Continued from Part 1

Phulbani

Where I come from in Belghar there are many pepper and turmeric farms. I am well aware of when to plant, when to water, and when to harvest turmeric. I have seen my mother do this and I have learnt well from watching. With this skill in mind to help me make a living, I boarded the bus to Baliguda first, and once I reached there I changed tracks to go to Phulbani. I have always wanted to visit a big city. Phulbani is a very big place. It is so different from my village on the hill-top with its streams, rivers, waterfalls, pine trees and coffee plantations. There are more concrete houses here, lesser mud huts, and the people walk fast, talk fast. It took me a long time to adjust to their pace. I found a job in the turmeric farms through a friend from the church, as they have a very large network, and I made some money, which I planned to save and take home, but the ancestor spirits did not agree.

City life is not at all in touch with the elements. It makes people very selfish, very unhappy. I had not been to any city before. After what I saw at Phulbani, I am heartbroken. Why are people so cruel when Mother Earth has been so generous and bountiful. There are flowers to offer in worship, and wear in our hair, there are streams to play and bathe in, there are fruits and vegetables to eat and share, mountains to bow down to and climb, animals to talk to, caress, and sacrifice, birds to admire…yet, all that the women who worked with me did was to talk ill about those who were not Christians, saying they were not humans, not refined enough because they did not accept Yeshu, that they would go to hell, and that we must not talk to such heathens or else we would be polluted too. My friends did not realize that I was not one of them. I missed all the jatras, all the celebrations at home so much, I missed my way of being. If I was a sinner just because I loved nature and revered it, so be it.

As a Scheduled Tribe, it does not matter if I change my religion or not, I am free to choose who I worship, I will continue to benefit from the government schemes. But the Scheduled Castes lose their benefits once they convert to Christainity, so they hide their conversions. They continue to get money from the government, as well as from the church. This practice has created a lot of tension in our villages. Given this rampant situation, as soon as I joined the group to harvest turmeric, the other women quickly sought me out to ensure that I was indeed one of them. I knew this racket from Daringbadi, and because I needed a job I did not divulge to them my true identity. Yes, I lied. I lied to survive. Once the first deception is made, the first lie is uttered, it is impossible to revert to an honest living even if one wants it badly.

The first few months spent in the company of these women was enough for me to realize that I must never become like one of them. They are taught to throw away the family idols, to kick and break them, to urinate on them to show their faith in their church. They had to sever all connections with their family members who have not accepted Christ. They had to refuse all offerings from temples and false gods and had to make all attempts to bring the lost brethren into the fold of Christianity. Boxes and boxes of bibles were always being received in the godown on behalf of the pastors visiting us. Each denomination wanting their versions to be distributed. I learnt from the past, and did not show them my skills..I acted a bit slow and dull. No one knew that I understood Hindi or English. They thought of me as a Christian tribal girl who had run away from an abusive husband. No one asked me why he had abused me.

I saw many burnt vehicles and corpses by the wayside in my few months of stay at Phulbani. There were always Maobadis everywhere, one had to be careful in what one said. Not me, as I was exempted, as a tribal who had converted I was looked up to and praised, even if I did not meet the demands of the turmeric pickings and harvest. If the supervisor got to know that you were not a tribal or a Christian, then you had it! All this seemed very wrong to me. I am a proud Ku, yet I love everyone, whatever they believe in, as my dear friend and sister. But Christianity teaches people to hate their own family, traditions, age-old practices, and says that you are a sinner going to hell if you follow your ancient ways. There is no joy nor dance, no festivity nor acceptance, no colour nor custom. And such foreigners come year after year to improve our lives. They abuse our ways, make fun of us, mock at us, and then say that they are here to help us. We want to be left alone, but we are not allowed to be ourselves. Only people with no self-esteem and those who are greedy go to them, I would never. But for my husband, I would never have stepped into any church.

I spoke too soon…in fact I was made to go to church here in Phulbani too. My newly made friends would not leave me alone, ‘how can you not come to church on a Sunday?’ they questioned me angrily.

