As soon as the Sundarban Express passed, the Singia railway station was once again eerily silent. From many years, one local train stops here in the morning and evening. No long-distance train stops.
Once every train stopped. Day and night the whole area was alert to the rush of passengers; which is now past. Now only a handful of passengers board during the day. After dusk there is usually no one in sight except the station master, the lineman and a madman.
In the evening, a handful of people on their knees pass through the middle of the station. Villagers try to reach home as soon as possible. They know this area as bad. No one can answer why it is bad. One word of all, the area is not good.
Gambling sessions are held in Kalabagan behind the station till late night. Babar Ali, wood merchant of Basundia Mor, Matbar Jabbar Munshi, Rafiq Talukdar, a member of the market committee and Ranjit Pal, a tailor, regularly attend gambling sessions at night. It is not just the night that gambling is held or that these four are members. Something happens all day long. But these four are different. As they are respectable persons, even their tickets are not seen in this area during the day.
The initiators of things like smoking ganja, eating fast, playing cards are of course the rising Mastans, Matabbar class or scoundrels. Their movement from morning to evening is worth watching.
There is no direct way to enter the garden. They themselves cut the forest and made a narrow path for them; That path is completely different. That path has nothing to do with the normal path.
If this station had been operational like in the past, if Vibhuti Das would have carried that glass box full of sweets and sandesh on his head and sold it to and fro on the platform; Then maybe the development of political-economic life would have happened. The dark society here would not have been created.
No one can say exactly when Ruhi Pagli came here. How many crazy people come to the station, who keeps track of who! But many over-enthusiastic think he arrived three to four years ago. No one knows where the houses are. There is no way to know. Because he is dumb; can’t speak Many people believe that the Indian government sent them to this country through the border. Some say that the crazy person looks like her home is in the mountains; Definitely tribal. In fact, it is not known whose words are correct even today. What is the guarantee of the mad woman’s name, Ruhi? His name may be Kohinur, Shahinur, Muhinur or something else. How did the name Ruhi become popular? But Seki himself said his name? When, when said? Who heard it first? Such questions are constantly in the minds of people near the station.
Not that there is no populous station within twenty miles. Nawapara and Jessore railway stations are very crowded. It is not understood why Ruhi is lying in this deserted station apart from those stations. He gets by on the little he gets from a handful of passengers. At night, he sleeps peacefully under the tin shed with a sack of dirt wrapped around him. It is his job to get up in the morning and gather old paper and set it on fire. This is how the days, months and years go on.
It can be seen that the age has passed thirty already. Cheeky face shape. Skin color is bright brown. Scaly reddish hair; which has gone down to the scrub. The eyes are so black that it always looks like kajal has been applied to them. Anyone who washes their head with shampoo and body soap and puts perfumed oil on their hair will be mistaken for a housewife.People are crowded in the forested school grounds. Apart from the local dignitaries, the crowd of enthusiastic people is a sight to behold. Atar Ali’s son’s relationship with Khalghat’s Fatik Chand’s daughter became known, and the arbitration was held. Three chairs in a row. Arbitrator Jabbar Munshi in a chair. And in two, the head master of the school, Bhupati Parwal, and the imam of the mosque, Mohammad Abdul Quddus Fakir, are sitting. After listening to the statements of various witnesses, the imam of the mosque, Muhammad Abdul Quddus Fakir, said, Nauzubillah. Allah will not tolerate such a big crime. If we cannot judge properly then we cannot give any answer in the hereafter. God’s wrath will descend on this village. Matabbar and Head Master give their nods to his words. Well, what could be a greater crime than this! In the arbiter, Matabbar Jabbar Munshi orders both of them to be whipped twenty times and to wear garlands of shoes around their necks to make the whole village go round once. After the verdict was announced, some young boys who were over-enthusiastic, scoured the entire village by whipping the two ‘criminals’ twenty times. Then hand them over to their respective guardians.
The ten o’clock train passed half an hour ago. After the arbitration, Jabbar Munshi and Ranjit Pal left for the gambling party. They approached the station in a few minutes.
Astrological night. Ruhi Pagli is sitting in her heart under the child tree next to the platform. Jabbar Munshi and Ranjit Pal came there. The madwoman stood up and beckoned to them.
Jabbar Munshi said, eat?
Ruhi Pagli nods her head in agreement.
- Really eat?
Ruhi shook her head madly and took a step forward, holding out both hands in front of them for food. Jabbar Munshi held Ruhi Pagli’s hands and said to Ranjit Pal, “You don’t have any objection?”
Ranjit Pal smiled softly and said, why would there be any objection? Let’s take it to the side.
The two of them took Ruhi Pagli to the nearby banana plantation, after spending as much as she wanted with two ten taka notes in her hands and walked towards home. In the morning there is an arbitration in Malo Para. They need to go to bed in the morning.
The end of Asadha. The storm is not over yet. From the dawn his vision spans the earth; Doesn’t seem to stop easily. Now there is no rule to catch the rain. Fair in the morning and rain in the afternoon, rain in the afternoon and clear sky in the evening. Matabar Jabbar Munsir does not understand why the creator does this.
Amjad Jamaddar’s daughter of Barui neighborhood will be judged when the sky clears.
For the past two days, pregnant Ruhi Pagli has been lying in a corner of the station writhing in pain. Even though the air of the old station is heavy at times with his self-cries, no one even looks back at him. When a stray dog barks on the side of the road, civilized people do not even look back at it, so is the situation of Ruhi Pagli. Ten months passed yesterday. The signs of pain will lead to delivery of the baby in a day or two.
If there was a sane person in the village and not a madman, then at least a midwife would have been by his side, whether it was a hospital or a doctor. The mouth of this far-fetched lunatic has not shed a tear in the last two days.
No one gives him food because of his hatred for Ruhi Pagli. Many are talking about removing him from this station. According to them, Ruhi Pagli is ruining the environment of the area. If he is in the area, there will be bad luck in the area – God’s wrath will be revealed; The youth of the area will go astray, etc. etc.
There have been many such incidents here over the years. Many crazy people came to this station and went somewhere else with the status of mother. Ruhi Pagli also faced such an incident two years ago. Sebar was also pregnant by some one and was thus writhing in pain at the station. After the child was born, the local people cut off her hair as punishment for giving birth to an illegitimate child. The child died of pneumonia a month later. On that day, the world might have twisted for a moment due to Ruhi Pagli’s cry. Local people buried the dead body of the child on the river bank. Ruhi Pagli still sometimes goes there and silently sheds tears; And say something slowly. Maybe asking God for something—complaining something that no one understands.
Even though the sky becomes clear, Ruhi sees everything dark with maddened pain. Matbar Jabbar’s munshis are busy trying to judge Amjad Jomaddar’s daughter when the innocent child cries naturally when she falls unconscious screaming.
