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Old Lampuii laid on the ground the stuff she had wrapped up and carried along. Some green frogs, snails and crabs jumped and crawled out on the ground from the packages along with some bamboo shoots, banana stems and a few bundles of green potherb ferns popping out from the wrappings. With her kuwai stained clothes and a wrinkled face the old woman sat down amidst the wild blowing wind, spreading her things on the ground. As the tired and starving old woman opened a bundle and gulped a piece of boiled sweet potato a soft slumber lulled her weary eyes drowsy. In a state of half sleep and half awake old Lampuii observed that the frogs, snails and crabs which she had carried all the way have united gathering for a meeting. The old woman felt as an uninvited guest in that meeting. Paying no heed to their discussion in the meeting she murmured,
“Just wait for some more time. Soon you will be steaming in someone’s hot iron pan.”
Murmuring to herself, the old woman fell asleep. Gradually the crowd increased in the haat. Some customers forced her to wake up from sleep-
“Ekthu Koldil.”
“Duithu Bentgaaj.”
“Tinthu Posola.”
The old woman satisfies every customer habitually nodding her head saying “Mow. Mow. Mow.”
Meanwhile, all the materials brought for sale by the old woman got sold away. At the end of the day, this octogenerian old woman felt drained with fatigue. She threw away the few crabs that remained unsold. Before packing her things and returning home the old woman longed for some rest. Looking around with her weary eyes old Lampuii took out a bottle of pure Kaiyad-um. Only this can revive the energy in her to return home down the long way.
Later, old Lampuii didn’t even realise how long she had been lying drunk at that place. At a point of time when she opened her eyes she failed to locate the way leading her homewards from the haat through the winding roads. With the fall of darkness her eyesight weakens and she cannot identify things around clearly. By then the whole area of the haat had been isolated. The helpless old woman couldn’t find a way and cursing her fate she raised her clothes and took a leak sss-ing there itself.
Old Lampuii whispered to herself,
“Oh Lord, U-Blei the great! I am all alone today. Please protect me... please protect me.”
Right then a strange sound hit the ears of the old woman, “Ghot...ghot.”It felt like a great relief amidst her loneliness when with sheer love and care she gently pulled towards her a tiny piglet with her walking stick.”
“Come, little wildling.”
Lampuii released a sigh of relief.
“I am no more lonely now in this wide empty and unpleasant haat amidst the distant fields. I have with me a small creature.”
A smile appeared on old Lampuii’s withered face. The little piglet made strange sounds searching for food. The old woman’s love and caress could not calm it down.
“What can I offer you, poor thing?”
Being unusually busy with the hope of finding something she kept roving inside her bag.
“Nothing. I have nothing. This ill-fated woman has nothing to offer you.”
Amidst that darkness of the night the woman pulled her clothes stripping herself in utter helplessness and started crying beating her forehead.
“How unfortunate I am! How unfortunate of me!”
The dark night seemed hauntingly bizarre with the heartbreaking cries of old Lampuii. Her cries spread over the valley waking up the dozing children crying and startling them from their innocent drowsiness. The old woman continued crying cursing herself. With hiccups and exhaustion of crying as she calmed down old Lampuii shuddered with the memory of a past experience lost years ago. She closed her eyes possessed and lost in the past memory. In the darkness the almost blind old woman felt the little piglet trying to suck one of her breasts hanging dry on her naked body. She felt her breasts bursting/stiffen up after years in a strange feeling and excitement. Turning and crawling towards the piglet the old woman picked it up and thrust a nipple into the mouth of the poor creature like a mother suckling her child.
“Mow...mow...mow...”
She murmured. It is either Nongkhram or Lungkram’s tiny mouth – on her breast, sucking. Nongkhram and Lungkram are the twin sons of old Lampuii. Old memories revived creating ripples inside the uncertain mind of this half blind woman. As if she is transformed into her maiden youth of sweet sixteen.
A pile of daily chores awaits undone. And on the other hand her sons are going to suck her breasts dry anyways. Her husband might turn up any moment starving and thirsty. Finding no way Lampuii besmeared a drop of home-made bear each into her sons mouth to induce sleep so that she could finish her work as they lay sleeping intoxicated.
“Give me some food.”
“Bring me some drink”
“Have it. Have it all. Why don’t you eat up your young children’s brains?”
Lampuii’s tongue is on fire. Aah! She is the one man army doing all the work single handedly.
Lampuii turns restless. The chores at home are unending- as she ends one another springs up. When a baby cries, the other one starts whimpering too. Above all these she has to tend to her inefficient husband.
“You go to hell. Go to hell.”
Ah! What a sharp tongue Lampuii has! The inanimate walls do have ears. So does people too. It doesn’t take time for stories to travel from ear to ear.
A witch-mother.
