Prey by the Ganges

By Hemant Kumar

1948. A cold, rainy night in a forest across the Ganges, deep in the heart of eastern India. An unarmed man with anger in his heart and a fortune on his person. A handsome Thakur with evil on his mind and blood on his hands. Both chasing a rare diamond, but for completely different reasons. There are the others too—the Thakur's beautiful wife, the sleazy psychopath, the angry muscleman and the corrupt dairy managers stunning daughter. Each is a pawn in this bizarre game of life and death, and each with a story to tell. Or hide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wisdom Tree Publishers
• Release date: Jun 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9788183282710

Book preview

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1

October 15, 1948.

By The River Ganges,

In A Remote Eastern Indian Village

IT WAS A It was a clear October night by the holy Ganges. Clear, and very, very still. It had stopped raining in the hills and early snowflakes had dusted the Himalayan ledges, from where the river came cascading to the plains. She felt and looked more settled. Gone were the muddy impurities of the monsoon and the froth and gurgle they brought. Her waters were cooler, but quieter, cornering boulders instead of smashing against them, gliding off their slick, moss-encrusted backs like gleeful kids giggling over slides. The river was wide here. There were times in the summer when two people could stand at her opposite banks and talk to each other. Now, she was hundreds of feet, at her widest and you had to shout to be heard across the waters.

A surreal wisp of mist hovered over her cool waters, curling and vanishing softly into the milky ether. Every now and then, a darting bat or a preying owl skimmed over the surface, tearing the mist, ruffling its curls. Other than that, the night was absolutely still. A full moon slipped across the horizon like torchlight muted with butter paper.

Light was graduated in a diffuse sequence of grey, from almost black on the ground, to the softest touch of milky white in the silver sky. Tiny, unseen droplets of moisture landed noiselessly on the leaves and the grass. As each droplet fell, the tender leaves shivered and deepened their furrows, welcoming the gift of the gods. Giant neem, mango, banyan and tamarind trees were sprawled out in the moonlight, soaking up the cosmic nectar of the night.

It was three in the morning. Even the dogs were asleep. Nothing stirred, nothing moved. Not a sound.

But thirty-five-year-old Hariya was wide awake. He had waited many years for this night. Once in many years, the stars and the planets lined up in a formation that showered the earth with unique bone-healing properties. And Hariya sat up all night under the open sky with wide-brimmed earthen pans filled to the top with freshly prepared herbal formulations. Hariya was friend, mentor, guide, cook for Vaidya Shambhu Nandan, who was lying on a cot in a hut nearby, unable to sleep—in stark contrast to the serenity of the night. Flickering in a blackened alcove, a small, naked oil lamp kept him restless company.

On the outskirts of the capital city of Patna, this stretch of the riverbank was sparsely populated. Shambhu and Hariya did not live here. They lived in Shibgunj, hundreds of miles south of Patna. The hut was a kind of rest house for herb-gathering visits into the jungle across the river, and for special occasions, like the one tonight. It was a night of waiting, and Shambhu and Hariya had decided to spend it fortifying their herbs with the healing energy of a rare Sharad Purnima.

In the morning, they would offer special prayers by the river and pour the herbs into ceramic bottles, sealing each one of them with hot wax to keep the moisture out.

‘If you soak in this cosmic rain enough number of years, you too will become as invincible as the herbs in those pans,’ Shambhu often joked with him. Hariya adored Vaidya Shambhu, a man he knew to be upstanding and devoted to his profession. In a silent prayer, he closed his eyes briefly, asking the gods to grant Shambhu more healing energy.

Hariya sat back and rested his palms on the cool, soft ground, straightening his hurting back. He loved this time of the year when the air had a smoky, cool flavour and dewdrops clung to the ground. Shambhu had asked him to wrap a light shawl around his shoulders to keep his head and back warm. But the warmth made him sleepy and he was using the shawl as a sheet on the ground. His eyes had become so accustomed to the dark and his ears, so in tune with the sounds of the night that he could hear the rustle of leaves or a coughing cow in faraway fields. The silence was ethereal—powerful and deep. Completely devoid of all earthly distractions, the atmosphere was charged with an otherworldly energy—a sort of background hum that descended upon the earth from the stars above. It lingered over the trees and the grass like the fading note of a vaporous aum.