Just as in Daringbadi, here too there were many many churches and of different denominations, each wanting to lure people to their beliefs exclusively. We tribals were constantly belittled with loudspeakers blaring that our rites and rituals are terrible, not civilized, that we make human sacrifices, that we kill babies, that we smash animal skulls, and all this is because we do not have a proper god, and that they would show us who that was. I wanted to fight back, I wanted to shout aloud that this is not so, you are maligning us for no reason, we have our gods, our spirits, our ancestors, and they are very loving and kind. They do not want us to hate anyone or spit on anyone else’s gods like the Christian god wants us to. But I remained silent. If I opened my mouth, where would I go?

It would shock me no end when I saw the women at the Phulbani farm so incapable. They did not know to hunt or kill or stalk or build rope bridges or bamboo pipes nor could they embroider, dance or sing. They were not good people either. They hardly smiled, they gossiped behind one another and they always talked ill of tribals, forgetting that I am one. They assumed that since I was married to a Christian, my centuries-old Ku identity was washed away miraculously by the baptising waters of the priest. The women, though good to me, were always concerned about their looks especially when the supervisor passed by, preening themselves for him, they would talk of TV shows and films, I had not heard of any of these, and I would always go away at these times which was mostly during the afternoon lunch break. Wandering away into the nearby fields, I would enjoy chatting with the butterflies, moths and bees, the spiders and lizards too in the old building that was our house. All of us shared the space while one of us took turns to cook. I volunteered most days as I wanted to get away from them and be by myself. I would go buy vegetables, wash and clean and cook, singing my Kui songs, praying to my gods without anyone objecting or judging.

But it was Christmas and New Year time, and I had no excuse to not attend church. It was such a tamasha. All these gullible women gave so much donation to the pastor. They hardly had enough money themselves, many times I would buy provisions from my savings, as they had so many responsibilities – children and families back home in the villages that they were supporting, alcoholic and cheating husbands too. I planted a few vegetables in the patch near our common well, that helped me take my mind away from my own people, my parents who must be missing me…my community who was ashamed of their girl marrying out, that too a Pano, a Christian at that, who was far below their social status. Each time I thought of the foolish mistake I had made in the name of love, I felt my heart twist into knots, squeezing the breath out of my body.

The Hebron Church in Phulbani was no different from the one in Daringbadi, both headed by greedy men. Perversion overflowed from their eyes, just as hate for Hindus and tribals flowed easily from their tongues. It was funny, that on a happy occasion such as the birth of their God Jesus, they should spend most of the sermon time in demonizing other people who were not a part of their church! They had no sense of how to celebrate a festival. And they call us backward. These silly women were willing to hand out most of their salaries to these turncoats, all in the name of a religion, which they said was better. Better how? Why? No one seemed to question.

Men and women would shout, scream, throw up, jump about, wriggle…it was like being in a mental hospital. Their songs, their dances even when in Odia sounded alien. Many angrez people have written songs in Kui too, they do not sound normal to me. This is not our belief, not our religion, not who we know or revere, this god was not born on our land, how can we love him as our own, there is no connection between his life and ours. I find it strange that these women cannot see through this blatant lie, this falsity. They are willing to excuse the misbehaviour of the pastor too, which irks me a lot. I was brusque with him from the beginning so he stays away from me, also he thinks he is higher than me because he is an SC and I am ST. If only he knew that we Kui think lowly of him, for having converted, and yet availing benefits from the government. How can one’s conscience accept that? None of them feel any love for the land, for anyone who is not a Christian. They carry hate in their heart and it shows in their faces. I find them ugly. They do not smile easily, their eyes do not warm up and embrace, they do not reach out, they measure, limit, and restrict.

I tried to spend as little time with the women as possible, although they liked me a lot, obviously, since I did not complain or talk too much, and I always swept and mopped the rooms. They left me alone on Sundays eventually, when I said that I was tired and that I needed some rest…now that it was clear that I was a Christian to them, they did not have to bring me into their fold and get paid for it by their pastors. I used this time to embroider some of the plain shawls that I bought from the market for the winter. These became very popular and people started buying them from me. I made some more money this way. It was not much, but enough for me to take a bus to some other place, in case I had to escape again.

