My Search for Truth

This is a short story written by my Father. Mr. T.V.N.Rao. My parents are now in Melbourne for a holiday.

My name is Maulboyheenner. A long time ago, my friend Tunnerminnerwait and I were convicted of the crimes of arson and murder, condemned to death and hanged. The hangings took place in the present day Queens Market area of Melbourne. We were buried there. Arson and murder are, no doubt, heinous offenses and we deserved to be hanged. But, why did we commit these terrible crimes?

I am a Tasmanian. One day, whilst I was hunting near my seaside village, I was captured by some heavily armed, white skinned men. I was tied up and dragged to the shore. I was shackled to scores of other captives, loaded into a small boat and taken across the sea to this far off place. On that fateful day I lost my family. And my freedom. I lost them forever. What happened to me thereafter is another story but from that day onwards I was consumed with a desire for revenge. Which explains the arson and murder.

That was 160 years ago. Then, suddenly, I found myself resurrected. My bones came together, my body became whole and, once again, I became Maulboyheenner, the Tasmanian aboriginal. I am now a spirit. A restless spirit with a troubled past. Nobody can see or feel me. But I can move about and observe things and I was filled with the urge to explore the world and find answers to some tormenting questions. Why did God create this world with so much inequality, conflict and strife? Why do the strong always exploit the weak? Was this imperfect world a deliberate act of God’s creation or was it the result of His incompetence? Certainly, He could have done a better job! I wanted to find the truth.

My search for truth took me everywhere and anywhere.  Incognito. Unseen. I sneaked into government offices, corporate houses, universities and libraries. I entered the bedrooms of families. I did not find the answer. I flew all over Australia and my old home in Tasmania. I came across interesting stuff in government archives. But still no answer. My search took me took me further and farther afield.

In America I learnt about the great Indian massacres, the horrors of slavery, the savagery of the Civil War and the Ku Klux Klan.

In England I learnt about the English justice system which deported shiploads of convicts to faraway lands for crimes as petty as stealing a loaf of bread.

I learnt of World War II and the holocaust, of Stalin’s purge. In Africa and the Middle East I came across ruthless dictators, despotism and genocide.

Everywhere, man was against man.

Finally, I came to India - the land of the Buddha and Gandhi. I roamed the countryside, visited magnificent temples and holy cities. But there too I found a people divided by religion, caste and economic disparity. I witnessed social evils like the dowry system.

In India, in the forests of Chhatisgarh, I met the spirit of a person with a past similar to mine. His name was Venkata Sambha Sivudu. I'll call him "Samba" for short. Like me, he too died fighting oppression. In the thick jungles of India, far away from its centers of economy, he had fought a guerrilla war against despots. This is his story in his own words.

"I was born poor. We have been impoverished for generations. My grandfather eked out his living farming a tiny piece of semi - arid land. One particularly drought hit year, he took a small loan from the village landlord to fund the marriage of one of his daughters. He could not repay the loan. His land was seized and, as is the practice in that part of India, my grandfather became a bonded labourer - a slave - to the scheming landlord. He toiled for the rest of his life to free himself of the debt. He did not succeed. When he died, his son - my father - became heir to the bondage.

My father had neither the strength nor the will to fight for his rights. He slaved in the landlord's farms whilst mother toiled in the landlord's household. I was put to work from morning till night, cleaning the landlord's cattle shed and collecting dung for manure. It was on a rare day that at least one of us escaped abuse and beatings for some slight or imaginary slip. Hunger was a permanent companion. Every day I prayed to God to make our lives a little easier. But God chose to remain distant.

One night I asked my father, ' Why do we have to work for others like this?'. I cried when he told me that we are bonded to the landlord and he was our lord and master for life.

'Don't cry, it is our fate', said my father. I was not consoled.

'Can't we do anything about it?' I asked.

Father managed a sad smile. 'What can we do? You don’t get food for free. You need work to survive. We are helpless.' He was exhausted and fell asleep. I could not sleep, though. I longed for liberty. I craved school and friends. I wanted to play, climb trees and have fun like the other kids.

I tried again the next night. 'Father, I want to go to school.'

'School? You know you can’t go to school. Master will not allow it.’

'Why do we need his permission for everything?'

'Because, he is our master and we have no money', explained father.

'Lets us run away to a far off town. We can find work there and be on our own. We will have something to call our own and can be free of this slavery. Today we have nothing. Everything belongs to master,’ I reasoned.

'You are right, son. I have nothing to claim as my own. Everything belongs to master. Even you.’

