In the first week of Ashad, while attempting a robbery at the house of Baikuntha Saha in Basantpur, their gang was discovered. Five prehistoric men were found. Just as Pehlad said, Bhikur's shoulder wound had festered and was oozing a reddish liquid. His right hand had swollen and become drum-like, and he couldn't move it. By now, Bhikur's wound had begun to rot and ooze a reddish fluid. His body had also started to swell slightly. The fever had lessened, but there was unbearable pain in every limb. Dam and Pehlad had gone to their ancestral home in the countryside. He didn't return the next day either. He had collapsed from exhaustion at the wedding ceremony in the ancestral home. Bhikur couldn't even remember how he had spent the days and nights in the forest for three days. In the monsoon season, when even tigers don't want to live in the forest, Bhikur spent two days and nights on a narrow rock, soaked in water, enduring the torment of mosquitoes and flies, pulling out one leech after another from his body every hour, and suffering from fever, pain from the wound, and smoke. He was drenched in the rain, and in the heat of the afternoon, he gasped for breath, panting heavily. He had no moment's peace from the torture of the flies. Pehlad had left him a few beedi cigarettes, which he had smoked. He had been hungry for three or four days, but there was no jaggery. The jaggery was gone, but the red ants that had swarmed in the greed for jaggery were still crowding on the rock. Bhikur was constantly experiencing the burning sensation of their disappointment in every part of his body. Wishing for Pehlad's death in his mind, Bhikur still fought desperately to survive. On the day Pehlad was supposed to return, the water in his pot ran out in the morning. He couldn't bear the torment of thirst any longer, so he described with difficulty how he carried the pot and went to fill half of it with water from a distant canal and climbed back onto the rock. He filled his stomach by chewing on the chana. With one hand, he constantly picked off and killed the insects and ants. To suck up the poisonous sap, he picked up leeches and applied them around his wound.

A green snake, once seen peeking through the leaves of a tamarind tree near its head, made him sit and stare at it for two hours with a stick in his hand, and after that, he wouldn't die. He simply wouldn't die. In the condition that wild animals cannot survive, humans will. Every hour, he would make as much noise as possible with the stick, hitting the bushes all around to drive the snake away. Returning from the ancestral family home in the afternoon to check on Bhikhu, Pehlad shook his head seriously after seeing the situation. He had brought a plate of rice, some fried pui fish, and some pui-chhachri for Bhikhu. He sat with Bhikhu until evening and ate them himself. Then, he went home, took a small bamboo basket and its lid, and returned with Bharat. The intoxication of the chase had completely overwhelmed and exhausted Bhikhu. He could no longer feel hunger or thirst. He didn't even realize that the ticks were swelling up like overripe eggplants, sucking his blood and falling off on their own. With a kick, the water pot fell and broke, the rainwater soaked the dolls, and the ants started rotting in the wet cotton. Pehlad wasn't home at the time; he had gone out with Bharat to cut bamboo. Pehlad's sister had gone to the ghat. Pehlad's wife had come to put the boy to sleep in the room and, seeing Bhikhu wasn't there, she quickly left. Bhikhu grabbed her hand. After his shoulder wound had healed, when no one was home, Bhikhu started lowering the bamboo basket with one hand from time to time, and one evening, he sat down with a flourish. They took Bhikhu home in the basket. They made a bed on the roof of the house with straw and laid him down. But Pehlad's wife is Bagdi's daughter. It's not easy to control a weak-bodied man with one hand. In a flash, he slipped out of her grasp and started slapping her. Pehlad told everything when he returned home. But his right hand was no longer good. It had withered like a dead branch and become completely useless.

