The Watchman’s Morse: A Short Story of Bravery in 1983 Assam

In 1983 Assam, a young scout finds himself trapped in a deserted bus depot. Dr. Saumya Shankar Chowdhury weaves a short story of bravery, where an unlikely duo—a lost boy and a disabled watchman—confronts danger through silence and Morse code.

The bus stopped with a jolt, and Rupam woke with a start. He looked around. It was dark. The driver got down. There was not a single soul in sight. He didn’t have the faintest idea as to where he might be. He remembered boarding the blue state transport government city bus, as he would do every day while returning from his school in the Panbazar area of the city of Guwahati. Rupam had boarded the bus from school at 4 p.m. It was winter. He was tired. He felt confused, sleepy, and hungry.

While coming from school, Rupam had felt dizzy. Was it because of the pill he took in the morning? He faintly recollected that his elder sister was supposed to give him some medicine. Rupam had dozed off after he boarded the bus. It was a tiring Scouts class after the last period on a mid-November evening.

It was 1983, and the anti-foreigner movement was in full sway in Assam. A roadblock near Panbazar had caused the delay. But Rupam, exhausted to the core, didn’t have the strength to walk to his house in Ulubari. It would have been a couple of miles at the most. He was fast asleep by the time the crowds dispersed and the bus resumed its journey towards Dispur. It had to halt near Ulubari as protesters threatened to set it on fire. With great patience and a promise to park the bus on the roadside, the experienced driver suddenly pressed on the accelerator and sped away. He had managed to dodge the mob and didn’t stop till the bus yard in Rupnagar.

The sprawling bus depot was surrounded by jungles, and a lone guard sat on a ramshackle stool by the gate, burning repellent coils to keep the mosquitoes away. Rupam looked around dazed, without a clue as to what was happening. He lazily got down and moved to the row of buses in the back. Not a single soul was to be seen except the watchman. His bladder was about to burst, and he relieved himself in the shrubs behind the red bus. He then walked to the gate.

The watchman was listening to the radio. A dog nearby barked at him. Rupam called out to the watchman. He didn’t respond. He spoke again. The sound from the radio had broken into a static crackle as the station went dead. The watchman tapped at his stick. Rupam realized the watchman was deaf. He touched the watchman on his arm. Startled, the watchman looked in a different direction. From the faint glow of the light in the street, Rupam understood that the man was blind as well. A blind and a deaf watchman was guarding a property worth lakhs of rupees.

As he looked around, he found rows and rows of buses. They would have diesel in them. They would have batteries and new fittings, leather seats, and accessories. The buses didn’t have doors on the passenger side, as city buses didn’t in those days. The yard was accessible to anyone in the dark. The watchman, by that time, was tapping at his stick, swirling it around the next moment and mumbling “Jah Jaah” as if to chase a stray animal. He shone his torch as if to signal to someone in the distant hill. He shone and switched off the torch, repeating the process in quick succession.

A mist had started to engulf the place. Rupam was thirteen and a student of the eighth standard. He was a trained scout and was to represent the state in the President’s Scout meet in Delhi. But his mother wasn’t giving him permission to attend the training. She had been behaving strangely of late. A thousand bees seemed to buzz in his head when he thought about those episodes. Oh! It was too difficult to remember.

Rupam understood that he was somewhere near the Medical College as he could see the hill. A few days back, he had been to the medical college for some tests.

Night had fallen. He was wearing a half-sweater over his school uniform of a white shirt and grey trousers, with black “Naughty Boy” shoes. At least that would take care of the cold. He was hungry. He fished in his bag and found some scout ropes, a torchlight, and the untouched lunchbox. He looked at the ropes. The Scouts class had taught him certain knots and how to tie and untangle them. He remembered not eating the chapati and the fried gourd-and-potato accompaniment during lunch. He had no watch. Just at that time, the radio came to life. The news was on. The announcer said it was 8 o’clock. He silently nibbled at the chapati and the vegetables from the lunchbox.

