Bijay Malla
Sometimes unanticipated incident happens in our life. Such an incident may become a turning point of our life.
And these are only trivial things.
Central jail, Cell No…. It was the time of Rana regime; we were protesting against the regime in favor of democracy. Police tortured the agitators in different jails. We had one voice that Rana regime must be swept out. We were guided by different ideological thoughts. But we had shown such harmony that no one could find misunderstanding between us. Rice, oil or we can say cooking items were given to us by authorities and the food which was brought from the house was also mixed on it. We had divided our works. We were twelve people in our mess, and we were fully engaged in our works.
Beside this, we had some entertainment facilities: cards, caroms etc. Apart from that fortunately or unfortunately, we had to look after pigeons. At first we thought that they burdened us. But as time progressed, we became like family members. We did not know that the pigeons showed the same behavior like human; we were fully attached with them. They were named as Victoria, Menaka, Shakuntala and so on as per their colors, behaviors and organ. Small pigeons sat on our shoulders and also on our fingers. They would fly at a great speed when it was time for food and they would sit near their masters. And we also paid great attention toward them. When they flew out of the jail, we wished we could fly too. We became nostalgic but again they came back.
In the evening we were detached from them. We were locked in our cells by the authorities. They locked both the front and back doors. We could only hear snore of the pigeons and the policemen shouting ‘Beware!’ from time to time.
Soon we became free from the cage and we came out on the open space. There, pigeons also used to come for food. They fed their babies with their beaks. We were perplexed by their activities and we also felt some sort of relief from our torture.
Authorities and the prisoners were also influenced by our relation with the pigeons. We ordered mustard from outside by cutting our food limits. Mustard helped them to be energetic and they could fly on higher attitudes which gave us different satisfaction. We became happy when they were able to escape from enemies in the sky. We noticed that some of the workers in the prison were not happy with this activity. When we ordered mustard, some took it as burden.
One day, we found a pigeon, whose head and body were separated, causing great pain to us. We mourned whole day as if one of our family members was dead. When we asked the workers, they did not accept, but we could not believe them because of their behaviors. We thought that people killed them in the greed of meat, but from the fear of policemen they were not able to take the dead pigeon. From that particular day, we became vigilant in the evenings when the policemen locked the doors. Some of us decided to keep the coop of pigeon in our own cell, but it was not possible to get permission from the jailer. This incident created a gap between prisoners and the workers. Workers would not come when we called them; they did not even call the doctor. The cold war had started.
One day, the sun was shining too much. All of us were taking rest in our own room, some were sleeping and some were gossiping. Because of my health condition, I was going toward toilet. At the same time I saw someone going toward the coop of the pigeons. He was not the worker but a prisoner. I felt relieved when I knew him.
The coop of the pigeon was near the toilet, and the door of toilet was made of just a cloth and visibility was clear. We thought that the friend was stupid and emotionless. We did not give any response to his argument. He did not have any interest in feeding pigeon or playing games. He himself had maintained a distance.
But I was shocked that he was playing with the pigeon. He was kissing the pigeon. I came to know at least he had also some sort of feelings. I was happy but, suddenly he held the pigeon tightly and sucked its head with his mouth. His face changed on a certain time with the sign of terror and the pigeon struggled to get rid of him, it flapped its wings. Suddenly, the pigeon fell from his hands. He stared at the pigeon for some time and went away.
Then I came out of toilet and went toward the pigeon as if I had not seen anything. I saw that the body and head were detached. I was not surprised by that because I had got a chance to read the psychology of a prisoner who was separated from his family for a long time. But I began to think whether such feeling existed within me as well.
Translated by Prabhab Bhattarai
Bijay Malla (1925-2001) is a prolific poet, storywriter and novelist. Brother of Govinda Bahadur Malla Gothale, he was born and brought up in Kathmandu, and picked literary influence from his own family. His fame rests in his novels Anuradha and Kumari Shobha, story collections Ek Baato Anek Mod, Parewa ra Kaidi, some anthologies of poems and a few works of criticism. His works of fiction basically deal with women’s issues and intellectual entrapment of the human mind.