‘How long do we wait for you there?’ the panch asked, his words dripping with distrust.

  ‘Why would you wait at all? I’ll be there before you arrive.’ The sarpanch spoke with a tone of finality in his voice, and then in a bid to reassure them about his keenness to accompany them, he said, ‘I just have to slip on my juttis. I’ll follow you, close on your heels.’

  Then signalling to those two men from the majha region to move inside, the sarpanch turned his back on the group and walked off. Those two men kept looking over their shoulders, smiling somewhat meaningfully, and followed the sarpanch indoors. Transfixed, all of them just stood there, rooted to the ground until the panch signalled to them to move on. They returned to the dharamshala like they had left it, feeling somewhat like ‘a band of aliens’ in their own village.

  ‘Look brothers, now you’d better listen to me carefully.’ On returning to the dharamshala, the panch spoke in a firm and composed manner as though he wanted to hammer a point home, ‘Don’t have any illusions about our getting justice as soon as we reach there. And you’d better be clear about the meaning of each word that that majhail spoke at the sarpanch’s house. We also know that the land on which Dharma’s kothas were built actually belonged to Wadhawa and his ancestors. But don’t forget, Dharma’s family was uprooted from the village and forced to settle there by Wadhawa, as he wanted his orchards to be guarded. They were the ones who built these kothas for them. In the presence of the entire panchayat, they vowed that “from now on, this entire piece of land measuring a kanal-and-a-half shall belong to Dharma and his family”. But all that was part of an oral agreement. What has happened now is something legal. If such legal actions become the norm, then all of you better get ready to move out of the vehra, bag and baggage. The entire stretch of land that is now called vehra actually belongs to the villagers. Even if you were to look through hundred-year-old documents, you wouldn’t find your names or those of your ancestors’ there. The land documents in possession of the patwari clearly suggest that all this land once belonged to the king and, according to the law, is now held by the government. It’s entirely up to the government to accept your ownership over it, or that of the village. But legally, you have no right over it.’

  After a while, he looked at their faces; all of them looked withered, just like a bunch of crushed acacia flowers. The defeated look in their eyes had acquired a new earthy tint. Seeing all of them stare at him in a rather awkward, unsettling manner, he felt as though he needed to launch his final lecture. ‘Now, you listen to my advice. If we succeed in securing the release of Dharma and his sons from the police, and somehow manage to get back possession of that piece of land for them, then you may say that we too get a hearing within this system. Otherwise, tomorrow, they may throw us out, bag and baggage… So you must know how to protect yourself.’

  ‘How can we leave the village and go?’ Getting to his feet, Pala spoke as though he wanted to challenge him, ‘You talk as if you just want to scare us off. Henh? You simpleton, if we’ve been in possession of these houses since the times of our grandfathers or great grandfathers, then how dare anyone uproot us from here?’

  ‘Have patience, chacha! Have some patience.’ Signalling to him to sit down, the panch made a gesture as if he was trying to calm him down, and said, ‘I have only told you the legal position. After all, even Dharma had possession of the land that belonged to Wadhawa Singh.’

  ‘These evil ones, they can’t loot so much.’ This time round, Pala sounded testy. ‘At this rate, these people won’t even allow us to use their fields for defecating. What kind of a law is this, bhai? You go around pretending to be a big chaudhary?’

  ‘According to the law, even today, they can stop you from entering their fields. And there is no way you can challenge that.’ The panch was as composed as before.

  ‘Then what is this fuss all about?’ Jumping to Pala’s defence, it was Ghudha who spoke this time, ‘What kind of a leader are you? You are the kind who always says: “Oye bebe, the day I become a thanedaar, the first thing I’ll do is break your ankles”. Wah, bhai, wah! Shabaash!’

  ‘Oye, you people have a knack of twisting things. Tell me, if I bring you to ruin, where would I go?’ This time, the panch was somewhat agitated, ‘I have always believed that the law is only for the powerful. Haven’t we always said, “With the powerful, even ‘seven scores’ equal a hundred”? If you are powerful, then the law is on your side; and if someone else becomes more powerful than you, the law becomes their chattel. What does it have to gain from you, jet streams of milk from the udders? As they say, “the buffalo belongs to the one who wields the lathi”, no?’

