It was still dark. The full moon was on its way to the
horizon, leaving a trail of gleaming white village road. It was still dark when
Lakha and his wife Diri, quietly opened the door and stepped out for Mahua.
It was that time of the year when the evenings bathed in the
afterglow of bright orange, after the sun embraced the horizon. It was that
time of the year when the smell of Mahua around dawn would almost intoxicate the animals
in the jungle. So much so that some of them would venture outside the forest to
savour a lump. Why, if you were in the forest in the still of the
night and focused hard, you could hear even the mesmerising sound of the
flowers dropping on the ground, “dwoop”.
Diri had often asked her mother,”
Henda go, why is that even the smell
of Matkom flower’s so luring in the morning?”
“Because, the spirits in the forest hide their nectar in the
Mahua tree”, her mother would say. To which, young Diri would reason, “No, no, I am asking why mornings?”
“Because”, her mother would answer,” the spirits don’t want
to be seen, so they hide the nectar only late in the night, after they finish their
sabha, meeting each other!”
And Diri’s random thoughts would take to motion, as random
as the kok’s selection of fishes at
the village pond. The Dighi itself
was home to myriad spooky stories. Many a times she had gathered tales from the
men bathing after sunset, of their encounters with the maidens with beautiful
burnt skin, slender neck and honey smooth voice. Most often than not, it would
be just one seemingly helpless lass, asking them for directions. Once they are
cosy in conversation, the girl would vanish in the thin air without a notice,
leaving the frightened man gasping for air. Worse yet, she would take the man
her own way. And when he has completely lost his sense of direction, suddenly,
he would notice her legs and gradually her inverted feet!! Most would return in
a state of madness or in the least, stupor, from such encounters.
Well, not only paranormal beings, Bhagandanga and the villages nearby were
also frequented by dacoits. “But that was long ago”, Diri thought to herself.
The village manjhi doesn’t allow even
petty thieves to get away. On one such occasion, Diri summoned the recesses of
her memory, when dacoits had attacked the village, the sentries and village
keepers had trapped them and had beaten them up black and blue. One of the dacoits
had died while escaping and they had found his body in a paddy field near
Bhagandanga, next day afternoon. The soil was red, soaked in his blood. Next
harvest, when they gathered thrice the paddy from the same field, everyone said
the same thing. It was the blood that had made the almost barren land so
fertile.
“I wish I could turn back time”, Diri sighed, reminiscing of the
olden days. One looked forward to each day eagerly anticipating a new adventure
to unfold itself. Every day. Now, amidst the routine household chores and the
countless hours at field, even sohrai
didn’t seem like celebration.
During a journey, it’s always the woman who leads. Dust on
the mud road pressed beneath their cautious feet as Lakha trod lightly behind
Diri, following the smell of the Mahua tree at the distance. A light might
awaken the villagers, so they walked guided by the silhouettes of the trees and
their own frames.
As they stepped outside the village, Diri remembered how her
mother had warned her not to venture out to gather Mahua, especially during the
full moon nights. There was a soft
breeze lilting around the trees by the village road and the arresting smell of
Mahua flowers was not something that helped heed that precious advice, at least
at this juncture. The intensity of the smell in the air grew, after almost
every step they took. Warm yet soothing, strong yet mellow, the fragrance of
the Mahua knew how to steal the hearts of the ones who had had a sniff.
Finally, Diri’s eyes spotted the white flowers at a distance, after two large Sal
trees. They had reached.
To be continued....
