Unknown Family

When I returned back home from my morning jog, my parents were visibly upset about something that came to my knowledge in bits and parts in coming days. I would soon be turning 17 and as every family has its secrets; one of the grave secrets of my family was going to be revealed soon to me. Throughout my childhood there was mystery surrounding this secret but there was no beating around the bush ever allowed. My innocent questions in my toddler days met with a very mature and a stern “no” always. Fortunately I was not the stubborn kind and after few attempts I tacitly agreed to never broach the topic. But my sister, younger by two years, had a very nasty knack to get on nerves of my parents quizzing them incessantly until one day my dad badly thrashed her. Thenceforth, I took it as my job to control her anxious questions about the secret, to protect her as well as the peace of our family, until recent years when she felt the dark aura around it and gave up too.

We had no extended family. All that we had was just four of us. My mom crafted stories in childhood that we had uncles and aunties staying far away in a small village in Bengal. When we grew up and understood that summer holidays were utilized by other classmates to visit their relatives, we insisted too. But dad knew how to better handle the situation and informed us once and for all that it was just us four. We were young enough then to not question this idea. By the time it dawned upon us that having no relatives is a weird and rare phenomenon, it had simultaneously also come to our knowledge that keeping at bay this issue was the best way.

My mind would always take me to the hazy memory of the day while I was still a toddler, and my mom made me sit on the tall table as I could not yet step down from it. She picked up my sister and went out to meet a stranger. The man hugged my baby sister and kissed all over her cheeks and forehead and placed some money in her hands. His stature was weak and in unkempt clothes he stood awkwardly talking with my mom. In a while, both returned home and the man turned out taking heavy steps eventually disappearing in the crowd on the street. My tiny brain could never comprehend the happenings of that day, nor could it remember the face of the man. Thinking back now, I don’t even recall if had seen the face or not. My mom wept profoundly and seeing her, my ignorant baby sister started wailing too. She calmed her down and feeding her milk made her sleep. I decided to raise alarm myself to attract attention and it worked. The memory kept crossing my mind many times but I was helpless and had no means to answer the questions that cropped up. At times, I also would think if this ever happened; or was it just a figment of my imagination.

But today dad was restlessly pacing and mom was trying to cool him off. He went to the balcony and threw away the rumbled piece of paper that was absorbing his anger, getting tightly clenched and moist in his sweaty hands. He went away to take a bath before heading for work and mom stepped out to pick the piece, tucking it deep inside the heap of sarees in her cupboard. Next day, curiosity made me sneak in my parent’s bedroom to find the rag that had raged my dad. On my way to school, I read it.

“Dear Manoj and Sarita,

           In my multiple letters and phone calls with you, I have pleaded for forgiveness and nothing else. I don’t want you to accept me into your lovely family. I will still be at a great distance from you and your wonderful kids. But I only seek your forgiveness and nothing else.

           Since you have not replied to any of my letters, I am not sure if you have received it or not. But begging you for forgiveness is my only motive of life left now. I also promised my ailing wife on her deathbed that I will take my last breathe only after you both pardon me. I accept my fault that my inactions have ruined many a lives and trust me, I suffer every day.”

The next few lines were all smudged and not legible. I wondered who the author was and I had a feeling deep down that the author and his identity had to do with the gloomy secret of our family. My feeling turned out to be true as dad was frustrated the next day while mom kept pleading him to calm down. My sister informed that an old man had come to visit in afternoon while I and dad were both away. Mom asked my sister to sit in her room and study. Later when the man had left, mom was sobbing in kitchen.

Soon in the evening, the man returned and mom took us both away to our room while all we could hear were muffled shouts of dad. I presume the man was pleading and crying, and guessed it correctly that he was the author of the letter. Mom’s eyes were moist which she wiped with her saree, biting her lips avoiding letting out sobs. After the living room turned silent, mom stepped out and we followed her. Our eyes were full of questions and without saying a word, dad knew it was about time to speak all the truth in front of us.

“Sit down!” he ordered us in a harsh tone, in a manner that was reluctant and helpless.

We sat next to each other and I could feel my sister was a bit scared. She had never seen our parents in such a situation that was a mix of rage as well as destitute. I could feel my father was looking for words to frame a sentence. He sat on the chair gulping the whole glass of water placed on the nearby table. He found that there was no simpler way to tell this and I suppose we were mature enough to get the story in front of us as raw as it needed to be.

He took a deep breath and began, “That man was your grandfather and my father.”

