Chatting with my mother

 

Photos: My mother today; my mother with her first-born, a daughter; my father; my mother (second from left) with her siblings who have all passed away 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Whenever I go to my mother’s room, I am happy to see that she is always dressed well. It’s a habit my father had. And the kids have picked it up, especially me. 

Nowadays, she recites a two-line verse in Malayalam from her childhood. ‘Amma, Amma, I am going/If you don’t see me, don’t get worried.’ 

“What is the meaning?” I asked her.

My mother said, “We would say this just before we left for school. There were Britishers in our town of Muvattupuzha. There was talk that they kidnapped the boys but left the girls alone.” 

Once, on a visit to a nearby rural area, she pointed out the plants around us. “That is jackfruit cultivation going on,” she said, pointing with her index finger. “Those are banana plants. Look at the tall coconut trees. Right next to them are newly planted coconut plants.”

I said, “Do you think the small coconut plants may be telling the tall trees, ‘Amma, Amma, I am going / If you don’t see me, don’t be worried’?”

My mother laughed, tapped my elbow and said, “Don’t be silly.” 

On the cusp of 89, my mother forgets things quickly. But the old memories remain intact. 

“My husband was a good man,” she said. “Appachan looked after me with so much care and affection. I was very lucky. In those days, men treated their wives roughly. But your father was always gentle with me.” 

My mother paused and said, “Now Appachan is in a good place.” 

My father, ten years older, died on February 18, 2021, at the age of 94.  

My mother also praised her own father. “I will never forget that when my father wanted to scold me, he would never do it in public. He would take me aside and speak to me gently.” 

My mother was indeed lucky. Two of the primary influences in a woman’s life – a father and husband – had been good to her. As I looked at my mother, I couldn’t help thinking how vulnerable women are to a man’s violence. Women have little defence, even though the laws against gender violence have become stronger. But how many women, except for a certain strata, know about these laws? 

My mother likes to read the newspaper. She told me she kept me on her lap when I was a baby and read the newspaper. “You were a quiet baby,” she said. “You made no noise.” It’s a habit she passed on to me. Even now, I devote my early mornings silently reading the newspaper with a cup of tea. I will always thank my mother for my love of reading.  

In her room, my mother pointed to a news scroll at the bottom of a television screen. Then she said, “Can you read Malayalam?” 

I shook my head and said, “We were in Calcutta.” 

She looked at her middle-aged son and said, “I should have taught you when you were a child.” 

There was regret in her voice. 

I remained silent, as I pondered over what she said.  

My mother showed me a family photo taken in the 1940s. When I peered closer, to my shock, I realised she was the only one alive. Seven of her siblings had already passed away. Time kills everyone, I thought. It will kill my mother, me, and all those close to us. 

My mother has aged well. There are not too many wrinkles. Touch wood, she has no major health problems. She takes no tablets at all. Both of us are shy about showing emotion. But I compensate by trying to reveal emotion when I write.  

One day, I woke up with a thought: This good-hearted woman carried me for nine months and brought me safely into the world and cared for me till I grew up. How great women are!  

(Published in rediff.com)

The Toss of a Coin

 

By Shevlin Sebastian

It happened one summer night. Ramesh and I were quarrelling at a petrol pump. We had gone to fill petrol. It was the night we had finished our ICSE exams, and we were in a happy mood. We were on Anirban’s motorcycle, and Ramesh and I were fighting over who would sit in the middle and who would sit at the back.

“Gautam,” he said, “you always want to sit at the back, but I think it’s my turn now.”

“No,” I said. “I want to sit at the back because I like it, and because I am bigger than you. I am uncomfortable in the middle.”

“Nothing doing,” said Ramesh. “I want to sit at the back.”

We kept arguing till Anirban said, “Come on, let’s solve the problem by tossing a coin.”

“Yeah,” said Ramesh, laughing. “Heads I win, tails you lose.”

“Come on,” Anirban said, “be serious. Gautam, what do you want?”

“Heads,” I said unhesitatingly.

We watched as the coin spun in the air and landed on the grease-stained ground. We peered into the shadows and then Ramesh leapt up and punched the sky with his fist.

“The mark of a champion,” he said. I didn’t want to argue any more. Anirban started the motorcycle, and then I got on and Ramesh sat at the back.