Why did I think that I would need to escape again? You never know…life is full of surprises. One must always be alert and prepared. The poor women were either widows or their husbands were alcoholics or had abandoned them…just like me I suppose, but I never did think of myself as weak or needy, as they did. They wanted to look good and find a man to marry or finance their needs. My shawls and hairstyles made them feel confident and desired. Many of these women had relationships with the Maos on the side, some might have been forced, some coerced, some went willingly. They would come back early morning just in time for the fields with some exciting story of a raid here or a raid there…they always knew where the next attack on the security forces would be. They felt powerful and in the know. And they boasted about all this with us in the fields. That is how I heard about the Jungle Eco-Village run by women in the middle of the forest reserve and of Esther Akka.

Our supervisor was found one day by the roadside, burnt, along with his vehicle. He was killed by a member of a rival Maobadi group for being an informer. I had run away from home because of Christians, foreigners causing violence and forced conversions, who had spoiled my pristine lands with their talk of sin and sinners. But here again I had landed in another fire, with the Maobadis fighting one another. The police came to question us, they picked me up from the shared house, and wanted to take me to the thaana. Apparently, my photo was found in the supervisor’s wallet. They started misbehaving on the way and talked in a cheap manner about my body and said bad words in English, thinking I did not understand. I knew what my fate would be if I reached the police station with these men.

When the jeep stopped at a railway crossing, I tightened my hold on my jhola and requested them to go into the bushes, and once there, I ran ..I ran..I ran, without looking back. The heavyset men were no match for a mountain girl like me, I can climb and run and dig and embroider with ease. I am not afraid and I will not bow down to some men who think they are better than ‘these Kondas’. 

I miss that city, Phulbani, despite all its faults, I had felt very useful there, working on the land, making money, saving for my family back in Belghar, but now I am on the run again, here in these jungles, the Phulbani jungle.

It is not difficult for a tribal like me to survive in the forest. I know which trees to climb and rest in, where the water sources and waterfalls are, what types of fruits are safe, which paths to take to the tribal villages, and where to look for edible roots, mushrooms, ferns, and flowers. I can detect from the smell of the breeze if a tiger is coming towards me or going away into the night with a full belly. I see from the pattern of the dry crushed bronzed leaves of the forest floor that a cobra has only recently slithered past without disturbing me. I can make the calls of half a dozen birds and a few animals. The deer don’t sprint away when they notice me, nor do the wild boar. The wild dogs are the only animals to be wary of. The big cats are more royal, they do not attack in packs, they hunt alone and follow the rules of the game. The small ones like the mongoose, and yes, even a  porcupine I can catch with my bare hands. We are the original hunters of this land. We do not hunt unless we are hungry. Even then we have rules. No female animal, definitely not a pregnant one. Only after asking for permission can we start a hunt, we request the animal that it give itself to us, to make that sacrifice, so that we may survive. We always say a prayer of thanks when we finally kill the animal. It is not easy to be a hunter, we know we kill, that is a harsh price to pay for hunger. But this makes us see life at close quarters, we know what it takes to be alive and we respect everything and everyone who makes this happen. The sun, moon, stars, earth, wind, rains, waters, fire…plants ..animals…humans….

Phulbani Jungle Eco-Village

I did not stop running until I reached deep inside the dense jungle, where I knew that the policemen could not follow me, and would not for the fear of the Maos. Panting heavily, I searched for Esther akka’s visiting card and made the call. She answered sweetly having remembered me, and on knowing of my terrible predicament, she did not hesitate to offer me a job right away at her resort. My cell phone was the only other possession I had with me when I was picked up by the police. Thankfully they did not find it, it was hidden in my hair bun.