  The panch, in fact, was in the habit of saying such strange things to his people, but no one had ever understood what he meant. But today, God knows why or how, despite the doubts raised by Pala and Ghudha, the people were listening to him intently, as if they understood every word he uttered.

  For a while, the panch continued to explain his viewpoint. Finally, they all came to the conclusion that at least eight or nine of them must go to the district courts with him, meet all the big officers they could, discuss the matter with them, and if they didn’t succeed in finding a way out of the crisis, they must return by the evening so as to be in time to convene yet another meeting to determine the future course of action.

  Soon after, the panch, Pala, Ghudha, Miru and three other persons left for the town. Of those who were left behind, some sat down to share their ‘wise schemes’, while others went back to what they were doing earlier.

  As Melu’s bapu walked back from the dharamshala, he felt as though his entire body had been turned into a gunnysack full of loose earth. All the vehra houses appeared to be desolate and deserted to him, as if no one had ever lived in them. Looking at those houses with puzzled eyes, when he came closer to his own, he felt, perhaps for the first time ever, that he was going to enter ‘someone else’s house’. The place through which he was passing was not a regular street, just an odd-shaped vacant lot, which measured barely four hands at places, and, at others, nearly four feet. Not even a foot’s worth of space was even or regular. As water constantly spilled out of their houses, the entire stretch was full of slush. All the people of the vehra, men, women and children, would often hitch up their clothes and look for a dry patch to step on, while going towards the dharamshala. But why hadn’t anyone ever thought of levelling this place by shovelling some dry mud over it? As this thought flashed through Melu’s bapu’s mind, he felt a shiver run down his spine, as though a long-forgotten memory had suddenly returned to haunt him. But the very next moment, it occurred to him that this was a ‘no man’s land’, so why would anyone think of levelling out this ‘alien land’?

  The moment he came in, he saw that both his grandsons were busy playing marbles in the courtyard. Seated next to the chulha, bahoo was engrossed in conversation with Dyalo. With his face down and legs akimbo, bahoo’s brother was lying on the manja, next to the heifer’s trough. At that moment, Melu’s bapu really felt that he had walked into someone else’s house. So much so, he even forgot to clear his throat audibly, the way he did whenever he walked into the house, as a warning to his bahoo to cover her head.

  ‘Massar, we were waiting for you only,’ bahoo’s brother spoke, as he got up from the manja. ‘Or we’ll be very late. So, we’d better go.’

  Almost like a stranger, all that Melu’s bapu could get himself to say was, ‘All right bhai, as you wish,’ before he fell silent. Bahoo’s brother walked across and picked up his bundle from inside the kothri. As bahoo got to her feet, she pulled a long veil over her face before leaving the kothri. And pocketing their marbles, the boys ran towards the dharamshala, ahead of everyone else. Dyalo walked up to the corner of the street, from where bharjai decided to send her back. With the idea of seeing them off to the bus stand, Melu’s bapu continued walking with them.

  As they came closer to the small pond, Melu’s bapu twisted around to look at the fields of Wadhawa Singh. Dharma’s wife, Surjit, and his little children were still sitting next to their luggage, near the keekar, as stunned as ever. He felt a strange sense of despair wash over him. With his eyes downcast, he stepped on to the mud dyke and started walking along it, unmindful of what bahoo’s brother was constantly blabbering. As he walked, he kept staring at the grass blades, thinly encrusted with dewdrops.

  As he neared Rama’s fields, where the cotton plants still stood swaying, waiting to be harvested, he looked up towards the sun—it was at its brightest. Right in the line of the sun, on the ground, he saw the same track loader, now stationary. Its upturned loader, raised some three or four feet above the ground, looked somewhat like the jaw of a monstrous, elephant-like animal. He felt as though two or three persons were strolling on its higher ridge, almost the way in which lambs saunter around a raised mound. While he was watching, suddenly it produced a menacing ‘grrhh-grrhh’ sound, and its jaw began to descend towards the earth. Melu’s bapu was so scared that he suddenly halted in his tracks. Even the boys, who were running on ahead, looked in that direction, and slowed down; but the very next moment, they ran off towards the road. Bahoo’s brother kept up his blabber, as if he was busy talking to himself.