Initially, with great difficulty, he could move his hand a little, but eventually, he lost even that ability. And this strong, crippled beggar, finding only this shelter, spent a month in a moribund state without any medical treatment or care, gradually conquering death. But the prehistoric beggar did not regain his arm. As their quarrel escalated, they both captured the beggar and imprisoned him. Except for inflicting a bite on Pehlad's arm, the weak and crippled beggar could do nothing else. Pehlad and his sister beat him almost to death and threw him out of the house. The beggar's dry, gaping wounds were bleeding, and he walked away, wiping the blood with his hand and smoking. No one could know where he went in the darkness of night, but the commotion created by setting fire to Pehlad's house at midnight caused a great uproar in the neighborhood. From that night began the second phase of the beggar's primitive, uncivilized life. There is a river near Chitlapur. After setting fire to Pehlad's house, the beggar stole a jute sack and went downstream with the river's current. After a long push, Pehlad said, "You've cost me seven rupees, give me the money, and get out. My house is here, go far away. I could have broken your arm into two pieces with a single blow like repairing a house, that's why I kept it. I'll go now." The beggar said, "You stole my arm, which was tied around my waist. Give me my arm back first, then I'll go." "Where do you know my arm is, you wretch?" In a fit of rage, Pehlad felt it was his duty to kill such a scoundrel completely. While raising the thick bamboo stick in his hand to hit the beggar's back and break his head, even Ganesha remained unaware that the task, no matter how great, was absolutely impossible. The beggar said, "Give me my sharp, iron arm, Pehlad, well done! You didn't give me the arm, so you're holding it tightly in your hands with all your might." Therefore, instead of murder, there was an exchange of some obscene words between them. Prehistoric Pehlad, slapping his forehead, began to say, "Alas, what a disaster, what a disaster! My house was under Saturn, alas, what a disaster!"

But the poor fellow, fearing the police harassment, couldn't even muster the courage to give his name. He didn't have the strength. He somehow managed to keep the boat's direction straight all night, gripping a thin bamboo like an oar. Before dawn, he couldn't drift far, carried only by the current. For a moment, it seemed as if Bhikhu would slap him with a fat, open palm. But he restrained himself. Instead of slapping, he stared at him with bloodshot eyes, went to the nearest muri shop, bought some puffed rice with the coin, and started gulping it down. Within a few days, he learned all the rules and regulations of this most visible section of the world's oldest profession. The gestures and language of begging became as natural to him as his innate mendicancy. His body was no longer as clean; his hair was rough and gray with grime, his waist wrapped in a dirty, torn rag, and his thin, swaying hand looked like a rope. The gentleman felt pity seeing him. He gave him a coin. Bhikhu was worried that Pehlad, seeking revenge for the arson, might reveal his name, not considering his own predicament in the heat of the moment. The police had been trying to catch him for a long time; the murder at Baikuntha Sa's house had only intensified their efforts. If Pehlad reported it, the police would search everywhere in the vicinity. Showing his face within twenty or thirty miles of the locality was dangerous for him. But Bhikhu was not worried. He hadn't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. His weak body was still numb from the beating he had received at the hands of two strong men. Reaching the ghat in front of the sub-divisional town early in the morning, he took a boat to the ghat. Bhikhu said, "Give me a coin, sir? And another one." That was the beginning of his begging. He bathed in the river water, washing away the bloodstains, and entered the city. Hunger made him see darkness in his eyes. He didn't have a single coin to buy puffed rice and eat. He stretched out his hand to the first gentleman he met on the market street and said, "Please give me two coins, sir?"

Next to Binnu Majhi's house, near the river, Bhikhu has rented a broken-down shed for eight rupees a month.

He sleeps there at night. He has collected a worn but thick quilt from a person who died of malaria, stolen straw from a farmer's haystack, and spreads the straw on the ground, laying the quilt on top, and sleeps soundly. Occasionally, while begging at homes in the city, he gets some torn clothes. So, he stitches them together and uses them as a pillow. If he feels cold in the river breeze at night, he opens the stitching and wraps a piece of cloth around himself. From morning till evening, he sits under a tamarind tree by the road near the market and begs. He eats a one-paisa puffed rice in the morning, and at noon, he sneaks into a neglected garden on the outskirts of the market, cooks rice on a brick stove under a banyan tree, and sometimes cooks small fish or vegetables in an earthen pot. After filling his stomach, he leans against the banyan tree and relaxes. Then he goes back and sits under the tamarind tree. He cannot help but mention this part. He has torn off the right sleeve of his coat from the armpit. He also carries a tin mug and a stick. All day long, he wanders around with sighs and pleas: "Oh, sir, a paisa! If you give me a paisa, God will bless you! Oh, sir, a paisa!"

