Left Behind: Part One

Dhanne woke up when the blare of siren became unbearable. The police jeep came close to the temple and stopped. Dhanne was barely interested in the two figures who came out of the jeep. He grabbed the old scrap paint box and started walking towards the canal. He filled it with water and then paced towards the forest to answer the call of nature.

The two figures also moved towards the forest. The Police Inspector carefully analyzed the land. People had chopped down a few more trees in the last few days, constructing more shanties in their place. He knew that this afternoon is going to be a tough one for him. The forest department would try to raze those illegal shanties once again and it was his duty to maintain order while they did their job. After surveying the number of people living their illegally and calculating the amount of police force he would require, he along with his sub-ordinate drove towards the temple for morning prayers. He needed all help and support he could muster.

The temple was established 5 years ago, when a herder claimed to have seen Lord Shiva in the jungle at night, when he went there searching for a lost cow. The next day, there was a mysterious piece of rock protruding out of the ground at that place. The rock was shaped like a lingam. No one had seen that rock before, or since the place was not well frequented nobody was sure whether the rock was already there or not. Someone dropped few flowers over the rock, and people started coming for the darshan. Manohar was the brahmin closest to that area, and once people started visiting the temple, he was called to act as the priest of the new temple. The local businessmen, particularly the builders and real estate developers gave rich offerings to the temple. Slowly they collected enough money to build the temple. Due to the temple, the once isolated place was now buzzing with activity. Soon a few shops were set up, selling materials required for temple prayers and offerings. Beggars are concomitant with any temple complex, they too followed. As the number of devotees grew, the market also grew in size. And the variety of shops also underwent a change. There were fruit sellers, sweetshops, general stores, few dhabas, mechanics, auto repair shops etc. Since the temple was established due to an apparition the temple came to be known as ‘Bhootnath Temple’ and the market as ‘Bhootnath Market.’

The only people not happy with this turn of events were the forest department employees. The entire place, including the temple had come up on the forest land, illegally. Due to institutional lethargy, they took no action for the first few years. Also with two successive elections round the corner, they bided their time. But, once they started to get reports about the illegal land being sold and bought, with the due help of local real estate developers they knew they will have to take action. First the slum behind the temple, housing the workers, petty shopkeepers, beggars etc will have to be removed. Then they will demolish the shops. And finally if they can get enough support, the temple itself. They were going to demolish the slum today.

Manohar had just started to prepare for the morning prayers, when he heard the siren of Police Jeep. Unperturbed, he continued his rituals although his mind was unsettled. The police inspector came up and stood with the early morning devotees. After the pooja was over, he asked the priest for a few minutes. He informed the priest about the expected demolition. There will be only a 1 hr. warning given to the encroachers to collect their belongings. He expected trouble, and since the temple always had a huge crowd of devotees, thought it wise to inform the priest so that at least the temple crowds can be kept in control.

Meanwhile Dhanne was done with the morning rituals, and came to the temple. His father had already spread out all the flowers and was hawking them to the devotees. Fresh roses, marigolds, jasmine, lotuses and many other freshly plucked and drenched flowers were laid out in neat rows. His father scolded him for rising up late and failing to collect any flowers this morning. He silently sat beside his father and his 11 year old hands were on work, hawking and persuading devotees to purchase the flowers.

Dhanne’s father, Haria was an agricultural labor who migrated to this city from his native Chhatarpur nearly two years ago. Drought had ensured that there was no work available. A year later, when Haria finally started selling flowers outside the temple, he felt the need of an extra pair of hands and bought his 9 year old son to the city. At first he was confused, but soon grew up to be street smart.

The priest wisely informed the gold trader, who was also present in the morning pooja and had seen the police inspector. It was not in his interest that the eviction be carried out so soon and so comprehensively. They wanted to chew the land in bits and pieces. Coming out of the temple, he started calling up his friends. One of them was the treasurer of the local college union.

Dhanne was done with putting over a plastic sheet to turn their road side place into a temporary shop, in order to protect his flowers from the sun and dust when he heard a loud commotion. His father asked him to stay behind and look after the shop. He murmured something to the effect that people have come to demolish their little jhuggi and he was going to stop them.

A few hundred metres away from the temple complex the road was jammed with big bulldozers, trucks, buses and jeeps. They were there to demolish the slum: forest officials and policemen.