One Village, Two Stories

One Village, Two Stories

This is a factual collection of two stories. It is based on the newspaper reports in today's Anandabazar Patrika, one of the dominant Bengali language newspaper in West Bengal. It presents the contrast in human relations, so I am presenting both of them.

The story I- Inter-Religion Personal Respect

Sanjan Kumar Biswas, a former teacher of a Secondary School in North Bengal died in the last week of November 2018. He was a very popular person, and one of his followers, rather the fan, was another teacher in the same school, Ashfaq. Ashfaq joined the school in 1999 and he was the only Muslim teacher in the school. He joined as an English teacher, but being the only Muslim, he was not well received by most of the staff in the school. However, it was Sanjan Kumar Biswas who helped him, starting with providing him a place to stay and courage to face the loneliness, providing him parental guidance, and helping him find a place to stay on his own after some time of joining. Mr. Sanjan Biswas retired from the job in 2005. He did not have any son and Ashfaq become a brother to his daughters. He explained to Ashfaq that humanity was greater than religion. After retirement, the relations between Ashfaq and Biswas continued in the same spirit. 

The death of Biswas was a great shock to Ashfaq. He observed the 10 days of restraint according to full Hindu Bengali rules along with his wife and child. Ashfaq also shaved his head on the 10th day after death and performed all the rites of the last prayer on the 11th day on the riverbank in the village in the same manner as would have been done if Biswas would have a son of his own. Ashfaq said, "He was by my side from the day I joined this school. I was not only duty-bound to perform his last rites, but this respect was also due to him. I felt it, I did it."

Story II - Same Family Betrayal

An old lady, age more than 80, was found by villagers sitting on the roadside on the village road, unfed, alone, with no money. She was a former resident of the village for whom everyone was informed that she had died and her one daughter in the village and others, including one in Patna, had performed her last rites around six months back. 

The lady had quite good property in the village. She had three daughters, two of them already married, one of them was married nearby. The youngest daughter was to be married, and her marriage was fixed in Patna. When she was married off, she asked her mother to accompany her to Patna as there was none in her ancestral house to take care of her. The youngest daughter sold the entire property after getting signatures of her mother but did not give anything to her mother, nor to her sisters. 

The mother was then subjected to torture in Patna by both daughters as also son-in-law. She started working as a maid in their neighborhood, but could not work sufficiently for her meals due to her age. She asked her daughter to send her back to the village. They got her boarded on a bus to Siliguri, the town from the village which has a direct bus from Patna, gave her the ticket to Siliguri, but no money for traveling to village. She got down at Siliguri, begged people to get bus transport to her village and she was dropped to her village. 

She then went to her middle daughter's house who refused to allow her in her house. Then, people saw her sitting on the roadside, took her to the riverside and built her a small temporary hut. The old lady is now staying in the small hut, depending on the charity of the villagers for her meals.

My Comments:

The first story, two individuals, one Muslim and another Hindu. They get connected by spiritual relations without any connection to their family and religion.

The second story, all characters connected by blood relations, not only religion, betrayed their existence.