It was twelve-thirty at night, and we were on the outskirts of Calcutta. Now we were going on a long ride on the highway, and we were nervous. Firstly, because Anirban had no licence and secondly, it was a little frightening to be travelling so far away from home. But come on, today we had finished our ICSE exams, and it was time for some fun and excitement.

Anirban released the clutch and turned up the accelerator. We were off.

We were going very fast, and there was a real thrill in it. We gripped the sides of the seat as Anirban went faster. The roar of the engine filled our ears. We had to narrow our eyes because the breeze was very strong. We were all tense and excited. Anirban increased the speed, and now we were going much too fast.

This was dangerous speeding, but we didn’t care. Suddenly, a lorry came out from a side street. We had barely time to notice the headlights before it crashed into us, and we were all flung into the air.

When I next opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. The sunlight was streaming in through the window. I could see my mother standing beside me, her face full of worry, and she held my hand. She smiled suddenly when she saw that my eyes were open. The nurse was standing close by in her starched white uniform. A doctor with a stethoscope around his neck was also there.

“So, how do you feel, Gautam?” the doctor asked.

“Stiff,” I replied. “Have I broken anything?”

“Yes, you have fractured your right leg and your right hand,” he said and smiled. “But don’t worry, everything will be all right.”

Then the doctor drew my mother aside and whispered something into her ear, and then he left the room. My mother came up to me, and I asked, “Where is Papa?”

“He’s coming, Gautam,” she replied. “He was here till about fifteen minutes ago. There was some urgent work in the office, and so he had to rush back. Gautam, don’t worry, there’s nothing to fear. It is only a broken bone, and it will heal in time.”

I nodded, and began to feel sleepy again. My head was buzzing, and I felt tired. But I managed to whisper, “How are Anirban and Ramesh?”

“They are all recovering, Gautam, don’t worry,” she said. And gratefully, I drifted off to sleep.

The days passed. Finally, I felt better and stronger. I was allowed to leave the hospital. It was great to be back home, with my parents, my books, my table, my chair, the bed, and the tape-recorder. I was glad for the comforts that belonged to me. I was an only son.

After returning home, my recovery was very fast. The buzzing went away from my head, my eyes cleared up, I had a good appetite, and I got up earlier in the mornings. Soon, I was hobbling to the drawing room to watch breakfast television, and my sense of humour came back. I felt fine. Sometimes, when I asked about Ramesh and Anirban, my mother would say, “They are recovering, but they are still in hospital.”

It was only months later, when my bandages were removed and I was able to walk normally, that my mother and father told me the terrible news.

“We pondered over it,” my father said. “And we decided it was best for you not to be told anything while you were recovering. But we can’t hide the truth any more. Gautam, Ramesh and Anirban are dead.”

Suddenly, my head whirled, and I remembered the toss of the coin. In the background, I could hear my father’s voice:

“It was just bad luck. It was Ramesh who was sitting at the back. The lorry hit the end of the bike from the side, and Ramesh was instantaneously crushed. Both you and Anirban were flung off the bike. Anirban hit a lamp post with great force and suffered a severe concussion. He died in the hospital. You were hurt badly because you fell with great force to the ground.”

But I couldn’t hear anything more. Again, I could feel the buzzing in my ears, and I saw the toss of the coin as it flicked through the night air and landed on the ground followed by Ramesh’s exultant cry of triumph.

I had been saved from death by a whisker. If Ramesh had not protested, it would have been I who died and not Ramesh.

I was given a fresh lease of life. I was given the chance to live again. That frightened me.

One friend’s death was another friend’s salvation.

(Published in Target Children’s Magazine, India Today Group, August, 1989)

Cutting through Cant

 

Catherine Thankamma, long known as a translator of Malayalam literature, steps into the spotlight with her debut short story collection, ‘A Kind of Meat and Other Stories’

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The road to Catherine Thankamma’s house in Kochi leads to a cul-de-sac. So, there is little traffic. There are trees all around. As expected, it is very quiet inside the house. 

Catherine is beaming as ‘A Kind of Meat and Other Stories’ (Aleph Publishing) is gaining lavish praise from early readers. 

The book runs to 206 pages and contains 20 stories.  

In Catherine Thankamma’s first story, ‘A Family Affair’, a matriarch correctly predicts who stole a bag of jewellery from her house, approaches him, and tells him to return it. The writing is simple and accessible.

