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| Fairystories and Poems |
| Tivurambhat The Ghost - A Fairytale |
  | On the plains of India a thousand kilometres from Delhi in the very dry, hot region where the soil turns to dust, Tivurambhat brings relief.
Tivurambhat is a ghost. No one knows of whom.
No one knows when he may have lived, no one knows where he had been born but in the greatest pain, the greatest danger, the greatest need,
Tivurambhat brings relief.
When Rajilakshmi was with her first child and fearful in case anything should go wrong, it was Tivurambhat not her drunken husband who held her hand
When Suswami and his mother tried to burn his new wife so they could steal her dowry it was Tivurambhat who whipped them out of the village, making them run for their lives and as far as anyone knows they are still running.
When Omar's goats were being worried by a lame tiger it was not the hunters who helped him by charging in and shooting the beast but Tivurambhat.
He came and talked to the tiger and helped cure its bad foot. And then the tiger hunted its usual prey and left Omar's goats alone.
Many are the stories of Tivurambhat.
Many are the people who have seen him, heard him, felt him.
They do not speak of him with hushed voices.
They do not speak of him around camp fires in the dead of night.
They do not fear him.
The people talk about him as a friend, a relative they want to have visit them , someone they care for.
Everyone wishes him well from the thousand villages that know him. They toast him at festivals and thank the gods for his existence. In a land that does not have ghosts Tivurambhat is unique. There are still those who do not believe in Tivurambhat. Pradesh Patel did not believe in him. The poor in his village were bowed down with his bonded workers. He owned much good land and forests but by the river that flooded every year, near the muddiest and dirtiest place, his bonded workers had to live in mud and wood huts six to a room whereas he, his wife a two daughters lived in a fifteen room brick house they had had to build for him. Pradesh Patel was a proud man who saw nothing wrong in anything he did. He bonded workers to his employment by lending them money and then, with his high interest, they could never repay him. Their children and grandchildren had to be bonded to repay the debt. Pradesh Patel grew richer and richer and his bonded workers were no more than slaves often finding it too hard to afford even to make new clothes to replace their rags. Dinhama had barely the money to feed his family. Patel did not care how thin they were, how their teeth fell out, how bandy their legs became and how the flies bit into them and left them with sores. The government did not care either and when officials came from charities to help Patel warned them to say they did not need help otherwise he co ld have them all killed. So the officials went away thinking there was nothing they could do. Dinhama decided there was something he had to do even if it cost him his life. He could no longer continue to see hi family and friends suffer under such an unjust man as Pradesh Patel. Many years before, when a child, he had heard of Tivurambhat. He had not believed all the stories but how he loved to listen. His mother told him how strong Tivurambhat was despite being a ghost,
"You must not think he could, like Krishna, raise a mountain on his little finger," she had spoken softly, "but he can do many wondrous things nonetheless. He can lift up your pain and sorrow and make them vanish from your shoulders. Such a one as Tivurambhat is rare amongst the living. Such a one is very strong."
"How does he know when you need him?" he had asked her.
"He knows. And if you think he doesn't there is his home. The old, hollow tree planted by the English. It is a beech tree and the only one in the whole of India. Now it is dead but inside it Tivurambhat lives. Go to it and speak to him."
In those days Dinhama had been too scared to speak
to such a one and he avoided the hollow beech tree
but now he was desperate.
His children would never learn to read,
they would never know what it was to play or to smile because
from the age of five they would always be there working in
the fields for Pradesh Patel and his family.
Sometimes he did not believe Pradesh Patel even thought
they were human at all.
One evening he set out with a small bag which his wife had
given to him of chippatis to eat and went back the
twenty kilometres to his own village.
There underneath the brilliant night sky he sat
before the hollow beech tree and wondered if
Tivurambhat really existed and could really help.
"You may not know me," he began, "because when I was young I was too scared to come to speak to you. My mother and father lived in this village, Roshan and Sutri Gumbalawal. My mother loved you very much. She never tired of talking about you. I heard all about Omar's goats and Rajilakshmi's baby and so many stories I would like to tell my own children but I am sad. There is a great injustice in this land. People such as I are tied to others to slave as bonded workers for many lifetimes. It is wrong but no one will do anything about it and I am scared. Scared to tell my children you may help them where others have failed. Sacred to ask for help for should not I have the strength to help myself? I am afraid. I cannot read and I am told the law will not help me and I cannot afford to employ a lawyer. I cannot fight and Pradesh Patel would kill me if he needed to. Even if I were to fight my family would suffer. So I came to you. You may help, may you not?"
There was silence from the tree and Dinhama left a chippati on the ground and crept away tears in his eyes. Would Tivurambhat help? Could he help. He walked back and arrived home at day break, an hour late to start his work for which he was given a whipping. It was not until late that night after a miserable day that he came home and his wife tended the broken skin on his back and he finally lay down and fell into a deep slumber. And this was his dream.
It was dark.
Not simply because it was night but very dark because there were few stars in the sky. The moon was a wisp although there were no clouds and the air was still. The forests were quiet for nothing hunted this night. Animals sniffed the still air and stayed where they were for they sensed who was abroad. From village to village the stillness hanged and old men looked at each other and then at the sleeping children and rang their bells once more for luck in front of their favourite gods. Then a small breeze blew up across the plains. Everywhere it was the same, even breeze.
