Pagala Gita...Pagala Gita- The fresh salt eater: Part 1

Let me tell you back to a time, a time when my people's presence in your imperial country was not the tipping scale of some downfall of civilisation. Let me take you to a time before Ghandi at the banks of the river, rivers where my forefather and their fathers lived. They brought with them their wives to begin new families at those banks, those salty banks. Those clear rivers running on the mud of our people, but most importantly in them the salt. Through some ancient works lost to us, like magic, they brought the salt from the water. Oh, it could have just been magic, to bring such wealth, such flavour and power from the water. In time our trade was booming, we shipped to the Buriganga River, to Dhaka, the Venice of the East and from there the world. Though that was never meant to last, our salt and our riches came with the lust of envious eyes across the seas. Their plotting and scheming brought ships to our shores. You see instability in our Princely states, once greatly unified under the Mughal empire brought about petty squabbling. Petty Prince fought against petty Princes for power, but none were great enough, they were of course just that...petty. Shame, I spit on their weak minds. With that, allowed the foreigner to conquer and divide. We were so much under the British thumb; we lost the ability to take salt from the river. Instead, we relied on British men, our birthright, our trade taken and then sold back to us. That was all before one day, it arrived. You see, my friend there are things in this world not known to man. Their nature, hidden, their origin lost in the darkest abyss of this world.

Yet it came, Pagala Gita, it's...his black hind legs longer than it's torso. His grey body, muscular and toned like that physique of a shaved gorilla. And it's head, long and protruding, it's tongue...that magnificent tool of nature that coils up like a straw, now my friend you think I admire that creature, know that when I saw him take the salt from the water, into his mouth separate it out I was stunned how could I not have admired that talent? He had other talents too; he gorged all day and night on salt. The men in red coats came with their guns, muskets that subdued any indigenous population. Whose fire was faster than any arrows, swords or spears, who showed that it was possible to bring an elephant down to its knees with something as small as its eyeballs. Now those things did not harm Pagala Gita. They tried, oh they tried. Luring him out with salt water, hunting him through the forests but every story ends the same. The hunters and their dogs, get a faint whiff of its odour. The smell grows until they look around, confused and not knowing where to shoot, then comes the barking and the scream at the end the British collect pieces of their friends.

With that eventually, he drove away the British and made himself the Maharajah of the salt banks, an impressive talent. He was crowned with a twisted wooden crown. Small pieces of women's jewellery hung off it. Pagala Gita roamed the shores, guarding it as was his right and so he thought. Yes sometimes the British would send men back to fight him and sometimes the local prince was ordered to sacrifice his men too but after a while, no one dared challenge the Maharajah of the salt banks anymore.

I remember when he was crowned, it was my tenth birthday, but all the celebrations were for him. Perhaps that is when I saw through the delusions. When my family's faith in this stranger made my blood boil. When I saw the passion and vigour that my people celebrated their new master with. You see, my people then became indebted to him, he provided us with salt when we could not have made it ourselves and he protected us from the British, but soon his hunger became more than just for salt, our gold, our possessions and even on some stary nights our women. He became, worse than the tyrants in those fancy British houses, he became a god in our humble village but what can a man say or do when the monster chooses someone close to them to be their bride? When you are forced to watch as everyone cheers on the marriage of a young woman to this creature? Just remembering how her aunties persuaded her to be happy and the empty look in her eyes when finally she returned. No...this is no god of mine. Yet I am a simple young man in this, what can I do?

Except one day when he was busy with another virgin, I saw a soft spot. Beyond that thick armour of muscle, there was something vulnerable. So, to my friends wherever you may be, whatever year hear this, I send this message sharpening my axe. You laugh at this; you will call the existence of such a beast a stupid fantasy and a fairy tale for naughty kids but my friends, if you...if you never heard of the Pagala Gita roaming the banks to fill its belly with salt and despair, then you will know I have done it. You will not have heard my name but call me the false-god killer because tonight, I castrate that Kuta-Bacha...that son of a bitch.