Without a warning, a blood-curdling scream shattered the stillness of the night. The scream arose from a cauldron of pain. High-pitched and primordial, it tore through the air, piercing the heart of the night; ricocheting off the mud walls of the hut, where Shambhu lay, wide awake. He sat up, shaking down to the navel. Alarm bells went off in his eardrums and a charge of electricity ran up and down his back.

Outside, Hariya’s elbows buckled and he fell backwards on the grass.

In seconds, Shambhu was out of the hut and by Hariya’s side.

‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered hoarsely, his heart thumping wildly.

‘Hm,’ said Hariya, rising.

Unspoken in that moment, was their concern for the safety of Shambhu’s childhood friend, Ravi.

‘It came from the other side, right?’ asked Shambhu.

‘Yes, maybe some animal fell into a trap.’

‘Hm,’ said Shambhu, nodding pensively, but he was suddenly very, very worried. Ravi had set off on a dangerous trek across the river, only that evening.

Shambhu sprinted towards the river, down a narrow, meandering path cut through ten-foot high elephant grass. Hariya ran into the hut, grabbed the vaidya’s medicine bag, and followed, the scream still echoing in his ears.

The elephant grass cleared, giving way to a centuries-old, low mud wall that separated the jungle from the riverbank. The opposite bank was clearly visible in the moonlight. As they approached the berm, loud voices stopped them in their tracks.

Shambhu and Hariya sat down, hunched and breathless, only their eyes clearing the wall. Less than a hundred feet away, on the opposite bank, stood a clutch of men. They were cussing and shouting. Something lay at their feet, on the sands of the bank. Shambhu realised it was a human figure—very still.

One of the men raised a club he held, and brought it down, full-force, on the motionless figure. Grunting loudly, the man raised his arm again, this time even higher. The tight knot of men surrounding the body, pulled back quickly, to make way. Once again, the club came down hard on the body. The punishing ‘thwackkk’ of wood making contact with flesh and bone, flew over the silent waters with terrifying impact. On and on, the beating continued, relentlessly.

Shambhu cringed, every hair standing on his neck and back. He was a traditional bonesetter. He knew what was happening to the victim—his bones were being smashed to pulp.

But the victim did not make a sound.

‘The man has either slipped into a deep unconscious state, or is dead beyond pain,’ he said to himself. In his years of practice, Shambhu had seen many patients with severe injury and trauma to the bone. Never before had he witnessed the brutal dismantling of a human body.

This was quiet, cold violence. It felt visceral, evil. He shuddered.

Pursing his lips in a muted wince, Shambhu nodded at Hariya. He grew sharply aware of the sickening stab of fear goring his heart. Eyes glinting in the moonlight, both men looked on in silent acknowledgement of the misfortune that had befallen them. Shambhu thought he was going to be sick, as an irrepressible cry arose deep in the pit of his stomach. He bit down hard, curling his lips inward and clamping down with his teeth. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he began shaking. He closed his hand around his mouth, stifling a scream, much like he would use a wad of gauze to staunch a bleeding wound.

When the wave of nausea had subsided, Shambhu wiped his tears and took stock of the situation. Although his mind knew the victim was indeed Ravi, his heart desperately hoped that it was someone else. Whoever it was, the beating was so severe, that survival was almost impossible. Vaidya Shambhu knew there wouldn’t be a single joint intact by the time the beating ended, if it did. It seemed to just go on and on.

They should be stopped, he thought, looking hopelessly around for help. But he knew there was not a soul for miles on his side of the secluded bank. He did not even have a gun. Even if he had one, he wouldn’t know how to use it, anyway. There was nothing to do, except to watch in silence.

The men on the opposite bank were not even looking over their shoulders to see if anyone was watching them. It was as if they owned the night, unafraid, oblivious.