He still begs with a familiar, pleading tone. But if he doesn't get alms, his anger knows no bounds. If there are no people on the road, he curses a passing stranger with obscene language. If he can't buy something for a paisa, he starts beating the shopkeeper. When women come down to bathe at the river ghat, he stands by the water pretending to beg. He is happy when the women are afraid, and when they tell him to leave, he doesn't move, baring his teeth and smiling indecently. He was imprisoned for seven years for stealing from the sister of Panaahar Sir, but no one could keep him in jail for more than two years. One rainy evening, he climbed over the prison wall and escaped. Then, alone, he cut through the bars of a house and stole, pressed the face of a lonely housewife at the pond ghat at noon, opened her necklace and bracelet, took the wife of the grocer with him, and crossed the sea to Noakhali, and then to Hatiya.

Six months later, Rakhu's wife was thrown into a pit, and he committed three robberies in succession, three groups, far away in several villages, the names of which he could no longer recall. Then, that day, Baikuntha Sahib's majestic voice was silenced with two bullets from his own pistol. He would guzzle liquor in the toddy shop, create a ruckus, visit the brothels, and spend wild nights, and sometimes, gathering his gang, he would raid houses in the dead of night, beat everyone, loot money and jewelry, and disappear. The indescribable expression on a wife's face when her husband was tied up and beaten before her eyes, the mother's wails when blood spurted from her son's limbs, even hiding in the jungle, he felt happy then. Many of his gang members had been caught and jailed repeatedly, but the police had never caught him more than once in his life. Rakhu no longer liked this aimless, unfulfilled life. His heart yearned for his past life of adventure and excitement. What could be more intoxicating than seeing those scenes and hearing those cries in the flickering light of the torches? He roams from village to village, fleeing the police, and sleeps fitfully on his self-made bed in the forest at night. The primitive man who once enjoyed killing now vents his frustration by scolding a passerby if they don't give him alms. His physical strength is still as intact as ever. He just doesn't know how to use that strength. How many shops display piles of money in the dead of night, with women sitting alone in the shopkeeper's house. Instead of becoming a big shot in one day by threatening them with a weapon in one hand, he lies quietly under the straw mat of a beggar. The sorrow of a beggar's life knows no bounds in the darkness of his right hand. Among countless timid and weak men and women of the household, he is suffering from a lack of just one hand, despite having such a broad chest and such a strong body! Can such a forehead even belong to a human being? As he enters the market, a beggar sits begging. She is not old, and her body is also quite well-built. But from below her knee to her foot on one leg, there is a greasy, festering wound.

Yet, he can endure this misfortune. Retirement is all he desires. He cannot remain a beggar forever. He earns more than the beggar from this wound. Therefore, he does not take special care of the wound. The prehistoric beggar occasionally comes and sits by him. He says, "Won't you heal the wound?" The beggar woman says, "Yes! It will heal immediately if you give me medicine." "Can you? Won't you stay? I will feed you, keep you comfortable, and live like a lady with my feet not touching the ground. Why don't you do it? I will keep you." "What life he had, what has become of him now?" Looking that way, the beggar sees a beggar with a beard like his own, sitting a little distance away, praying to Allah for mercy. The beggar vows lifelong devotion, showing greed for comfort. But the beggar woman does not agree at all. The beggar returns with a broken heart. "Do you think I am a fool, thinking you are being kind? I am with him." "Can you? What about eating?" "Yes, I eat the peels of sugarcane after they are dead." "There is a wooden artificial leg lying next to him. One morning, he goes to the beggar woman. He says, "If you wish, take the wound and go." The beggar woman again said, "Sit down. I told you to run away, seeing how they will kill you." The beggar woman is not easily forgotten. Puffing a few tobacco leaves in her mouth, she says, "If you chase me away in two days, where will I get the wound?" Meanwhile, the moon rises in the sky, the tide ebbs and flows in the river, and the air becomes intoxicating in the winter chill. The cry of jackals ends in the banana grove next to the beggar's hut. Binnu gives the middleman's wife a lump of silver in exchange for the money from selling bananas. Intoxication gradually intensifies and solidifies in the sap of the palm. The beggar's hatred subsides in the heat of love. He can no longer control himself. The beggar says, "Hey, stop all this murderous nonsense. Do you know that I would have given ten beggars like you for a single wounded man, if I had the means?" The beggar woman says, "It's not possible, go and stay with him. What do I have to do with it?" The prehistoric beggar does not even get up. He is not so simple as to be happy just by hearing the name with a very big banana.

