Last night I regaled a party of youths in a five-star hotel
with Jabalpur’s
Dilip Matthar story. The story is pretty old. It has earned me huge applauses
hundreds of times before but none had suggested in the past that I should write
it down too in my blog.
A young girl, who seemed completely bewitched by the story,
kept asking me in the party why I don’t write it in the blog. She knew about my
blog. Although the pretty girl is not familiar with Jabalpur, she had been to
the city many times to her relatives who, she said, also shared some anecdotes with
her, characterizing a quintessential Jabalpurian of old parts such as Dixitpura,
Kamania, Miloni Ganj, Fuhara, etc etc.
However, she confessed, none was like Dilip Matthar’s. She
was particularly charmed by the word Matthar. Loosely translated in English, it
could mean rugged in body and half empty in mind.
While writing this blog on Dilip, I’m acutely conscious of
the near impossibility of creating the magic of narration in written English.
The unique nuances of Jabalpurian dialect are impossible to enliven in the
foreign language. Let me try all the same.
There was a police inspector named RC Tiwari in Jabalpur. Before he
retired (possibly in late nineties), Tiwari remained, by and large, glued to
the city – being posted from one police station to another. He was a well-
built, Bullet-borne, slightly paunchy policeman with penchant for loud and
foulest invectives. He loved to make his presence felt more by his choicest
abuses on streets than his action.
He would strike terror among small- time goons whenever he
chose to. He would, however, refrain from disturbing big criminals or
mafias—partly due to pressure from politicians/ higher ups and partly for his
own ‘reasons’. RC Tiwari was darling of the local politicians as much as of local
media. When he shot dead a trapped leopard in a house, the biggest newspaper of
Jabalpur gave
headline to his exploit as ‘Sher Ne Sher Ko Mara’.
The city chief of the paper, an unabashed admirer of RC
Tiwari, did not bother about the fact that neither the killer nor the killed
belonged the big cat family. But such was the aura of the police officer that
the news was read with interest and widely debated across Paan kiosks that
dotted Jabalpur
landscape.
Talking about RC Tiwari’s real and imagined daredevilry tales
was as common as talking about weather in Jabalpur
those days. He was almost an essential narrative in Jabalpur’s socio-political life. He was also the
cause of strikes in many colleges.
In those days, criminals were hard to tell from student
leaders and their number was only growing. A police action against a criminal
masquerading as student leader had an immense probability of turning into student
unrest, triggering strike in colleges. Thus, RC Tiwari was both a hero and
anti-hero among college students.
This was early eighties when youth angst in Jabalpur manifested itself in a variety of
ways—from ridiculous and bizarre to violent.
Dilip Matthar was a small time criminal. He was semi
literate simpleton who thoroughly enjoyed running errands for more notable criminal, his boss. He was an
adorable sidekick. Unemployed, Dilip lived in Kotwali area. I have little
information about his family background except that his father probably had a
small shop which fetched meager income.
Kotwali area had a huge population of youths who are in
Marxist jargon called lumpen proletariat. Dilip was one of them.
In between his two-decade long stay in Jabalpur, Tiwari was posted in Kotwali as
station in charge. The police station gave him instant fame. Since he was fond
of catching small time criminals with panache, Tiwari had no dearth of youths
to beat up and abuse in this police station area. This was a sensational time
for criminals and Tiwari.
Dilip Matthar, despite his naivety, knew well he was
potential candidate for RC Tiwari’s ravenous eyes for catching small time
criminals.
So, Dilip thought of an ingenious way to keep off the harm’s
way. He was, unsurprisingly, a worshipper of Bacchus.
Amid RC Tiwari’s reign of terror in Kotwali area, Dilip
would come out drunk on the street and shout aloud, ‘RC Tiwari Ko Chhod Kar
Sabaki Maa Ka …. .The nightly incantation of Tiwari in such a reverential term,
he thought, would at least keep him off his wrath, if not endear him to the
police officer. His trick saved him for a while.
But, as Dilip’s nocturnal rounds of drunken abuse went apace
night after night, people in the area grew restive. They complained to the police
officer that Dilip’s ingenuity might sound gratifying to him, but it is
actually insulting. RC Tiwari heard them patiently but didn’t act.
One night, however, RC Tiwari felt it too embarrassing for
him to bear Dilip sparing him from the torrents of drunken invectives in
public. He caught hold of Dilip Matthar and pushed him inside the lockup after sound
thrashing. Since no case could be made against Dilip, he was let off the next
morning with warning.
Stung by the bashing and frustrated at failure of his method
of propitiating the police officer, Dilip got drunk the same night again. This
night he was drunk more heavily than usual. His tongue was slurring, his feet off balance.
He came out on the same road and shouted.. ‘Ab To RC TIwari Samet Sabaki Maa Ka……
Once again he was arrested but this time he had no regrets.
He had avenged his humiliation by including the police officer in the vague
quest to screw mothers of all.
No comments:
Post a Comment