Image Courtesy of Stone Center. Shared via a Creative Commons license.
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Berrige was the head man whenever there was a Panchayat. A Panchayat was a meeting of older heads in the village usually called to oversee and decide on village matters involving families, husbands, wives and neighbours disputes. Most of these matters involved disputed boundaries, petty thefts, mother in law/ daughter in law disputes, domestic violence, and children refusing to marry those chosen by their parents. Every now and again would come the ones that caused the real bacchanal, marital infidelity.
The Panchayat usually consisted of five persons who had status in the village and were always older men. These meetings were usually held under Berrige’s house, and although she had no official function in these meetings, Berrige’s wife also known as Boysie Kaki usually sat at the head table where she was always able to influence the outcomes of the deliberations.
Boysie Kaki was tall, dark and stout but because of her height she did not look fat. As children we were all afraid of her. She was not averse to disciplining the children in the village although she had none of her own. I knew of none of my peers who hadn’t been at the receiving end off, as she put it “a taste of her hand” one time or another. I myself felt her wrath when I was about eight and was caught atop her plum tree. She held my ear as she propelled me to my home a quarter mile away where I further received a another good cut tail from my mother. Somehow they forgot the plums in my pocket and even now I can still taste their sweetness as I did then, mixed with my salty tears!
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Berrige was the land owner in the village which consisted of mainly farmers who either worked for him or made their living by planting crops on lands that they rented from him. He was also one of the few men who could speak both Hindi and English and usually headed both the Ramayan and Chowtal groups. There were no fixed members of the Panchayat and it was dissolved when its work was done and new members would be selected for the next time something needed to be addressed. However Berrige seemed always to head the group and of course Boysie Kaki in her position as lady of the house was most present.
Very rarely would someone disagree with the decisions of the Panchayat or disobey its instructions. If they did they would be deemed a Kujat, that is an undesirable person and the villagers would stop interacting with them until they relented and accepted the judgement or they would have to leave the village. While most of the time the person making the complaint would seek out the Panchayat via the head man to request a hearing, the members of the Panchayat , could also hear and decide on event that they thought were important enough with or without the parties participation. I was always amazed at the way the entire village always accepted the decisions of the Panchayat.
The Panchayat would consist of the decision making members sitting at the head table. Of course Boysie Kaki would also be there and although there were murmurings about her as a woman being there, these were subdued, as no one dared openly to question her presence. Seated on a bench in front would be the persons against whom the complaints were being made and further down were villagers. There would always be a full house as the villagers were eager to indulge in kuchur, comess and jhanjat and I felt that most of them came to hear people’s business and be entertained.
Although children were not allowed in the Panchayat unless they were the subject of the deliberations, at fourteen, I was allowed to sit in and record the proceedings as I was the only boy in the village going to high school. When I presented these minutes’ style recordings to Berrige, he would instruct me to leave out some of my observations because “you like too much hassikara and harbar”! Up to now my wife says the same thing.
The head man would state the complaints and the defendants would defend themselves. Members of the audience were allowed to contribute in support or condemnation of either the complainant or defendant.
August 25, 1964 would always stay in my memory. The village was abuzz with excitement. The Panchayat was convened to adjudicate on two important events. The first one was about Krishan who was being accused of being with the neighbour Barran’s wife and the second involved Mootoo who had taken Bhadase’s wife to Mora Dam where he had sexually assaulted her.
Krishan was the apple of his mother, Moya’s eyes. Moya was one of the wealthier women whose husband had died and left her well off. Krishan was her only child, her “doolar ki beta”. While most of the young men in the village worked at their rented plots gardening or on the lands belonging to Berrige, whether in the rice lagoon or watermelon fields depending on the season, Krishan had a job at the Sugar Factory as a welder. He was tall, fair and very good looking. At twenty seven he was living with his wife Polly, two children and mother in a big galvanised covered house surrounded by the thatched houses belonging to us poorer folks. He mother bought him one of the few cars in the village, a Ford Anglia, because he had to work shift and the Sugar Factory was at St Madeline which was about fifteen miles away.
