November 15, 1915.
Libele Diary: Final Departure from Chotanagpur
Four crates, that was what was left of our belongings. Mama said it looks like the day forty four years ago when she arrived here in Ranchi.
Mama had arranged a permit and the use of Mr. Stosch’s horse and buggy. After breakfast she and I made our last round through Ranchi. Past the church, down through Doranda, the British cantonment, to Todai. Todai was a small cluster of huts that for generations had been home to a community of Oraon Christians.
We could not stay, we could not speak freely. Still, she wished to give them a bundle. Just a few pieces of material from the homeland and our copper kitchen ware. She wanted them to have it. In silence they received the offering.
Their cautious eyes betrayed their longing. If only the drums could sound. If only a meal could be prepared. But this was not permitted. They could not understand what their beloved German Missionaries had done to deserve to be outcaste. But there were many things they could not understand. So they stood in stillness with folded hands and forlorn faces: Here is our only offering, our grateful prayer, our farewell, dear friend on your unknown journey.
Empty sorrow with biting confusion filled the air. Mama did not want to overstay. As we climbed back onto the tonga, Dina, the old matriarch of the clan, came out from her darkened hut. In her frail arms she carried the handwoven sari with a red trim that had been her wedding dress. She offered it to Mama, who could not accept. This was the sari meant for Dina’s only daughter who had died a few years ago.
Mothers was voiceless Please! No, this is too great a gift! Dina understood. Turning to me, she said in her raspy Kurukh,
"For you, my daughter."
I bowed low, I could not refuse.
As I held the sari on my lap, driving away, a sudden pang struck my heart. The dagger of sorrow.
We must now leave these dear places and may never see these dear people again!
Mother asked the tonga driver to take us back via the lake, I was grateful to have one last chance to see this special place. It still held its serene beauty, even though houses now encroached up to it's banks. Mother looked expectantly out at the reed island in the middle. And then sighed:
"They have long gone!" she whispered, still hoping to see something.
"What has, mama," I quietly asked. Yet, maybe I knew. Even though we hadn't seen them there for over a decade.
"The cranes," she groaned, "they have become extinct, just like us."
Tears welled but I would not let them escape. I asked the driver to hurry on. We had been given a pass only to go to the village, I worried that this ritual mourning along the lake would be cut short with the arrival of a soldier.
Heading, one last time, back "home", the clopping of the hoofs could barely be heard over our grievous silence.
On returning to the compound, Mother finally stated from the depths of a wounded heart:
"Our property is the most beautiful in all of Ranchi. To be driven out so harshly! Driven so mercilessly from our lifelong position and work! Such action cannot be blessed by the Lord?" It was almost the wail of the Indian mourners, but she restrained herself enough for the emotion to wail louder than her voice.
As Mama, Dora, and Aunty Caroline and I ate our lunch we watched as the government workers loaded the luggage on to the ox-cart that then plodded out of sight to the train station.
"When and where will we see them again and open them?" Mama mused in a groan.
The servants had lined up now at the steps. I helped Mama finalize our business, paying the cook, the sweeper, the gardener. One last look around. Then we set Mama and Auntie on the tonga, and Dore and I walked to the station. A few familiar faces stood at the door bowing their silent salaams But we walked down empty dusty lanes draped in a hush. Our hearts were filling up with memories as we passed so many familiar places.
Finally, it was a relief to sit in the train car. As if to lay it all down, unable to carry anything more with us. We were leaving everything, everything behind. No European friend accompanied us, but no officer either, no police bothered us. One old English lady, Miss Engle, who had faithfully stayed with us during the wartime, even though by no means sharing our national feelings, did not let anyone hinder her from traveling with us to Calcutta, “to see you off.”
As the narrow gauge train inched it's way out of the station three of the girls that I taught in the school had been granted permission to enter the platform. They stood weeping as they drifted out of our sight.
Mama and Aunty Caroline (Uffman) both looked frail and tired as they watched the Chotanagpur landscape pass us by. Miss Engle did her tatting and I am sure hoped that I would join her. But really what would I be making? For who? Why?
Dora stuck her nose into a book. She was bound and determined to use this trip to finally get through Darwin's Origin of the Species. If that failed she also had some light fair with a book from America: Inside the Emerald City.
I sat at the small table near the window and began to write. We passed through the Ayodya Hills towards the plains. The sun set behind us as we headed towards Purulia.
