The Great Downpour

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII

The Seoni Municipal Hospital, where most of the dacoits were recovering or being treated had become a bedlam of activity. All the eleven dacoits with more than just minor injuries were kept here in a special ward, while the dacoit chief, Pahelwan Ranjit Singh, was being treated in the SICU or the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

Policemen, parents of the college students and journalists of all hues were milling about the corridors, the outside grounds and the various doctors’ rooms, trying to get tidbits of information concerning the incidents that had occurred at Pench.

The I.G. of police had banned the entry of all non-essential personnel within the SICU and the special ward. As a result, rumours were flying fast and furious. According to the most recent “news”, the chief dacoit had succumbed to his injuries. According to another bit of misinformation, the dacoits had colluded with the Forest Department in carrying out the dastardly act. The smooth dissemination of accurate news is my responsibility, dammit, thought the I.G. of Police.

The Pahelwan was isolated inside the SICU because of his condition and also because the police did not want him to talk to journalists or try and pass information to anyone from outside till the enquiry was over. He had been brought in a semi-conscious state on the evening of the day of the robbery. His body had over fifty bruises and seven cuts, of which the one in his arm was the deepest and the most serious. His deltoid muscle had been severed and the wound was bleeding heavily. While preparations were being made to wheel him into the operation theatre, he had undergone neurological check-ups and a CT scan, which were normal. Once it had been determined that all he had was a cerebral concussion, his gashes had been stitched. However, during the night, he had started developing distension of his abdomen and had begun to writhe in pain. He had been taken up for emergency exploratory laparotomy, a surgical procedure where the abdomen is opened up to locate the cause of a patient’s symptoms. During the surgery, a small oozing tear in the peritoneum was found and repaired. No other problem had seemed evident, and he was declared out of danger six hours after the surgery had concluded.

He now sat up in his bed, clutching his left arm and screwing his eyes to shut out the pain in his entire body.

“Saheb,” he began on a plaintive note, addressing the back of the constable who sat by his bed. The cop turned around and thumped Pahelwan on his right shoulder.

“Kaise ho, Pahelwanji?” asked the constable, enquiring after the dacoit’s health in Hindi. The dacoit shook his head and said, “Not good at all, hawaldarji!”

The policeman was intent on goading this person who sat in front of him.

“So how did the beatings feel? Did they remind you of your grandmother’s breast-milk?” He asked, laughing at the imagery. The exact phrase he used is the one often used by Indians to sound derogatory and insulting.

“Ayyy! Don’t irritate me or I … I … I’ll kill you!” screamed the Pahelwan.

“Keep your bravado in your pocket, samjhe na? The constable took out a small snuff-box from his coat pocket and opened it. He took a pinch of brown powder from it and snorted it swiftly into his nostrils. The powder would give him a “high” for a few hours, but he would continue sniffing it every two to three hours so that the high feeling would last him till the night.

Just then, a doctor arrived to check on Pahelwan. When he noticed that the dacoit looked alert and fine, he went out again. In a few moments, a few senior policemen arrived with a police photographer, a shorthand writer with his writing pad and a citizen-witness. One of the two senior cops asked Pahelwan to confess and to tell them all the details of the operation. He was only too willing to tell everything. A tape-recorder was switched on after taking his consent. He confessed about the crime in detail. He also named Peter Mathias, the history professor from St. Aloysius and called him an insider and a colluder.

The senior policeman sent the constable to his superiors to organize the arrest of Peter Mathias.

A similar scene was being enacted in the Special Ward where the remaining ten dacoits were recuperating. Each of them was surrounded by a police team. Most of them were forthcoming and were “singing like canaries”, as journalist Jagdish put it in his newspaper report. The only dacoit who would not say anything was Nishaanbaaz.

Actually, he was miffed at the fact that mere upstarts from a college had bested him. He was merely sulking. It is a matter of time before he'll start talking too, thought the I.G. of Police.

***

Chand limped on with Seeta’s help. By early afternoon, they had been walking intermittently with rest spells for over six hours. Seeta knew that the distance they had travelled would be as nothing compared to what they could have if Chand wasn’t incapacitated like this. She inwardly cursed the leopard who had created so much trouble for Chand, then caught herself as she realized that the leopard was only doing what Mother Nature had taught it to do. She kept up Chand’s spirits by telling him small anecdotes of her life and the stories of her brother Sundeep, about whom she kept worrying. Where is he? Where are the rest of the students? Will we be able to go home or not?

