The Tales of Abdul Majhi

This is my translation of Abdul Majhir Galpo done especially for this blog


Abdul Majhi had a pointed beard, a shaven head and no moustache. I know him quite well. He would get hilsa fish and turtle eggs from the Padma for dada. He had once told me a tale.
It was the end of spring—the month of Chaitra . He had gone with his dingy, fishing in the deep waters of the Padma. Suddenly, there rose a nor’westerly. It was a terrible storm. The boat tossed and turned and almost drowned. Abdul clasped the rope between his teeth and jumped into the waters. He swam to the shore and pulled the boat back with the rope.
The story finished too quickly and I didn’t quite like it. I wish I had heard a little more about the storm. After all, the boat didn’t drown. It just got saved—how could this be a good enough tale? I kept prodding him, “And then, what happened, after that?” Finally, Abdul said, “I saw a leopard with a really big moustache. During the storm, it had gone to the village on the other side. That village was called Pakoorgunj. A sudden gust of wind pulled a tree down into the Padma. And, along with it the leopard too was flung into the river. It drifted off into the river, struggling against the high waters, and somehow managed to reach the bank and get up on its feet.
The moment I saw him, I tied a noose with my rope. The mighty beast rolled its eyes and stood in front. The swim had worked up quite an appetite in him. The moment he saw me, he rolled his deep red tongue out and started drooling. He knew a lot of folks within the village and a few outside. But he knew not who Abdullah was!
I called out to him, “Come, my dear one, come”. He lifted his fore legs up and was ready to pounce when I threw the rope at him and put the noose across his neck. He wriggled hard to free himself and the more he wriggled, the more did the noose tighten around his neck and his tongue kept rolling out.”
At this point, I got a little worried and asked, “Abdul, did he die or what?” Abdul reassured me, “Well, how could he? Even his father wouldn’t have been able to take him to the throes of death. There was a high tide in the river and would one not have to come back to Bahadoorgunj? I tied the leopard to my dingy and used his weight to pull me through a hundred miles. The moment he would start groaning, I would nudge him with my oar. In an hour and a half I could cross a distance worth fifteen. Now, if you want to know what happened after that, I would really not be able to answer.”
I said, “Well, then, now that you’ve told me about a leopard, what about a crocodile?” Abdul replied, “I’ve seen his nose popping out of the river many a times. On the sloping banks of the river when you see a crocodile warming itself on the sand, it does seem that it is guffawing in a rather ugly way. I would have fought him, had I had a gun. But, the license had gotten over a long while back. Yet, something interesting happened.
One day, Kanchi, a nomad-girl was sitting by the river and chiseling a bamboo pole with a sickle. A kid was tied beside her. From nowhere did the crocodile come and pull at the legs of the kid. It dragged the little goat into the river. The girl jumped onto the back of the crocodile and sat on it. She used her sickle to scrape off the neck of the reptile over and over again. The crocodile let go of the kid and dipped into the waters.”
I asked, “And then? What happened after that?” Abdul said, “The news of the thereafter has sunk deep into the waters of the river. Fishing it out would take some time indeed!”
Rabindranath Tagore