Oh Purulia! The light is dimming and the oil lamps are lit as we crawl into the city of my birth. The home of my heart.
-----
Now back on the train, we are headed for Kolkota. The rest of them are tucked away in their bisters on their births. I asked if they wouldn't mind if I write just a little more before the oil in the lamp is completely out. I doubt that I will have any time to write again, until, Lord willing, we are settled on the ship.
But how can I write this! I usually would not utter a word of it. No other living soul knows this. But there is just too much bottled up within me, I must write it down.
It was already dark when the train pulled in. The luggage and our party were moved into the train station waiting room for our three hour wait for the next train. We ordered our dinner. Mama did not feel like eating. I ate a bit.
Dore begged and pleaded that we order a tonga to take us to the Leprosy Colony. We had the time. The station master was quite clear it was not permissible for us to leave the station. Could we at least send a message? Perhaps some of them could meet us here at the station. The orders were clear, we were not to communicate with anyone. What possible espionage would our poor lepers engage in?
It was upsetting not to be able to say one last goodbye, but I was thinking that God might be holding me back from making some terrible mistake. Maybe it was for the better. I had said my goodbyes four months ago, when I had come to help Paul pack up the house before he was sent off to the internment camp. Yes I had thought that had been my last goodbye. It had been such a sweet goodbye. But, now being so close, I had an intense longing that could not be subsided.
Mama, Aunty Caroline and Miss Engle were made comfortable on the grand chairs that are always at the rail station waiting rooms.
Dore resigned herself to continue on with natural selection. I wondered at what she understood. When I asked, she said she was having a nice debate with Papa in her mind. She is such a funny one. Here we are in one of our greatest tragedies and she deals with it by running off in her imagination.
I needed to walk. My legs needed the stretch, so did my mind. In truth, it was my heart.
The guard by the entrance of the train station was smoking his beedi and staring off into space. So I walked to the far end of the platform that was isolated and dark. Strolling to the edge of the platform I looked down at the tracks that were lit by the rising half moon. They stretched into the darkness, off into eternity.
Then I heard a pitter. Then another. A small stone hit the platform near my feet. I walked to the very end of the platform and peaked around the building. And there he was: as dark as night but for his white clothes. He motioned for me to step down and join him among the trees in the dark. I looked at the guard. He looked asleep. So I stepped down.
Oh what passion mounted up within me. For all my life I had known David. Most of my life I viewed him as my adopted brother. Until that time, about a decade ago, when our hands accidentally met: my soft white upon his rough black.
"Meri Lili" he whispered in Hindi.
"David, you mustn't get yourself in trouble. We must not be found out." I repeated the common warning one of us would always give the other.
"No, I am here to give our farewells from the Colony. There is a small gift of sweets that we were able to put together for you. The Colony has not been doing well since Paul Sahib left. These engrezi don't know how to manage things. And they don't let us manage as we use to. I was sent to pass a word on to you, to Hahn memsahib and Baramemsahib. We wish you to know, please, we are in the hands of a living God. So no worries for us. Know only this, our prayers will be always with you, as yours were always with us.
I smiled. Yes, of course, that is why you are here.
Then he did it, again. He touched me. My knees nearly collapsed underneath me. I shyly looked away. He then touched my cheek.
"I shall never forget you! You always will be right here," he said taking my hand and holding it to his heart. We laughed! How long had that joke been between us? That he would hold his heart, which for us is where love is held. For his people, however, love is held in the stomach. So now we laugh, because he knows that it is not proper for a woman to touch a man's stomach if she is not married to him.
But this time I took his hand and held it to my stomach. For that is where the dagger of sorrow had now struck me.
"You will always be here with me."
We drew closer and our lips touched. When suddenly a sound of footsteps were heard on the platform. Quickly I turned and bolted back onto the platform, holding the sweets with both arms over my chest.
A coolie had placed some baggage on the platform. He barely noticed me. I look British -- in fact because I was born here I really could be English. The coolie has no reason to take notice of what an Engrezi woman is doing in the dark. How can he know that I am an Enemy of the State. The coolie walked back to the gate to wait for the train. Others were now entering the platform for the 11 o'clock train.
No one paid attention to me. So I turned one last time and looked back into the darkness. David was still standing there. He waived and swaggered the dance step that was part of a common courtship dance from his tribe. I smiled. Remember this smile, my love. I could see the white teeth of his smile in the dark. He waved and then he was gone.