In the subsequent stories, Catherine captures powerfully the ethos of the Syro-Malabar Catholics of Kerala (total worldwide population: 55 lakh). Catherine uses Malayalam words for dialogue and description. One character Eli Chedathi said, ‘Ente karthaveeshomishihaye’ which means, ‘My Lord Jesus Christ.’ 

In another story, five-year-old, Saira, of a family renting one part of a bungalow in Chandigarh tells the house owner that they eat beef. This leads to tension between landlord and tenant. 

In the story, ‘Madhu’, Catherine captures the lower-caste discrimination faced by a woman garbage collector in North India. Though most stories are only a few pages long, they evoke deep emotion in readers.

Her subjects include the effects of communal riots, college transfer politics, learning disabilities of children, mental illness, and a young gazetted officer, treated with barely disguised contempt, gingerly handling a polling booth. All the stories are told from the viewpoint of women. It’s the subtle, vicious quarrels that happen between women beneath the gaze of men. 

The writing can be searing. Here are a few lines from ‘Silence and Slow Time’, which focuses on the impact of vascular dementia: ‘The surgeon never warned me you could end up like this; that the part of the brain that made you, you – your imagination, your intellect, your wit, your linguistic skills – might be severely damaged by the haemorrhage.’ 

In a later part of the story, Catherine writes, ‘How do I come to terms with the new you? Your blank stare fills me with guilt and despair; I ache for that precious thing, now lost forever. I know your eyes will never light up again. Should I be relieved that you didn’t die on the table like that young mother, so full of life, who unlike you, enthusiastically signed the consent form for surgery and left behind two young children? This dead life, how can it be better?’

In ‘Blood Sacrifice’, she describes the violent attack on a Malayali nun in Bandipur, Chhattisgarh, in harrowing detail. Here are a few lines: ‘With a snarl of fury, the hairy arm seized the crucifix from the table and swung it at Sister Karuna. Crooked blood lines coursed down Sister Karuna’s face, as she fell backwards. He kicked her aside.’ The miscreants raped her younger colleague, Sister Anne.       

And in the extraordinarily powerful story, ‘Pieta’, which depicts Jesus’s mother Mary as an ordinary woman, the author writes, ‘Is it piety that you feel when you hear of paedophilic priests molesting children, of bishops raping nuns, of clergymen arguing vociferously on how to say the Mass, then hear the same wrangling fraternity declare from the pulpit, “Let us follow our Lord and not throw stones; let us pray for truth and justice to prevail.”’ Unbelievable!

Catherine adds: ‘What is he [Jesus Christ] in truth, but a figurehead for a mammoth corporate managed by hard-headed management gurus?’ 

This is writing wielded like a scimitar cutting down cant and hypocrisy with a powerful slash.

Catherine says that she had been writing short stories for the past 30 years. Only a few have been published. Since both her husband Joseph and she were in transferable jobs, he in a bank, while she was an English teacher in government service, many a time, she had to handle things on her own. Bringing up her two daughters, looking after the household, and managing her own career, time was always in short supply. As she said, “There was just no time to think about writing.” 

But Catherine loves to watch and listen to people and hear exchanges. “When something struck me, I used to write down points,” she said. “And then, over the course of several months, I wrote stories around fleeting instances, occurrences, chance encounters, and exchanges. The focus-driven brevity of the short story is the best medium for me. So, I kept writing that.” 

In 2015, after her daughters had grown up and Catherine had retired as an associate professor, she finally had time for concentrated writing.

Interestingly, she sits on a wooden chair in her bedroom, places the laptop on her lap and does the work. When she looks up, she can see a collage of photos of her late husband Joseph, who died in 2011, hanging on a nearby wall.

“Joseph was such a jovial person,” she said with a sigh. “My husband always encouraged me in my writing.”  

Asked why she had focused quite a few stories on the Syro-Malabar community, Catherine said, “I belong to this community. On the surface, there is piety, church-going and community gatherings. But underneath, many of the family relationships are toxic. I wanted to show the dark underbelly.”

But in the end, she says, the book is a celebration. “I celebrated the quiet resilience with which women face reality,” she said. “My husband's death has taught me that we are clueless of what the future holds for us. What little agency we have is how we should confront the reality life throws at us.”

