Gud, jaggery, panela, brown sugar; there are many names for it. The Indian subcontinent is widely known for its production. It is exported to different countries like Nigeria, UAE, Myanmar, Nepal, etcetera. India produces more than sixty per cent of jaggery used in the world. This is what we get to know by the amount of exports from India to these countries. But if you want to hear me speaking modestly, then the unknown fact is that more than seventy per cent of jaggery used globally is produced in India. Why don't the reports tell about this ten per cent? This is because this remaining percentage of jaggery is supplied to different countries illegally. They are smuggled. And this jaggery smuggling was the baseline on which Soorya Nath Mohapatra's empire was built.

Though palm jaggery is also produced in the state of Odisha – the state where Mohapatra reigned – the entire smuggling was not carried out by this state's products. The gud produced in Odisha was not sufficient for the empire's trade. For the business to become a successful one, jaggery was brought secretly from many distant states like Kerala, Gujarat and Maharashtra. These states are often considered the uncles and aunts of the smuggling syndicate which was frequently called the offspring of Odisha. The syndicate still exists, but is falling down due to the lack of proper leadership in its overlords. But back in the years between 1998 and 2007 – the period when Mohapatra ruled it – there was a rapid growth in jaggery smuggling.

The syndicate had started back in the 70s, but it took the shape of an empire in '98.

[27 DECEMBER, 1997]

The sirens of the police jeeps took a monstrous volume which got louder with each passing second. The fate of the villagers seemed to be opposite to what they desired. There was a sudden rush in all the houses, markets and streets of the village.

"In the brown hall! Yes, the brown hall!" an aged man with a fleshless appearance with no hint of hair anywhere on his body cried in his full volume.

The last sacks of jaggery were being transported into a hall in the village school.

"Are they all in now?" asked the aged man.

"Yes, Dada!" a young fellow politely shouted, locking the door of the hall.

The jeeps came to a stop as soon as they entered the village.

The villagers gathered around the policemen who came out of the jeeps. Amid a dozen of policemen, there stood the duo which guided them. One was a tall man with thick moustache and clean-shaved head which was covered by his cap. The other one was rather thin and short with a very small hint of moustache. They were all in their official khaki dress-up.

"Sir, I didn't see any sugarcane production nearby," the shorter policeman said to the taller one. "If we get a good stock of jaggery here, it would be clear this village is one of the syndicate's smuggling routes."

The taller man, who was apparently his senior, said nothing but nodded.

"I don't get it, sir. Jaggery is both, common and cheap, throughout our country. Then what is the need of its smuggling?" asked the shorter policeman.

The senior officer did not know its exact answer, but he had to answer, "Though it is cheap and easily available, its demand is increasing, day-by-day. And though not in our country, it is quite uncommon in many others, and we should not forget that the syndicate we are here to bust smuggles brown sugar internationally." Still he did not say what his true opinion was. 'These are criminals. They can't keep themselves away from committing crimes.'

"What happened, sir?" the bony, fleshless, aged man came and asked the crowd of policemen standing with sticks in their hands.

The senior officer came forward and said, "We're here for a raid. Your village is under the suspicion of supporting the illegal trade of jaggery."

The old man released a chuckle, a highly nervous one. "I'm sorry, sir. We do not do anything like that. We are the men of God. Even the village's name is Thakura Pada."

The police officer knew what the name of the village was. But he also knew that the villagers were involved in something which is highly opposite to Godliness. He ignored the old man and motioned his team to start the raid. They searched in all the houses; they raided in all the streets; they checked all the shops; they were unsuccessful in finding something till now.

"Where is Soorya?" asked the old man to a young fellow standing beside him.

"An hour ago, he went out of the village with his friends," the young fellow replied.

The old man frowned. "But we need him right now."

"Is any building left?" the tall officer asked.

"The village school, sir," shouted one of the policemen.

"The village school, now!" commanded the officer, rushing after his raiding team which marched towards the school building.

Life almost crawled out of the villagers' bodies.

"How many kids are there in the school?" asked the officer.

"Three hundred thirty-two," the old man, who was walking beside the officer, said.

"A good number for a village school," the officer commented.

All the classrooms were raided, disturbing the students sitting on floor.

"Any hint of-"

"Yes, sir," the officer was stopped at the middle of his sentence by a voice unknown to him. "I've found a pretty good hint of embarrassment in your crew."

The officer whirled towards the voice and found a man in his late twenties with a handsome, dark-skinned face with a very little hint of moustache. His height was satisfying and there an amiable smile of his face which was totally different from his sarcastic tone.

"I mean, of course, embarrassment is obvious. Firstly, you entered the abode of education and disturbed the studies of the three hundred thirty-two future-drafters of our country. And even after that, you get nothing. Isn't that shameful or embarrassing?"

"Who is he?" the officer asked the old bony man, pointing towards the new boy.