I can barely hold the tears anymore as I write. The train has moved on. The oil in the lamp is at its end. The others asleep. I will close. Slip under my blanket and cry.
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Mama had arranged a permit and the use of Mr. Stosch’s horse and buggy. After breakfast she and I made our last round through Ranchi. Past the church, down through Doranda, the British cantonment, to Todai. Todai was a small cluster of huts that for generations had been home to a community of Oraon Christians.
We could not stay, we could not speak freely. Still, she wished to give them a bundle. Just a few pieces of material from the homeland and our copper kitchen ware. She wanted them to have it. In silence they received the offering.
Their cautious eyes betrayed their longing. If only the drums could sound. If only a meal could be prepared. But this was not permitted. They could not understand what their beloved German Missionaries had done to deserve to be outcaste. But there were many things they could not understand. So they stood in stillness with folded hands and forlorn faces: Here is our only offering, our grateful prayer, our farewell, dear friend on your unknown journey.
Empty sorrow with biting confusion filled the air. Mama did not want to overstay. As we climbed back onto the tonga, Dina, the old matriarch of the clan, came out from her darkened hut. In her frail arms she carried the handwoven sari with a red trim that had been her wedding dress. She offered it to Mama, who could not accept. This was the sari meant for Dina’s only daughter who had died a few years ago.
Mothers was voiceless Please! No, this is too great a gift! Dina understood. Turning to me, she said in her raspy Kurukh,
"For you, my daughter."
I bowed low, I could not refuse.
As I held the sari on my lap, driving away, a sudden pang struck my heart. The dagger of sorrow.
We must now leave these dear places and may never see these dear people again!
Mother asked the tonga driver to take us back via the lake, I was grateful to have one last chance to see this special place. It still held its serene beauty, even though houses now encroached up to it's banks. Mother looked expectantly out at the reed island in the middle. And then sighed:
"They have long gone!" she whispered, still hoping to see something.
"What has, mama," I quietly asked. Yet, maybe I knew. Even though we hadn't seen them there for over a decade.
"The cranes," she groaned, "they have become extinct, just like us."
Tears welled but I would not let them escape. I asked the driver to hurry on. We had been given a pass only to go to the village, I worried that this ritual mourning along the lake would be cut short with the arrival of a soldier.
Heading, one last time, back "home", the clopping of the hoofs could barely be heard over our grievous silence.
On returning to the compound, Mother finally stated from the depths of a wounded heart:
"Our property is the most beautiful in all of Ranchi. To be driven out so harshly! Driven so mercilessly from our lifelong position and work! Such action cannot be blessed by the Lord?" It was almost the wail of the Indian mourners, but she restrained herself enough for the emotion to wail louder than her voice.
As Mama, Dora, and Aunty Caroline and I ate our lunch we watched as the government workers loaded the luggage on to the ox-cart that then plodded out of sight to the train station.
"When and where will we see them again and open them?" Mama mused in a groan.
The servants had lined up now at the steps. I helped Mama finalize our business, paying the cook, the sweeper, the gardener. One last look around. Then we set Mama and Auntie on the tonga, and Dore and I walked to the station. A few familiar faces stood at the door bowing their silent salaams But we walked down empty dusty lanes draped in a hush. Our hearts were filling up with memories as we passed so many familiar places.
Finally, it was a relief to sit in the train car. As if to lay it all down, unable to carry anything more with us. We were leaving everything, everything behind. No European friend accompanied us, but no officer either, no police bothered us. One old English lady, Miss Engle, who had faithfully stayed with us during the wartime, even though by no means sharing our national feelings, did not let anyone hinder her from traveling with us to Calcutta, “to see you off.”
As the narrow gauge train inched it's way out of the station three of the girls that I taught in the school had been granted permission to enter the platform. They stood weeping as they drifted out of our sight.
Mama and Aunty Caroline (Uffman) both looked frail and tired as they watched the Chotanagpur landscape pass us by. Miss Engle did her tatting and I am sure hoped that I would join her. But really what would I be making? For who? Why?
Dora stuck her nose into a book. She was bound and determined to use this trip to finally get through Darwin's Origin of the Species. If that failed she also had some light fair with a book from America: Inside the Emerald City.
I sat at the small table near the window and began to write. We passed through the Ayodya Hills towards the plains. The sun set behind us as we headed towards Purulia.
Oh Purulia! The light is dimming and the oil lamps are lit as we crawl into the city of my birth. The home of my heart.