Apart from being an academician, Catherine has been a noted translator of books from Malayalam to English. The first was ‘Kocharethi’ by Narayan, which won the Crossword Book Award in the Indian language translation category in 2011.

The others include ‘Pulayathara’ by Paul Chirakkarode, ‘Susanna’s Granthapura’ by Ajai P. Mangattu, and ‘Aliya’ by Sethu. Sethu. Another book, ‘Ayyankali: A Biography’ by M. R. Renukumar, will be published next year.

Asked about the striking cover, Catherine said, “I found it interesting, the juxtaposing of the word meat with this very earthy image of a banana flower, about to unfurl, with a caterpillar crawling on the edge of a leaf.” 

Undoubtedly, Catherine has made a stunning debut, and is on her way to becoming an important voice in South Indian fiction writing.  

(A part of this article, appeared in interview form, in the Books Section, Hindustan Times Online)

Breaking the Myths Around Polyamory

 

‘In All Our Loves – Journeys with Polyamory in India,’ Arundhati Ghosh challenges the common misconceptions of polyamory. She reveals the complex and often difficult reality of those who practice it 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The first lines in the introduction of Arundhati Ghosh’s book, ‘All Our Loves – Journeys with Polyamory in India’ begin like this: ‘Unlike Emily Dickinson’s “hope”, love is not “a thing with feathers”. It has fangs and talons. It bites, it stings, it makes you want to end your life. And, it makes your life totally worth living, with all its dangerous, complex, seductive possibilities. In short, love is hard. 

‘But love that attempts to cross boundaries is harder. Loving in ways that the world considers wrong could make one liable to suffer mental abuse, bodily harm, and even death. Anyone who has fallen in love with those socially declared as the ‘wrong’ gender, caste, colour, race or religion, knows the price that has to be paid for such transgressions.’ 

Today, polyamory is the last taboo. Arundhati defines it as ‘being in love, with or without sexual intimacies with more than one person simultaneously with the consent of all.’ 

One of the reasons she wrote the book was that in India, most people learned about polyamory by reading Western books. But Arundhati argued that the Western experience was completely different from the Indian one. We have a multicultural society, and family and community press down on the individual with fearsome force. It is the rare person who can break through the conditioning and launch out on their own. 

This book delineates the various aspects of polyamory. In one section, Arundhati focuses on its misconceptions. 

The stereotype is that all polyamorous people are promiscuous, predatory, desperate and amoral. They are easy and cheap. Many believe polyamory is a mental disease. They also conclude that all relationships are shallow and of limited duration and it’s all about the sex. ‘In reality,’ writes Arundhati, ‘many polyamorous people I know are asexual, or while being sexual, do not consider it the most important aspect of romantic relationships.’ 

One reason people opt for polyamory is to explore desires that cannot be expressed in a monogamous relationship. Polyamory is the only way to express that aspect of themselves. Arundhati writes: ‘I am polyamorous because my heart sees beauty, courage, kindness, and compassion in more than one person and desires to connect with them. The same reason for which anyone would fall in love with just one person, I fall for more than one person. I just refuse to say, “Stop. Your quota is done.” 

One of the most interesting insights Arundhati shares is that despite having many partners, you can still end up feeling lonely and alone. So when somebody is going through a bad time there may be no partner around to provide solace or love. You have to battle the demons on your own. This happens in monogamy too. One friend told Arundhati that ‘one of the most desolate places in the world is to sleep lonely on one side of the bed shared every night with the same person for years.’ 

As Arundhati describes the various complexities that arise from polyamorous relationships, one danger always lurks thanks to mental conditioning from a young age. So, participants can drift into emotions like jealousy, a sense of possessiveness, and the fear of being cast to the side. They can also suffer from shame, guilt and denial. As a result, many relationships break up. 

And there are other dangers too. Women being mistreated by men under the facade of polyamory. Arundhati talked about a couple, Jane and Amit who lived four years together in a live-in relationship. One day, Amit said that he wanted to bring a male friend into the relationship. In other words, he wanted Jane to take part in polyamory. 

A confused Jane said they should go to counselling, to have a better understanding of the situation but Amit refused. She was given no choice but to accept or reject the idea. It made Jane feel vulnerable. Wrote Arundhati, ‘Across all of polyamory’s ways of being, there is never any compromise on a person’s dignity and self-worth.’ 

