My short story, 'Slow Turn of the Wheel' is the 'Editor's Pick of The Week' in the Singapore-based http://kitaab.org
https://kitaab.org/2023/09/17/short-story-slow-turn-of-the-wheel-by-shevlin-sebastian/…
Trigger warning: Graphic Sexual Violence
Slow Turn Of The Wheel
By Shevlin Sebastian
Devi Manjhi leaned against the thatched wall as she sat on the mud floor. She cupped her face in her palm, while her elbow rested on an upraised leg. The room was in semi-darkness. Devi had placed a kerosene lamp on a low stool. She faced the door. Outside, moonlight lit up a section of the small courtyard.
It was 9 pm. Her husband Dilip has not yet arrived home. He worked as a gardener in the house of a Brahmin landlord. Devi had every right to be concerned. Anything could happen to the lower castes. The men were subject to random acts of violence; the women bore a substantial risk of being raped suddenly and without provocation.
‘What has happened to Dilip?’ she thought. She knew that on a Saturday night, after work, he sometimes stopped at a shed where they sold country liquor. But usually, Dilip informed Devi in the morning before he set out for work.
Devi was childless. Her husband was the only anchor she had in this world. Both her parents had died. The neighbouring women looked down on her because she had been barren. They were also busy looking after their children and husbands. So, she was reluctant to go across and ask the menfolk to go in search of her husband.
Devi worked in the rice fields, planting paddy saplings during the day.
Both Dilip and Devi earned enough to live comfortably.
Devi knew their marriage was stagnant. A couple of children would have brought Dilip closer to her. But the doctors said she was physically okay. Yet, no baby was born. She wondered whether the problem was with Dilip. But then he got an erection all the time.
Devi bemoaned her lack of education. She studied only until class three. There were so many things about which she did not know. Time was passing.
Devi was 40. Dilip was 52. They did not make love as often as when they were trying for children. She wondered whether Dilip was losing interest in her.
Devi stood up and scratched her butt. When she felt nervous, she always did that. Then she moved to the door and stared into the darkness. There were a few stars in the sky. She could hear the shouts of mothers scolding their children. But in her hut, it was quiet. Smoke rose from the mud stove of a nearby house and passed through a window. There was the ubiquitous sound of crickets.
So, what had happened to Dilip? To live life without a man beside you in this caste-ridden and violent society would be dangerous for her.
Dilip had indeed stopped at the shed to have a couple of pegs of India Made Country Liquor. It was there that he met a man who told Dilip he had become a father. Dilip frowned, as he wondered whether the man had mistaken him for somebody else.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
The man stared at him, and said, “Last year, you raped a young woman in a
paddy field. She got pregnant and gave birth to a boy.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said. Dilip had only a couple of pegs, so he was in his senses. He knew grave danger lay ahead, and he was thinking at top speed.
Again, the man stared at him. Like Dilip, he was 50 years old, specks of grey in his hair, with a trim moustache. Dilip guessed he was the girl’s father. Otherwise, why would he be interested in finding out who raped the girl?
“I did not do it,” Dilip said. “On what basis are you accusing me of rape?”
There was a clinking of glasses and loud guffaws. This was the place where only Dalits came. So, they felt free to be themselves. Beedi smoke hung in the air. The odour was of fried masala. Middle-aged and elderly men occupied most of the tables. Dilip had been drinking alone when this man came and sat opposite him.
“She is my daughter,” he said. “She had said she had noticed a scar on the man’s throat. Which you have. I travelled to all the neighbouring places. And then today I saw you.”
He asked the man from which village he came from. The man mentioned a village about 50 kms away.
Dilip said, “Don’t you think you should look closer to your village than here?”
The man said that they were visiting his sister in the next village. His daughter had stepped out to urinate when the incident happened. She mentioned nothing until she was four months pregnant. By then, it was too late to do anything. Now the boy is a year old.
“You can imagine how she is being treated in our village,” the man said. “Few people believe her story of rape. I am desperate to find the boy’s father. Nobody is interested in marrying her now.”
Dilip shook his head and said in an even tone, “You have made a grave accusation against me, based on flimsy proof. You know I could end up in jail for years. The authorities might even hang me. You know the impact this will have on my wife and family. I assure you I did not do such a thing. Do I look like a rapist?”
The man stared at Dilip.
Dilip stared back.
“It is a mistaken identity,” continued Dilip. “In this district there are many people with scars, because there is a lot of violence.”
The man blinked and said, “I am sorry. I think I have made a mistake.” Then he stood up and left without another word. Dilip watched him leave, his head bowed, and exhaled softly.
He wondered whether he was in the clear. Or whether the man would come back again. He had a feeling he would have to stop drinking in these public spaces for a while.
He left the bar after taking another peg.
On the way, Dilip recalled the event clearly. It was also a moonlit Saturday night.
He had been returning home, quite high. Near a paddy field, he had seen a young woman who had come out of the house to urinate. There were no bathrooms in the thatched huts. That was when he grabbed her from behind, clamped her mouth, and dragged her to a row of trees nearby. Then he pushed her to the ground. She tried to push back, but he was far stronger.
