Ramprasad Bismil had come into the notice of the police in Mainpuri Conspiracy case. So, his home town Shahjahanpur was no more a safe place for him. He stayed back at Gwalior after attending the marriage of his sister.
The family had some ancestral farm land there. Bismil decided to become a farmer and cultivate that land. He acted upon it without any delay. Now he had transformed himself into a farmer who dressed, talked and lived like one. No one could suspect that the farmer infact was a city bred educated youngmen.
The exercise had blessed him with a stout physique. So, working hard in the fields posed little problem to him. A gainful exercise it was for him.
The transformation though was not easy because that Gwalior land was semi-arid. The soil was hard and rocky. Turning it into a agricultural plot was a challenging task. The area was so arid and inhospitable that even the trees refused to grown there. The landscape was barren only with a few thorny trees growing at distances. Going to the field wrestling with thorny dwarf shrubs that bloodied the bare feet and painfully scratched and clawed the legs. Initially it daunted Ramprasad Bismil who sometimes wondered if it was worth the toil.
Then, he carried on the exercise taking as a challenge. After all the path of the freedom struggle was full of thorns. For Bismil it literally meant so. At last he succeeded in clearing the area and ploughing it. In this task he soon became a match for any local farmer. The work in the fields under blazing sun burnt his skin. The tawny Ramprasad became a dark skinned farmer, an expert agriculturist.
After a long time Ramprasad Bismil was seized with a wish to go to Shahjahanpur to survey the situation there and get the feel of the political climate. So, he walked to the railway station only to find that he already had missed his train.
Bismil was not the one to go back after setting out on a mission. He started the journey to Shahjahanpur on foot. He was hoping that the police should not be able to recognise him as he was a dark skinned farmer now quite different from the fair complexioned revolutionary. To some extent he proved right. The policemen he came across ignored him.
He travelled 20 miles (32 kms.) on the first day. He rested for the night and began the next day’s journey in the morning. Suddenly to his shock Bismil saw a policeman staring him as if he were trying to place the dark skinned farmer. Was he suspecting Bismil? Then, after a while the expression on the face of the policeman changed. His eyes sparkled.
The nickel had dropped.
He knew who the farmer really was and ran to the police post to reveal his discovery and come back with the police party to nab the fugitive revolutionary Bismil.
Bismil knew he was in trouble. He quickened his foot steps and disappeared from the scene as fast as he could. He kept walking. On that day he covered 35 miles (56 kms.). He was almost running.
The run took him into Shahjahanpur. There his parents revealed to him that the police had somehow got wind of him. The police had been harassing the old couple every day. Pandit Muralidhar had been warned that if his son was not arrested soon his share in the ancestral property would be confiscated and auctioned.
It alarmed the old man. He sold all his Shahjahanpur properties at throw away prices and left the town. It was followed by the marriages of two other sisters of Bismil. The marriage took away the entire money.
The family fell on bad days again.
Ramprasad Bismil returned to Gwalior and revived his farming business. He also started the job of a grazier. He would take the herds of cows and buffaloes to graze in the thorny bush and shrubbery pastures of the arid land.
Meanwhile his close revolutionary friend Sushilchandra Sen met untimely death. It was a big personal blow to Bismil who already was going through a period of misery and hopelessness. He took a vow to learn Bangla in memory of his dear departed friend. The idea was to translate the Bangla revolutionary literature into Hindi to spread the message across the country.
In due course he learnt Bangla diligently and sat down to begin the translation work although he had little experience. The first he took in his hands was ‘The Nihilist Mystery’. The work began in a comic fashion during the grazing of the cattle.
He would go to the arid land pasture and let the cattle loose to graze. Then he would settle down with exercise book and a pencil to translate the Bangla book. After some translation he would raise his head to see if the cattle were also minding their work of grazing peacefully. Sometimes the cattle would be just distant dots trying to vanish. Bismil would leave his writing and run after the cattle with a stick to retrieve them back into his the range of his voice command.
Once he even lived in a hut vacated by some sadhu. He would spend most of his time in translation. He kept wheat flour ration enough to last for a weak. He would bake salted rotis for lunches and dinners. That made his monotonous meals. There was no daal or sabzi. Thus, the book was completed. He got the translated book printed under ‘Sushilmala’series. The title of that first translated book was ‘Bolshevikon Ki Kartoot’ which literally meant ‘Misdeeds of Bolsheviks’. ‘Man Ki Lehar’ followed as his second attempt.
In this exercise he lost five hundred rupees.
In 1920, the colonial government tried to make peace with Indian natives. It withdraw cases against political workers and decided to release all those who were in jails in connection with political agitations. This peace gesture covered the militants as well. All the revolutionaries serving prison terms were freed and the cases against the rest were dropped.
