A literary work is powerful if it moves you deeply and disturbs strongly. I finished reading a book that did the same to me, namely, "Budhini" penned by the Malayalam novelist Sara Joseph. The novel is a fictitious biography of a Santhali woman in whose name the title of the book is. Budhini's life gains prominence in the light of the concept, "development of independent india". Her life tells us the story of the other side of development and along with her emerges the shadows of lakhs of lives which were marginalised and abandoned in the building of the modern India.
Through the novel, Sara Joseph opens up a window into the unknown, yet beautiful world of Santhals. Their world is beautiful because it is a world where humans, flaura and fauna co-existed. For them, earthworms were sacred and above humans, as the land mass was created by the earthworms for humans to live and trees to grow. Their sacred groves, Jaaher, was were their divine dieties lived in the form of Sal and Mahua trees. The God of Mountains were whom they prayed with the greatest faith. The deceased ancestors of Santhals lived along with those who are alive. They watched upon, gaurded and made decisions for those who were alive. The lives of the Santhals were attacked from all directions when the monster of development crept into their villages. The forest began to move farther and farther away from them each day. The forests which lived along with them in the village crept away beyond their farmlands and further away into the top of the mountains. When the water from the reservoir of the dam entered their farmland, they wondered how the flood happened without a drop of rain. Their hope that the water was a guest of two days was proved wrong when the water began to enter the courtyard of their homes. The water that drove them away to the top of the nearby hill slowly began to gulp down the roof of the houses and left no trace of a village. Thus they parted ways to begin a journey into the land of unknown. From another direction, their lands were set ablaze by the fire to dig out the coals that lay deep beneath their homes. The coal mines chased them farther and farther away as their homes had rested on top of the treasure for a modern developed country. Marginalized outside the cities, they were neither accepted by the city dwellers nor did they accept the city. Eyes wide open they dreamt the shady groves, cool depths of the ponds, fragrant nights under the starlit sky, wetness of their farmlands in which their feet happily sunk deep.
Budhini grew up wandering the forests and swimming in the depths of the ponds. Wandering with her goats, she played "Tiriyo" to the them who understood the rhythms and tunes as her monologues. She contemplated in the deep silence of the forest and the twilight that reflected on the Damodar river. A Garland she adorned on Nehru turned her world upside down. She, after ostracized from the tribe for marrying a person outside the tribe, was chased into the darkness of life.
The novel made me to question the lessons I learnt as a student. The geography lessons that taught me that dams were the temples of Modern India. It made me believe that the dams being the pillars of development controlled floods, helped in irrigation, generated hydro electricity etc etc. But it never taught me that thousands of souls were washed away to unknown lands in a blink losing their roots. It never told me acres of forests, the rich flaura and fauna it impregnated were submerged when the concrete symbol of development towered with pride. It never taught me that a nature that co-existed beautifully was destroyed beyond repair.
History books told me the Independent struggle for India took a new turn with the revolt of 1857. But it never mentioned to me once how Baba Tilka Manjhi revolted against the colonial rulers entering the pristine forests to loot them. Birsa Munda was pushed to a corner of my History book.
Education is a big bag of lies!
