The Spirit of Ratnapur

Ratnapur looks like a dreamy village hidden in abundant green foliage and washed with bubbling rivers and rivulets. But like any other place on earth, it is visited by sickness, sorrow, crime, death, even war and murder, from time to time.

So, as it has its cottages and cattle, farms and farmers, rivers and streams, it also has a small police force, a medical center with a couple of doctors, and a few places that could appear menacing at night – like this rambling tiny tin shed bordering a wooded area behind its small train station.

It was not an unusually dark, cold, or stormy night. Some stars were out, along with a dimly lit moon. The wind was calm and sober, blowing softly through the trees like a gentle breeze. It was not winter yet, but the nights were cool in October.

Two men, Rahmat and Shubir, were sitting outside a tiny tin shed behind the train station, guarding a dead body and squishing mosquitoes. The two men were members of Ratnapur’s police force. 

Around ten thirty that night, just after the last night train had left, a dead body had been found at the station. It was a mysterious, perhaps extraordinary case. The dead body with a single gunshot wound was found in a pool of blood between the train station and the deserted tin shed.

The murdered man was apparently a visitor and a stranger to this village. Nothing was found on him that could suggest a tie with Ratnapur. He seemed to have been a businessman who had come from the town of Rangpur. But much more remained to be known, for which the police-inspector in charge was investigating the few documents found on him.

In a little village in the interiors of Bangladesh, it wasn’t possible to do a quick search into a stranger’s background based on a few papers. So the dead man himself, as well as the reason behind his murder, remained a mystery. They had virtually nothing to go on and weren’t really prepared for a full-scale investigation.

Receiving a call about a dead body from an anguished station master, the police inspector of Ratnapur arrived on the scene with two of his assistants. He inspected the body quickly and gave some hasty orders to his two assistants, Rahmat and Shubir. 

“We can’t arrange transportation for the dead body tonight. We’ll have to guard it.”

“Couldn’t we take the body to the police station in your jeep, sir?” One of the assistants asked hesitantly but respectfully.

“Are you crazy, Rahmat? I am not going to take the body of a murdered man in my vehicle. I will arrange for a cow-drawn carriage or something, most likely by early dawn. You will guard the body tonight.”

“But sir, out here, all by myself? There will be no one in this area at night.”

“Shubir will stay with you.” Once the orders were uttered by the superior officer, nothing else could be done, no matter how unacceptable the order seemed to be.

In the police force in Bangladesh, there are those elite officers, with college education and the credential of government administered entrance tests, and then there are those ordinary members of the frontline police force with less education who have been recruited without brain-challenging entrance tests. The officers and the ordinary police existed on two different planes altogether.    

The inspector promised that the next morning would bring sunlight, transportation, and a postmortem among other things. But when the night matured, even one that had brought murder, all of Ratnapur wanted to go to sleep. Rahmat and Shubir could not join the village in its repose, but kept watch over this stranger in his eternal slumber.

After cordoning off the murder spot with a rope line, Rahmat and Shubir carried the body to the tin shed behind the station. They found an old wooden bench in the shed and, with some trepidation, placed the body on it.

They borrowed a bench from the train station for themselves and planted it at the door of the shed. As the senior of the two, Rahmat held the shotgun, and they both had flashlights and ropes. They tried to settle down and begin their nightlong job of guarding the dead body.    

“These nasty mosquitoes make our job harder,” Shubir grumbled out in exasperation as he tried to shoo away the mosquitoes that gathered around them within seconds. 

“They make our life harder, not just our job,” responded Rahmat. “Sometimes, they come in such multitudes that you can’t open your mouth to talk or eat without swallowing a bunch of them.”

“What a day this was. First, the man in the ration shop gets beaten up by an angry mob for hiding the rations. Then there is this murder…”

Rahmat chuckled a little. “Can’t forget the plight of the shopkeeper. They made him a sight to see, rice in his hair, flour on his body.”

Shubir became a little sanctimonious. “They had no business beating up the poor shopkeeper. He only follows the owner’s orders when he hoards grain to sell at a higher price. They could have caught the owner, or complained to us.”

“The owner! You very well know that he is untouchable. Who can really do anything to him? He is filthy rich, becomes richer and richer by selling those subsidized essentials on the open market. He’s supposed to sell them at his shop at regulated prices and earn a small commission from the government. Small commission, what a laugh!” Rahmat shivered a little.

“Well, the affairs of the day seem to have happened a long time ago. What with that gruesome murder, and us guarding a dead body through the night, as per the dictate of the brilliant mind of our young inspector.” Rahmat could not help expressing his grudge at the inspector who was too young, too inexperienced, and held too superior a position, in Rahmat’s view. 

“Poor us.”

“That damned fool had to go and get himself killed here.”

“Don’t you call him any names. Bhogoban knows what happens to murdered people’s souls. They may come and haunt the earth if they are dissatisfied.”

“Well, I don’t believe in ghosts. My religion forbids it. I have heard hundreds of so-called ‘true’ ghost stories and don’t believe a single one of them.”

“Why do you hear them then, if you don’t believe in them?”

“Just to tingle the spine and chill the blood, I guess. Well, enough about bhoot-prets. Do you think we can take turns watching, so each of us could catch some sleep?”

“No, no! Let’s both stay awake. I can’t bear staying up alone.”

“Well, I’ll be here. All you have to do is call me if you see anything strange.”

“Please, Rahmat Bhai! It’s only one night. Let’s face this together.”

“You young people are such weaklings. This may be your first time, but I have guarded bodies before. Well, anyway, I’ll be up, but you have to keep me awake by talking to me.”

“What can I talk about on such a night, when my body doesn’t want to be here, and my mind is somewhere else?”

“You are some poet, Shubir, like – What is his name? Omar Khaiyam, or let’s say Hasan Raja or Lalon Fakir, if we want to name a poet we know better. Let’s have a song from you young Lalon, a song passed down to us by the older Lalon.”  

“Who can sing now?”

“We have to sing, talk, laugh – do whatever to stay awake. We have not slept since last night, and sleep is hanging heavy on my lids.”

“Hai Ishwar!”

There was silence for a while except for the usual sounds of crickets chirping, owls hooting, and frogs croaking in some not-so-distant pond.

Then Shubir’s soft voice floated into the air, spreading Lalon’s melody.

“The unknown bird passes in and out of the cage
In mysterious ways.
If I were to catch it,
I ‘d wrap the bird’s feet with my heart.”

Rahmat joined in with a thick, crackling voice. After a short while, they stopped.

“You know what? I need to smoke now.” Rahmat lit a biri, a short cigarette stick filled with strong-smelling, minimally processed tobacco leaves, much cheaper than regular cigarettes. He offered one to Shubir, who was an infrequent smoker, and smoked only cigarettes, so Rahmat’s offer was predictably refused.

While Rahmat enjoyed his smoke, Shubir glanced momentarily at what he and his companion were guarding for the night. The little tin shed with the night and the woods in the backdrop gave an eerie sight, especially with a murdered stranger’s body inside.

They sat in front of the little shed, a few feet away from its door with their backs to it. It was only midnight then, and daybreak was about five hours away. In Shubir’s three years of police work, he had never guarded a dead body, nor had he taken part in any murder investigation. Five sleepless hours felt like a long and dismal period.

“Shubir, I need to respond to a call of nature,” Rahmat said.

“What do you mean?”

“I need to go… I need to find a urinal.”

“You know you won’t find a urinal here. You’ll have to go use the bushes.”

“The station’s restroom could be open.” Rahmat started toward the door.

“Don’t go too far,” Shubir said. “I won’t be looking or anything.”

Instead of finding out if the station’s restroom was left unlocked, Rahmat disappeared into the nearby bushes. Shubir looked around and rose from his seat. He began to feel uncomfortable at being left alone. Rahmat’s gun was on the bench and Shubir now picked it up and held it close to him.

As the lone bodyguard of the dead body, Shubir immediately became more active and alert. He shone his flashlight in the general direction of the shed without actually focusing on the body, but was convinced that it was okay. Then he began pacing until Rahmat returned.

“I’m back. You can take it easy now,” Rahmat said upon his return.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you. You took so long. I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“You thought I would take the chance and disappear, like our fashionable inspector. No, I’m not the type to shirk responsibility. Let me tell you something Shubir, it’s no use being edgy all night. The dead man is not going to jump up and get us. Let’s sit down, put our feet up, think about other things, and relax. The night will be over soon, and we’ll be thinking of living problems, not dead ones.”

The two men repositioned themselves on the bench. With a heavy body and a jellylike tummy, Rahmat struggled to get comfortable on his slender seat. But Shubir’s lanky structure was as slender as the bench itself and almost blended with it.

Rahmat decided to soothe himself with another biri, while Shubir took his partner’s advice and let his thoughts wander in a more pleasant direction. He started to calm his nerves by thinking about the good things that were about to occur in his life. 

Shubir was soon to be married to a woman whom he has always thought of as his childhood sweetheart. Her face appeared, as if, out of the night sky, and took over the realm of Shubir’s vision. It was as if a beautiful fairy was gradually spreading her colorful wings over a dreary night sky.

Maya and Shubir had been childhood playmates. They used to go to the same primary school, roam around in the same meadows, and chase the same butterflies and squirrels. As children they were close friends, but as they matured into a man and a woman they found that social codes and customs created a distance between them; they could not meet and be together freely as they had before.

Shubir had finished school and joined the police when he turned eighteen. Maya was a few years younger and still in school. But Shubir came to know that Maya’s family was looking for a suitable match for her.

Shubir realized that the only way he could get Maya back in his life again was by making her his wife. It was time that he proved to Maya and her family that he was not only her childhood playmate, but her most suitable match and life partner.

On a fiery afternoon of a sweltering day of May, standing under a magnolia tree bursting with red blooms, Shubir gave Maya some gold-tinted red glass bangles, which he had bought for her from a faraway village fair. With these, he declared his everlasting love.

As children, they had often exchanged gifts of nuts, sweets and fruits, sharing tasty treats in tender, fun-filled moments. As a young man, he wanted to give her not only the golden bangles, but part of his heart and all of his romantic dreams and desires. Maya reciprocated with all her heart.

There was a time when Maya’s family would not have thought of Shubir as a good match for her, because his family belonged to a lower caste. But streams of Hindus had migrated to India steadily since the 1940s, making it difficult for the few who remained to find suitable marriage partners from within their caste.

The year was 1978, post-British, post-partition, post-Pakistan, post-Mujib time for the small piece of land on earth, known as Bangladesh. There have been enormous changes in its social and political scene even in the young lives of Maya and Shubir.

They had seen the uneasy partnership of nationhood with Pakistan crumble painfully as non-Bengali Pakistani soldiers stormed into the cities and villages of Bangladesh, killing Bengalis to fulfill the political designs of a crazed Pakistani dictator and a desperate politician.

Those terrible ordeals ended before the end of that fateful year of 1971, when Bangladesh finally achieved its own nationhood. Maya and Shubir were still there for each other in the same village, where they were born, thankful that the fluctuations and catastrophes of their homeland had not uprooted their lives.

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Read Part 2 on January 11.

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