  And suddenly, the track loader started slithering towards Dharma’s kothas, making a rumbling sound as though it was dumping the wreckage into a big heap. Melu’s bapu felt as though it was moving like a python holding its breath, and that it jerked suddenly, too, as it came closer to the uneven ground next to Wadhawa’s orchards, before it sank its lion-like teeth into the mounds and mounds of loose earth deposited there. Its ‘grrhh-grrhh’ sound grew louder, far more menacing than before. Its huge mechanical parts seem to be moving jerkily, in much the same way as Meetu’s knees often jerked, especially when he pounded sheets of iron with his calloused hands. With this jerky movement, the jaw of the track loader, already deep in the soil, began to sink even deeper.

  Busy talking to himself, bahoo’s brother had gone on far ahead. Slipping away from his side, bahoo, too, had hurried her steps to catch up with her brother, thinking that if they were to miss yet another bus, then they might have to wait by the roadside until the late afternoon.

  But Melu’s bapu was still looking fixedly at the track loader. Now, as it began to raise its jaw, lumps and lumps of loose earth started falling off its sides. Moving jerkily on the uneven ground, the track loader suddenly backed away, lowering its jaw, as though preparing for another head-on collision, the way a buffalo does. Through repeated assaults, it flattened the entire stretch within minutes, in the same way that a child makes a house by pouring wet sand over his one foot, and then kicks it off with another, levelling it all out. All the loose earth in its jaw was thus scattered all around. Melu’s bapu lowered his eyes once again. But the moment he did, he suddenly heard the loud screams and wails of Dharma’s wife, daughter-in-law and little children, almost as if they had been crushed under the weight of the machine.

  A shiver ran down his spine as Melu’s bapu looked towards the road ahead and saw a car and a jeep rushing past. He felt as though this particular jeep was in no way different from the one he had seen in the morning. The car went swishing past, but the jeep went screaming towards the chimneys of the thermal plant. As it sped forward its size began to diminish, and it gradually appeared to be as small as an ant.

  As soon as bahoo and her brother had reached the roadside, they sat down under a keekar tree. Walking right in the middle of the road, both the boys had started dancing alongside and shouting, ‘Bus has come…bus has come.’ Their mother called out to them, reprimanding them severely and, asking them to return. Feeling scared, they had barely managed to reach the keekar, when a truck, overloaded with cotton bales, breezed past, like a maelstrom. Its thundering sound appeared to send tremors through the earth. As the thought, ‘what if the boys had been run over?’ hit Melu’s bapu, he was deeply shaken.

  As he approached, bahoo’s brother shouted across to him, ‘Massar, what is the frequency of the bus service on this route?’

  In response, Melu’s bapu looked at him as though he hadn’t understood a word of what he had heard. But coming closer to the keekar, he spoke in a weak voice, ‘Bhai, you never know. Sometimes they come after every half hour, and sometimes, two come together after two hours or more. Sometimes, not even a single bus comes until the evening—they have no fixed timings, really.’

  ‘It’s the same in our village, too,’ bahoo’s brother said. ‘In those parts, one or two “privit” buses also ply. In these parts, I think, only the government buses run. No?’

  ‘They are all just the same, the government and the private ones. It makes no difference in the way they function. It all looks to be the same. Without a ticket, you are not allowed on the bus anyway.’

  Stepping forward, Melu’s bapu sat down next to bahoo’s brother, slightly away from bahoo, and started looking towards his grandsons, who had already gone towards the fields in search of bers, barely visible to the naked eye in the haze of dust that was blowing in from the irregular mounds. Seeing him looking fixedly in that direction, bahoo’s brother, in a preemptive move, hollered out to the boys, ‘Oye, why don’t you both come here and sit down quietly? You, a dog’s… What if you get run over by a truck or something?’

  The boys got so scared that they immediately stepped off the road, went to another keekar a little distance away, and turning around, stood peering in the direction of the track loader. Bahoo’s brother also looked in the same direction. He asked Melu’s bapu, ‘Massar, whose land is this—the one that is being levelled?’

  ‘It belonged to three families, who jointly owned it, but it has now been sold. They say that some factory is going to be built here.’ And then it was as if he could no longer rein in his emotions, ‘That place, you see, on slightly raised ground, which they are now levelling out, is where Dharma from our vehra had his kothas. Last night, they razed them to the ground…’

  ‘Razed them? How did they do that?’

