Chapter-1
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I loved blue.
I am not sure if I still like the cloudless blue sky, the bluing indian team or for that matter, Aishwarya Rai's eyes but I loved blue back then. Back then I liked everything blue or even with slightest bluish tincts.
My earliest memories of blue are of a deep blue saree my mother used to wear. The memories are too faint; of a time when I was merely four or five but the blue colour has remained with me ever since. I have always liked the blue eyes of my grandmother and Chinky-Minky. I also remember that my first crush wore a blue dress when I first saw her. Well, so did my second, third and numerous other crushes. maybe I had a fetish with the blue colour which seemed to maturate every time I saw some new shade of blue.
Loving a single colour more than the rest is not new. Many people love specific colours for various reasons. Many hindus rate saffron equivalent to God Himself. Misha Bittleston always painted in different shades of black. Some girls have been observed to be too much obsessed with pink. Some people imbue their hairs with the wierdest of colours.There have been numerous examples of this single colour mania. I write all this to prove that my being possessed by blue was never wrong. It was not wrong until this colour brought doom into my life.
Well, maybe I am jumping too fast to more interesting and awry chapters of my life. You must wait a bit longer to know more about that blue trouble, about the stone statue, about the potato belly,about Chinky-Minky and her wooden horse, about her and about me. As for now I must focus on the beginning of it all and nothing else.
So, I loved blue. People say, so did my grandfather. People say, he always wore his blue kurta when invited to any function in the village. People say he looked dashing in it with his long legs,fair colour and enigmatic smile. People say it was in one of those occassions that he first saw my grandmother and her blue eyes.
Burra Baabu Ramdayal Prasad Singh had always wanted his son to be a government employee just like himself. In early twentieth century, being an employee of the Raj was not only a matter of money, it was a matter of prestige, of being better than the rest of the worthless society. It was due to this desire of Ramdayal that Gopi studied and went to the best school in the nearby town of Bettiah. He shared classes with the son of the then primeminister of the Champaran Raj and even few Europeans. When Gopi got the highest marks in his Biblical Studies course, the devout and orthodox Ramdayal forgot all about his religious predilections and his heart puffed up in pride when the Father of the school told him about it. Ramdayal always tried to be like his masters. He preferred trousers over dhoti, shirts over Kurtas, 'Saahibs' over 'Desis'and wanted his son to do the same.
Everything went fine till Gopi reached fourteen and seventh class. It was during one of the Bible classes. The foreigner teacher was teaching about Christ raising David from his grave and he was becoming a bit persuasive in it.
"Has any of your thousands of Hindu gods ever raised someone from dead? I dont think any of them had powers even slightly equal to the powers of the holy Christ!"Everyone in the class swallowed what was said just like any other lecture and noted it in their notebooks. Everyone but Gopi.
He didn't know much of Hindu scriptures. He knew more of Bible than of Geeta. He was more near to Christ than Krishna. He scored the highest marks in Biblical studies and his father loved him for that. But it was probably the effect of Gopi's religious housewife mother Chandramani that forced him to raise his voice when the rest of the class was busy meaninglessly scribbling down what was being taught.
"I dont think so, sir"
"What do you mean, Gopal?"the teacher's voice was more inquisitive than angry. Gopi was his best student and he liked him for that. 'Gopi' was the proof that he was doing his work of spreading the holy message of Christ quite well.
"Sir, I mean, my mother told me that even Lord Krishna raised King Parikshit from dead."
"Well, no one has ever heard of this story, dear. Maybe your mother lied to you."
This was enough for Gopi. In the last fourteen years of his life, the only thing he had never questioned was his mother's verity. He had heard all her religious stories, her complaints, her rebukes, her love-filled songs and he had believed them to be fully true without a second thought. His teacher calling his mother a liar was too much for him.
"Sir, don't call my mother a liar. She never lies."
"I think she lied in this case. Maybe she lies at times but you don't realise that."
The teacher was from somewhere in Wales. Even in 1913, the truthfulness of someone's mother was not a big deal there. Mothers in Europe lied as often to their sons as to their husbands and to their lovers.
But for Gopi, this was the contempt of his mother. He grabbed the writing board he always carried and hurled it towards the teacher with all his might. The Europe-made writing board, bought by the pseudo-European Ramdayal from a European supplier, got its target on the face of the confused European teacher. Before he could say anything, some of the enthusiastic students started raising slogans. Bengal's partition in 1905 had already given the term 'Indian' a new meaning and the Indian students of the class saw it as an oppurtinity to show loyality to their religion and nation. The clever ones of them saw it as an oppurtinity to bunk the classes. They lifted Gopi on their shoulders and marched out chanting slogans, some of them entirely meaningless and uncontextual.
Poor Gopi was still confused with his action. He didn't know that he was to do these kinds of impetuous actions,caused by adrenaline overflows, all his life and finally succumb and die due to this. His over-impulsive nature even passed on to his sons and their sons and even destroyed my life.
Without deviating further, I move on to the scene Ramdayal created when he heard about the furore that his obedient and only son Gopi had created. His small action had led to an outburst in the whole of the town of Bettiah. Those were tough times and people had already heard a lot of the lean and thin Indian who was working wonders in South africa with his non violent methods. The market was closed in protest and there were some processions. When people learned that Gopi was the son of Ramdayal, some of them came to congratulate him and this was ignominious for the fractional European that he was. He rushed back to his home with his umbrella and called for Gopi. Gopi, by now, was welling up with pride. He had not only fought for the honour of his mother but had made a huge fan-following in school. He came to his father with a smiling face and a puffed up chest only to see the growling man pacing up and down the verandah with his umbrella. And when Ramdayal saw his son, he lost all control over his fury and started thrashing the little boy with his umbella. Despite his wife's cries and son's wails he went on banging the poor child until he realised that one more blow from that umbrella will weaken it beyond repair. Then he went inside the house leaving his son nearly unconscious and totally bruised on the verandah. Ramdayal never came to know that this small incident changed his son for ever. No, it didn't calm him, it made him more rebellious, more strong-willed, more patriotic. It made him against his father, his father's ways and his father's masters. Ramdayal never came to know that he and his umbrella had led to the germination of the greatest freedom fighter in the region. Ramdayal never came to know that it was the last time he was using his umbrella for anything.
