The Extras

Knock Knock

Who is it?

“It’s the forest department team for census, open up.”

I opened the door to see two tall scary looking guys in uniforms. One of them had a mustache that reminded me of Veerappan and suddenly out of nervousness I couldn’t remember if Veerappan was alive or not.

I felt a soft tap on my shoulder when I realized my father was trying to get past me to talk to these strangers.

“What is your name?” asked the one who was not Veerappan.

“Maqbool Hussain, and this is my son Mehboob hussain”, told my father.

“We need full details of your household, you mind stepping out for a minute?” said Veerappan.

My father nodded and went with them to the edge of our village. I saw him complying to each of the officers wishes and nodding from time to time. He was also gesturing areas of different sizes with his hand and pointing towards both ends of our village maybe telling them the stretch of it.

It has been 7 years since I have been watching my father doing the same thing over and over again every year when the census team comes. My brothers are now also counted as a separate household since they have passed the 18 years of age criteria. Kabir says he has earned enough now to move us to the city, but I understand it is hard for one single person to take care of a family of 14 considering my father makes money only by selling milk which is not enough. I have also seen the person who my father mentioned to me as “middle man” for the selling of milk on the commercial scale. To be honest, he never looked to me as a good person; I have seen him grinning behind my father’s back as if he knew something my father didn’t. 

My father was still talking to the two uniformed men and signing some forms before my mom came out worried with my youngest sister tucked under her arm. 

“Mehboob, what are you doing out here, get inside, those men are here to vacate us. They believe animals are more important than humans... everybody cares about saving their own skin, nobody cares about us and our children. For them, we are always the extras”, said my mother with anger in her voice.

I don’t understand why mom gets so nervous; we have not done anything wrong... have we? My eldest sister, just next to Kabir said once that these people want to relocate us because we have encroached on the forest land. But my father says we will not be vacated because we have forest land rights. Recently Pappu, my best friend told me that his father read a news paper headline that said we will be getting new homes in another area with electricity, water and school nearby. I was wondering what my parents have problem with that kind of a deal. After hearing that, I just wanted to go to that nice pucca school with all the facilities, labs and cricket pitch. 

When my father came back from the interview after an hour, my mother asked him nervously.

“Well??”, she asked.

“They say they will vacate us by the end of next month”, said my father, wiping off the sweat from his forehead. He looked tired and really sad. I went to him, even though I came up to just his waist, but I hugged him, and he hugged me back. My mother ran inside wailing out loud which was later joined in by my youngest sister and the brother elder to her.

My father looked at me and said “Be strong Mehboob, we will go and see the land ourselves before agreeing to anything. My face lit up with excitement and I ran to see if I had any new clothes buried in the bunch of other fabric in my room. Luckily I found a shirt I wore just on three separate occasions. 

My mother was still crying her head out when we left the dera (village). After taking two buses and a vikram we finally got to our destination that had a board on the front which read “This property is reserved for the relocating households from Gujjar Deras of the forest. Any person obtaining this land illegally will be punished under law.” Suddenly I felt a sense of pride and stood with my chest out to tell the world this huge land belongs to me and my family. It was a huge achievement for me at the age of just 10. I felt like I made this all possible, though I had no idea how. After a complete overview of the area my father held my hands and said “let’s go back now son.”

While coming back I was deeply excited and skipping a step to tell my mother how lucky we are. When we reached home, my middle sister got water for both of us while we sat in the room and everybody gathered around us including Pappu and his father.

“The land is banjar (infertile), it will be hard to do agriculture easily there or get fodder for cattle.”, started my father. My mother was already halfway to wailing again when he added, “once the land is ready with electricity and water, we can try to check everything again and then decide.”

“It’s not like we will be given a choice”, blurted Kabir.

My father just looked at him and said nothing. I realized he looked old... really old. “They will also give us a compensation of 2 lakhs to each household, in our case we will have 6 lakhs, we can try to use it wisely and effectively”, said my father and before waiting to hear controversies on it or my mother’s crying along with my youngest sister and the second last brother, he left for the outside.

Kabir, Saghir and my father worked night and day to get enough money for us to make a nice home on the land to be allotted to us. We were finally relocated to the new land on 13^th April 2013. I was happy since Pappu also joined us after a week. The electricity, water and everything else was being taken care of. Sometimes even people from forest department would come and ask if we had any problems. Shireen got married after a year and my other sister Zeba got in the line. I was finishing my inter college exams when I heard that a new party has won the elections this time and a women was elected. She was probably from a high caste, since I heard about her extreme distaste of people from my caste. 

One day, while I was returning home from college with Pappu, I saw my father sitting on the ground with his hands on his head. My mother was crying as usual and even my brother-in-law looked tense. I asked what happened and my father looked at me with teary eyes and handed me the letter he was holding which said “90 square kilometer of the area around National Park is to be covered under core zone and so no settlements will be allowed in the area. Since your habitations are inside this mark, you are requested to vacate the land before you are forced to. A 30 day time will be provided to you to arrange for another plot. I dropped the letter and sat besides my father... completely lost.

Knock Knock

“Who is this?” I asked.

“It’s the forest department team for census, open up. We need to get details of your household”

“What is your name?”, asked the officer.

“Mehboob Hussain, and this is my son Ahmad Hussain”I said, and went out with them to do the needful.