It was at about mid-afternoon that they suddenly came upon the whole gang of their friends. The reunion between Chand and Seeta on the one hand and Sandesh, Bhairavi, Muhammad, Nazima, Farhad and Yash on the other was a bittersweet one, what with Nazima and Seeta openly crying on each other’s shoulders, and Sandesh hugging Chand with almost the same passion that he thought should be reserved only for girls. The unspoken worry in everyone’s minds was about Sundeep, Rati, Nanda and Gangadin. Farhad and Nazima had already told the others about Mahadev. There was a lot of discussion about what had happened thus far, and a lot about when they would be rescued. It is then that Sandesh voiced the one comment that made everyone restless and nervous.

“I was just thinking, friends. I have come to realize a few rather grim facts. One, since the rope bridge was completely destroyed, how is the rescue team from Seoni going to access this part of the forest? Two, if the rescue team does approach us from some other part of the National Park, will they be able to reach us in this non-motorable area? Three, even if they have some means of reaching us, how will they take us back? And when?

I propose that since we do not know how far the river has brought us from the bridge, we should split up into two teams. One team continues the upstream journey, while the other starts going the other way till they hit upon a road, or the semblance of one. I have a feeling that helicopters are out since two days are almost over and there is no sign of them; secondly, in that case, our best chance will be to go where they are likely to come, and not necessarily in the reverse direction.”

While this discussion was going on, the last group of Rati, Nanda and Gangadin finally joined them. The rest of them were so busy talking and discussing their rescue that initially, no one realized that the three new members were among them. When they did, everyone whooped with joy. Sandesh’s concerns and suggestions were forgotten for the time-being. Sandesh too was excited to see Rati safe and sound. Seeta, however, was distraught as Sundeep’s absence was now final. If he was alive, he must be somewhere in the forest, alone and without any support. The contrary thought was too much to contemplate. She had never missed her brother as much as she missed him today. The others stood around her and consoled her.

“I am sure he is all right, Seeta,” said Chand reassuringly. Seeta knew he was only trying to soothe her frayed nerves, but she liked him in spite of that as he was the only support she had whom she could trust, even with her life.

It was Nanda who noticed the changed relationship between Chand and Seeta. They are in love! She decided to keep mum about it for now as there were more pressing issues that confronted them.

In between this, Gangadin finally convinced Sandesh to start a fire. He began to roast the fish that he had caught earlier in the afternoon. Some of the students were vegetarians and would not touch the fish after it was ready. The others, especially Farhad, Muhammad, Nazima, Rati, Yash and Sandesh sat down to eat the fish, tasteless though it was. Chand too took a bite or two, but he had a high fever once again and he refused to eat more. The rest of them, namely Seeta, Nanda and Bhairavi began to hunt for more fruits to satisfy their appetites.

The friends took up the discussion from where they had left it some time ago.

Muhammad was against splitting up. He put forward the view that if they split up, they might put themselves in danger from unknown factors. Bhairavi, Nanda and Yash were on his side and agreed with him.

Sandesh listened to their arguments quietly and then said, “There are two of us who are physically unfit to move – Yash and Chand – so why can’t the rest of us form two parties and split up? We can agree to explore in two opposite directions for a maximum of four hours; if we don’t see anything, we retrace our steps and come back. One of the men stays with Yash and Chand here in case of any attacks by wild animals, and the rest …”

It was Chand who interrupted him. “Sandy, you’ve got to remember that there are girls with us, and also that not all the men here are physically fit, though Farhad and you might be.”

Muhammad added, “That means Farhad or you might have to stay back with Yash and Chand; that would leave Rats, Nands, Bhairu, Seeta, Naaz and me along with Gangadin. We don’t have enough males here, and you know it.”

Sandesh saw the point of the argument. In case he insisted on a split, there would be tremendous pressure on the males to safeguard the females. He knew that while he was confident of himself and perhaps of Farhad, he could not risk leaving Muhammad alone with the girls. He sighed and spoke again.