Dilip estimated she must have been about 20 years old. He lifted the skirt with his other hand, untied his pyjama strings, and entered her. The girl’s eyes opened wide as she shook her head from side to side. She let off a smell of sweat mingled with talcum powder.
It was a high-risk activity. The duo would have been clearly visible to anyone who appeared near the trees.
Anyway, within a few minutes, it was over. Dilip slapped the girl so hard across her face, she fainted. He looked around. There was nobody around. He was lucky.
He pulled his white pyjamas up, stood up, and walked in the opposite direction from his home. He would take a detour and go back.
Meanwhile, as he walked on the bund between the paddy fields, Dilip thought, ‘How could this stranger conclude I am the father? She might have had other lovers. It was not 100 percent sure I was the father.’
He wondered why he did it. Devi rarely said no to his sexual advances unless she was having her period. She was always keen to try, in the hope she would get pregnant. It was just an impromptu act; he realised. Dilip felt regret that she had gotten pregnant and ruined her life. But he was helpless in this matter. There was no way he could come forward and claim paternity. The police would jail him for years.
Dilip felt regret that his son was growing up somewhere without the presence of a father. Even if the girl got married, the boy would only have a stepfather.
Dilip had forgotten about the rape completely. Many months later, it felt like a dream. After all, it lasted a few minutes…
Devi finally sighed loudly, as she saw Dilip appear in the distance. ‘He is fine,’ she thought. ‘Thank God for that.’
As soon as Dilip saw her strained face, he said, “I am sorry I did not inform you. But it was a sudden decision on my part.”
Devi nodded and headed to the kitchen to make chapattis. Later, she cut an onion into small pieces and sliced a cucumber.
Later that night, lying next to each other, he had sex with her. Devi was happy. It meant he still had some desire for her. But for Dilip, he wanted to take out the stress of what had happened at the bar and the memories that had awakened in him.
For the next few days, Dilip always looked around when he walked. But he did not see the man who accused him again.
The months and years rolled by.
Slowly, Dilip relaxed. He asked God for forgiveness. He had done a grievous wrong. But in his life, that was the only error that he made. Surely God can forgive him for that. No man is infallible. ‘We all make mistakes,’ he told himself.
Dilip did not pay any price for that mistake. While the victim paid a steep price.
Unable to bear the ostracism she faced, Mouna travelled to Patna with her son, Mahesh. There she got a job in a convent as a servant girl. She told the nuns that a train ran over her husband while he was crossing the tracks. The nuns did not ask which train and on which track. They believed her. She worked sincerely. The nuns enrolled her son in an English-medium school run by the Catholic Church. In the evening, when Mahesh returned from school, the sisters tutored him. He did well in his studies.
But now and then, Mahesh would ask about his father. Mouna would speak about his tragic death. When he was younger, Mahesh listened silently. But as he grew older and entered his teens, the questions became sharper: Where did his dad stay? Which village? What did he do for a living? How many brothers and sisters did he have? How did Mouna meet him? Was it an arranged marriage?
Mouna knew if she started answering these questions, she would have to tell a lot of falsehoods. So, she suggested a compromise. She would tell the full story a day after he graduated.
Mahesh was a stellar student. Thanks to his education, he spoke fluent English and graduated with a BA in economics. He intended to pursue his masters. Mouna was so proud of him.
And Mouna kept her word. A day after the results were out, she sat him down in her bedroom and told him the story from beginning to end. She saw the cheerful look on her son’s face gradually turn to sadness and then to anger. He narrowed his eyes and bit his lips. A frown appeared on his forehead.
According to Mouna, it may have been a mistake, a moment of madness on the man’s part. She mentioned the scar that he had seen on the man’s throat. “But we still do not know who the person is. All my father said was that he saw a man with a scar on his throat in Shakarpur village in Munger district,” she said.
Mouna could no longer ask her father for clarifications because he had died of renal cancer a few years ago.
Mahesh immediately googled to know the distance from Patna to Munger. It was 175 kms. Shakarpur was just three kms from Munger.
Early one morning, he boarded the Intercity Express, which had a stop at Munger.
As Mahesh travelled across the Bihar countryside, Dilip, now 69 years old, was sitting on a cot placed outside his hut. Devi, as was her wont, came out and gave him tea in an earthen cup. It was a chilly December morning. Dilip had wrapped himself in a shawl. His hair was completely grey now. But he continued to work as a gardener. He was listening to the morning news on All India Radio.
Little did he know that retribution was travelling towards him on an Indian Railways train.
Mahesh was planning to file a FIR. Then he would take this man with a scar to Munger for a DNA test. If no test were available, he would take Dilip to Patna. Finally, Mahesh would get the answer of whether this man was his father.
Even if he was, Mahesh would ensure he got the punishment he deserved. But, of course, things would not be that simple. Once Mahesh met Dilip, he would fall into a dilemma. Should he send this man to prison? After all, he was his father. Should he forgive or not?
It would all depend on Mouna’s reaction. If she insisted on revenge, most probably, Mahesh would go along with it.
All these possibilities lay in the future, as Mahesh calmly read news snippets and watched YouTube videos on his mobile phone.