-----
Now back on the train, we are headed for Kolkota. The rest of them are tucked away in their bisters on their births. I asked if they wouldn't mind if I write just a little more before the oil in the lamp is completely out. I doubt that I will have any time to write again, until, Lord willing, we are settled on the ship.
But how can I write this! I usually would not utter a word of it. No other living soul knows this. But there is just too much bottled up within me, I must write it down.
It was already dark when the train pulled in. The luggage and our party were moved into the train station waiting room for our three hour wait for the next train. We ordered our dinner. Mama did not feel like eating. I ate a bit.
Dore begged and pleaded that we order a tonga to take us to the Leprosy Colony. We had the time. The station master was quite clear it was not permissible for us to leave the station. Could we at least send a message? Perhaps some of them could meet us here at the station. The orders were clear, we were not to communicate with anyone. What possible espionage would our poor lepers engage in?
It was upsetting not to be able to say one last goodbye, but I was thinking that God might be holding me back from making some terrible mistake. Maybe it was for the better. I had said my goodbyes four months ago, when I had come to help Paul pack up the house before he was sent off to the internment camp. Yes I had thought that had been my last goodbye. It had been such a sweet goodbye. But, now being so close, I had an intense longing that could not be subsided.
Mama, Aunty Caroline and Miss Engle were made comfortable on the grand chairs that are always at the rail station waiting rooms.
Dore resigned herself to continue on with natural selection. I wondered at what she understood. When I asked, she said she was having a nice debate with Papa in her mind. She is such a funny one. Here we are in one of our greatest tragedies and she deals with it by running off in her imagination.
I needed to walk. My legs needed the stretch, so did my mind. In truth, it was my heart.
The guard by the entrance of the train station was smoking his beedi and staring off into space. So I walked to the far end of the platform that was isolated and dark. Strolling to the edge of the platform I looked down at the tracks that were lit by the rising half moon. They stretched into the darkness, off into eternity.
Then I heard a pitter. Then another. A small stone hit the platform near my feet. I walked to the very end of the platform and peaked around the building. And there he was: as dark as night but for his white clothes. He motioned for me to step down and join him among the trees in the dark. I looked at the guard. He looked asleep. So I stepped down.
Oh what passion mounted up within me. For all my life I had known David. Most of my life I viewed him as my adopted brother. Until that time, about a decade ago, when our hands accidentally met: my soft white upon his rough black.
"Meri Lili" he whispered in Hindi.
"David, you mustn't get yourself in trouble. We must not be found out." I repeated the common warning one of us would always give the other.
"No, I am here to give our farewells from the Colony. There is a small gift of sweets that we were able to put together for you. The Colony has not been doing well since Paul Sahib left. These engrezi don't know how to manage things. And they don't let us manage as we use to. I was sent to pass a word on to you, to Hahn memsahib and Baramemsahib. We wish you to know, please, we are in the hands of a living God. So no worries for us. Know only this, our prayers will be always with you, as yours were always with us.
I smiled. Yes, of course, that is why you are here.
Then he did it, again. He touched me. My knees nearly collapsed underneath me. I shyly looked away. He then touched my cheek.
"I shall never forget you! You always will be right here," he said taking my hand and holding it to his heart. We laughed! How long had that joke been between us? That he would hold his heart, which for us is where love is held. For his people, however, love is held in the stomach. So now we laugh, because he knows that it is not proper for a woman to touch a man's stomach if she is not married to him.
But this time I took his hand and held it to my stomach. For that is where the dagger of sorrow had now struck me.
"You will always be here with me."
We drew closer and our lips touched. When suddenly a sound of footsteps were heard on the platform. Quickly I turned and bolted back onto the platform, holding the sweets with both arms over my chest.
A coolie had placed some baggage on the platform. He barely noticed me. I look British -- in fact because I was born here I really could be English. The coolie has no reason to take notice of what an Engrezi woman is doing in the dark. How can he know that I am an Enemy of the State. The coolie walked back to the gate to wait for the train. Others were now entering the platform for the 11 o'clock train.
No one paid attention to me. So I turned one last time and looked back into the darkness. David was still standing there. He waived and swaggered the dance step that was part of a common courtship dance from his tribe. I smiled. Remember this smile, my love. I could see the white teeth of his smile in the dark. He waved and then he was gone.
I can barely hold the tears anymore as I write. The train has moved on. The oil in the lamp is at its end. The others asleep. I will close. Slip under my blanket and cry.
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