The 9 0 clock news

It was Barli’s 20th birthday. Bhima and Savitri had made elaborate preparations to celebrate it with her. Neighbours were invited in advance and Savitri had cleaned her home with the village pond’s water. The cow dung cakes from the walls were removed for the day and the inside was decorated with wild flowers and mango leaves. It was 8.45 pm and the family and friends were well settled inside the hut. Bhima came out with his Transistor from inside his room to the open space at the centre. It was cleaned with rose water and smelled of new grease and paint. The knobs were shining in the dim kerosene lamp light. Savitri brought the Khir and Puri she had made for her daughter and displayed it beside the Transistor. At 9.00 pm sharp Bhima switched it on and adjusted the tuning to a known frequency. A shrill voice greeted everybody. ‘Aaj ki taaza khabar main aap sabka swagat hai.’ Bhima clapped hysterically hearing the voice. It was Barli speaking from inside the Transistor. Her voice echoed inside the hut. Savitri clinched both her fists and touched it beside her ear lobes and gave a flattered smile. The villagers looked at each other in awe and then turned their heads to the couple. The voice turned heavier and the villagers could hear the day’s news in Hindi. Half way between the news, Bhima lowered the volume and announced Barli’s 20th birthday. Everybody clapped hearing it. Mangu, the porter was the first one to congratulate the couple, ‘Bitya raani ab shyanni ho gayi hai Bhima Bhaiya’, he exclaimed in an authoritative tone. Bhima’s stomach inflated in happiness. Barli was not physically present for her birthday but the couple could feel the whole hut lit up by her bubbly words coming out through the transistor. They could imagine the rolling sound of her payal as the voice continued from inside the device. The news ended in 20 minutes. Time passed out in a flash and Barli vanished from the four boundaries of her home into eeriness. Bhima turned the knob a little more and the sudden emptiness was replaced with the latest Hindi film songs. The crowd once again cheered up and Savitri served the guests Khir and Puri. An untouched plate full of the sweat meat was left beside the Transistor. The smell of it would have definitely travelled to Barli from where her voice was coming. Bhima kept on glancing at the Transistor as if trying to get a glance of Barli’s face if it happened to protrude out of the wooden machine. Nothing of such sort happened and the day came to an end with the hut now surrounded with the after party litter. Bhima and Savitri were happy today. They were happy for their daughter’s progress in the manly world.

*

It had all happened 4 years ago when Barli’s talent was spotted by a journalist from a government radio channel on his tour to this village. He was doing a story on the local Bhil tribe in the area and had dropped off at the Dhanpur village bus station. There he spotted Barli talking in a man’s voice to some rough guys of the village. She instantly scared them away but attracted the attention of this angel friend. After a few days of touring the village and recording important parts of his conversation with the villagers, he searched out for Barli and came to her hut for a special recording. Barli once again impressed him with her voice modulation skills, while imitating a variety of movie actors she had heard on the Radio. ‘You are a treasured voice for the Radio, Barli,’ he said appraising her skills. ‘Come to the city some day and I will make you the voice of Radio.’ Mohan dropped his visiting card over her chunri and bid farewell to the family. This was the first time Bhima felt proud of his daughter’s oratory flair. But he did not encourage her to go to the city and try her luck. He was aware of her origins in a minority community and knew that she would not be accepted easily in the city life. Moreover how can he believe a city man for his words? His daughter was still very young and immature. He cautioned Barli not to fall for the stranger’s words and that she should concentrate on being a helping hand to her family.

But destiny had chosen otherwise for her. On a Sunday evening the stranger spoke again from within the radio and Barli heard her voice being aired for the first time. It was a wonderful feeling. She had butterflies in her stomach and ran with the radio to her mother. Savitri heard her daughter’s voice and was shocked at first, but then she smiled and gave a shy expression. Bhima came to know this from Savitri that night. That day he looked into the open sky and wished his daughter good luck. A week later Barli went to the city with some of her friends to buy a new pair of bangles she had seen on TV. Her friends returned that night to the village but swore that they did not see Barli getting off the bus with them.

She had planned to stay on in the city and Sumitra her best buddy helped her elope from the village. Weeks passed in the village and Bhima grieved over his daughter’s absence. The village Panchayat was fast to label Barli as an outcast and condemned her action. Bhima struggled to keep his face between his peers. Savitri showed great patience and restored peace in her home. A year later most of the event was forgotten and buried. But the gates of the village where shut down permanently for Barli.

Almost a year after Barli had given wings to her destiny, Bhima turned on the Transistor to pass away time on a chilled winter night. He switched sporadically between stations with no intentions of listening to anything particular. Folk songs were his favourite but nothing of that sort was playing on it now. The radio by default tuned itself to the daily news and Bhima was lazy to change it. He gave away to star gazing on his charpoy while the dry recitation of a man continued on the radio. Bhima almost fell asleep and the stars gave away to the lovely face of his daughter. He could see her dodge in front his eyes. Faint remembrance turned into clear sight. He began hearing Barli voice faintly. It was sounding as if she had completely forgotten her mother tongue. She was talking of the city life and her adventures into the night life. She was narrating how Radio had changed her life forever. And that sometimes she remembers her father. Bhima’s eyes became numb. He woke up from his half sleep and rubbed his eye lids. He could see the radio talking to him. It was Barli’s voice that was getting transmitted through it. It was not a dream. She was speaking from inside the radio for real. Bhima gave out a controlled laugh and looking dazed he carried the transistor to his wife inside. Savitri listened to the radio carefully and tried to pick Barli’s voice. ‘Haann…’ she gasped for breath and then hugged Bhima tightly. At last they had found their daughter but it was as if she was in some kind of captivity. The radio had swallowed her forever and would only let her speak for twenty minutes a day. It was the time the couple waited for everyday. Twenty minutes of their daughter’s voice turned the radio into a living organism and slowly replaced Barli back in their household.

*

The transistor was infused with a sudden spring of life. Bhima would wake up in the morning and look at it first. It would accompany the couple at breakfast and sometimes to the fields where Bhima worked. Slowly the village got accustomed to Bhima calling the transistor by his daughter’s name. He would carry it around on his bicycle and would make her see the changes that the village had gone through in her absence.

That day Savitri got some time free with Barli. She spoke to her about the grief that she had caused to her father by running away from the village. And that she was now an outsider to her community. She wished her good luck in all that she does in life and complained that she never tried to contact them. Barli responded with a radio making a high pitched noise. Savitri could make out that Barli was angry and that she and Bhima had failed to meet her expectations when she was in the village. She had cooked maize chappati and baati with daal for her today. Dinner was served when Bhima returned at night. Barli was talking about the world as usual at dinner. Bhima listened to the news carefully. Before it got over Bhima spoke to Barli. ‘Beta ab byaah kar le…bus ek hi itcha hai hamari.’ The news ended abruptly as if Barli had shied away hearing her father’s request.

*

The transistor was slowly bringing with itself a sea change in the entire village, which Bhima and Savitri were unable to comprehend at this time of the hour. They were just doing their bit to fill the void in their life with the help of an object which by no means could replace any living being. The only living resemblance that it had to a human soul was its ability to throw out the exact replica of voice of the person speaking into it. But this ability of the radio was fast filing the people of the village with the idea of self expression. The village folks would listen to the radio compulsorily whenever they would hear Barli hosting a show. Billua, the cobbler was the first one to create a special stand over which he kept his new set of radio that he bought through a friend in the city. He began picking up Barli’s tone of voice and would practice to copy it several times in the day in-between his shoe mending sessions. In a month’s time he became a crowd puller. The village girls would stop by his shop and giggle at his hilarious recitations of the English language. Some mischievous young boys had tried to damage his radio by aiming at it through their sling shot. One black marble had hit on its right ear from where the sound used to emerge. Billua had got extremely upset by this act of Dhania, the son of the village priest. He swore to take revenge by killing Dhania’s pet squirrel. The boy accepted the challenge and walked everyday with his squirrel from beside his shop. His gang of friends would poke Billua to fulfil his quest. But Billua turned a coward and would shift his concentration on to his job as if unaffected by the gang’s remarks. From then on he was seen slapping the radio now and then to bring back its sound which sometimes got muted from its right ear. The slap proved handy and soon the radio got used to the sporadic thrashing sometimes from his bare hands and sometimes with the leather shoe souls that he mended. Billua was not happy with the harm he was causing to his radio. It was as if he was ripping his soul every time he was forced to beat up the machine. ‘I will get you repaired’. He cried in desperation that day, while stroking its wooden knobs with his crooked fingers.

*

The village carnival had returned to the river side at the onset of winter. There was juvenile energy all throughout the village with villagers trying to make an extra buck by quoting their handicrafts at double rates. Their usual targets were the Goras who toured the village at this time for buying souvenirs for their children back home. An amazing and rare form of jewellery making tradition still existed in this village. Claws and of bear and tiger were moulded in gold and copper and carved to give every piece an authentic look. A huge quantity got exported every year though trade in this carnival. But this time around there was one more entrant that was giving all the jewels a though luck for their price. It was the radio. A huge quantity of transistor sets had got dumped into the carnival by a local gadget maker. He had picked up the arousing need of radio sets in the village and had anticipated its demand. He had carefully embossed Barli’s name on each set as she was the inspiration the villagers would fall for buying a set for themselves. The idea clicked and radios were the fresh cake of the season. Its sale increased so rapidly that other local vendors quickly copied the design within a week and started selling their fake version made of plastic. The village was infiltrated with all possible colours of radio sets. Red and pink were in demand by the young girls. A couple of Bollywood songs looped continuously when the button was pressed. The boys used it as an apt gift for their girlfriends living in neighbouring villages. Soon Barli’s name and fame got spread out into every household through the radio.

At the end of the carnival the manufactures of the radio wanted to congratulate and honour Bhima for making her girl such a superstar. But Bhima denied of having done anything for her girl. He got up on to the stage and cried in front of the villagers and the guests. He regretted of having punished and beaten her during her growing up days for trying and braving the city life. Such was his poor state that he and his wife had not seen Barli for almost four years now. He pointed at Savitri who was dying a silent death each day through her absence. Savitri’s eyes filled with tears and so did of the villagers. The Panchayat apologised for behaving in a strict manner towards Barli and made an attempt to take back their harsh decision. ‘If you want then Barli can once again join us, Bhima’, an elder from the group spoke up. The villagers joined into the request. Bhima felt a little relived and proud. Savitri cried with a happy heart this time. But both doubted if Barli would return.

That night it was 9.00 pm again. Bhima and Savitri turned on the radio for the usual chit chat with Barli. They told her that the village Panchayat had apologised to them for abandoning her. Savitri asked Barli to return to the village…Bhima said in a heavy and happy tone as the news ended. ‘Don’t come back my dear girl; we love you for what you are doing in the city.’