Untitled - Katha

50 ◆
everyone claimed to be volunteers and ate with the Malipara and
Bezpara crowd. Whenever they heard a police whistle, they dived
under the beds. Dorothy Brown’s face floated before him as he
scrambled up the path.
He could hear the jatadhari’s voice in the distance.
Ma ... Ma ... Ma Chinnamasta!
That evening, Ratnadhar’s duty was to rally volunteers for the
jatadhari’s protest march. The curious gathered round. Even the
children had come to watch the poisonous snakes come out of
the river to crawl over the ascetic’s body.
Ratnadhar had organized the rally in secret. His instructions
from the jatadhari were to approach students in the Sanskrit tols.
But Ratnadhar wanted to ensure a good crowd. So he had stood
at the iron gates of Cotton College and under the sonaru tree on
the banks of Dighalipukhuri. From the vantage points he could
catch the Cotton College students on their way to class in Curzon
Hall. He passed on the jatadhari’s message. But the ones who
had heard about Ratnadhar’s madness on their earlier trips to
Kamakhya avoided him.
The Man from Chinnamasta