Bottom of the Hell-Hole | Paromita Goswami

This is a place that never sees the sun, perpetually covered in a thick, grainy, grey darkness. You are forced to turn on the headlights of your car even in the middle of the day. You will feel an eerie sense of displacement, a fear that the grey will get into your mouth, nose and lungs and strangle you. There is no escape, it settles on your clothes, the fine coal dust and sticks to your hair. When you open your mouth to talk, it enters and settles at the back of your throat. It envelopes you.

The first question that will cross your mind will most certainly be, ‘How can people live here? In this never-ending gloom? In this terrible pollution? In this hell hole?’ But really the more pertinent question is ‘why’ – ‘Why would human beings choose to live here? To build their houses here? To have children here and grandchildren?’ You would be too polite to actually pose this question, but if you did someone would give you the brief answer, ‘People live here because once they start to live here, they get used to the place.’ Someone else might get offended and ask whether you have a better place to shift them to.

If you asked Ghanshu he would say that no other place could guarantee work like a coal mine could. He never gave much thought at all to the darkness and the greyness because since his early youth he had become used to fleeing from blackness of one kind to another.

Decades have passed since he got off the unreserved coach of a passenger train, washed his hands and face at the platform and walked to the nearest chouraha to stand alongside other wage labourers. Young, strong and eager for work, he was soon picked up by a coal mine contractor. On the first day he loaded trucks which removed overburden of loose soil, dirt and stones to be dumped at a distance. The mukadam wrote his name in the register and since that day his life revolved around the mines. He worked at overburden removal for some time before graduating to working in the coal seams, carrying headloads of coal in tubs and baskets. Later it was discovered that he was not entirely illiterate and therefore pushed further up the ranks. He was allowed to work the massive excavators, shovel dumpers and dozers – after some training of course. I have heard that at some point in his life, he even drilled holes into the rocks, inserted and detonate explosive charges to expose the seams of coal that lay hidden underneath.

In the day time Ghanshu did not have time to think, but his lonely nights were troubled by dreams. One night he dreamt that his father had died and he was calling out to his brother. When his brother came they both wept holding each other close. And yet when he went near his father’s body, a wind swept away the white shroud and he was staring at another unknown face. The dry, white lips on the corpse moved and he woke up sweating and shivering. He drank some water and lay down staring into the darkness, waiting for daybreak. This dream stalked his nights. Sometimes it varied – but always there was a brother and a shroud swept away to reveal a face. He repeatedly told us of the dream till all of us knew every detail – the brothers, the shroud, the corpse.

Ghanshu lived alone – not because he did not want a family but because the woman he did marry died at childbirth and later the baby died as well. Ghanshu never remarried. He did not mind cooking and cleaning his little hut. He liked his liquor and once in a while when he wanted a woman, he knew where he could find them cheap. He lived outside the coal town, across the railway lines, at the very end of a bustee where the labouring people live cheek by jowl – squatters like him whose numbers increase every year. Amrai Ward is nothing but crooked huts on crooked lanes built of land which belongs to the coal company of course – all land here belongs to the coal company. And every new Area Manager worries over the 80,000 square metres of prime land under squatter encroachment.

One year the coal company did manage to bulldoze a couple of huts but there was such a big furore that the colliery came to a halt for days. The union, the political leaders and the coal mafia got involved – not to protect the people who lived there as much as to protect their own vested interests. The management gave in and the huts were rebuilt. Although the company did not dare to force evictions again, they continued to issue notices – the same bits of paper with the changed dates and signatures. Every year notices were pasted on the walls of each house directing the occupant to remove the encroachment at their own cost or face legal action. Most people tore the notices, laughed and tossed them away but Ghanshu never threw out a single scrap of paper. He had a green cardboard file with every notice he had ever received going back twenty six years neatly stuck into it.

Monsoons have been extremely harsh this year. It has rained for the past few weeks – a constant, steady downpour that whipped itself into a furious downpour every now and then. Two days back the lowest bench of the mine has closed down and the machines brought up. The haulage road is nearly impossible to navigate. The pumps are working non-stop for the last seventy eight hours and yet the garland drains threatened to overflow. Beyond the mines the overburden dumps do not look very steady. Some of the debris has started to slide towards a nearby forest stream – if the rain does not stop the debris might enter the stream and cause flash floods. Ghanshu heard the discussions between the officers and contractors.

With little to do in that chilly evening Ghanshu was at the liquor den with us, already drunk and drinking even more. It was pouring outside – the heavens had become liquid like dark ink. Someone ran down the street shouting Ghanshu’s name. He did not respond – I don’t think he realised that the sudden chaos had anything to do with him. I dragged him out of the dimly lit shop and pushed him homewards and went back to the den to finish my glass. What happened next, I can only guess.

The soaking rain helped Ghanshu out of his stupor as he stumbled across the railway lines but his head did not fully clear of the haze – he could not make out what the clamour was about. He tried to quicken his pace through the ankle-deep black muck in his rubber-soled chappals, the bottoms of his trousers rolled up. He neared home at the end of the lane and found a throng of people, out in the rain, making an unbearable din. Women and children pushed around. When people saw him they let out a chorus – Ghanshu is here, Ghanshu is here! Let him go! Give him space!

Ghanshu pushed and suddenly he was on the edge of a huge abyss, a dark bottomless pit. The blackness of the night disappeared into the hole in the ground. Ghanshu broke out in cold sweat. His heart palpitated wildly in his mouth. A neighbour put his hand on his shoulders as he looked with wide-open fearful eyes straight into the darkness that yawned like an open mouth in front of him.

Suddenly there was a slight tremor under their feet and the lights went out. A great roar of terror rose from the crowd. Move! Run! Bhago! Bhago! And in that rainy, black night people ran helter-skelter. They ran back into their homes but with the second tremor they ran out again and rushed onwards wherever their legs would go. The women pulled their children by hand, balancing bundles on their heads, their saris pulled up to their knees. Men hitched kids on their shoulders and carried boxes on their heads, things under their arms. There were a motorcycle or two but most people were on their feet. The narrow streets of the poor squatter colony were milling with people, groping to find a way out. Children howled as the black rivulets of mud climbed up their toes, ankles, calves and the wind pulled their hair. Except for the lightning in the sky, there was nothing that lit the paths of the pathetic crowd who tried to make their way across the railway lines and into the coal town.

The news spread like oil in water and those who smelled an opportunity emerged from their homes. They calculated the number of households, the approximate number of votes and even in that darkness called their party bosses who urged them into ‘action’. Whimpering women and children were herded into the classrooms of the Zilla Parishad School and angry men marched towards the coal company office. The Area Manager he sat at his desk with two junior officers. Where do you think I was? Why, just behind the leaders who demanded that the management negotiate with them immediately – not tomorrow but now, right now!

The commotion continued all through the night. People flitted in the darkness from here to there, huddling together in groups.

“Ghanshu’s house was sucked into the hole!”

“The poor man has nothing left!”

“The ground was shaking and my child would have fallen into the ditch…”

“There are cracks in my kitchen…the walls are falling apart!”

“My floor is sinking. The floor is sagging like a piece of wet cloth…”

Everyone spoke at the same time – words of anger and panic and pain and astonishment emerged not from individual speakers but from mouths that merged together in the shadows.

Throughout the night, the self-appointed leaders of the coal town descended upon the coal management and made all kinds of demands – food, water, electricity, housing, permanent jobs. The three officers sat in their office, bleary-eyed and grim, waiting for morning. They knew better than to respond to an angry mob.

Phones rang all through the night – the Collector, the SP, the Minister, the media, the General Manager – everyone wanted reports. What was there to report? For years the coal company had given notices about which no one gave a damn. Some of the very persons who were asking for reports today had stood with the people against eviction. Nearly three hundred families would have to be shifted out and the coal company would be asked to find the funds for relief and rehabilitation. The Area Manager calculated in his head how much all of it would cost the company – it exasperated him, holding the company responsible when it was really the fault of these idiots. Weren’t they warned year in and year out?

“Do something, do something, do something,” the mob insisted.

The Area Manager finally opened his mouth, “Look, we told you there are very old, abandoned underground mines in that area. These mines were operated before independence, in 20s and 30s. Even I don’t know the exact locations. Do you think the British left maps for us? We just know there are tunnels under the earth and pillars holding up the roof. The water must have washed away a pillar or loosened the walls of a tunnel or perhaps a crack developed somewhere and the roof gave away… who knows what exactly happened under the earth, but sinkholes have known to have happened in areas of old underground mines?”

The hollering crowd was not convinced.

“Ghanshu’s house disappeared! What is this faltu lecture you are giving us?!”

They thumped the manager’s desk and their fists punched the air even though their sleep-deprived eyes were red and exhaustion lined their faces.

The manager slunk back to silence. He recognized some of these men who worked for the company – none on the payrolls, all employed through labour contractors and sub-contractors. They worked ten, twelve, fourteen hours without overtime or the other perks that a company pays its permanent workers. They were unkempt and smelt of liquor. Their eyes bulged and their hair looked like straw. Tomorrow these very men would be pampered by political leaders – offered solace, assurances of housing or may be a huge lump sum in compensation. They were not men but votes – their entire existence was reduced to the single index finger that pressed the button on the voting machine. The Area Manager was disgusted and looked away.

There was a lull. The rain had stopped for a while. The Junior Engineer’s wife had sent coffee in a steel flask with the driver but it remained untouched on the table. None of the officers dared pour out a cup for fear of the men who surrounded them. Some sat on the floor, others stood leaning on the walls. The leaders sat on the chairs meant for visitors. It was a packed room.

“Where is your Ghanshu? Whose house has disappeared?” the Area Manager asked the young man who sat before him, arms folded tightly across his chest.

Immediately the man turned around and yelled, “Ghanshu kaka! Ikde ya lavkar! Uncle, come here quick!”

But Ghanshu was not amongst the crowd.

“Ghanshu … Kaka! Where are you?”

The call echoed across the office block and into the verandah and then in the pitch black darkness outside. Faces looked at each other quizzically.

“He is not here.”

The three officers sat at the desk, sipped coffee and watched quietly as the motley crowd around them fumbled in dismay, unable to find the man whose house had disappeared. Each one swore that they had seen him run away at the first tremble of the earth. An uneasy quietness came over the group. The leaders dispersed. Some went away but many sat where they were – on the floor, hugged their knees with both hands in weariness and dozed.

The men at the desk kept their patience. At dawn the contractor arrived, freshly shaven and neatly dressed and made his way into the office. The manager looked at him with intense displeasure.

“Did this man Ghanshu work for you?”

“Ji sir,” said the contractor, “He was an old hand.”

“You better find him. The police will be here soon for his statement and we shall need to talk to him too,” said the Area Manager relieved to transfer the responsibility to another shoulder. Then he pushed back his chair, got up and left.

The contractor managed to cajole and threaten a group of us to go back to Amrai Ward in search of Ghanshu. I was as reluctant as the rest of them. We dreaded every step back through the muck and into the narrow deserted lanes of the colony. None of the doors were locked. We peeped into every house. We found people who had been left behind in the melee – old people, infirm and blind – they shouted out curses at us, begging us to take them out. We found stray dogs, pet dogs, hens and goats. We called out Ghanshu’s name but he was nowhere to be seen.

Finally we reached the end of the colony where huge pit, eighty feet deep stretched out at our feet. This is where Ghanshu’s house once stood – a single room, a tiled roof and a yellow plastic sheet to cover the places where the tiles had broken. The incessant downpour through the night had filled the bottom of the pit with slush. We held on to each other and balanced ourselves on the brink. With great trepidation we peered into the hole, knowing in the core of our hearts that we would see what we did not want to. Stretched across the rubble of his house and his scanty belongings right at the bottom of the slimy hell-hole was Ghanshu, his arms spread-eagled, his face and body barely visible under the thick black mud, his lips parted. I did not sleep for nights after seeing him. Poor Ghanshu!

The management decided that it would be too dangerous to retrieve Ghanshu’s body – the underground tunnels could sink in further, the ground was flowing in inky coils. Who could dare to lift him from where he lay dead in the mired ditch? Since he did not have any family, there was no one to perform any funeral rites or claim the compensation that the local MLA announced. The contractor asked around if there were other men from his native village, but no one came forward.

There was not much time to mourn, for three hundred and sixteen families remained to be evacuated and provided food and other items of daily use. The opposition party raised the issue with great fervor and the media played video clips that had already gone viral on the social media. The government announced a housing project for the people of Amrai Ward and a sufficiently large fund was announced for the same. The coal company managers were more than satisfied that Amrai Ward had been cleared of encroachments and the land had finally reverted back to them. They waited for the monsoons to subside and planned for a fresh survey for coal in the area.

Indeed if you arrive at this place of perpetual darkness and spit the coal dust out of your mouth to ask ‘Why on earth do people live in this hell-hole?’, some lad will bare his teeth and sing, ‘jeena yahan marna yahan iske siva jaana kahan’ – one lives here, one dies here, where else can one go?

Paromita Goswami is a grassroots activist, working on issues of land and labour rights. Her stories have appeared in Jaggery Lit, Out of Print, Himal Southasian, Samyukta Fiction etc. She won the Rama Mehta Writing Grant, 2023.