The club-wielding man spat in the river, drew back a little, and landed a full-blooded kick at the side of the motionless body. Shambhu winced. Such a brutal blow should have drawn an instant scream, but there was no reaction from the body. The brain had shut itself off from the tortured body, in a primeval attempt to survive the punishment. But inflicting pain isn’t enjoyable if the victim is unresponsive; the tormentor grows tired, bored and loses interest.

Cursing angrily, the man walked away, and the other men followed. Slowly, all of them vanished from view, into the jungle behind the elephant grass.

For a moment, Shambhu and Hariya stood there in stunned silence, not daring to breathe. Then Shambhu pointed to a dingy resting on the sandy bank. They jumped the wall. Hariya pushed the dingy into the river. Within seconds, they were on the opposite bank.

Shambhu dropped to his knees beside the body, while Hariya rested the medicine bag on the sand. It didn’t take any knowledge of medicine to understand that the victim wasn’t going to need any medicine.

There were no clothes on the man’s body. It was clear why the man had shrieked like that; the high-pitched, whites-of-the-eyes screech of a slaughterhouse animal. Of a man who was being broken, piece by piece. And of a man who had given up. His long hair was a tangled mess with thick clumps of clotted blood. His face was swollen, blood-smeared and sand-encrusted. One eye was almost out of its socket. Oddly, there wasn’t much fresh bleeding. His wounds were oozing, but most of the blood had congealed, at least on his face, neck and chest. It suggested that he had endured the beating for a long time before he shrieked the way he did. The nose had split open and smashed ligaments and bone fragments poked out of the gaping wound. The mouth was hidden behind a bloodied, puffed up mass of ruptured muscle and tissue.

Hariya doubled over, retching spasmodically on the sand. That was the only sound in the night—stunned, angry, subdued.

Shambhu became aware of the manner in which he was analysing the state of the victim—as he would examine a patient for the first time. Not dispassionate or unconcerned. But from a professional distance so that his faculties remained sharp and focussed. But he was also acutely aware of his trembling hands and shaking body. As he looked, his blood turned cold. This was indeed, his only friend, Ravi, beaten to death. Moaning, he hoped that it was, somehow, a mistake.

‘Let it be someone else, God, please, please…,’ he murmured, scanning the riverbank from side to side. He wanted to scream. Steadying himself, Hariya laid a comforting hand on Shambhu’s shoulder, stilling the rising tide of panic between them.

In a glance, Shambhu could see that nearly all the joints on the man’s body were broken. The right hand was tucked under the body at odd angles—shattered. The wrist of the left hand was swollen like a dumbbell—shattered. One jack-knifed knee was also partly under the body—shattered. ‘Like a rag doll,’ Shambhu murmured.

He reached for the left side of the man’s broken face, feeling for his left ear. As he circled his finger around the earlobe, from top to bottom, scalding tears burst through his closed eyes. It was, indeed, Ravi. Early in childhood, Ravi had lost part of an earlobe to a dog bite.

Feverishly, he looked for the pulse in the right hand, where the wrist was relatively intact. None. For the first time in his life, Shambhu blanched while examining an injury. His mind was fogging up with anger, frustration and desperation. He didn’t want to be a vaidya or a healer or anyone responsible. He just wanted to sob uncontrollably. He wanted to give in.

Suddenly, his ears caught a very faint sound. Shambhu knew that gasses escaped from lifeless bodies, making all sorts of noises. Still, a spark of hope ignited in his mind. Quickly, he bent forward, putting his ear to his friend’s battered nose, and placing one gentle hand on his chest. He felt the chest heave slightly and at the same time, blood bubbled through Ravi’s nose. ‘My goodness! He’s breathing,’ exclaimed Shambhu. Hariya turned, surprised.

With spirit from his bag, Shambhu daubed clean, the area around the nose and mouth. The man stirred, coughing and moaning at the same time. He tried to speak, but managed only an unintelligible low whistle through his broken teeth and smashed mouth. Shambhu caught half a word: ‘…Sham…’

The mutilated lips were unable to form the word, but Shambhu knew his friend had called out his name. His heart leapt to his throat.

Ravi choked on his own blood and his body went limp, losing consciousness. Shambhu kept his ear fixed an inch above Ravi’s mouth, desperate hope revived.

