WALLS
Lal Chakraborty

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21Ân ®gh˦u¡l£, 2003

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Part I: Chapter 5      

All these happened during the winter months after the people had finished working on their fields. We had that year a good harvest and farmers didn't have much to do. Normally this used to be a period of relaxation and enjoyment. Winter was never very bitter in our part of the world. But every winter there would be a few days of frost that killed tender plants. As a result, normally farmers would stay out of farming during these months. That year they busied themselves with walls. 

The winter passed and time for working on the fields arrived. That meant people had to give more time working on the field than working on the wall. True there were a lot of people in the village like me who never worked in the fields and they could carry on working on the wall. However, this would create a shift in the economic balance. For the first time, possession of the wall was counted as important as possessing money or land. But if the rich people, who had farms and needed to work on those, had to go away, then the poor people would possess the wall that was the new currency of affluence. And it was as real as land. You can sell a piece of the wall to Banya for money or food, you could possess it as you own a cart, you could even be proud of it. 

This caused some concern for the well-offs and soon the poorer were forced to choose farm work. They now worked on behalf of the farm owners and shared the farm produce with them. The farm owners, being comparatively wealthy, on the other hand, became totally obsessed with the walls. Some even sold off their land to remove all distractions. Walls had become livelihood for them. Walls were traded, guarded and captured.  

The King who had been isolated for long took a note of the changes. At night, he would visit people in their residence and ask about their health and well being. He would talk with us in a cheerful voice, ask about who had what part of the wall and lament about the old days when we were way too happy. He was able to pull to his side the people who suddenly found that they had lost their power due to this new definition of wealth. These people, who had lost in the new order of things, who were resourceful before, and now, were at the receiving end, were hungry to turn the clock back. And there were many such people. Mark, our Bishop, who was loved and revered by everyone, had felt threatened by the ongoing activities. Mr. Stanford, our schoolteacher had found out that his words did not carry the same weight as before. Even lady Mary Jane, who was known to be the most pious woman found her small well-wisher’s meeting on every Tuesday was losing attendees.  

The King talked with these people, told them about the good old days, told them how evil had crept into their simple society and showed everyone the only remedy. He found more and more listeners. Then one day he struck. In a dark moonless night, the King and his men gathered around the eastern walls and proceeded to pull them down. The walls were their enemy, not any person and they rose up against it. The walls fell and the dead silence was soon replaced by the sound of clashing weapons, sticks and the pounding on the wall.

Miro woke me up "Zen, There’s something going on." 

I woke up sleepily and cocked my ears. "Something is going on all right."

We dressed quickly and hurried towards the sound. When I reached the spot of the fight we found a lot of blood had been spilt. Over four hundred feet of the walls were gone and those that opposed them were mercilessly attacked. The King’s men had been preparing for this a long time and clearly, they had advantage on their side. They hid behind walls and hurled stones and blunt spears. It was like the child’s hide and seek game. Only very much real. Every corner hid a man; every wall shielded some. We lost throughout that night and walked back inch by inch. For every inch we lost, an inch of the wall came down. By morning, we had lost the entire eastern walls.  

Now that we came near the central walls the property of Banya and other important men were threatened. This became the turning point of the battle. Probably the king should have gathered his men and should have gone over to the western side. He would have won there again. Instead, the King thought to finish the Central walls that housed the important men. But these men had money and soon a hundred fresh people joined our side. The King’s approach was halted just before Banya’s house. The fight dragged on for the whole day in the same place and no one won. And by evening King's men started to retreat. Around ten at night the fight was all over. Most of his men were seriously wounded. He himself was unconscious. We dragged him and left him in his palace. 

The walls in a matter of days grew much longer than before and the scars healed. The last opposition to the walls had been crushed.  

My visits to the King increased. He was totally isolated by now. The last man in his service had died of old age and he remained alone in that haunted house. The princess hardly spent her time in the mansion. She too had caught the fever of the walls like the rest of us. The King was always drunk, trying to forget his miserable present. However, he could never lose all his senses. He would throw up long before reaching that stage so that he never missed his plight. Sleepless long nights and sleepless long days and clear, perfect sanity oozed out his emotions. He did not consider me a low creature now. In fact, he often looked up at me as a blessing.

We walked and talked about old days. I always agreed to everything he said. He would often lament why the princess did not take me for a husband. He would lament why the princess was not dead. He would lament why he was not dead. Finally, one day he was dead. 

The brick-making machine introduced further radical changes. It was a very simple machine. You feed in mud and water and then turn the wheel for some time. The rocks and larger particles would be sieved out and a fine paste would be deposited on the brick moulds. The machine would allow bricks to be made very fast and required only a few hands. We all gathered around it and saw the un-baked bricks coming out of the mud and marveled how quick it all was working together. We touched the machine with our hands and smelled it. It had a fine fresh mud fragrance. The bricks were of perfect shape and size. The walls could now be built faster and quicker. 

That night Banya lured the machine owner with a bottle and the next morning we saw the brick machine was in front of Banya’s house, with Joe and a group of men working hard to make bricks.

Miro was quite right. Banya was a snake. Soon, he was selling us bricks in return of service, walls or even gratitude. The rules of the game were becoming simpler everyday. You had to work to earn your living. You could work in the farms as hired hands or on the walls. Wherever you worked, you worked for the Banya.