Now Ramprasad Bismil was again a free man. He returned to his home town Shahjahanpur. But it was not a happy experience. His parents had left the town after selling all their properties. The old friends and acquaintances would not stand by him. If he ran into any old friend the person would move on after quick hushed greeting. He was being avoided as if he were plague. The police was keeping a close watch. In such a situation what could he do and feed himself?
Ramprasad in a desperate attempt tried to learn handloom weaving work. The master weavers were very unsympathetic. They would not teach and treated him as if he were a poacher. With some persistent efforts he learnt weaving.
Then, he learnt that a factory needed a manager. The post had suddenly fallen vacant. Ramprasad Bismil applied for the job. He was told that the job required a security deposit of Rs. 500. If he could arrange that the job was his.
But the financial status of Bismil was tragic. He was going hungry for three days at a stretch. Bismil had taken a vow that he could spread his hands before no one for help even if it meant death. He was not in touch with his father.
So, from where Rs. 500 could materialise.
Bismil contacted his old friends and requested for loans of Rs. 100 or 200 whatever possible for his security. No one obliged.
It was a great shock for Bismil to learn how little he mattered to his friends. In the real sense he was not even worth Rs. 100 for them. The future looked pitch dark to Bismil.
Then, a friend came to his help and got him a job. Bismil’s financial condition took a turn for the good. Now he could afford to live like a respectable person. And he had also some money.
The friends also changed colours. All those who had refused to loan him even 100 rupees now trusted him with thousands of rupees he no more needed. They would give their money bags, guns, licences and other valuables to him for the safe keeping whenever they left the town.
Sometimes it made him laugh.
In this way sometime went by. During this period he met some gentlemen for whom Bismil had a great respect. They had heard about the tragic stories about Bismil’s days when he was hiding from the law. They were happy to see him back to normal life. Bismil showed them the book he had completed writing.
The book was titled ‘Catherine’. Bismil had burnt his pocket in earlier book ventures. He had suspended the publication of his series.
At the suggestion of the gentlemen he gave the book to a publisher for printing. The publisher brought out the book after some changes and editing. The book pleased the well wishers of Ramprasad Bismil and they encouraged him to keep writing.
He wrote ‘Swadeshi Rang’. The publisher accepted it and it also got published. Bismil wrote ‘Revolutionary Life’. He put a lot of labour in it. He thought that it was his best work. He showed it to several publishers. Some of them evinced interest but had no guts to print it. It was feared that the book which glorified the militancy was sure to attract the attention of the authorities and the publisher and the printer would get in trouble.
Bismil used to write articles for publications of Agra, Kanpur, Calcutta etc. under a pen name. The people used to read them with interest because of the content although his language was not polished and lacked the craft of writing. He had not bothered to study any style of writing. Writing for him was an exercise that filled his idle time. He would write whatever came to his mind and send them to the publishers.
Bismil wanted to translate a lot of Bangla and English books into Hindi. He translated Arvindo Gosh’s Bangla book on Yoga in Hindi. He showed it to a couple of publishers. The wanted to buy the manuscript at a pittance.
It was the story of books in Hindi. There were a lot of mediocre writers and translators whom the publishers exploited. The publishers paid them less money for a book than what they spent on their dogs in a day.
Bismil realised that local publisher were too egoistic. He sent the book to a Banaras publisher. He agreed to print it. For quite some time he heard nothing from the publisher. Later he came to know that the publisher had closed down his business and disappeared.
Bismil could not trace his manuscript. May be, the publisher sold it to Kabariwala for a coin or two extra before pulling a vanishing trick . It pained Bismil very much. He thought that the book was well written and could have proved useful to the readers. He still was left with copies of his earlier books. He sold them to a gentleman of Calcutta at less than the cost price to cut down his losses.
The fact was that he was able to sell only a few copies of those books. Most of the prints were lying with him. In this deal too Ramprasad Bismil was in for a rude shock. The buyer, Dinanath Sangatiya sent no money. He misappropriated the entire lot. Bismil sent reminders and notices without getting any response. He filed a case in the court for indemnity and got favourable verdict according to which Mr. Sangatiya was ordered to pay Rs. 400 to Ramprasad Bismil. Instead of paying the damages Sangatiya preferred to leave Calcutta for Patna where he vanished without any trace after defrauding a few more persons there too.
Thus, inexperience caused a lot of problems to Bismil. There was no one to guide him or help him out. In those foolish ventures he lost money, valuable time, energy and the peace of mind.
He decided to be careful in future about the fraudulent characters. He did come across a few more tricksters and imposters but Bismil refused to fall into their traps. He had learnt his bitter lesson.