‘Maybe, just maybe, my prayers have been answered,’ he whispered.

He shook Ravi gently, trying to bring him back to consciousness, but his head lolled lifelessly.

‘Can you hear me?’ asked Shambhu. ‘Can you hear me, my friend?’ Shambhu whispered in his ear, repeatedly. With Ravi’s head in his lap, Shambhu rocked gently, chanting his question softly. But there was no sign of life.

Questions poured out of Shambhu: ‘What happened? Who did this to you? Why? Give me a name. Can you hang on?’

‘Can you hang on, Ravi? Can you hang on?’ Shambhu whispered again and again, expecting the same deathly silence. But Ravi’s stomach heaved. He sucked in air, haltingly, as if drawing a giant breath. Shambhu held his own, focussing on what Ravi was about to say. Hariya drew closer, straining to hear.

A deep, loud, guttural sound escaped Ravi’s throat. Hariya drew back. Shambhu knew this sound. It was the final breath of a man in the throes of death. Exhaled without control, it came as a momentous sigh or an extended grunt, largely unintelligible. People said it was the body’s final struggle to keep the soul from escaping into the ether.

But the sound wasn’t unintelligible. Ravi had just said a very loud ‘No.’ More air hissed out of Ravi’s mouth. He stiffened once, and then, went absolutely limp.

Life had ebbed out of Ravi’s shattered body.

He died in his friend’s arms.

2

SHAMBHU AND HARIYA rowed the body back to their side of the river. By dawn, they had cleaned it up, bathed it in the Ganga, in Hindu tradition, and draped it in a new cotton dhoti. Although most of the body was covered, the face spoke the gory tale of violence. It was swollen, discoloured and deep gashes ran through the middle of the forehead and the sides of the cheeks. With great difficulty, Shambhu had managed to stuff the left eye back into its socket, but could do nothing about its ruptured vessels and the torn eyelids that wouldn’t let the eye close. It remained embedded partly in the skull, swollen to twice its socket’s diameter.

Shambhu had cleaned the blood and sand and even sutured the skin and flesh wherever he could, on the face. Golf ball-sized contusions on the forehead, eyebrows and the bridge of the nose spoke of the beating Ravi had endured. The mouth was a different story, altogether. The upper lip was missing and so were most of the incisor and canine teeth. Shambhu had recovered two of the teeth from inside the gullet. They must have fallen inward with the force of the blow. The handsome, youthful face of Ravi had been smashed to pulp.

Shambhu wanted to cremate Ravi by the river, not at the village crematorium, which wasn’t far. There would have been too many questions to answer and Hariya said it was probably the surest invitation to the bandits to come looking for him. ‘You don’t cremate such a badly battered body in the village every day. They will talk about it forever,’ Hariya had said. ‘Word will soon travel to the bandits and how long before they cross the river and swoop down on us?’

So they loaded the body and enough dry wood on a cart and rode to a deserted patch of land a few miles down the river. It was a quiet cremation. Hariya said the necessary prayers and Shambhu lit the pyre. The body would burn for a few days but Shambhu and Hariya returned to the hut after a few hours. Hariya would return to collect the ashes.

Shambhu was beyond tears now. He was a doctor, a man of settled emotions, experienced to witness and understand trauma. But his grief numbed him. He wasn’t able to figure out the mind of a man, or men, who would unleash such brutality on a complete stranger.

‘Someone gave him away or told on him. He should have been at Janak Ganj, miles from where he’d started. Why did he die a stone’s throw from where he’d left, hours ago?’ Shambhu asked himself, over and over again.

He had been uneasy about Ravi’s trip into Janak Ganj—no intuition, just plain apprehension. ‘Is it not safer if someone else can go and meet Suraj Singh for you? Someone you could depute?’ he had asked Ravi that evening.