Drinking Lampui’s homemade beer, her drunken husband began to spread stories in the three villages nearby that - Lampui is a witch, a she-devil. She had hit her husband for once for the intolerable nuisance he created one night. And he died. Where would poor Lampuii go? What could she do?
The witch had taken her husband’s life anyways.
A witch… a witch… a witch...
Sad Lampuii would sit lost in herself, brooding. She kept smearing drops of the strong homemade beer on the tongues of her babies to keep them from demanding mother’s milk. Her two babies too didn’t survive to the end. She could not even make out when they passed away. Besides, they always looked lifeless even when alive. Even after two days and two nights of their death she could hardly understand what had happened. She knew it only then, when the two little dead bodies started stinking.
Lampuii… Lampuii.
Likewise no one called her again. No one approached her. She only nodded her head in the air - “Moh... moh... moh.”
How long? For how long will this continue?
Lampuii is bitten by cold. She shivers. Rising up to the fireplace she lights some fire. Lampuii starves. She boils some white rice in the fireplace – bok…bok…bok.
The burning pangs of starvation subdues the pain inside her aching heart.
Lampuii goes out of her home again.
In spite of time healing the raw wounds in Lampuii, sometimes she breaks down crying out loud when she remembers her good for nothing husband and the innocent faces of Nongkhram and Lungkram. Passersby hear her screams and shout at her,
“Keep quiet, you old woman.”
“Mow... mow...mow.”
She just nods her head then. Thus, Lampuii soon turns into a prematurely old woman. Wiping her tears with the Jainkirshwa wrapped around her body she collects potherb ferns.
“Come here.”
In spite of having nothing to eat the little piglet kept on nudging and thrusting Lampuii’s shrunken wizened breasts. It must be late hours of the night. The two children, dead long ago, rose up near Lampuii from the depths of the dead oblivion. They approach her and instantly occupy her lap.
“Who are you? Lungkram or Nongkhram?”
Lungkram had a huge black birthmark on his face. The old woman remembered that.
How do I recognize you, my darling, in this darkness?” She murmured within her.
“Where were you so long, Nongkhram? Oh! Sorry, Lungkram?
The old woman continued talking to herself. In between she is responded.
“Nook... nook ...nook.”
“Didn’t you ever miss your mother?”
“Nook...nook...nook.”
Do you know how lonely I am?”
“Nook...nook...nook.”
Lampuii embraces the little piglet tightly with her full might thinking it to be one of her two sons dead long ago.
A foul smell wafts in the air touching Lampuii’s breath making her sick and she throws up retching. Meanwhile the starving piglet starts relishing with glee whatever the woman spewed.
The smell of vomit in the air makes the intestines retch inside her stomach. Inspite of her weakness and the place left unclean by vendors stinking of fish and meat, Lampuii starved, sheltered under a shed with the piglet.
Lampuii is not habituated to stand hunger. Whenever she was hungry she used to go out looking for vegetables or dig out potatoes leaving behind her two little sons smearing drops of local beer on their tongues.
“Never… never. Never ever will I leave my children abandoned and uncared for the sake of my hunger.”
The old woman promised this again and again, a two hundred times. Meanwhile, the little piglet had gobbled up the mess Lampuii had vomited. It tried to move away searching for more food but Lampuii held it tightly close to her.
“I will never leave my children. Mow...mow...mow...mow. Oh…! Nongkhram... Oh… ! Lungkram.”
Old Lampuii kept on murmuring throughout the night. Her hunger made her weak and feverish with her temperature rising up and down again and again.
Her lips are parched in thirst. Without any strength left in her body the old woman passed water right there where she was sitting. The piglet fell asleep on her warm lap. It didn’t leave the almost unconscious old woman.
Next morning the passersby from the village nearby noticed an old woman lying dead under the shed of the haat. A pink little piglet was seen clinging to the dead body on the ground where flies had already started visiting. The piglet was seen there for quite some time even after the dead body was taken away. At some point of time the poor creature too must have started feeling hungry. It ran towards the village making the strange sound- nook...nook.
So true.
The starving belly has no ties.
Notes:
Kuwai: Khasi term for betelnut
Ekthu Koldil: hybrid local language, a mixture of Hindi and Assamese meaning a banana
flower
Duithu Bentgaaj: hybrid local language, a mixture of Hindi and Assamese meaning the
Two numbers of tender shoot of cane used as food
Tinthu Posola: hybrid local language, a mixture of Hindi and Assamese meaning three
pieces of sprouts of the banana tree dressed for food
Kaiyad-um: local beer
Haat: a regular market in a rural area
U-Blei: God
Jainkirshwakh: a piece of checkered cloth tied on both ends on the shoulder covering the
upper part of the body over o blouse almost like an apron.
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