After hearing many stories like this, Arundhati has said people should be careful when engaging in polyamory. ‘This warning is especially relevant for women, queer people, those already marginalised by caste, race, religion, and more, because it is easy to take advantage of them amidst the unequal power balances of the world they inhabit,’ wrote Arundhati.  

There are happy stories, too. Arundhati did an interview with media professional Revathi and her husband Subir (both pseudonyms). While Revathi is in her forties, Subir is in his fifties. Both have had relationships with other people for a long time. Revathi said, “While I have had sexual connections with many of Subir’s lovers, he has only rarely had that with my lovers. It is a veritable tightrope-walk at times, but it has led to a sense of a deeply-felt freedom.” 

She continued, “Sometimes, people like us miss the emotional part when it is too sexual and miss the pure ecstasy of sex when we get emotional. A balance is desirable.” 

Subir said, “I derive a lot of sexual pleasure from talking to her about her individual experiences. It can be very stimulating for me….

“I like to watch her being pleasured by another man or woman. I also like her watching me having pleasure and having pleasure together.” 

Like any couple, they suffered from jealousies and insecurities and have worked through those minefields. 

Asked whether they are honest with each other, Revathi said, “Honesty is different from being transparent and pouring out all the details… It is one thing to know that your partner has just slept with someone else but it’s different when one goes into the details of the sexual encounter.”  

One of the takeaways from this book is how much we are conditioned by our parents, schools, friends, and society to think the way we do and adopt social and cultural practices. Or as interviewee Shankar says: “We shouldn’t take the ‘one size fits all’ that society wishes on us. Children grow up with this mindset; it is indoctrinated in them. They think you have to be on a relationship escalator – like one thing must lead to the next. Dating, falling in love, marriage, babies – that’s life. The only life. That’s how insidious the social programming is.”   

It comes as a shock to realise one’s value system has been implanted from outside us, especially when we were in the most vulnerable and innocent – our childhoods. It opens us to the possibility that the life one lives is the life that has been prescribed by society. 

We have not stopped to think whether this is the way one should lead our life. Is there anything original in our thinking and behaviour? Sure, people veered from the norm, sometimes destructively, like psychopaths or killers. But for the most part, members of society tread the same path previous generations have walked. So what’s original about one’s life? The painful answer: ‘Nothing.’ We have lived the life of a robot. 

If you are a believer in polyamory or a practitioner, this book will act as a soothing balm, a gentle friend talking to you in the deep well of loneliness and isolation that you may find yourself in, because of this powerful emphasis on monogamy in mainstream culture and society. 

Arundhati, who practices polyamory, has provided great value and importance to the subject with her path-breaking book. Kudos to her. 

(Published in kitaab.org)    

A river runs through his life

COLUMN: Tunnel of Time

Sanjivan Mondal is the three-time winner of the 81-km race on the Ganga near Berhampore. It is possibly the longest swimming race in the world

By Shevlin Sebastian

Photographs: Nikhil Bhattacharya

It was a hot September morning. 

Sanjivan Mondal stood by the side of the Churni river in Ranaghat, 90 km from Calcutta. He was staring intently at a group of children gambolling in the water. He bent down and corrected the stroke of a child. His son. And the child already seems to have the knack that the father possessed to a remarkable degree.

Sanjivan turned and smiled when he was introduced by Gautam Mukherjee, a childhood friend. The smile was wry, a little helpless. The eyes were sad. He gave a limp hand for a handshake. In these quiet, soothing rural areas, people don’t shake hands. So, he was a little surprised when a city slicker offered his hand. He smiled again and invited us to his house.

We walked along a narrow mud path, framed by trees and their branches formed an overhanging arch. At the side, children played marbles. Birds chirped in the trees. A hen hurried across the path. A slim young woman with downcast eyes walked demurely past. 

This was Ramnagar, where Sanjivan lived in a hamlet of weavers in one-room houses with a courtyard in front and at the back. He led us into his hut. It was dark and cool and dominated by a single bed. Alongside one wall were two trophies. It seemed incongruous in that environment. There was a cycle parked on one side. Pots and utensils filled one corner. The family stared in surprise. The wife scurried about. There were four children, two boys and two girls. One girl had an eye closing now and then. The family didn’t know the reason why.