‘Who? Who can I depute? There’s just the three of us here, and it’s just as tricky for me as it is for anyone of us. And Thakur Suraj Singh is so jumpy, he won’t deal through emissaries. I have to go.’ Ravi had replied patiently. ‘It’s a neat plan, friend. I go in today,’ he had explained, ‘without the money, meet Thakur Suraj Singh and discuss the nuts and bolts of the actual transaction—if, only if, he agrees to do business with me. He is very afraid of traps. His brother Gajanan Singh, you see, is coiling about the place like a fuming viper. If all goes as planned, I will be back tomorrow morning.’

‘Why aren’t you carrying the money tonight ?’ Shambhu had asked.

‘Not tonight, doctor sahib,’ Ravi had replied, smiling. ‘First, I’m not sure if Suraj Singh will meet me at all. Where will I stash all that money? Secondly, I too, need to be sure there is, actually, such a diamond for sale. I have only heard stories about it; never actually seen it. So, today’s meeting is an introduction of sorts. But I’m sure he will remember me from college. I do remember him.’

‘What happened across the river? Was it a trap? Was it betrayal? Who betrayed him?’ Shambhu was desperately seeking answers.

He knew that most of the answers were already gone with Ravi. The thought tore through his flesh like hot shrapnel.

Shambhu shuddered, thinking about the excruciating pain Ravi must have endured. He knew that such extreme pain could make anyone give anything away. ‘When the body suffers so much pain, the mind acts selfishly. It reasons that if it gives the tormentor what he wants, the punishment will stop. That’s how the police beat confessions out of anyone. No human being can take so much beating and remain human,’ he explained to Hariya.

His heart was gripped in a vice, convulsing with grief and anger. Shambhu stood up, squared his shoulders and drew a deep breath. ‘Ravi died so we could live, Hariya,’ he said, fighting back the flood of tears building up inside him. ‘They would have slaughtered us too, if he had told them where the money was. He let them beat him to death so we could live.’ Eyes fixed far away, at infinity, Shambhu spoke reverentially: ‘That’s superhuman.’

Shambhu had made up his mind.

He announced to Hariya that he was going to cross the river—with the money.

‘What?’ Hariya almost barked. ‘But you don’t know the first thing about Janak Ganj or the jungle, or anything. See what happened to your friend.’

Shambhu had decided and Hariya knew wild horses wouldn’t keep him away, danger or no danger.

‘I want answers,’ he snapped.

‘What will answers bring, or bring back?’

‘Closure,’ he replied, quiet, ready, resolute.

‘Sarkar, do you think you are the only one who has questions? Will you listen to me?’ Hariya beseeched.

‘Nothing you say will change my mind, Hariya. My mind’s made up.’ Shambhu had a glint in his eyes and Hariya knew better than to argue with him.

‘Didn’t you agree to Ravi bhaiya’s trip into Janak Ganj? And don’t you feel responsible for it—for what has happened?’

Shambhu hung his head and his shoulders slouched in resignation.

‘I feel the same right now—letting you walk into that snake pit without asking the right questions, at least. Please understand sarkar, I have brought you up,’ said Hariya.

Shambhu sat down on the floor before Hariya, resting his back against the bare wall of the hut. Raising one knee and resting a straightened elbow on it, he gave Hariya the nod to go on.

‘Something happened in the hours between Ravi’s crossing the river and that beating over there,’ began Hariya. ‘He was a regular at Janak Ganj. They were used to seeing him. In all these years, no one had ever done anything to him. He came and went as he pleased. Then how did they suddenly pounce on him? And who were those men?’

‘Look, Hariya, my friend,’ explained Shambhu, ‘there’s no point asking these questions. You can’t dissuade me from going. My guess is as good as yours. Now listen carefully. Here is how it goes: it is possible Ravi’s contact sold him out to the bandits. If that’s the case, then I’m safe. The contact doesn’t know me. If he walked into a trap, same story. No one knows me, or that I am on my way.’

‘What about Thakur Suraj Singh? Could he have…?’

‘I don’t think so. Remember, Ravi knew him from University as a man of integrity. I’m inclined to believe he did not. I’ll take that chance. He met, if indeed he did, Ravi inside the temple. He didn’t have to chase him miles down the road to the riverbank, risking his life and everyone else’s, to beat Ravi to death like that. He could simply have silenced him inside the temple—one bullet in the head, that’s all. He wouldn’t need to beat him like that. Too far-fetched. The mystery is whether Ravi and the Thakur met inside the temple at all. And what happened there? Did they agree to transact? When and where did they decide to meet? These are more important questions, not whether there’s a rat somewhere in Janak Ganj who sold our friend to the bandits. God will give him his due.

