Story : Biddo

 

                                        Biddo

 ( The following is a true account from my hometown in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. It took place in my paternal ancestral home, a house I remember vividly from the vacations spent there with my grandparents. It is a story of tradition, fear, and the unyielding nature of life in the mountains. The picture here is of my ancestral house)

Biddo was a child hood widow, a curse in those days for a Pahari, Brahmin family. She was married at age of eight. Her father had carried her on his shoulders to her masters place ( Feminist will scowl at me for calling husband : master! Well ladies Ashapurna Devi was no less a feminist when she wrote Pratham Pratishruti). Back to my character , Biddo , while on her route to her in  laws home, on seeing a tree laden with raw mangoes she stood on her fathers shoulders and caught hold of the branch and jumped on it. Her father realized this only when he had moved few steps ahead. Leaving her in the custody of her in laws her father left the house wiping his tears only to shed them again after a few days to attend Biddo’s husband’s funeral who died due to epidemic cholera. Unaware of the tragedy that struck her, Biddo was plying marbles when the funeral pyre lit her husbands body. The older women caught hold of her hair, dragged her inside the house, washed her sindoor, took her “koka” Nosepin, a sign of married women in hills ), broke her red bangles changed her red ghaghri to a white ensemble and a white thick cotton duppatta draped over head, shoulders and her upper body.

A widow of a strict Brahmin Pahari Brahmin family had strict laws to be followed. Days and nights passed on, seasons changed. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling” ( The origin of Creation). Biddo jumped  directly to adulthood from childhood under strict rules of her in laws house. . She bypassed the "bubbly housewife" years entirely, jumping from the mango branch of childhood straight into the frozen winter of a Pahari Brahmin widow .Her skin was dry, her hands were dull and lifeless, her face was stiff and expressionless. She had never stitched a button on her husbands shirt to feel ( or listen to ) his heart beat when trying to cut the thread with her teeth. She had  never felt the  warmth of nestling her face on a man’s shoulders. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”

Biddo had a Younger Sister who died  leaving one year old Child. Biddo brought him up, nourished him, filling her bosom with motherhood. She married him to a beautiful girl Tara, from the neighbourhood village, in order to preserve the societal norms..  The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”

           After  the marriage ceremony was over , till the relatives were present , Biddo on some pretext or other did not allow the husband and wife to meet. After the house was vacant she called her daughter in law Tara and warned her that she should not meet her husband as there was a curse in the family and that she will become the victim and her husband will die. The poor girl agreed. Biddo made Tara sleep next to her , caught hold of her hand through out the night. If Tara had to go to toilet at night, Biddo followed her  and accompanied her back. She made Tara  wear  a lot of Bangels  so that on slightest of her movement she would get the alarm signal. Days months and time rolled by. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”. Biddo was assured that she was successful in her endeavor, till she noticed absence of strain washed clothes on  the cloths line tied in the innermost room of the house, devoid of sunlight day after day.

The realization hit her like a physical blow. She wept in the dark, a silent, bitter mourning for her failed coup against nature. She had tried to hold back a volcano with her bare hands; she had tried to stop the earth from trembling. She looked at the Shivling and finally understood why it was worshipped—not as a static stone, but as an eruptive force that no human law or heavy cotton shroud could ever truly suppress.

This was the truth she realized when she held her chubby little grandson, Golu, in her bosom and accepted the worship of Shivling in reality.

                                                                                                                - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya