It is rains daily now. Business is slow and there is nothing to do for him except sit and ruminate, inside his shack of a hotel by the earthen roadside. “The rains came earlier this time. It’s all due to climate change, gift from capitalism to the world,” he thinks to himself. Slurping the hot milk tea, he plunges into nostalgia.

lll

The rebels had stopped at his village, en-route to Rukum. Their cultural troupe had performed revolutionary songs, dramas and dances on the school ground. His home had been selected as the place that would shelter the platoon commander for the night. They were supposed to leave early in the morning. 

The commander asked his father to tune into radio Nepal for the seven o’clock news broadcast. The rebels listened to the news gravely, in pin-drop silence. There was no news of fighting and death that night. The news programme was soon over and food was served. At around eight they finished eating. They washed the dishes themselves. Some of them went out to stand sentry while others settled down for a discussion. The commander struck up a conversation with his father. 

He was an old retired Indian Army man. He had had his share of ups and downs in life. Though not highly educated, he was a smart and experienced person. However, he did not understand politics; rather, he was not interested in it. Being a lahure had been lucrative and practical in his time but not anymore. He knew that education was the only means of getting up in the world and wanted to educate his two sons, as far as possible. He didn’t feel the same responsibility towards his two daughters. They had got enough education to find able husbands and were both already married.

“… and this is all due to the feudal system we have in this country. And what is the way out? Revolution....an upheaval…Power comes from the barrel of the gun, that’s why we have raised arms, you fought for the Indian Army…we are fighting for our country, for the people to be precise...the enemy has guns but we have people like you behind us… Young men like your sons are our van-guard, the revolution needs them...an egalitarian society is our aim, where everybody is equal... no king, no subjects, no feudals, no serfs, no exploiters no exploited...why do a few people have so much and others nothing at all. Why..? That is the question here. ”

This speech had been beyond his grasp. What his father had made of it then, he wonders even today.  However, it had had a massive impact on his brother. They were only two years apart and more like friends than elder and younger sibling. He had failed his SLC examinations twice. And although he’d been preparing to appear again, he had little hope he would pass through the so called ‘iron gate’.

Next morning, his brother had left with the rebels. His father had been sure that he would come back; war is not as easy as working the land or herding sheep and goats, he had remarked. His mother had brooded over her son with watery eyes; she had cried for three days after which life had resumed to normal, continuing as it always had. Only, this time, he had more work to do given the absence of his brother.

It had been five months since his brother’s departure. Only a few days were left before Dashain when his mother had begun growing anxious. She fell ill and muttered in her delusion that her eldest son had been killed. Dashain came and went. His brother didn’t come home. Exactly two months later they got the news that comrade ‘Biplob’ had been killed in a skirmish with the enemies at Malika Lek. A few days later a commissar came over and asked him to join the people’s war. He had said, “Martyrdom is inevitable in revolutions. I know you are young and there’s nobody to help your old parents but comrade Biplop’s blood cannot go down the drain. You should take his place and fight for the cause.”

It didn’t take much to convince him. He had been mentally prepared to take revenge. Without a second thought, he left home.

For six months he underwent military training and political indoctrination. At the age of seventeen he became one of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) men or the ‘warrior of the people’. Apart from his military duties he found time to indulge in his hobbies. He read voraciously but it was all Communist literature all of the time. Within a short span of time he started writing songs and poems. His song The Red Warriors became so popular within the party that even Chairman Comrade was seen and heard humming it. It also became a staple on the Guerrilla Radio and all of the party’s cultural programmes.

lll

The sky has become overcast again. There is a light drizzle. He finishes his glass of tea and gets up to see if his little daughter is still asleep. He feels a sharp pain in his thigh, a memento from the Sandhikharka raid. 

lll

He had been commissioned to the flank and had reinforced the main sabotage team. When they had been just about to fire the rocket launcher to dismantle the walls of the Police Headquarters, a grenade had gone off two metres from him. It hadn’t hurt their group and it had taken him a moment to realise that he had been hit by a bullet in his thigh. He had held his ground despite the pain. He had covered the wound with a kerchief and fought the whole night.

He was later carried on a makeshift stretcher all the way to the shelter in Gulmi district.

They had won the battle but the loss the party had suffered was not small. The price had been paid in the lives of many young men. They were buried hastily in the jungle, without any ceremony. To this day, the exact number of deaths on their side is not known, not even to the party. 

lll

After the People’s Movement, he was asked to head the party’s political front. Hence he left the PLA and joined a YCL (Young Communist League) Camp. After some time he was asked to go to his home district and canvass support for the Constituent Assembly elections. After the elections he had virtually no contact with the party. His wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter. He needed to sustain himself and his family so he started this roadside teashop. 

His party had taken a hard line on eliminating alcoholism, gambling and prostitution from society. Many ordinary folks, shopkeepers and women had been punished for these crimes. Now, his shop sells alcohol. It makes the most profit for him. Initially, he didn’t want to sell it, but selling tea didn’t come close to covering expense for his three-member family. Now he drinks, his wife also drinks. However he doesn’t feel guilty. Why should he? Even Chairman Comrade, the Supremo drinks. Chairman’s only son is a ‘tanker’, he’s heard. His drunken escapades, if written down in order, could provide material for an entire book. When it was first discovered that the Chairman drinks, the news became a sensation. But nobody knew this for the first six months, only his wife.

He lives in a shack, the Chairman lives in a mansion. Chairman wears luxury watches, he has shiny suits; he wears a 150-rupee digital watch and doesn’t have own a single suit set. It doesn’t feel right but he doesn’t want to complain about the Chairman’s lifestyle. He is ‘the Chairman’ after all, but what about his equals. Most of them have made a fortune. The party did make them.

He thinks, “Why join a war and shed so much blood just to make a fortune? There are hundreds of other easier and less gory ways to make money. Was it all for the money? Were the dreams of revolution, talk of a new age of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalised, the workers, the peasants and the landless all talk? The ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘paradise on earth’, terms that were so confidently thrown about, handed over to young men like him, had they all been just a means for the few ‘leaders’ to get to the top?”

lll

When the party had entered into a ‘Twelve Point Agreement’ with the bourgeoisie politicos, he had had doubts about its being beneficial to the party, the revolution. However, he believed that to be some kind of a stratagem the party had taken up to pave the way for grabbing state power in the future. And there was nothing he could have done even if he had wanted. Breaching party orders or questioning them were things unheard of in the party. Questioning the high command was a sacrilege. Moreover, he had faith in the high command and more so in Chairman Comrade.

He comes back after checking on his sleeping daughter, sits on the dusty bench, looks outside at the clouds, hills, terraced paddy fields, and these sorts of questions come across his mind, “Do I believe in the party anymore? Do I believe in the chairman? Do I believe in Communism?” To all the questions, he mutters, “I believe only in my wife.”