‘Had all gone well, Ravi would have returned to the village the day after tomorrow, this time with the money. He would have hidden the money for Dhibri to take to the cremation grounds. If that end of the arrangement is still intact, then there’s only one change in this plan—me,’ said Shambhu, sitting straight up.

‘How will you inform Thakur Suraj Singh that you’re there and will he do business with you?’

‘There’s half-a-chance Suraj Singh will be at the cremation grounds with the diamond, tomorrow. Isn’t that what Ravi had said? It’s half-a-chance, but worth taking. As for doing business with me, what else will he do? Shoot me for keeping Ravi’s word to him, or for making the treacherous journey in spite of this momentous tragedy? If that’s how it’s going to end, then so be it. I’d rather die finishing what Ravi started, than go back with this knife through my heart. Don’t you see it, Hariya? This journey is waiting to happen. I have to travel.’

‘The answers are all here, sarkar. Gajanan Singh waylaid him, tortured him and left him to die. It’s as plain as that. You are still alive, and the money is still here. Why don’t you just walk away from all this and we will rebuild our lives.’

‘How can I walk away from this, with my heart in pieces? Why don’t you understand? How can you say this? That man was everything to me. Everything. What does this money mean to me? What does anything else mean to me?’

‘Then, if you do want answers, why don’t you go and meet Thakur Gajanan Singh in his village and talk to him? Why take all this money, risk everything all over again and walk right into the jaws of death? There is a much simpler and safer alternative to all that danger,’ said Hariya, pleading.

‘There isn’t. How do you know it was Thakur Gajanan Singh over there, by the river? It could have been anyone. How can I just walk up to him, look him in the eye and ask him why he killed my friend, my brother, my everything? No, this isn’t how it’s going to happen, can’t you see, Hariya? I have to retrace Ravi’s footsteps, moment by moment, and then see for myself, where it went so horribly wrong. There isn’t a safe, secure way to do it. This danger has to be lived, even if it takes my life. The money is here, the diamond there. Between here and that place, lie the answers to all of my questions. If Ravi’s plan is still intact, then your cousin will most likely be waiting across the river tomorrow, with his bullock cart. I will ride with him into the village.’

‘If the plan is still intact,’ murmured Hariya, shaking his head.

‘Intact or not, I am travelling. Ravi is replaced,’ said Shambhu, resolute.

‘What if it was Thakur Gajanan Singh, after all? You too, know that it could not have been anyone else. What then? What will you ask him and what will he then, do to you? Have you even thought about that?’ Hariya was clutching at straws in the wind.

‘Well, then, he will learn to pay for his deeds. If I can put bones together, I can also take them apart, with my bare hands. I know everything about bones,’ said Shambhu, exhaling loudly.

The shadow was back in his eyes, slate-grey lines of hard thinking on his forehead and anger in his heart. Hariya noted with a knot in his stomach, how the inquisitive boy he had so lovingly nurtured, was struggling with cyclic bouts of guilt, grief, disbelief and cold, murderous rage.

‘How far can rage take a man?’ asked Hariya.

‘To the end of the earth,’ replied Shambhu, in a voice sharp as the edge of a blade. ‘Or to the bottom of the earth.’

3

October 17, 1948

Mahendru Ghat, Patna,

On The South Bank Of Ganga

SHAMBHU STARED AT the vessel that would launch him on the most perilous journey of his life.

It looked as fragile as a paper boat. Rusted keel, rusted decks and rusted stack. It had been painted once, but now, high on the stack, only the chipped remains of a black-and-gold emblem caught the sun, off and on. Weighed down by the tonnes of coal in the hold below, the boat was listing. The coal burned the fires that boiled the water that made the steam that drove the turbine that turned the propeller that moved the boat forward.

