruffian.

“How did you happen to know Bhanu Goonda?” queried Mr. Dash, after some hesitation.

“I killed him,” came the cool reply.

We did not cry out our shock as the wind outside was shrieking, summoning all its fury. We sat, quietly stirring our tea, in the process trying to stir ourselves out of the chill that had suddenly grown stronger inside the tent.

“I see, you have only four glasses. But I will drink after one of you finish. I hope there is enough liquor in the kettle,” the stranger thus volunteered to wait.

“Enough. But you are welcome to drink first,” Mr. Dash held out his glass.

The stranger readily accepted it and took his first sip with a lust swish.

“Well, Bhanu disappeared about fifty years ago. I was in my teens then. We all wondered about his fate. So, it was you who really killed him. Gl...gl...Glad to have met you...I should say!” Mr. Dash mopped his face.

“Yeah, really!” responded our guest who had a knack for gulping hot stuffs. He had already emptied his glass but was reluctant to keep it down.

“Have more,” Mr. Dash poured liquor and milk liberally into his glass.

Among the very first tales we heard in our childhood were the ones about Bhanu Goonda. He had proved a menace to the reputation of Samirpur as a decent area, a rogue who murdered four persons before ultimately disappearing while still young. That was two to three decades before we were born.

Elders spoke of him with hatred. “Pity that all took his atrocities lying down. I would have squeezed marrow off his spine,” I had heard several gentlemen announcing although I did not know why they had been merciful to the Goonda and permitted him to carry about his spine with all the marrow in tact. But I had heard our women folk saying, “Unlucky, but a brave chap he was,” and sighing.

We had developed an awe for Bhanu Goonda. But as time passed we had forgotten much about him. And here suddenly pops up the man who claims to have killed him!

A prolonged thunder-clap gave us a shake. The stranger looked into his empty glass and played with it.

“You can have more tea if you please. There is enough milk; it is only a matter of boiling some more water,” said one of us in a bid to infuse ease into the atmosphere. The stranger nodded his appreciation of the offer.

“Excuse me, you no doubt did well by killing the Goonda, but how did it come about?” Mr. Dash put the question after hemming and hawing for a moment.

But the stranger seemed to be lost in his reverie. We sat in silence for a long time during which the forgotten parts of the story of Bhanu Goonda emerged to the surface of my memory.

Bhanu, infamous as a bully and roughneck from his boyhood, was said to have loved a beautiful girl of our village, the daughter of a petty landlord. The girl grew up and, as was the custom, was no more allowed to mix with or even see young men freely. Bhanu seemed reconciled to the situation and years passed.

The girl was married to a nearby landlord, an aged and seasoned bridegroom several times married beforehand. A year later, while on a return trip from her father’s house, she asked her bearers to lower her palanquin at a lonely place, in front of a hut which Bhanu had improvised for his taking rest and keeping vigil on his fields.

She passed word that she was thirsty. Bhanu came rushing with his mug of water. As the story goes, while drinking the water the young lady communicated to Bhanu a lot of things through her eyes and probably through a whisper.

Then the palanquin rose and disappeared at the distant turn of the road. But Bhanu stood rooted to the spot for a long time. He came to his sense when passers-by chided him for allowing a stray bull to enter his field and make short work of his crop.

But did he really come back to sense? A popular rustic poet who wrote a long verse on the episode, said, “No, the fire of passion had totally consumed his sense.”

A week later there was a midnight raid on the house of the young lady’s husband. It was a dacoity the like of which had never been heard by the people of our region. The lady was carried away, her husband left mortally wounded.

In carrying out this daring operation Bhanu had enrolled the co-operation of a gang of professionals. The notorious leader of the party soon fell victim to the lure of the captive lady and had to be knocked down for good by the jealous Bhanu.

At last Bhanu was alone with the lady in a far away town. But the ghastly truth was soon revealed to him: The lady loved another man. All that she wanted Bhanu, her childhood sweetheart, to do was to rescue her from her husband’s clutch and to deliver her into her lover’s arms. But she was not ungrateful. She placed before Bhanu the bundle of her costly ornaments.

Bhanu’s reactions were not known immediately. It was believed that he never touched the lady for whom he arranged a shelter safe from himself. When she expressed her gratitude to him, he only smiled. The lady understood that Bhanu had again reconciled to the situation.

The lover for whom the lady waited arrived on the appointed day. It was Bhanu who received him at the river-bank and guided him to the lady.

Last anybody saw Bhanu was when he came out of the solitary lodge. It took a day for the people around to realise that he had come out after putting a quiet end to the lady and her lover.

Mr. Dash had in the meanwhile drunk enough tea to warm up.

He coughed and asked why and how did you kill the Goonda?

“Why, he asked me and I did exactly as he wanted–burned him part by part, at intervals of days, till he shrieked his last!”

“Horrible!” Mr. Dash sighed.

“Horrible, eh?, May I know why?” the stranger sat up straight. “Did he not deserve it? Is it not for this that he evaded the police? To die at the gallows would have been such a dull thing! He certainly deserved more, didn’t he? Ha ha! Tell the landlord of your village, I mean the lady’s father, and he will be happy.”

“But the landlord is dead long since,” Mr. Dash said.

“Dead?” the stranger expressed his surprise and disappointment.

“Narurally,” said Mr. Dash, “many years ago. Decades have rolled by. There is nobody to be happy or unhappy over Bhanu’s fate.”

“Oh!” sighed the man with some emotion. “And I was dreaming of a day when I will go to Samirpur and announce Bhanu’s death to everybody’s glee!”

“Not worth taking the trouble!” one of us commented laughing for the first time after a gloomy hour.

“I think the storm is over. I must go.”

The stranger suddenly sat up erect and put on his gloves and crawled out. As we gazed at him departing–a pathetic wornout figure–Mr. Dash gave out a sort of subdued shriek. My friends did not mark it, but I did.

Five years later, on my way to Mussoorie, I happened to pass a week at Dehradun. I inquired about the stranger as vigorously as I could. At last I met a roadside tea-shop owner who remembered, “I think you are referring to the ancient madcap who now and then poured kerosene on himself and burned parts of his body. He is no more. He died–from burns of course!”

Later, on my reporting this to Mr. Dash, he said, again after his usual faltering, “Well, I think, I had recognised him even then!”

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