As long as he could, he sat on the dusty ground, chatting with Pashi. If they had come down to their level, no one would have recognized their conversation as conversation. It would have seemed as if they were just snubbing each other. Pashi's companion's name was Basi. He too tried to start a conversation with him one day. "Feeling like it again, are you? Go to the old woman." Bhiku sat down cross-legged in front of her. These days, he carried a bag on his shoulder, saying that people gave him rice instead of money. He would take out a withered banana from the bag, put it in front of the beggar woman, and say, "Eat it. I brought it for you." Bhiku would leave as usual. But he wouldn't give up. He would approach the beggar woman as soon as he saw her alone. Trying to start a conversation, he would say, "What's your name?" "Hey, gold! Want to eat something? I saw a wound on your foot, what kind of medicine do you use? How do you get rid of it? How do you do it? Do you have a house? If you don't, I'll slap you, I said." There was quite a bit of arguing between the two. The fight didn't escalate into a brawl because Bhiku had a stick in his hand and Basi had a huge stone. Before returning to his tamarind tree, Bhiku said, "Hey, I'm warning you." They didn't even feel the need to ask each other's names, they were so unfamiliar with each other. Basi said, "What are you wandering around for? Salam Mia is hurt! I'll crush his head with one blow of this stick!" The beggar woman smiled, revealing her black teeth. "Let him go. I have what I need." "Salam Mia." The beggar woman immediately took off her outer garment and embraced her lover. Happily, she said, "Want to hear my name? Pashi says to me, Pashi. You gave me a banana, I told you my name, now give me my share." He couldn't see any way to increase his income while staying there. There was no way to steal or rob, no way to get wages, and it was impossible to snatch money from anyone without killing them. He didn't want to leave this city, leaving Pashi behind. Bhiku's mind rebelled against his share. Binu Majhi's happy family life next door enraged him. One day, his mind made up to set fire to Binu's house.

By the riverbank, wandering like a hermit crab, Bhiku felt that his heart would not be content until he possessed all the food and all the women in the world. He spent some time in this state of dissatisfaction. Then, one deep night, Bhiku loaded all his precious belongings into his bag, tightly wrapped the money he had earned around his waist, and left his abode. One day by the river, he found an iron rod about arm's length. At leisure, he rubbed one end of the rod against a stone, creating a sharp point. He took this weapon with him in his bag. Not many new people traveled the path daily. Among the regular travelers, those who used the path for the first time became a handful within two months. Bhiku had received alms from them once; many did not feel the need to donate to him again. There was no shortage of beggars in the world. It would be difficult to stay under the open sky in winter. He desired a small, enclosed space, a place to lay his head, and if he couldn't eat twice a day, no young beggar woman would agree to live with him. Yet, if his earnings continued to decrease at this rate, he might not even be able to fill his own stomach in winter. Bhiku's stomach was burning. He couldn't save even a penny for livelihood without begging. He fell into thought. Bosi said, "If you argue with the master, you'll get beaten, you know, in the name of Allah." At this time, Bhiku's earnings decreased. However, he had to increase his income somehow. The prehistoric Bhiku once followed them and visited their house. In the darkness, he carefully went to the back of the house and stood silently for a while, listening through the gaps in the bed. Then he came to the front of the house. The beggar's hut, the door's latch was not locked from the inside, only propped up. He gently moved the latch aside, took the rod out of his bag, and tightly gripped it. He entered the house. There was starlight outside, but inside the house, there was a lack of even that much light. There were no extra hands to light a lamp; standing inside the house, Bhiku thought that it was impossible to determine the location of Bosi's heart.