Akka was really warm and affectionate and she taught me a lot about the outside world, although the women who worked with me on the turmeric fields did not like her much, because she was a brahmin convert, of a different class than all of us, I took to her from the beginning, and she to me I think. We also had the common aspect of Telugu. My people speak a language which has many Telugu words in it and thus I could be a bit more free and open with her. She understood my predicament, of leaving behind an ancient culture. She said that she too had felt confused when her parents had converted, but she slowly started seeing the light in Jesus, especially after she witnessed the miracle of her mother’s recovery from cancer, and how the church has helped her pay her medical bills, how the congregation rallied behind her, how she was looked after despite being an only child, with no men in the family. How the church never let her feel alone and helpless. Also, life was simple and easy she told me, one did not have to do so many fasts, observe so many rules, there was no bathing a million times,…everything was so simple and easy to follow….you just went to church on Sunday, and you had a whole community who would help you in every way. Jesus made sure you were looked after. What more did anyone want? Her hesitations had paved the way to acceptance, and then to absolute trust, and eventually to strong religiosity.

I first met Esther akka in Bhubaneswar when we had gone to attend a Trade Fair showcasing our rare breed of turmeric, and the traditional turmeric harvesting methods that we practised in Phulbani, she was there with her team from the Eco-Village. She worked as the Guest Relations Officer there. I still have her visiting card somewhere in my jhola that she gave me at our first meeting….and she had been very sincere in saying that if ever I needed help, I must not forget to call her.

I knew that she was trying to convert me completely, to convince me of being a Christain like herself, then she too could feel convinced of her own decision, it would validate her own life’s path. I also know that if I sought Esther akka’s help, it would not be given for free and that I would need to prove my credentials as a Christain to gain her trust and support, but I had no choice.

This resort is a haven in the midst of the Phulbani jungle, pristine and unspoilt. Not many know of it and it is a well kept secret. Not much can be known about it while searching on the computer, people come via personal recommendations, by word of mouth publicity. We get film crews who love it so much here that they take an oath not to divulge this location to anyone else…to other production houses…we get church groups on a retreat, of course the wildlife lovers, birdwatchers, anthropologists..an odd journalist or a reporter, but mostly we are kept running due to the regular influx of Maobadis and their top leadership. Regular meetings are held here, important decisions made here….some men stay on for long periods of time and look for local tribal girls to keep them company. And they are all here planning on how to fight the government. Hearing them abuse my land day in and day out was not easy. They were constantly plotting an accident here, a shooting there, a kidnapping somewhere else. Foreigners kept coming and going from the resort and the place was always busy. All this, while everything around us was dark and quiet. It was a serene forest desecrated by human folly. The tributary of Mahanadi flowed close by, a few mountain springs, a small waterfall, a whole meadow of wildflowers and ferns…Sal…Mahua…Teak…on the weekly off days I would wander about in the forest feeling warm and bright inside ..the forest grounds smelt like home…I would climb up a tree and rest on it with no one to disturb me for the whole day…..I would pray to the goddess of the forest …and ask her to keep my parents and village safe. Safe from the Christians and Maobadis.

Akka had also told me not to be too friendly with the guests at the resort, ‘That is why they keep pestering you, stop smiling at them so spontaneously’, she would warn me every other day when male guests behaved badly with me. She was always making sure that I was protected. But I cannot change my basic nature, how can one not smile when one feels like smiling? What is there not to smile? The gods do not create something and then make it evil or sinful, it is upto us to be wise in how we look at anything, anybody. Our ancestors show us the way. We must pray to them and keep that connection going and learn from the signs they send us. It is that simple. We vanavasis have a very mature understanding of the world around us and the gods beyond, yet most people can only think of exploiting us, our land, and our resources. You must have read about what happened at Niyamgiri. We are fighting battles everywhere, everyday.