One day a man named Barran came to live in our village. He moved into the house next to Krishan in front of the standpipe. He was a Taxi Driver and owned a Ford Consul. He was married but had no children. While nearly all of the villagers were Hindus, they were Christians and did not attend the pujas, weddings and religious ceremonies that they were invited to by the villagers. We thought that they were a bit stuck up and felt they were better than the rest of us. Sometimes Barran’s wife would be seen wearing low cut blouses and skimpy shorts in her yard, something that was unheard of in our village.
Krishan and Barran soon became friends and on Sunday mornings both could be seen washing their cars at the village stand pipe. Sometimes I would help them scrub the wheels for which they would give me five cents. While Barran would leave home at six am and return at six pm, Kishan would sometimes be home during the day as he worked on a shift basis. We all had to tote water from the stand pipe and we were surprised when Krishan began toting water also. We would see him chatting and laughing with Barran’s wife and tongues soon began to wag. I heard Saga’s mother, the village gossip tell my mother that “something going on” but I knew well enough not to listen to big people business.
Krishan returned home from the eleven to seven shift one Monday morning at about half past eight. I was filling my buckets at the stand pipe at the time because school was on vacation. My mother had insisted that I fill the barrel before I could go to the nearby play ground. I saw Krishan leave his lunch bag at home and circle around his house and entered Barran’s house from the back. He also saw me but I pretended not to see anything for I knew that Krishan would buy me a Solo later that evening from the parlour.
Around nine thirty Barran came home. He did a strange thing. He parked his car on the Junction of our road near the playground and walked. Soon there was a big brouhaha at Barran’s house. Both Krishan and Barran came tumbling down the steps, locked in what seemed like an embrace but they were actually choking each other. Barran had a cut on his head and was bleeding. There was a lot of shouting of mudder this and mudder that. Krishan broke away and ran to his home. Barran followed but stopped in his tracks when Krishan’s mother with cutlass in hand dared him to come in her yard.
Although Barran did not complain to the Panchayat, ” I doh believe in them coolie thing”, as far as we could tell he did not go to the police either. We all knew how Police does laugh when man report horn. However, the Panchayat decided that Krishan needed to be reprimanded and a meeting was called. Neither Barran nor his wife attended for by this time they were not speaking with any of the villagers.
The other matter that would be heard by the Panchayat involved Motoo and Beena. Mootoo was a mechanic and although he did not own a car, he was usually seen driving the several cars that came to his place for repairs. He was married and lived with his wife Doodoo and had a shed adjoining his house where he worked. Beena, who came from Mulchan Trace and was recently married to Bhadase, lived next door. Bhadase worked in the rice fields belonging to Berrige. When Beena was a new bride she was not taken to work in the rice fields. Bhadase who was the eldest child had five brothers and two sisters and Beena was supposed to cook, wash and clean for all of them. Beena used to complain that she would prefer to go in the fields than slave for all of them. They all lived in an old carat house with mud floor and walls. Beena was also supposed to leepay the floor and walls.
A week after her wedding Beena found out that she had to leave the room and bed that she and Bhadase were sleeping in and go into a smaller room. This room belonged to her mother in law and father in law. When she saw the room they had to move in she asked Bhadase where the bed was. He explained that they would sleep on some paals and sheets spread on the floor ” until better could be done”. A paal would consist of four empty rice bags sewn together to make a rough like sheet. Beena began to cry and sent a message for her father to visit her. She was determined to return to Mulchan Trace.
Beena father came and although he felt for his daughter, did not take her back home. His belief was that she was dharma bound to stay with her husband as she had promised in her marriage vows, regardless of poverty or hardship. Bhadase was at that time working for eighteen dollars a week of which he had to contribute twelve dollars for room and food towards the family as he and his father were the only ones working. Beena decided then, that she would start working in the lagoon. Her pay as a woman was fifteen dollars a week, three dollars less than her husband. Now that she was working, her father in law insisted that she too contribute to the family upkeep as now her sister in law had to do the household chores and cook for the entire family. Still Beena managed to save a little each week.