Ramdayal passed away that night in sleep. No, it was nothing to do with Gopi. It was his highly confused and similarly blocked heart which overtook him in his dreams. Some women discussed among themselves of the possibility of Gopi and the tormented Chandramani, Gopi's mother murdering the man while he was asleep but after a brief discussion, heart blockage won over patricide. They were all convinced that it was God's punishment to the English-licker and went in flocks to sympathise with the poor widow and praise the dead man. While the whole of the village was shedding crocodile tears over the incident, Gopi didn't cry. He was too confused by the sudden sequence of events. Day before yesterday he was just a student, then he became a hero, then a paternal shame and then fatherless. After the cremation and the final ceremonies, everyone left and the big haveli, Chandramani and Gopi were left alone. That night while Gopi was on the rooftop, he realised the worthlessness of running behind worldly pleasures and smiled cryptically. That smile became the part of his face for ever.
For the next few years, things weren't easy for the duo. Chandramani got ill by the shock and never left the bed again. Still in his teenagers, Gopi was suddenly conferred the crown of the head of the family. He left his studies and started farming in the farms which were once farmed by his 'Desi'servants. He was usually sober and well behaved with the highly mysterious smile on his face all the time. But he sometimes became angry and acted rashly. Beating his bulls, picking up fights and slapping a European reporter from Patna were just a few examples. Partly due to his father's reputation and partly due to his normally calm personality, he avoided major problems. The problems began when Britishers started forcing the villagers to grow indigo in their farms at minimal prices. This indigo was to exported to Britain and sold at high prices. Indigo is bluish in colour and probably, this is when my obscure association with the blue colour started. Indigo growing was harmful for the soil and wasn't profitable for the farmers but no one ever questioned the rulers. People including Gopi blindly followed what was being ordered.
It was the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi in 1916 which changed things for the people of the Champaran region. A poor farmer from the neighoruring town of Motihari had approached Gandhiji and had urged him to come to Champaran. Gandhiji had readily agreed and it was Champaran where he first realised the homeless India, the naked India, the hungry India, the true India.It was during his public lectures at Bettiah that Gopal Prasad Singh first understood the meaning of revolution, even though he had once done something similar to it. He joined the Satyagraha movement alongside Gandhiji. He was young, energetic, popular and strong-willed. Soon, he was the leader of his area and a close associate of Gandhiji. The britishers had to bend down to the power of the non-violent revolution and they passed the Indigo Law of 1916 forbidding forced farming of Indigo.Gandhiji learned the meaning of poverty and people learned the meaning of freedom. Both learned the meaning of 'India'. Seeing the poverty of the region, Gandhiji decided to leave his clothes and wear only loin-cloth. Experiencing the magic of freedom, Gopal Prasad Singh decided to give up farming and joined the local Congress party.
Things were better for him now. When Congress Party decided to nominate their new Area Chairman, they found appeal in Gopal's smile. When Gopal decided to start wearing coloured kurtas, he chose blue. When Chandramani, his inspiration for his first revolution died after prolonged illness, Gopal did cry a lot this time. When Gopal first saw my grandmother, his heart missed a beat. Things were indeed better.
It was at the wedding of Maria's friend that Maria and Gopal saw each other for the first time. Was it the blue of Gopal's kurta or was it the blue of Maria's eyes, I'm not sure but something passed between them in a single glance. Gopal, by then, was young, smart, alone and a local celebrity. The combination was lethal and wherever he went, fathers judged, mothers spied and daughters murmured and giggled. Maria had often heard of Gopal through her friends but when she first saw him, she was blown off her feet. Even Gopal had heard of the beauty of Maria. Maria, the daughter of an Irish father and an Indian mother, had the best of features of both worlds. Her father was a soldier in the British Army who had fallen in love with her mother when he had come to the place for the 1902 Nepal Wars. He married her mother and even settled there. But he had to leave his wife and their twelve year daughter when the World War-I broke out. His hybrid family was ill treated by both the locals and the rulers. He finally died in 1917 in Egypt and never came to know of his illustrious son-in-law. Maria's mother was a primary school teacher and remained ill for most of the time. She wanted to get Maria married as soon as possible. When the sixteen year old Maria and nineteen year old Gopal looked at each other, they knew they were meant for each other. Just like any other Indian boy of those times, Gopal didn't talk to Maria. As impulsive he was, he approached her mother and asked for her hand. Maria's mother had always wanted to meet an angel since her childhood and Gopal with a good reputation, attractive looks and no venomous mother-in-law for her daughter was an angel in disguise for her and her daughter. She readily agreed but with the condition that the marriage take place with Christian rites. Fortunately, she didn't live long enough to see the dream love marriage turn into a nightmare because of her daughter and their angel. She breathed her last in the same old haveli within a year of the marriage.
So sometime in December, 1918, on a wintery night at the Bettiah Catholic Church, my grandfather Gopal Prasad Singh and my grandmother Maria Barlow Singh, later renamed Meera Singh, married each other in a rather quaint ceremony. I say quaint because it's probably the only case where the bridegroom was wearing a blue kurta as his wedding dress.