Rupam went up to the deaf and blind watchman at the gate. He put a chapati with some vegetables in his palm. The old guard sniffed at it and threw a small part at his feet. He again shone his torch towards the hill, almost like a lighthouse guiding a distant ship. The dog lapped up the crumbs at his feet happily. The guard slowly chewed the rest of the chapati and the fried vegetables. He drank some water from the tumbler and handed over the rest to Rupam. Rupam gulped the water gladly. It was much needed.

The duo didn’t need any conversation. The guard seemed to understand that the young lad was not an intruder. He was just a lost soul. The guard pointed to the room near the gate, which was his post. He indicated with his hands that the lad could lie down on the floor. Rupam played for a while with the ropes from his bag and practiced the knots till a smile of satisfaction appeared on his tired face. He slept on a threadbare mattress on the floor with the school bag as a pillow. Surprisingly, the room was warm.

It must have been midnight when he heard voices coming from somewhere in the yard. “The guard is blind as a bat and deaf as my grandmother,” one voice said in Assamese. “Don’t be overconfident,” a voice in Hindi cautioned the other.

Some clanging sounds of nuts and bolts being removed were clearly audible. The radio had gone silent. The guard was sleeping on the bed. There were two persons. Clearly, they didn’t have honorable intentions. “How many could you get?” “Three!” “Only?” “Enough for tonight.” “The batteries are heavy. Will be difficult on the bicycle.” “Ok, let us get another.” “It will fetch us at least a thousand.” “Enough to get by for the next two months.” “The government can get the batteries again.” “We will come back and remove the tires.” “By Bihu, we should be ok.”

Both of them laughed. The conversation was moving back and forth between the two thieves, and it was not a whisper anymore.

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Rupam nudged the old watchman awake. The watchman began to search for his stick and shone his torch, almost in a reflex action. Rupam didn’t know what to say. He looked at the watchman in the dim glow coming from the streetlight. He mouthed the words slowly: “Thief. Chor. Robbery.”

The watchman narrowed his eyes. Rupam made two taps at his shoulder. Then, in an inspiring moment, he took his torch and signaled the pattern SOS in Morse Code into the watchman’s eyes. The watchman had been signaling to someone since evening, Rupam recalled.

The watchman motioned to Rupam to follow him to the yard. He tiptoed with great, catlike agility, without making the slightest noise. Perhaps the small crackles of the dry twigs and leaves beneath their feet were buried in the metallic sounds still emanating from the distance, and the continuous, irritating din of the insects in the adjacent forest.

Whack! Just like that. The hefty-looking guy fell with a thud. The watchman had used his stick almost like a sledgehammer. The guy groaned and started snoring. His partner came running with a wrench towards the watchman. A terrified Rupam didn’t know what to do. The watchman would be killed. In the dark, Rupam put his foot forward, and the man with the wrench tripped and fell.

The watchman swung his stick in a circle and caught the neck of the falling man. He located him on the floor and gave him two good blows. Both the intruders lay unconscious. Rupam stared in disbelief for a few seconds, and then he knew what he had to do.

“Mrs. Kalita, we need your son to come to the police station.” “He is not well. He has seizures. What did he do? I have all the reports. He has a brain tumor. The doctor has doubled his dose last evening. Please don’t be harsh on him,” his mother would plead the next day. “No, no..! Nothing like that. We need his help,” the sub-inspector smiled. “Actually, we need to produce the thieves before the magistrate. But we are unable to untie the knot your son has made. Scout’s knot. And we are recommending him for a bravery award. The thieves were stealing the batteries for a long time.” “But how did the police come?” she asked the sub-inspector. “The watchman signals to us every half an hour. In Morse code. He is an ex-serviceman. A brave Gorkha. He lost his hearing and almost all his eyesight in a mine blast in the Chinese war in 1962. But the MD kept him employed. He is really good. He is actually an asset to the department,” the policeman continued, “But sadly, he won’t be working anymore. His sons have come to take him to his village in Nepal.”

Rupam was still asleep. He was heavily sedated. The police would have to wait.