We both were shocked to hear his words and never expected such turn of events would ever happen. Sitting idle on various occasions pondering over the mystery, I had always thought that our relatives and family were all dead in some accident and our parents protected our tender minds by hiding it dedicatedly. My mind started spinning rapidly trying to figure out why our grandfather was shunned from our family for almost 17 years; or at least for as many years as I could recall. Stressing my brain enough, I started wondering whether the frail man whom I thought to be my creative imagination was my grandfather or what. But the man was younger that the person we saw today; although both had tired bodies that were pressed under some weight which they reluctantly carried. They seemed to face dearth of happiness and their puzzled bodies and minds were evident to me. I thought that if they both were different people, then did we have more relatives which we were unaware of. I wanted my mind to come back and think on why the existence of our grandfather might have been kept unknown to us. I never thought that we would one day sit and hear our parents reveal this story and that’s when my clouded line of thought was interrupted.   

“I cannot forgive him as he ruined so many lives and has blood on his hands that no one should ignore to grant him mercy.” My dad clenched the chair he sat on continuing ahead and looking at my mom, “I don’t understand how he even gets the guts to beg for forgiveness after such dreadful acts.”

We were still puzzles and mom looked at us. Dad continued, “The day I married your mom was the last day I saw him, until today when he came back to meet us.”

With a heavy heart, fumbling at times and looking for better choices of words, dad narrated his story which shocked us and made us wonder how ignorant we were until now. My dad finished junior college and immediately applied for an army job. Since he was not selected, he joined the reserve police and left the village to be stationed on duty in Calcutta. The political milieu was of unrest with internal turbulences as well as external factors of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The small village which he narrated to us was on banks of Ichhamati river where our family had paddy farms. His father was the local leader of the party that waged agitation for the rights of peasants and took to various methods of disrupting the working of the government and local administrative bodies. They believed the government only sat on hatching problems of common people and filling up their coffers through corrupt means. They blamed the government for inappropriate actions in times of famines or their inactions against maintaining law and order. Despite coming from a politically motived family, my father kept himself aloof from this. His ideologies contradicted to those of his father and hence he served the nation through his job.

Amongst the indifferences, they still managed to remain amicable until the day the worst happened. While my dad was away in remote areas on security duty, some miscreants entered through river-way carrying weapons. As per the narratives popular then, my father was later made aware that those evil men had blessing of our grandfather who knew the plan that was being hatched. On one such fateful night, plan was chalked out to murder the family of local collector in order to drive their point against the sitting government. Unfortunately, the matter escalated and ended up in deaths of many people, losses to various properties and more than twelve people lost their lives. The family of the collector was shot dead in their sleep; but the collector himself was safe attending a function in neighbourhood town. The servants and helpers in the house were killed while trying the save the family. Brutal murders happened that night, with bloodshed in the whole bunglow; where a feeble heart would not cope up.

“One feeble heart out there had no choice but to see with her eyes the ruthless desecration of her family.” My dad’s eyes well swelled up while he was trying his best to not let them flow. He went and hugged my mom who was weeping throughout the narrative and now cried out loud holding tightly taking his support. My sister wept too and huddled to hug my mom. Dad’s eyes had overflown. He faced the other way round gazing at the setting sun from the window.

“Your mom and her brother were the only two left alive that night. She was sound asleep in the small room at the far end of the bunglow and her brother was with me on police duty.” I had fixed feelings of sorrow and joy after knowing that we had an uncle too. My uncle was informed of the happening and about the loss of his family. He and my dad returned home immediately to see the devastations.

“Everyone in the village knew the murders came from the village across the river. Everyone knew who from my village had supported them and welcomed them. Everyone was now pointing fingers at my family for commencing this bloodbath.” Dad was talking rapidly without taking any breaks to breathe while his body was stiff, immovable.

“My friend, your uncle, had the sorrow of losing his family as well as the strain of looking after his younger sister.” Mom had been back to normalcy now but still sat hugging my sister. My mom came from a different caste and was still studying. All my father could think of doing then was to offer and marry her, helping out his friend. He felt this was a very small corrective action he could do and help his friend; as a remorse to the actions by his father. They both went to the temple to get married the following day. My grandfather opposed it all, but he had no say now in the matters of our family. He was enraged and abandoned his son and the new daughter-in-law. My dad was happy by his decision and took it as a beautiful opportunity and left the village with his bride. Our new family had started now and it had started after severing the ties with the old family. While dad left his family behind, my uncle thanked him for the tremendous support he had provided and decided to stay away from my mom. He was ashamed of his incapability to support and provide for her and was also afraid that the villagers would harm them for breaking the traditional customs by marrying from different castes.

My mind could not comprehend much of it, nor could it imagine what my parents must be going through. But they had decided to support each other and they did it all through the journey. They set out the sail and together commenced new beginnings. A marriage is a marriage between two families. But here it was only between two individuals. All was never well, but was always better than the past.

Next month, on my birthday, there was a small packet of sweets and a hand written note kept near my cycle. The handwriting was familiar. I placed the note in my pocket and gave away the sweets to a beggar near the signal.