During those months in the jungle, working hard and keeping away from the public eye, hiding from my husband, I first heard of Swamiji. They were planning to assassinate him, I heard them talking on phones, on the lawns, on the terrace, in the dining area…..everywhere there was only one topic. Seeing me as a tribal Christian girl who was either embroidering for foreigners and guests or wearing the traditional Kondh costume and dancing traditional Kondh dances with others, they hardly paid any attention to me as a potential threat. But I was watching everything. I was also looking for a place to run to, in case things got difficult there..as they had in Daringbadi, and then in Phulbani.

Given my past, I saw the pattern for my future. For what I had done to my parents and ancestors, I must suffer. My husband had managed to trace me to Phulbani….hearing that my husband had come looking for me, from my church contact, I cut the phone and changed my SIM. I did not want to face him. He can be very brutal and violent when he is angry or slighted. He might divulge that I had never formally converted ..that I had not been baptized….I was living in great fear those last few months at the resort.

That is when there was a lot of talk of Swamiji, his ashram, how he was preventing people from getting converted, how he was an obstacle for pastors to gain numbers. He was also growing big in my eyes, as he had escaped so many murder attempts, and yet all this had not deterred him from his chosen path of protecting the tribals, people like me, from being made victims of some outside entity..or worse still, internal greed. I felt like I knew him, that he would be my father and mother whom I had lost due to my foolhardiness. I wanted to meet him and take his blessings. I really wanted to be his student.

And that is when I was approached. Esther akka had introduced me to Keshav anna as a fellow Christian. He asked me if I wanted to make some extra money. He wanted me to be his informer at Swamiji’s Kanya Ashram. I was to leave immediately, but no one, not even Esther akka must know of my whereabouts, if I revealed anything to anyone I would be shot, he said, looking straight into my eyes. I had wanted to leave anyway and find Swamiji, and here was the sign to do it, immediately.

So one morning on the pretext of making amends with my parents and visiting my village, I took the bus to Jalespeta. It took me almost half a day, I changed a few buses so that my husband would not trace me easily. I had money saved from my work, and I had to hide it carefully in my two jholas. The bus tickets cost me 53 Rupees, and I was finally in Jalespeta. By now I had learnt to dress like a town person, I combed my hair differently, I put on bindis, I wore saris. You might mistake me for a regular Odia girl as I do not carry the traditional tattoos on my face like my mother, and her mother before her. That was a terrible mistake I think now, that small act of disrespect to my ancestors has led me astray and caused me so much pain in the long run. Look at where I am now, away from all that which has helped me come into this world, look at me, far away from serving them.

Kanya Ashram Tumudibandha

After they shot him several times and ran away like cowards, Swamiji lay dying on the bathroom floor bleeding, his tendons and wrist cut. I could not save him even though that is what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world. I could give up my life for him if it helped in any way, but he pushed me feebly towards the backdoor, gesturing that I should leave. Perhaps he knew that I would try and make his most ardent wish come true. Perhaps he could see the future. Many said he could. He had predicted his own violent death, and had it not come to pass already? They were determined. As long as Swamiji was alive, he would not let the Kui convert to Christianity, and this is a big challenge for the angrez who come into our forests forcing us to hate ourselves. This is not the first time too, our ancestors tell us tales of how we rose against the British many many times, refusing to be subjugated, so they invented many scary stories about us to make us seem worthy of being converted, of being exterminated.

There were 130 other girls that day at the Kanya Ashram in Tumudibandha….they too saw what I saw …but I am witness to more. I heard them talk to their group leader on the phone, I heard names I should not have heard, I saw faces I should not have seen. I married the one whom I should not have married.

I was the oldest of the lot at the ashram, and I was to take charge that day…on Janmashtami day, after pooja. Swamiji said that from now on I was to assist in teaching the younger girls, I felt fulfilled, I felt like my life had meaning…instead I ended up running all the way to the Jaleswara Temple in Jalespeta on NH 59 to save myself from being kidnapped or shot dead. My parents, my family, my relatives, all of them can be finished in one single attack by them. They have guns. They have power. They are taught to hate us and our ways. What chance do I stand in front of such brute power? If Swamiji himself, the son of Ma Taarini, could not be saved, who am I!!