Sanjivan began speaking by saying, “Yes, I have become famous in these parts.” 

He is the three-time winner of what could possibly be the longest swimming race in the world. The distance is 81 kms. It is an annual race conducted by the Murshidabad Swimming Association. Swimmers from all over India take part, and in rural Bengal, especially in places like Ranaghat, Shyamnagar, Murshidabad, and Malda, there is tremendous interest in the event. This is an area, where because of a preponderance of ponds, everyone is a swimmer.

The race starts at the crack of dawn at a place called Jangipur Ghat. And it is a race that lasts the whole day, about eleven hours before it ends. It is a race that blends skill with stamina, determination with desire, and strength with staying power.

“Eighteen swimmers took part,” said Sanjivan. “The river was smooth this year. Since it wasn’t raining, there were no waves to contend with. We started off at a brisk pace and there were a lot of young people who moved off into the lead. But I wasn’t worried. They didn’t have the stamina. They were just using their strength. The only swimmer I was scared of was Khagen Dutta, who was lying fourth. He had won this race quite a few times. I knew he had the experience to come up suddenly.  I kept looking back, but he didn’t come up, and by the time five hours had passed, I was swimming all alone.” 

People crowded the sides of the Ganga. Boats kept track of the swimmers. Every now and then, Sanjivan used to gulp down a glass of glucose that he received from volunteers in a boat that was following him. 

“There’s a certain technique,” he said, a smile lighting up his face. “You have to know how to conserve your strength. After two or three hours, your arms begin to hurt, because you are swimming in a particular way. Then you have to use a new stroke. These are the tricks of the trade.”

Eleven hours later, Sanjivan emerged from the water as the winner. He was pleasantly tired. Another victory had been notched up but the price was high. 

Sanjivan is a weaver of sarees. He earns ₹100 a week, and that is barely enough to make ends meet. The handloom industry is in shambles and the weavers are suffering. He took us to the weaving hut. 
It is about 50 metres away. As we approached the hut, the sound of the looms was like the whoosh of a breeze in a forest. The sound came and went. And there it was: a wooden contraption with pedals for the legs and the left hand has to move a rod in a left-to-right motion constantly. This is extremely physical work. Sanjivan said that when he is training for the great race, he does not work. 

So, how does he make ends meet? 

“I borrow money from people,” he said. “I borrow money from my uncle here (pointing to a small, frail bare-chested man in a white dhoti, smoking a beedi). And then when things get really difficult, I sell my trophies.”  

It is strange, but this shy man has an intense dedication and capacity for hard work. 

Three months before the race, he begins training. For the first month it is just to relax the muscles, to make it used to long hours in the water. It is only in the next two months that the training becomes intense. Then he gets up at 6 a.m. and goes to a nearby pond and trains till 11 a.m. He returns, has his lunch and goes to sleep. At 3 p.m., he practises for two hours.  

But why swim in a pond and not in the river?

“The pond has heavy water,” said Sanjivan. “The river is fast-moving. There is a current. So, swimming is easy. But in a pond, you have to use your muscles. You have to make the strokes. The water does not help you. So, four hours in the pond is equivalent to ten hours in the river.” 

‘Can we see the pond?” the visitor asked. 

“Sure, why not,” he replied. “But first I must get my swimming trunks.”

 We returned to the house. There was a curious band of onlookers – some young, some middle-aged, and children. 

There was a pervasive despair in the air. Economic difficulties had stunned the hamlet into a brooding, despairing silence. And in the wife, married to this dedicated swimmer for ten years, sadness was battling with the feeling of hope. One could not bear to see which emotion was winning. Perhaps she felt that the visitors could do something. They were, after all, from the big city. 

Sanjivan carried his swimming trunks and his goggles, and with his son he took us down a narrow mud path. He had an easy stride, and a V-shaped body. He walked with a sense of dignity. Near a loom hut, he called out to a youth and asked him whether he wanted to come swimming. The youth said, “Not today, Dada. I am tired.” 

Sanjivan smiled and he began to speak about his early life. “I was born here in Ramnagar, which is a village in Ranaghat. I learnt to swim from a young age. I used to watch my elders swim, and then I got into the water. I learnt on my own. What really made me interested in taking part in these races was the annual three-mile race on the Churi river. I had seen this race many times, and I wanted to take part. The first time I took part, I came second. I won the race later on, but thereafter, an interest in competitive swimming arose in me.”