  Running his hand over his dishevelled beard, Melu’s bapu said, ‘Oye simpleton! Is there any way you can fight the powerful? All they wanted was to pull it down, and that’s what they did… Right now, the entire family is sitting under the keekar tree over there. Who knows what all it may now lead to? The panchayat has gone to the DC. But let’s see.’

  ‘Now this is the limit. How could they do this? How could they pull down the houses people were living in?’ Rising to his feet, bahoo’s brother, in a bid to reassure himself, looked in the direction where the track loader was at work. Seeing a couple of women and children seated under the keekar tree, he was somewhat thrown off-balance and said, ‘If this is the way it was, then why did all of you in the vehra play possum? You should have declared a war against them. In such cases, one shouldn’t really bother about the consequences.’

  Looking towards bahoo’s brother, who, at that moment, appeared to be somewhat like ‘a spindle of a spinning wheel’, Melu’s bapu said, ‘You think we made no effort to sort this out?’

  ‘You must have. But obviously, massar, these efforts were not enough to break anyone’s leg.’

  Melu’s bapu felt as though bahoo’s brother was criticizing everyone in the vehra. In a bid to divert his attention, he looked towards his bahoo, and said, ‘Bhai, Beero, my daughter, you must tell Melu to come and meet us, one day. So many things have to be sorted out. You know, I can’t do any work now. The girl is waiting to be married off. And Shinda is still a child. So you see, now the entire burden is upon you all.’

  ‘Don’t worry, babaji, I’ll send him as soon as I get there.’ Pulling her ghoonghat up and down, and glancing at him sneakily, she responded in a firm voice, ‘We always tell you to come there and live with us. That will end our worries, too. We’ll make do with whatever little he earns.’

  On hearing these words of bahoo, Melu’s bapu was so deeply gratified that a lump rose in his throat. Clearing his throat, he said, ‘Don’t worry, baccha, we’ll talk about this plan of moving there another time. But right now, you just send him over to us. We can’t pack everything and leave so soon. Now it all depends on what God wills. That is what will happen, ultimately.’

  He had barely finished speaking when they heard the rat-a-tat of the approaching bus. All of them rose to their feet. Admonishing the children, bahoo’s brother asked them to come closer. Making a strange, roaring sound, the bus pulled up some ten yards away from them. With great difficulty, bahoo’s brother pushed all of them in from the rear door, and threw his bundle inside. As soon as a man and a woman had disembarked from the front door, the bus heaved like a camel and started moving. It didn’t allow Melu’s bapu enough time to caress his grandson’s heads, or his bahoo to touch his feet.

  Turning his attention away from the bus, Melu’s bapu looked towards the man and woman who had disembarked. Both of them appeared to be outsiders. Adjusting the cotton chaddar he had already wrapped himself in, the man asked, ‘Lambardaara, we’ve to go to the sarpanch’s house. Do we take this outer road?’

  ‘Yes, this is the right one. Close to the pond, you follow the circular road, towards the left.’

  Both of them went quickly down that road. This time round, Melu’s bapu appraised them very carefully. The woman had covered her face and head with an orange shawl, just the way honey harvesters often do. It was difficult to say whether she was young or old. Her clothes and footwear were of the latest design. The man, too, appeared to be quite well turned out. He couldn’t tell who they could possibly be; but much before he could untangle this riddle, they had already disappeared in the afternoon haze.

  After a while, when Melu’s bapu turned around, he was somewhat surprised to see that he was still standing by the roadside. Running his gaze all around, he felt as though everything had a strange halo about it. This road was just a kuccha pathway in the good old days, when he used to ferry Chanan’s wheat grain and stuff to town. There used to be high mounds on either side. In those days, all that grew in these barren fields of Surjit and Wadhawa were wild, bristly bushes, or occasionally in the season of harhi, you’d get to see a few stray shoots of black gram, or some millet plants in the season of sauni. It would then appear as though seeds dropped by nature had taken root out of nowhere. In the middle of this wilderness, there used to be a mound as high as a kotha, spread over a small patch of land, measuring a kanal-and-a-half, where cattle would be left to graze at all odd hours. In those days though, things were not so bad, yet this piece of land did not yield enough harvest to pay for the taxes levied on it. But now the same land had been sold for as much as three-and-a-half lakhs; it was no joke. Everything appeared to be so strange, as though the entire country had become unfamiliar.