The vessel was moored to large iron rings driven into the floor of the stone embankment. The rings formed the functional end of wrought iron rivets, thick as a fat man’s thumb, driven almost a foot into the stone block. Thick coir ropes secured the vessel that locals called a steamer.

The ageing steamer was, in fact, a marvel of sorts. Marvel because the old, leaky tub was a write-off at best, like most of the other steamers that ran east and west of Patna along the Ganges. Yet, it made daily trips across, and up and down the river, albeit raining soot and coal dust on the uneasy commuters.

All the vessels that ran the waters were alike. Their engines stalled mid-stream, water sneaked in through weakened rivets and metal-fatigued keels, and there was little shelter from the rain. The tall, wide, unwieldy stacks upset the centre of gravity so violently that in rough waters, they swung from side to side like crazy weather cocks. Their owners didn’t repair them and the contractual operators packed them till things were falling into the water. But here in the forgotten, stagnant backwaters of independent India, the steamers were the lifeline of the people.

And there were no bridges across the river. Before steamers floated into the scene, people used unreliable and temperamental boats to cross the river. Steamers, therefore, became the floating bridges for most Biharis. Mail routes opened up, goods started moving in large volumes and people could commute on a regular basis. But the steamers were not able to stop at every village along the river. Geographical and economic needs spawned a network of mini-ports along the route of the river. Simariya ghat on the northern bank of the Ganges developed as one such hub, serving populations of Janak Ganj, Narainpur, Ormanjhi and at least a dozen other villages, big and small.

Shambhu ambled up to a man who was leisurely scooping up pails of muddy water from the floor of the vessel’s deck. He asked him when the boat would leave.

‘When it fills up. But first I’ve got to get the river out of my boat,’ said the man, without a hint of hurry in his tone or body language.

‘And when will it fill up?’ asked Shambhu.

‘God only knows,’ said the man, tossing some dirty water overboard and pausing to take a long drag from a bidi resting on the edge of a bench. ‘Sometimes she is full before we’ve shovelled the coal into the furnace. And there are times when she sits and sits here like a chronic spinster.’ He shrugged his shoulders amiably, as if talking about a favourite person, not a waterlogged steamer. ‘Why? You new here?’ asked the man, taking another deep drag from his bidi.

Shambhu said something about coming from another part of Bihar, and looked away.

He scanned the ghat from end to end. It wasn’t more than hundred metres long. Personal luggage and commercial goods were steadily stacking up near the boarding area. It was indication that the boat would at least, make the journey. And what a journey it promised to be—with a dozen or so goats, as many pigs, scores of chickens, fruits and vegetables, hoes, buckets, cots, bicycles and even a full-length plough. Reassured, Shambhu trudged back to the market where he had been waiting all morning.

He settled down on the stone steps of the ghat, carefully placing a bamboo bed beside him. Eight man-size bamboo poles, laid side-by-side and lashed together with coir ropes, made up the bed. The outer poles were longer than the rest, stretching out as handles on all four corners. Everyone knew what it was. The arthee that took a man on his final journey, right into the cremation pyre, each of its thick handles resting on a grieving shoulder. The rich and the well-healed decorated them with gold threads and silver flowers. Poor men rode ordinary class. The bed by Shambhu’s side was plain, basic. ‘Some unfortunate ones don’t get even the basic one,’ thought Shambhu.

A curtain of darkness fell upon his face as he thought back to the day before, and the night before.

‘There will be answers, there will be,’ Shambhu murmured as he stretched, taking his mind off the topic, surveying his surroundings.

A weathered old man was sitting nearby with a palm-sized earthen bowl, its mouth covered with pure white muslin cloth secured with a red-and-yellow cotton thread. It didn’t take a wizard to know what was inside the bowl. ‘Rasgullas!’ said Shambhu. He was immediately transported many years back,tothe timehisgrandfatherwasstillalive. Itbroughtback memories of Patna he had tucked away into the far corners of his mind.

His grandfather used to say: ‘A well-crafted rasgulIa is like a beautiful woman—translucent skin, fine texture, mouth-watering appeal, lingering aftertaste.’ At precisely the same time every evening, he visited the only sweet shop he would ever