If planting rice was hard and back breaking work, sleeping on the dirt floor after was near torture. Beena was saving her money to buy a bed. Around this time a branch of a department store called Kirpalanis opened in Siparia. From the radio in Mootoo’s garage, for she couldn’t afford one, she heard the advertisement for spring filled mattresses for ten dollars down and one dollar per week. She dreamed about sleeping on one of these and resolved that if she could not buy a bed now, she would at least get a mattress.
One Saturday when she did not have to work, she took fifteen dollars that she had saved and proceeded to Siparia’s Kirpalani. There she paid ten dollars down and signed a hire purchase for one dollar a week for thirty weeks. Now that she had her mattress she realised that she had given no thought of how she would get it home for after buying two sponge pillows she was left with one dollar. There was a van that said transport, outside the store but he wanted three dollars to take the mattress to her home. She did not have that amount. She didn’t know what to do.
She saw Mootoo who was test driving a customer’s car in front of the store. When he asked her if she was going home, she felt relieved. She indicated that she had a mattress to carry and he said that was no problem as it was a sunny day and he would tie it on top of the hood. On their way to Penal, Mootoo pulled onto the Mora Dam road saying he had to drop something for a friend. Beena became frightened as the road was very lonely with no houses. When they reached the Dam, Mootoo stopped the car and told her that since he was taking her mattress home he had to try it out. Beena started to cry and begged him to leave her alone but Mooto would not heed her cries. In spite of her pleadings he had his way with her.
When she arrived home she was angry, hurt and confused. However, that night she told her husband Bhadase what had happened. He wanted to fight Mootoo but Beena knew that Mootoo was a badjohn and bigger and stronger than Bhadase. She knew that Mootoo would hurt Bhadase badly and she convinced him not to get in any fight. She also wanted to avoid a scandal. Bhadase loved his wife and they both decided not to tell anyone about this incident and carry on with their lives. However, Mootoo in a drunken state boasted about it in the rum shop and thus it came to the attention of the Panchayat.
When the Panchayat assembled, Krishan’s matter was dealt with first. Since there was no one to complain, for Barran and his wife did not attend, he was severely reprimanded by Berrige and warned to change his ways. His wife who was present did not say a word but his mother vigorously defended him, blaming Barran’s wife for the incident. She called Barran’s wife a Besharaan that is a scheming and immoral woman without shame. She had, like the woman in the Ramayan, Vishwa Mohini, who led the Saint Narad Muni away from the path of Dharma, had caused her good son to be led astray. Things were looking good for Krishan but one week later his wife Polly left with her two children for her father’s home and never returned! Two weeks later Krishan was ambushed and suffered a cut on his face where a big scar remains to this day, spoiling his good looks. No one has been ever arrested for this.
Both Mootoo and his wife came to the Panchayat. They were arrogant and loud. Doodoo, Mootoo’s wife defended him saying that Beena was always flirting with her husband. Mootoo was even more egotistic arguing that women were always throwing themselves at him. He opined that Beena could have run away because “woman with dress up could run faster than man with pants down”. At this members of the audience became incensed and rushed to beat Mootoo and his wife but were restrained by Berrige and the other members of the Panchayat. Since they were renting from Berrige, he ordered them to leave the village in one week’s time.
The Panchayat being over, Berrige could not protect the Mootoos on the road. They were both given a sound cutarse by the villagers. Even Boysie Kaki got into the act dealing Doodoo several blows on her face with her sapaat . The Mootoos left the village two days later.
Beena and Bhadase were rented a lot of land by Berrige and the whole village joined together to help them construct a little house in Gopie Trace. Later Bahadase got a job with the St Patrick County Council repairing roads and through a loan from Barclays Bank bought the lot. When the children came, Beena stopped working as Bhadase was earning enough to support them. I met them last week and fifty something years later in their big house and new car now, with their children all married and doing well, they still seem to be very much in love.
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Motilal Boodoosingh is a sixty-five year old retired Offshore Gas Production worker who resides in Penal, Trinidad. He graduated in 2015 with a BA in Literature and Communication and began writing seriously when he started his degree. His work has been published in The Caribbean Writer and he volunteers as an Adult Literacy Tutor and also as a remedial English Tutor at the Penal Police Youth Club.