A dawn despite the dead

Devidas Thombre’s story has all the makings of an ideal reformation and eventual societal integration.

Devidas, who is a Thakar tribal from the Karegaon village in Thane’s Jawhar tehsil, was arrested in 2004 on the charge of murder. Thirty-three-year-old Devidas is believed to have gotten into a scuffle with his paternal uncle Amrut on January 12. As violence escalated and expletives were swapped, an enraged Devidas bludgeoned Amrut with a rock, killing him on the spot. Though he was immediately arrested, Devidas was given bail a year later by the Thane Sessions court.

BV Hinge, who was the additional public prosecutor, remembers the case clearly. “We argued that though the accused had knowledge of what he was doing, he had no intent. The judge went with our version and said that he needs to be given a chance. He has asked him to work for eight years on his uncle’s farm for free.’’ With his sentence almost having been served, there is a momentum to Devidas’s steps, but the pace may have more to do with the rains than a sense of perceived freedom.

Devidas finds his wife Tara holding their sixteen-day-old daughter, waiting to give him his lunch. She is speaking to Kalpana, Amrut Thombre’s daughter. Strangely, the mood is genial. Kalpana even helps serve Devidas his bhakri-chutney lunch. Pointing to his yet unnamed child, Devidas asks, “Why don’t you suggest a name for her?” Kalpana only stares and smiles. “Though our families are reconciled now, there are times when I wonder why destiny did this to us,” she tells DNA later.

There is a certain obvious cinematic parallel here. The narrative trajectory of the film Dushman from 1971 is almost identical to Devidas Thombre’s life. In the Rajesh Khanna-starrer, the protagonist is sentenced to serve the family of a farmer, whom he has accidentally killed. In much the same way as the repentant character, who desires the forgiveness of the deceased’s widow, Devidas says he will always regret not being forgiven by his late aunt Suman. “She took ill and would curse me for killing her husband. I wanted her to forgive me, but she died in 2006.”

He admits he was initially scared that his cousins — Kalpana’s brothers Devram and Suresh — would exact some revenge. “There was a coldness in their attitude. But over the years, they’ve seen me work and I’ve regained some trust,” he says. Kalpana, who now lives in a neighbouring village after her marriage, says that she and her brothers were first suspicious of Devidas. “My village is five kilometres away. I would often be worried that things may get out of hand. But we were wrong.” She says her brothers are quite attached to Devidas’s children — Hrithik, 11, Maya, 7, and the new born. “They go to school and play with my brother’s children. How can we be angry with them?”

As he tills the land of his uncle’s farm, a remorseful Devidas recounts, “He [my uncle] had played with me as a child and saved me from my father’s beatings when I didn’t study. On that day, he had used abusive language, which got me in a rage and before I knew it, he was lying dead.” Devidas’s decision to continue working on both his father and late uncle’s fields even after the court-stipulated eight-year sentence has only helped smooth things further. Devidas’s family also gave away three acres of their 20 acre-land for a village PHC. “After that, other villagers, who are all distant relatives, began to talk to our family normally,” says Mahadeo, 59, Devidas’s relieved father.