A blow to the left hand, if not placed correctly, would give Basir the opportunity to create a commotion. That would be difficult. In the darkness of the new moon, the sky was full of stars. A peaceful silence reigned over God's earth. After a long time, in the deserted world of midnight, with a terrible imagination churning in his mind, he ventured out and felt an indescribable elation. In a muffled voice, he said to himself, 'If I can just free my right hand from this stick!' He walked half a mile along the riverbank and entered the city through a narrow path. Leaving the market on the left, he made his way through the small alleys in the sleeping city to the other end. The paved road of the city left the city at this point. The river turned and flowed for a mile or so along the side of this road for two miles and then changed direction to the south. After that, paddy fields and occasional dense forests of fallen trees could be seen. At the edge of one such forest, a few unfortunate people had established a poor village, clearing the land and building five or seven huts. One of these huts belonged to Basir. He would wake up in the morning and go to the city to beg, returning in the evening. Panchi would cook rice by burning the leaves of the Panch tree, and Basir would provide the tobacco. At night, Panchi would wrap the bark of the Nakra tree around his feet. Lying side by side on bamboo beds, they would talk in their broken language until they fell asleep. A foul smell emanating from their bedding, their beds, and their bodies would seep out through the cracks in the thatched roof and mix with the outside air. Every now and then, a house or two could be seen here and there along the road for some distance. Basir called out in his sleep. Panchi grumbled. After a few moments of prehistoric thought, he moved to the head of Basir and, with a single blow, drove the point of the spear almost three fingers deep into the sleeping man's heel. In the darkness, there was no way to know how severe the blow was. Even after realizing that the spear had entered his head, Bhiku could not be sure of being safe. He tightly gripped Basir's throat with one hand. Panchi had discovered Basir's hiding place with great difficulty. At first, he pretended ignorance to Bhiku.

But when Bhiku grabbed a handful of hair, he couldn't find a way to express it. When Bosi became silent, Bhiku removed his hand from her throat. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Give me all the money, you bitch."

Pachi stammered, "What will I do now?"

Pachi didn't scream, he started whimpering. He said to Pachi, "Shut up; I'll beat you even more than that."

"What can I do? Poysakari is keeping the money in a box, that's all."

Bhiku then said again, "Make a little noise, good girls are completely silent."

"Didn't I tell you? Let the Mian's horse graze on the grass, leave it alone. Don't make noise, you Mian's wife! What will you get? I'll beat you! Give it, give it, I'll beat you, give it, you Mian's wife."

Bowing his head mockingly in front of Bosi's dead body, Bhiku shook his head and laughed loudly. Suddenly, becoming angry, he said, "Where's the master? Hey, why are you talking nonsense! Am I going to give it to you, or are you going to tell everyone, huh?"

"See? See who killed whom?"

Then, when Poy-Pachi lit the lamp, Bhiku looked at his work with great satisfaction. There was no limit to his pride in injuring such a strong man with just one hand. Looking at Pachi, he embraced him, and Pachi hung on his back. Leaning forward under the weight of his body, Bhiku started walking briskly. On both sides of the road, the paddy fields were bathed in the pale light. In the distance, the new moon was rising in the sky behind the village trees. Peaceful silence on God's earth. Bosi's life savings were no less, a hundred rupees in coins. Bhiku had earned more than this by killing a man before. Still, he was happy. He said, "Tie the bundle tightly, Pachi." Then, holding Bhiku's hand, he went out of the house and onto the road. Looking towards the east, Bhiku said, "The moon will rise soon, Pachi. It's very quiet at the ghat. We'll steal from there. There's a dense forest in front of Chhipatipur, very quiet at night. We'll walk for about a *kosh*." "What all are you tying up, you fool, Pachi? Then we'll meet at the night. After a while, the new moon will rise, we'll cross the road in the light." Pachi was in pain, walking quickly with his feet wounded.

Bikhu suddenly stood up. He said, "Did you get hurt, Pa? Did I press on your back too hard?" Pa said, "Where are we going?" "Oh, it hurts. Will I be able to walk?" "I will be able to. Come, let's go."

Perhaps that moon and this earth have a history. But the continuous darkness that Bhiku and Panchi gathered from the mothers womb and hid within their bodies—and the darkness that they will keep hidden within the fleshy covering of their offspring—is prehistoric. The light of this earth has not yet reached it, and never will.