Pradesh Patel was sitting in his house counting his money. His eyes glittered as he stored away gold and diamonds such as his bonded workers would never see. He was saving for a bigger house and more land. Much more land. The more land he owned the greater number of bonded workers he could tie to his will and they made him more gold, diamonds and rupees. He was thinking of going into government he had grown so rich. He felt the breeze through the walls and caught up his dhoti and walked to look outside. He could see nothing. He went back to sit down and stopped, catching his throat with his hand and staring wide-eyed. Sitting at the table was small, thin man dressed in a cotton suit and wearing chappals.
His long fingers were on the table almost touching Patel's gold. Never could anyone do anything so horrendous to Patel as touch his gold or be in the house when he was counting it. He only ever counted it at night when his wife was asleep. He was certain even she did not know how much money he really had locked away in his safes.
"Who...who are you?" Patel asked finally not daring to move.
"You know me."
"You have come to rob me," whined Patel.
"Of what?"
"My...my savings." Tivurambhat looked at the gold and diamonds on the table and laughed a gentle, sad laugh,
"To rob you I have come," he told Patel, "But of something far more precious than this."
"What do you mean?" asked Patel who could think of nothing as precious as gold and diamonds.
"I have come to take you." Patel gasped and stared hard at the figure and then his eyes widened as he said in a croaky voice,
"You...are death? I have heard of you. But see here I am fit. I don't feel ill. Why are you here to take me. It is too soon far too soon. Give me another chance. I have things to do. I am buying Brakati's land. Let me see the deal through. I will be happy to go with you then."
"You will never be happy."
"I will. Really I will. I do not have to die do I? Wait, my gold and diamonds. Take them all. Everything you see in front of you. Take them. Give me another year." He went to his safe and took out wads of rupee notes, "Here add this to the account."
"They will not buy a year."
"Then six months. Take them all and give me six months."
"They will not buy six months."
"Please. Take them and give me one month. Just one month."
"They will not buy one month."
"Do you know how much is there, surely they are worth one month. This month coming. One small month."
"They are not worth one small month."
"Then," said Patel sadly and with tears streaming down his face, "perhaps they are worth one week."
"Why do you think so?"
"It has taken me many years to save this much. Many years. It is a rich man's gold. Do you know they have said I could run for government office I am so rich. Before you, you see true wealth. See how it glitters against my lamp. Look how high it is piled up. Surely this is enough to buy at least a week from death."
"It is not." Patel was broken by the answer and sank to his knees,
"I beg you tell me will it buy any more time at all."
"It will buy one hour."
"Only an hour."
"This hour." Patel was crying.
"All my wealth will buy but one hour of life. Why so little?"
"Because it was raised by taking so many hours of life away from others."
"I? When did I do harm to another?"
"Do you not lend money?"
"Yes. That is part of my business."
"And you raise the interest rate on the loan and set the wages of the those who borrow from you."
"Yes," said Patel slowly who knew what he would say next, "and I have set the wages low knowing they could never afford to repay me."
"Indeed. You have trapped them. If you had not, this wealth could have bought you an entire lifetime."
"A whole lifetime!" said Patel in a hush. "I knew I was rich." Then he added, "Instead it buys but one hour of a dark night. This is a sad thing."
"Perhaps there is a way to make things better."
"Tell me!" cried Patel who wanted very much to live. "Please tell me whatever it is I will do."
"For what did you lend your bonded workers money?"
"To build houses for their parents. Sometimes to get medical treatment for their sick relatives. Once for a bicycle a woman wanted so she could travel to borrow books from a charity library."
"These are good things to give money for. Why did you choose to lend it."
"It was business."
"Would you make your loans into gifts."
"Would that buy me more time?"
"A whole lifetime."
"Then it is done," cried Patel, "It is done. See here are the agreements, see the pile of paper. Come give me the lamp. There I burn them all. Look. I release all the families from the bonds."
"Then you may live," said the figure.
He stood up and as he had come the breeze took him through the walls and Patel was left alone with a pile of ash and his gold, diamonds and rupees but he was not crying. He had done something to make death go away. He would live a long while. A whole lifetime. He danced around and sang to himself. He had made a bargain with death. What a man he was! What a rich man he was. He could live without bonded workers. Look at his wealth. See how it glittered. Then the figure walked softly into Dinhama's hut and sat down cross-legged in front of him as he lay on the floor and Dinhama looked up and smiled,
"Tivurambhat," he said, "you have come."
"I have. And Pradesh Patel thought I was death come to take him
away and he tried to buy his life back."
"I saw it all. How clever you are."
"Not clever," he said softly, "what did I do? It was Pradesh Patel
who made all the decisions! You and your family are no longer in bondage.
Nothing with your marks on exists.
Now work for yourselves and be strong."
"I shall never forget you Tivurambhat," smiled Dinhama,
"and if I can do anything for you at all I will."
"There is nothing you need to do. What would I be if I required you
to help me? I have done what I have done for its own sake."
"Tivurambhat why do you help people? You too could have been like the
officials and turned away?"
"A ghost may never turn away," said Tivurambhat,
"only the living may ignore suffering."
And with that Tivurambhat vanished and Dinhama awoke and it was light outside and his wife and children and all the village were dancing as if it were a great festival.
| | Posted: 15.1.2008 at 08:11 | Read 177 times | 0 comments | Leave Comment |
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| Daniel | | 
"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel:Horace Walpole" |
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