'How can you say that, father? After all, I am nobody's son but yours'.

Father was trying to hold back tears. I had never seen him so miserable before. And then he blurted out, 'Because, my son, master always summoned your mother to his bedroom whenever his wife was away'.

I felt wretched. 'No, father. I am YOUR son. I’ll do all I can to free you from this misery'. Brave words. I did not know how to put them into action.

I brooded over the matter for many days. I went back to cleaning the cattle shed. I worked mechanically, like a dead man walking.

Days later, father marched me to the master's presence. The master was in his orchard, lounging in an easy chair and smoking a cigar. It was picking season and the fragrance of ripe mangoes was in the air.

'Master, I have a request.' Father sat on the floor and started massaging master's feet – a gesture of total submission. He did this regularly. I stood at a distance.

'What do you want?' growled master.

'My son wants to go to school' said father, somehow summoning up courage.

Master pulled the cigar out of his mouth and spat on the ground. Droplets of spit sprayed onto father's face. He shouted 'School! Are you out of your mind! And after school, what? He will want to become a minister! Anyway, how will you afford school? You are drowning in debt as it is.'

'I know, master. It is only to the village school. It is not very far away. And he will continue to work in the cattle shed', pleaded father. I felt sorry for him.

'Forget it', shouted master. 'You can’t change a mule into a horse by sending it to school!’ He got up and, with a furious glare, stalked into his house. Father and I returned to our respective chores. He to the farm and I to the cattle shed.

That was the last straw. I'd had enough. That night I ran away into the jungle. I roamed the forest without food or water till I fell down exhausted.  I don't know for how long I lay there. At last, a group of people found me. They fed and comforted me and, as soon as I regained my strength, carried me deep into the forest. They were a rough looking lot, dressed in jungle fatigues and toting guns. I realized who they were. They were "Annalu". I had heard of Annalu - they were guerrellas who fought the government and the cruel landlords. They were my heroes! 

I told them my story - about grandpa, about the evil master, his goons and the lands he had usurped. I began running errands for them, carried their rifles and ammunition. I couriered their secret messages.  Soon, I was one of them. 'Well, Samba, you are now our brother!'

They taught me how to survive in the dense jungles, how to live off the land. How to kill. I accompanied them on their raids against "class enemies". One night, thanks to my alertness, we narrowly escaped an army patrol. We were not so lucky on another occasion. Four comrades died in a shootout with the police.

I grew up and became a man. Some six years after I was picked up, half dead, in the forest, I was formally appointed leader of one of their hit squads. That day, my commander called me to his tent for a final briefing on an upcoming raid. It was a mission we were planning for many weeks and, at last, as he revealed the identity of the enemy, he asked softly, 'Samba, are you ready?'

'Yes Anna, I am ready!'

As night fell, my small, heavily armed band of guerrellas marched out, with me in the lead. It was dark but I guided the squad unerringly. The meandering jungle path and the crooked village lanes were my old friends. After all, I was born and brought up in that area. It was my jungle, my village. It was the home I had run away from six years ago.

The old cattle shed where I had slaved, ate and slept was still there, along with its familiar stench. We stole past it and finally, there in the distance loomed our target. The landlord's mansion.

Master seemed to have just finished dinner. He was sprawled on his easy chair, smoking a smelly cigar. I walked up to him and introduced myself. ‘I am Samba. Remember me?'

He did not remember me. I saw fear in his eyes as he realized that we were the dreaded “Annalu”. He tried hard to make lighthearted banter in an effort to calm his rising anxiety. His alarm turned to panic when I told him who I was. Yes, he did remember me after all. He begged for mercy. He tried to convince me that he had taken good care of my father and mother in their last days. The lying bastard. I shot him in the head.

The sound of the shot and the wails of the dead man's family stirred commotion in the little village. Though we had planned to escape as soon as master was eliminated, I could not resist the urge to linger and have one last look at my old home. As I walked towards it, gunfire erupted. I was hit."

That was Samba’s story. He and I were kindred spirits. We were both killers, driven to kill for the same reason - hatred. But what did bloodshed achieve? Only more blood. And more misery.

In the jungles of India I finally realized the futility of anger and hatred. I still did not understand why God created these feelings in man. Maybe there are no answers to some questions. I ended my quest for truth and returned to the place where I was buried. To Queens Market, Melbourne.To Australia. A land of many cultures, ancestries, languages and faiths. Where, despite so much diversity, there is very little hatred. Where the people are forgiving enough to build memorials to a killer.