The Silent Dreams

Asha was returning home almost after a year. The New Delhi Howrah Poorva Express was slowly trudging into the station. It was the month of July, a bright sunny morning that she always impatiently waits for. Rain and water lost their traces from her heart a year back. Then the summers were dry and the crops in their little land could not lose almost every single drop of water. But time has changed, that land is no more and their sweet little thatched home at the southern tip of Gosaba island in Sunderban got a partly collapsed wall. The day is so live, she cannot forget it even for a moment. The uneventful date she still remembers, 12 i Joishtho. She remembers Palan'da, the master of the primary school, saying that the radio forecasted a very bad weather. Aalo too was uttering some new term, 'cyclone' every minute that Asha never heard before.

The small land was monocrop. Ripe paddies were to be harvested in early autumn. That yielded the paltry income for a few months. Panchu, Asha's emaciated husband had to work as a labourer for the rest of the months. Like every mother in the village, Asha waits for the day when Aalo, his 16 year old son will turn into a young man about whom she can boast of. Her neighbour's son Kartik learnt computer and is teaching in the local computer school. He does not have to earn in lieu of his hard physical toil. Asha too dreams that Aalo will learn computer and will be an educated person of the village. The seniors including the village headman will then consult him for their day to day business. But in her small world she was unaware of the fact that every human being is incarcerated by forces that cannot be controlled by man.

It was 12th day of the month of Joishtho. Black clouds covered every bit of the sky. There was a little wind in the morning and the trees were waiting as if to be lashed by someone very dreaded. Panchu had gone for work as usual. Aalo's school declared a holiday as there were some serious warnings in the radio about the impending weather. Asha milked their cow and was doing some cleaning. Since Aalo did not have school, she had enough time and prepared 'lau-chingri', a dish that is mainly made from gourd and small shrimps, one of Aalo's favourites. The winds soared and rain followed. Water kept surging like never before. And the coconut tree fell heavily on the wall of western side of their home tearing apart the wall of the only room that the home had. Aalo was sitting a couple of feet apart helping his mother. Wind and water started gushing in into their little home. The wind grew stronger, the old banyan tree of the village got uprooted and so were numerous other trees. Panchu was outside and every terrible thought started hitting Asha hard. It was around 11:30 am when the wind abated. Everything changed in a couple of hours, the little home, the land, their luck and possibly their entire life. When Asha found Panchu in the school building, they had little time to grieve on each other's shoulders. They immediately knew that worse time would follow. The sea water changed the soil of their land changing them to paupers. The land could not be cultivated any more. Water receded in a few days but it exposed a barren land.

It was a barren half-merged island that could not feed its people any more. For the next one month, Asha, Panchu and Aalo had to depend completely on the Government relief for which they had to stand in queue for hours. No school, no work, no electricity and no home as well for many: as if life in pre-historic age. The life that was so tortuous a month ago has become so simple, or perhaps it was no life at all. Soon some families started vacating the village entirely in search of a place that would fulfill their fundamental demand of mere existence. The village school started in a couple of months with aids from a few NGOs. Aalo started going to school again. A little savings Asha and Panchu had were used up in repairing the home. Everyday there were news floating around about work opportunities mostly as unskilled labour in the cities. Nilu's mother one day came to visit Asha; she had to set out for Tatanagar next morning where she would work as a domestic maid. Then one day someone told Asha about this family in Delhi. She would have to take care of an octogenarian woman. Three thousand bucks a month when Asha and Panchu's plight knew no bounds sounded a good deal. It took some time to convince Panchu who had reservations against Asha going to a far-off place. And above all Aalo, Asha had to explain him a hundred times that it was for him all; for the day Asha's dreams about Aalo would come true, Asha can then return for ever to their little home.