"He is the son of the village's Sarpanch. His name is Soorya Nath Mohapatra." The old man said with an expression of relief after seeing Soorya.

"Sir," one man from the raiding team arrived and said to the officer, "one last room is still unchecked."

'It must be the brown hall,' the old man thought in fear which got worsen when he noticed the same fear on Soorya's face.

The officer gave a smile the villagers' queer expression and walked towards the large hall with locked brown gates.

"Open the lock," the officer demanded.

"I'm not the owner of this hall." Soorya came back to his tone.

The officer gave him an eye-piercing glare, and then gave two hard slams on the lock with his stick, after which the lock fell down, broken.

"Hey, the lock was of fifty rupees," Soorya snapped. "Who's going to pay for it now?" He pointed towards the short-heighted policeman, "His father?"

The tall officer violently pushed the door open and rushed in. He could easily see around thirty half-filled and thirty empty sacks spread around in the room. He smiled, seeing the old bony man trembling. "What is this?"

"R-Rice," the old man replied, "for mid-day meal facilities in the school."

"I don't think so," the officer said and motioned his crew to open the sacks.

All the policemen except him rushed towards the sacks and cut their openings with scissors.

"What's in there?" asked the officer, still smiling.

"Rice," one of the policemen said and others nodded.

"Impossible," the officer said and looked both, shocked and disappointed.

'Yes, impossible,' the old man thought to himself, but a hint of relief dominated his face. Meanwhile, Soorya said nothing but smiled.

The officer pulled his cap off, revealing his bald head, and rushed towards the sacks. He pulled one of the sacks up and turned it upside-down. Nothing but rice grains flowed out of it.

"Hey!" Soorya snapped in a serious tone.

"Empty all the sacks," the officer shouted to his crew. "They must have hidden the jaggery beneath the rice."

"Did you all fall on your heads exactly a moment after your birth?" Soorya shouted again.

All the sacks were emptied and nothing except a white sea of rice was exposed. Rice was spread everywhere in the hall now.

The officer, wiping off the sweat from his bald head, sighed. He did not know what he had to do now.

"Thirty per cent of this village comes under Below Poverty Line," Soorya said, showing sympathy to the crew of police, "and you wasted what could have filled the bellies of those people's kids. And what did you get? Rice." Now he noticed the sweat flowing off the officer's bald head. "Oh, sir. Even in the month of December, you're sweating really badly. After all, it's Odisha. There might be lack of drinking water in some parts of this state, but lack of sweat is not possible in this land. Try some jaggery-water. Trust me that would help."

The officer walked a little closer to Soorya, glaring into his eyes. "Where have you kept it? The smuggled jaggery."

Soorya walked towards the officer, fearlessly, returning a bold stare to him, "I dare you; it's in the school only."

All the surrounding villagers' eyes shot wide.

"So you agree that this village is a smuggling route of the syndicate?" the officer asked, not changing his expression a little.

"I do agree," Soorya said, "but the court wouldn't write a judgement only on the basis of my agreeing."

The officer kept staring him for a while as he walked out with his crew.

There was a long silence which was broken by the bony old man. "Where have you hidden the jaggery, Soorya?"

"In the school, as I said," Soorya said in a frank tone.

"But we were with the police for the whole time," one of the villagers said, "and we didn't see a hint of jaggery during the entire raid."

Soorya didn't say anything and just moved out of the hall with a gentle smile, followed by the villagers. He entered one of the classes where the kids were sitting on floor. "Patan, give me your bag."

One of the kids sitting on the floor stood up and brought his simple cloth bag to Soorya. Soorya showed the bag's interior to the old man. Along with a small chalkboard and a few pieces of chalks, he found a piece of solid jaggery weighing around one kilogram in it. Then Soorya picked up another kid's school-bag and fished another kilo of jaggery out of it.

"Total jaggery hidden in the hall by you all was three hundred kilograms in weight. There are three hundred thirty-two kids in the school. Being a government school, mid-day meal facilities are furnished by the government. I and my friends had gone in my father's lorry to bring one-fifty kilos of rice that are regularly provided by the government to our school. Since our village is quite big, we were sure that we would have plenty of time before the raiding crew reaches the school. We emptied all the jaggery-containing sacks and poured five kilos of rice in each of the thirty emptied sacks, and managed to hide one kilo of jaggery in almost each kids' school-bag. After all, it's not a thing to get suspicion on. The entire stock of jaggery that we have to forward for sailing next week is distributed among the children's bags. These future-drafters saved your day, I didn't."

Meanwhile, the police jeeps had departed.

"Do you really think that there is jaggery hidden in the school, sir?" asked the short-heighted policeman to his senior.

The officer nodded and said, "This fellow, Soorya Nath Mohapatra, is clever enough to beat our crew. We need someone of his level in our team to sort this out."