It was a long walk, but for Sanjivan, it was hardly any distance at all. For the visitors, it was a time of panting and wiping perspiration off one's faces. 

“I used to hear about the Mushidabad race from the radio and newspapers,” he said. “And so finally I took part in the race, but lacked the technique. I ran out of strength when there was about two kilometres left. It takes time to learn the technique, but now I can manage the distance.”

It was noon. The sun was shining brightly. The sky was clear and blue. We crossed National Highway 34, and the trucks rumbled in the silence. We crossed a field and saw the pond. On one side was a school, the Milan Bagan Shiksha Sadan. One can surely visualise the possibility of budding swimmers in that school. There is a passion for swimming in these parts. 

As we neared the 50-metre pond, there was already somebody swimming there. He was swimming length after length. 

“Hi, how long have you been here?” said Sanjeevean. 

“Not very long,” said Babu Haldar. 

“Where is your cycle?” asked Sanjivan. 

“There, said Babu, pointing to a cycle parked next to a tree in the distance. 

Sanjivan smiled and changed into his trunks. He said suddenly, “Do 4x50s one after the other.” 

Babu smiled and went underwater. He was training for a 400-metre race in Shyamnagar, but to train at 12 noon! Perhaps the villagers do not feel the heat so much because they are out in the sun most of the day. 

Sanjivan put on his dark goggles and slipped into the water. The photographer went to the edge. It was slippery, and he had a trying time keeping balance. Two swimmers guided him to a less slippery spot. Again, a crowd had gathered from nowhere. 

They stared with intense attention, but at the back of the crowd a small vignette: a young man, probably 20 or 21, sat on his haunches and was talking to a small, frail boy with puffed cheeks. The boy wore a blue shirt and shorts. The young man said, “One day you should also be a big swimmer like your father.” But the child gazed at him, as children do, in their clear, unblinking gaze, that makes sinners cringe and remained silent. 

And yet, who knows, this may be the start of another legend. The photo session was over. Sanjivan, who has a natural feel for the water, came out reluctantly. The crowd slowly dispersed. As we walked back, it was clear that there was something heroic about this man. On the edge of poverty, or rather in poverty, with a wife and four children, in debt with people, and then once a year, to produce such an effort that surpassed physical limits. 

Sportsworld has been carrying out a series of profiles of champions who have come from difficult financial circumstances. These are the real heroes and heroines in the land. Although Sanjivan said candidly, “I am doing this for a job,” it is still a fine effort (see box). 

It is people like Sanjivan who should receive accolades, praise, and financial assistance. It is these champions we should raise on our shoulders. But in large part, we ignore them. The result is that we have no qualms about paying Rs. 46 lakhs to see American Olympic champion Carl Lewis perform, in September, 1989, at New Delhi, for 10 seconds, while Sanjivan and his wife try desperately to make ends meet, only to find, as always, a river between the two ends. 

Mera Bharat Mahaan!

Box: 

“I need a job”

Said a desperate Sanjeevan Mondal.

At the prize distribution ceremony, Sanjivan, who has been jobless for as long as he can remember, requested the chief guest Jatin Chakraborty for a job. The minister was moved and promised he would. (Kushal Ray, The Telegraph).

That was in August 1988. This is November 1989. And Sanjivan Mondal has yet to get a job. He is reaching the end of his long-distance swimming career. In his early 30s, the sorrow is evident in his voice.

“My main incentive in taking part in these competitions is because I hope to get a job,” he said. “I have no education. I stopped studying after class 4. Despite my achievements, the government has not done anything. Last year, another minister, Debabrata Bandopadhyay promised that he would give me a job. He asked me to submit all sorts of certificates and letters. I did that, but nothing happened.

This year, when I won, he was the chief guest. He asked me to come on September 13 to meet him at Writer's Building. When I went there, the minister looked very busy. Then he asked me to deposit all the forms once again. He did not know that I had already done so the previous year. I wanted to tell him that, but he looked so busy. So, I didn't say anything.”

The people in the hamlet told the visitors, “Don't write his story. Write that he needs a job. Writing his life will not get him a job. Doordarshan did something on Sanjivan, but nothing else happened. Please write that he needs a job.”

(Published in Sportsworld, November 1, 1989)