It was a very dull morning when Anirban Konar
encountered the District Magistrate Sumanta Majumdar for the first time.
Late in the previous evening the Leftists Front Govt
was dismissed by the ruling Party at the centre. Though the official decision
was taken by the President, everybody knew that the President, who could be heckled
in his very office by his own party-members for losing his dhoti, was but a
puppet in that God-forsaken country. Years prior or after his Presidential
tenure, all the decisions were actually made by the Party chief and now the
President had to sign on the specified rubber-stamped space. So the arrests of
all the social activists had been duly made, and Anirban was picked up early in
the morning by the police and produced in front of the District Magistrate by mid-morning.
Sumanta was a young and relatively short man in his late
thirties, dark but already balding on both sides of his forehead, and had
piercing sharp eyes. He smiled, “Sorry for the trouble, but you know, I had to
do it; well, I do understand that you guys are not of the same feather as the
so-called Leftists, but I had my orders. By the way, Mr Konar, where can I find
a copy of that book written by Martin Luther King which you used to keep on
your book-shelf?”
‘Where Do
We Go from Here: Chaos or Community’ – was the book’s title. Anirban was surprised,
“You read King?” –“Oh, yes”, Sumanta answered politely, “I’m well versed in Das
Kapital too.”
Eventually all the seven, including Anirban,
SRC and Asit Poddar were released from the custody after a fortnight, which
turned out to be a hassle-free release altogether and Anirban was
too involved to remember to get himself a copy of the book by Martin Luther King.
Two years later they met again in an entirely different
situation.
In a distant village in the district, a group of agricultural
labourers were not paid due to a dispute between the members of a land-owners
family and when the police intervened, they apprehended a few labourers for
agitating against the landlords and demanding to be paid. For Anirban
and his group it was a fit case to raise a hungama in the DM’s office. They
assembled the families of the labourers, a horde numbering around one hundred
and fifty persons inclusive of women and children, in the premises of the
district administrative headquarters and blocked Sumanta Majumdar’s office
door. Soon the smart DM came out for a dialogue and the crowd gheraoed him at
the wide veranda of the old structure of the former British colonial building. Mr
Majumdar was given a chair in the middle of the gathering and made to sit
surrounded by the villagers. Apparently the siege continued quite peacefully
for more than six hours till the reinforcements arrived with their batons and
guns.
The DM, Mr Majumdar, who was sitting pretty until
then, jumped up to stand upon the chair and shouted aloud at the top of his
voice and ordered to stop the progress of the police advancement, as if he had
taken the agitators’ side. The baton charging police force halted and DM took
the opportunity to pacify the situation. It was another pleasant surprise for Anirban;
the arrested labourers were freed without any charges filed against them.
*
* *
It was a semi-dark humid autumn evening during the
height of the extremists’ movement. Carefully avoiding the hassle, Anirban was
passing through the busy and crowded Park Street pavement. He thought it safer in
the up-market locality rather than the empty narrow lanes where he could be
isolated more easily; he was absconding from his residence since the extremist
outfit annihilated a corrupt politician in that locale. All of a sudden, a
forty-something non-descriptive person emerged from nowhere to push Anirban
aside into a corner of and asked if Anirban was using his hideout at Tarakeshwar, a
suburb known for its religious connection.
Astonished by the spontaneity of the incident, Anirban
asked for the identity of the person and questioned about what the relation was
between his staying at Tarakeshwar and walking through Park Street. Sumanta Majumdar’s
smile made Anirban
recollect. “I’m at the New Secretariat now working in the
department of information. Better you believe me; there’s talk about not arresting
you any more – but ... I hope you know what I mean. Please leave that place, go
somewhere else. The department is tracking every move you make there. Trust me,
and make no mistake ... you never saw me, officially.” And then the former DM vanished
into the darkness as suddenly as he had appeared.
They never saw each other again.