Have you run barefoot early morning on a highway before? There are so many trucks ……

The truck drivers kept honking at me constantly trying to make eye contact, making lewd remarks and gestures, they too must have been surprised by this strange sight of a young girl running with her hair flying on the highway in a bright red sari. It looked like a scene from a Telugu movie, I have seen the film shooting in Daringbadi, I can’t remember the name. But I am the heroine of this story, which is far more interesting than that frankly. In real life, I did not end up happy with the man I chose. Instead, he made me lose all that I had, which was more than anyone could ask for. For the fear of the trucks stopping and carrying me away into the unknown I ran on the mud track next to the highway in a zig-zag fashion, sometimes hiding behind trees, sometimes crouching behind a rock, the distance is not much, it is all of 10 minutes by walk, but a bullet had grazed my foot and I was in deep pain. The blood oozing decorated my feet as though I had applied alta for Kali Jatra! That ten-minute escape turned into a nightmare that has lasted until today. I am a woman always on the run.

Jaleshwar baaba kept me safe for two days and three nights. If you have not had darshan yet you must visit this beautiful temple which is by the banks of a soothing river, a bridge takes you across the waters, and the small structure is ensconced in the foothills of the Kotgarh Elephant Reserve. This is my territory. Once I reached there I was out of danger. Yet I could not be at ease…they might come searching for me…I entered into the reserve, there are many people of my kind who live inside these dense jungles, we are not afraid of the tigers or the wild elephants, we have lived side by side for centuries. We know what to eat and how much, we do not kill an animal for no reason. The animals and trees know this. They too do not harm for no reason. Unlike the ones outside …the ones who have just now murdered an 80-year-old man because he did not let foreigners come near us, he did not allow them to force us to change our ways.

Swamiji was a wise man from the mountains. He had lived life in the wild, in the Himalayas for many years. He studied under so many sadhus and munis. He served them with diligence and earnestness, he learnt from life by living in the open, cooking and sleeping in the outdoors, in the bitter cold. He fed himself by begging for food, being grateful for what was given, and finally, he wanted to give back to the people of this sacred land, so he returned to the place of his birth. That is why he chose to be here in Tumudibandha, starting this residential school for the tribal girls. And look how we repaid him! We shot him dead. An old man, a holy man, an educator, a saint, we murdered him so cruelly!

I helped in committing his murder. I should not be forgiven. I am a disgrace to my tribe, to my people, to my ashram, to this country, this sacred land. When I was forced to escape from the eco-resort, I found my way to his ashram having heard so much about it, and Swamiji accepted me without a second thought. Not once did he question me about my background or my affiliations. He could sense that I might have been a Christian at some point, seeing the way I dealt with the missionaries he was always fighting with. His sole mission was to protect our area from being taken over totally by the various Christian groups fighting amongst themselves to feed on us. Already there were about 300 churches in and around our district, missionaries would start building churches in villages even without any Christians in it, as though planting trees. But trees give back without expecting anything in return, they are green sages, always working for the welfare of all, unlike these evangelists. Swamiji would do his regular rounds to all these places, talking to the SCs, to the STs, to the poor and needy, explaining gently about Sanatana Dharma. When he did that, I started seeing how Hindu beliefs are no different from our own. Kondhs too have the same respect towards nature and all the living beings.

Swamiji saw that I could speak many languages, so he started taking me everywhere with him. Meanwhile, I was supposed to inform Annas about his whereabouts. Before I went to him, there had been other attempts on his life. I had heard whispers of them in the eco-resort, I was an idiot to think that they wanted to know more about him and his activities so that they could counter him politically or ideologically! Did I expect them to shoot him, no!! No! But who will believe me? If I go to the police they will ruin my life and that of my parents too. Annas have connections everywhere, I will not live another second if I turn an informer. But how do I repent for what I have done, for my role in his killing? Was I not forced to divulge his exact location and the plan for the day, the day of his murder?

To be concluded in Part 3..

 

Image: Anupam Mukherjee, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons