Bunda Pahalwan. Nobody knew his real name. He was called Bunda because he wore silver earrings (bundas) and Pehalwan (wrestler) because he was one. People were in awe of his powerful body and the long, thick bamboo staff (lathi) he always carried. He was an expert in wielding it. Bunda lived alone in a dilapidated house next to our haveli.
The family had returned to the ancestral village after more than a generation in 1949, when Zamindari Abolition Act came in force, to reclaim our lands and houses from sharecroppers and tenants. Quite naturally we were not welcomed. They wanted us out. We were threatened and life was made difficult for us. An attempted burglary in December, within months of our arrival, was thwarted by five feet thick fortress like walls of our ancestral haveli.
The walls, built with small ‘lakhauri’ bricks of yore were embedded with long pieces of timber to give them additional strength. The thieves came within a whisker of breaching the wall but failed to break through. This even after they had worshipped their pickaxe which was evident from the vermilion marks and kalava tied around it. They had left the pickaxe behind. We children did not feel safe and feared going out after dark.
Summer came and, like everybody else, father too slept in the open, not far from the cattle shed where two of our bullocks were kept. In the dead of the night one day he woke up with a start to find the bullocks missing. Obviously, they were stolen. He shouted for Bunda to come who appeared immediately. Together they went after the thieves, Bunda carrying his lathi and father carrying only himself.
We lived on the edge of the village, only about half a kilometre away from a forest. The posse of two entered the forest and started looking for the thieves. Soon they came across a man driving our bullocks. They challenged him and were surprised to find themselves surrounded by half a dozen men. The thieves had found them. Some were carrying lathis and the others carried knives.
Heavily outnumbered, there was not much the duo could do. Father stood only in the clothes he was wearing but the ruffians made Bunda part with his lathi and the bundas and instructed the two to head straight home without turning or looking back.
‘I could fight my way out but did not for fear of Babuji getting hurt in the melee.’ Bunda was heard bragging afterwards. Maybe he was right.