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The Thefts At the Palace

Piklu had gotten up early as the train went on a long non-stop stretch. He was hyperexcited about the prospect of going to his Mama-r Bari (maternal uncle’s home) at Pratapgarh for the Puja holidays. The freedom he enjoyed, amidst nature’s treasure trove, with the endless goodies from his Dida (grandmother) and the absence of ‘do-this’ and ‘do-that’ made life real and heavenly.

Piklu looked down from his upper berth. His Choto Mama (youngest maternal uncle) was snoring on the lower berth. He worked at a firm in Calcutta and stayed in a mess on M G Road. Once a year, he took Piklu to Pratapgarh, where he was pampered to the hilt by his Dida and Dadu (grandfather).

Piklu, wide-eyed by now, was imagining what all he would do with Mantu and Aju. The first thing he thought of was climbing trees. That was his favourite. The next was swimming in the pond near his Mama-r Bari. Then there was cycling without the fear of traffic, balancing without holding onto the handle and the adventure of riding it on the back wheel, with the front wheel up in the air. Such freedom was unthinkable in Calcutta.

Daydreaming about going to the mela (fair), eating all the tele-bhajas (deep-fried vegetable fritters) and jalebis (a sweetmeat) without his mother’s strict gaze was one of the most welcomed changes of going to Mama-r Bari.

The only downside was sleeping inside a mosquito net, which was bearable when one looked at all the perks. The train entered Purulia Station. Choto Mama, so frequently used to the overnight train timings, got up just in time, freshened up, and was ready to catch the bus for the twenty-kilometre journey ahead. The bus conductor was running hither and thither, calling out the names of the stations as per the route, with Pratapgarh coming somewhere in the middle. As the bus neared Pratapgarh, Piklu’s spirit soared, his mouth started watering at the thought of the narkeler naru (coconut ladoos), which surely would be the item with which Dida would greet him.

True to what he expected, a jar full of narkeler naru awaited him. After the customary pranams (touching the feet of elders seeking their blessings), hugs and kisses, breakfast was ready. It was full-blown luchis (deep-fried bread), white potato curry with black cumin, a dash of liquid jaggery to go with the luchis while the curry took a rest, some pantuas (Bengali version of gulab jamun) and a glass of hot milk, just milked from the cow in the shed.

Right when he was almost done with breakfast, Mantu and Aju rushed in. They lived close by and must have spent a sleepless night or two in anticipation of Piklu’s arrival. With some pantuas popped into their mouths, the three friends were off in a jiffy to the mango orchard, where, atop the tree, they fell into chatting like the monkeys they had displaced, each side filling the other in on the stored-up news of the previous year.

At the top of the news in Pratapgarh was the intermittent theft of antiques and showpieces from the Maharaja’s palace. Wide-eyed, Piklu listened to the story.

Maharaja Bijoy Kishore Singh had retired to his Calcutta residence after the privy-purse was withdrawn by the government. Without the income, the palace went into complete disuse with thick layers of dust on everything from the floors to furniture, and even the throne in the Durbar Hall. Only two guards were left employed—the old timers, Mangal Mahato and Dinesh Choubey, besides, of course, the dewan (chief administrator) Sudhansu Chakrabarty, who stayed in his ancestral home very near to the palace.

It was during one of his irregular surveys through the disused palace that the dewan found an empty, clear space at the head of the staircase with layers of dust around it. The clear space indicated that some object used to be there, now gone. Sudhansu Babu recalled that the empty space had a four-foot stone statue of an elf whose twin was still there on the other side of the staircase.

Police was informed. After a bout of routine investigation, and without any clue, both Mangal Mahato and Dinesh Choubey were sent behind bars and subjected to third degree. With nothing coming forth from them, they went on being tortured until the old Dinesh Choubey had to be hospitalised in Purulia.

The only thing Mahato recalled was falling asleep while on duty and then waking up at dawn, mysteriously lying on the grass outside the guard room. He was very sure that he was dozing inside the guard room. How he reached the ground outside was a mystery. Dinesh and Mahato took turns in guarding the palace, one at night and the other during the day.

It was during yet another irregular survey, while both the guards were behind the bars, the twin piece of the elf had gone missing and with the same ‘tell-tale’ mark—a clear space surrounded by dust. The police had no idea who to arrest now.

A few days later, two precious paintings went missing while two constables from the local police were on duty. The logic by which the palace guards were arrested, there was a clamour from the townspeople that the constables should now be arrested too. There were several jokes making the rounds about the local police until seriousness set in with the arrival of Yuvraj Pratap Kishore, who insisted that the police either resolve the mystery, or he would facilitate forces from Purulia or Calcutta to take over.

With pressure from all directions, the police mobilised a group of villagers to guard the boundaries of the palace grounds. Within three days of the new arrangement, there was another theft; this time, two sets of swords and shields, which were displayed at the entrance to the Durbar Hall.

The recollection of a secret tunnel in the palace occurred when personnel from Lalbazar in Calcutta arrived. According to Maharaja Bijoy Kishore, the tunnel was built somewhere in the mid-eighteenth century with the advent of the Maratha attack on Bengal. It was the passageway that led to the river, to be used by the royals as a last resort for fleeing in case defeat was imminent.

After two days of thorough searching the palace grounds, stables, and erstwhile gardens, they came to discover the mouth of the tunnel on the side of the palace. It was camouflaged with thick growth of wild bushes. But if this was the way the thefts were taking place, why were the wild bushes not cleared to make the tunnel more navigable?

The detectives came to the conclusion that the initial thefts happened straightforwardly—by managing to get the guards unconscious and take the artefacts through the main gate, by climbing over the gate instead of tampering with the locks, without leaving any sign of a break-in. To carry the heavy marble statues across the tall gate seemed quite a task, even if it was with a team of thieves.

Only when the palace became guarded by the villagers did the artefacts seem to have been stolen through the tunnel. But how did the thieves find out about the tunnel when no one remembered it? And, secondly, how was the navigation done through the thick foliage without leaving any sign of the theft?

There were too many questions that remained unanswered.

As Piklu listened, he suddenly remembered another secret tunnel. Two years ago, he had visited Murshidabad with his parents. At Jagat Seth’s palace, he had heard about a hidden tunnel. Long ago, people who were plotting against Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah used this tunnel to meet secretly at Ghaseti Begum’s palace. The two palaces were interconnected. But that tunnel had been closed and forgotten for many years, so bringing it back into use now seemed impossible.

Just about then, they saw a figure coming out of the forest. Clad in a black alkhala (loose robe), he wore a black band around his head, and his right eye had a black patch. His salt ’n’ pepper hair flowed down to his shoulder. He had a free-flowing beard, too. As the man came closer, they saw that a leopard was in tow, on a leash tightly held in his hand, as is done with dogs.

“Baba Patras Bangali,” Aju whispered to Piklu in awe, as if there was a chance of the Baba hearing him even from this distance.

“Patras Bangali? What sort of a name is that? And going around with a leopard, what’s the big idea?” Piklu wondered aloud.

As the Baba walked under the tree, chanting loudly, the leopard tried to break free, especially whenever someone passed by. It looked ferocious, and so did the Baba. His left eye, the one that worked, was blood red and vicious.

When the Baba moved away, Mantu spoke up.