In Kapi Ranga's Memory
Long back we were owning agriculatural lands in our ancestral village. Our father had moved to city long time ago and the lands were given on lease. There were no written agreements but only due to trust the lands were given on the basis of sharing the produce.
We used to visit the village once in a while and during the crop cultivation we used to visit and collect either the crop or sell the crop of our portion and get money for the same.
There was a farmer by the name of (kapi) Ranga in that village. He had his wife and two sons and a daughter in his house hold. He was a share cropper.
As ill luck would have it he got hold of an exotic variety of paddy for sowing as it was fetching good price in the market. The catch was that it used to take longer for the paddy to mature than what was planted by others in the surrounding field. When the paady crops of others matued and they took it home to their barn or home the only crop which was standing was that of Kapi Ranga.
All the pests and field mice from all over the area got into this field and destroyed almost all the paady crop. So he was forced to borrow money in order to compensate the loss to the owners of the land with minimum of paddy that was agreed.
Next year he got paddy seedlings which were ripe to be planted from various sources as he felt it was cheaper than sowing and trasplanting.
As the paddy planted was of different type the maturity period was also varying and different areas ripened at diffrent times.
It was very difficult to harvest this time .
Once again Kapi Ranga borrowed heavily to clear his lease. He was unable to clear the debt and also the heavy interest thereupon.
Once in a year after the harvest time some agents used to come to the village to recruit workers for the coffee and teas estates. They used to lure the people to join the labour force and used to give huge amount as advance. Mostly Dalits used to accept the offer. And once they left the village nobody retuned from the estates either to visit their villages or friends or relatives. Very rarely other communities used to go for this estate works.
When the recruiting agent came to the village Kapi Ranga was more than anxious to join and he got the advance grom the agent and cleared all the debts. He still had some amount left and he called upon all the villagers to a really a grand Dinner and one and all the villagers enjoyed the dinner. At the end of the dinner Kapi Ranga along with family cicumbulated the villagers andf prostrated before them saying that whatever mistages he has commited is to e forgiven and he should be remebered for a long time to come.
with meagre belongings he along with his family left the village.
Nothing was heard about Kapi Ranga afterwords.
I saw this scence when I was a boy of fourteen.
Later on I studied and joined Government department in a Hill Station.
In one of the estates during summer months the estate authorities were conducting
ball badminton tournaments and many teams from nearby estates and other Government organisations used to send entries. The matches were played only on sundays.
I also participated in the tournament
While I was playing in the doubles I was an boy who was going with a gait similar to Kapi Ranga walking at a distance of about 30 feet. I could not leave the match in the middle and I waited till the match was over . I thought that the boy might be seeing some match in some other court but i could not fined him.
I met the manager to the estate and asked him whether i can find from register the name of Kapi Ranga from the list of laboureres.
The manager laughed and sid that as soon as a new labourer comes to the estate a new name is given as most of the labourers who arrive are petty criminals who are in the wanted list of police.
This articles is decicated to Kapi Ranga and his family.
We used to visit the village once in a while and during the crop cultivation we used to visit and collect either the crop or sell the crop of our portion and get money for the same.
There was a farmer by the name of (kapi) Ranga in that village. He had his wife and two sons and a daughter in his house hold. He was a share cropper.
As ill luck would have it he got hold of an exotic variety of paddy for sowing as it was fetching good price in the market. The catch was that it used to take longer for the paddy to mature than what was planted by others in the surrounding field. When the paady crops of others matued and they took it home to their barn or home the only crop which was standing was that of Kapi Ranga.
All the pests and field mice from all over the area got into this field and destroyed almost all the paady crop. So he was forced to borrow money in order to compensate the loss to the owners of the land with minimum of paddy that was agreed.
Next year he got paddy seedlings which were ripe to be planted from various sources as he felt it was cheaper than sowing and trasplanting.
As the paddy planted was of different type the maturity period was also varying and different areas ripened at diffrent times.
It was very difficult to harvest this time .
Once again Kapi Ranga borrowed heavily to clear his lease. He was unable to clear the debt and also the heavy interest thereupon.
Once in a year after the harvest time some agents used to come to the village to recruit workers for the coffee and teas estates. They used to lure the people to join the labour force and used to give huge amount as advance. Mostly Dalits used to accept the offer. And once they left the village nobody retuned from the estates either to visit their villages or friends or relatives. Very rarely other communities used to go for this estate works.
When the recruiting agent came to the village Kapi Ranga was more than anxious to join and he got the advance grom the agent and cleared all the debts. He still had some amount left and he called upon all the villagers to a really a grand Dinner and one and all the villagers enjoyed the dinner. At the end of the dinner Kapi Ranga along with family cicumbulated the villagers andf prostrated before them saying that whatever mistages he has commited is to e forgiven and he should be remebered for a long time to come.
with meagre belongings he along with his family left the village.
Nothing was heard about Kapi Ranga afterwords.
I saw this scence when I was a boy of fourteen.
Later on I studied and joined Government department in a Hill Station.
In one of the estates during summer months the estate authorities were conducting
ball badminton tournaments and many teams from nearby estates and other Government organisations used to send entries. The matches were played only on sundays.
I also participated in the tournament
While I was playing in the doubles I was an boy who was going with a gait similar to Kapi Ranga walking at a distance of about 30 feet. I could not leave the match in the middle and I waited till the match was over . I thought that the boy might be seeing some match in some other court but i could not fined him.
I met the manager to the estate and asked him whether i can find from register the name of Kapi Ranga from the list of laboureres.
The manager laughed and sid that as soon as a new labourer comes to the estate a new name is given as most of the labourers who arrive are petty criminals who are in the wanted list of police.
This articles is decicated to Kapi Ranga and his family.
posted by N.S.Char at 8:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home