“I am forced to agree with Mummy here, much as I would not like to,” he said. He added, “Therefore, I now propose that we all move together after resting tonight. We start at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I think it might still be better to continue moving upstream since I am sure the Forest Department guys must be back in action, and we may meet them before long. It seems impossible that the river in which we were flung into the forest has brought us more than 25-30 kilometres inside … and in the past two days, we have already retraced about 3-5 kilometres back, so we aren’t all that far off from the Reserve Office. I am sure that we might get rescued tomorrow itself.” Everyone kept nodding their heads. At the end of Sandesh’s rather convoluted speech, there was broad agreement with his plan of action as well as his conjectures. The discussion next turned to the subject of Chand’s and Yash’s health.

“While I am concerned with Yash’s bone fracture, there isn’t any real risk to his life. At the best, we can wait till we reach a hospital where the fracture can be reduced, and at worst, we have to get him to undergo an operation for a proper reduction of the break,” said Rati who had some knowledge of injuries.

Sandesh added his two bits. He said, “Rats is correct, of course.” He straightened his casually flexed right leg and added, “It is Chand whose wounds scare the wits out of me. I can think of a herb that might help retard the progression of the symptoms, but I fear it may not be enough to help him at this stage. We must get rescued as soon as possible.”

He asked the others to try and procure flowers of the lavender plant if possible. They all spread out to get these (Sandesh had to explain to them how a lavender plant looked like), and almost everyone returned with what they thought were lavender flowers. Sandesh took all of them and began to sort out the wild flowers from the real lavender flowers, of which only a handful had been collected. He sat down and used two pieces of stone to grind the flowers into a pulp. He could make hardly a few grams of the stuff. He picked it up off the rock where he had ground it and went up to Chand.

“The essence of lavender flowers has strong anti-infective and real anti-inflammatory powers.” On opening the wounds, a putrid stink came out of the wound. Sandesh was alarmed. If this fellow does not get IV antibiotics soon, gangrene may set in and then we’ve lost him. Blocking the smell as much as possible, he asked Rati to clean the wounds with river water. She found the smell horrifying too, but something made her welcome the opportunity of working with Sandy, for whom her feelings were becoming more and more crystallized into definite love. The cleaning process took some time, and all this while, Sandesh used every chance to look at Rati with the highest level of tenderness, curiosity and love. Rati was aware of Sandesh’s stare, and she smiled at him once or twice to acknowledge his look.

After Rati had finished the cleaning, Sandesh applied the poultice to as much of the wound area as possible. He then re-tied the pant that he had removed off the wound and dressed up the area as best as he could.

The mood turned somber as night descended on the whole group. It seemed unbelievable that their orderly life had changed to this – a game of survival in a matter of just three days. Only Sandesh and Farhad still saw the silver lining – namely that this was a real-life opportunity to hone their survival skills and to test their fitness; for the rest of them, it was pure and simple fear that ruled their hearts as they wondered how long it would be before help reached them. Bhairavi tried to lighten the mood by singing a popular movie song that went like this:

Hum hoge kaamyaab,
Hoge kaamyaab,
Hum hoge kaamyaab,
Ek din…

We shall overcome,
One day …

Ho…Man mein hai vishwaas,
Poora hai vishwaas,
Hum hoge kaamyaab
Ek din …

We have the confidence within us,
We shall overcome,
One day

Hogi shaanti chaaron aur…
Shaanti chaaron aur,
Hogi shaanti chaaron aur,
Ek din …

There’ll be peace around us,
One day

Ho… Man mein hai vishwaas,
Poora hai vishwas,
Hogi shaanti chaaron aur,
Ek din …

We have the confidence within us,
We shall overcome,
One day

It was Seeta who added a modified last paragraph to the well-known ditty that raised the morale of all those who sat in a circle around a small, dimly flickering fire.

Hum rahenge saath-saath,
Daal haathon mein haath,
Hum rahenge saath-saath
Ek din …

We shall stay together,
Holding hands,
One day


Humen bachaya jayega,
Yahan se nikaala jayega,
Humen bachaya jayega,
Ek Din …

They will come and rescue us,
And take us out of here,
One day.

Everyone laughed at the words. They kept singing more and more modifications on the rescue theme till they all ran out of ideas. By the time the moon had climbed above the trees, they slowly went to sleep. It had not rained the whole day after the morning drizzles, and they were dead tired. They agreed that each of them should take turns for an hour to guard the sleeping area from wild animals. While some of them slept on the grass and mud directly, the others took or used some of the extra clothes like shirts etc. to sleep on. Despite the hostile environment, all of them were fast asleep before long. Those on watch did their jobs admirably. There were no untoward incidents during the night.