tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48626425327127153632024-03-13T05:04:14.811-07:00zauquiAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-51189462845714881552010-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:002010-04-01T10:01:18.050-07:00the royal vaseThe Royal Vase<br />Even though we had stepped into our new house, the question of the royal vase was there. Not only that, just to prove the significance of its presence, it posed a problem, ‘where is it to be placed now…?’<br />The question of ‘placing’ it was so very unpalatable to him as if the royal crown were suddenly snatched away from his head. ‘What do you mean? Well, it is a royal vase. Why shouldn’t it be placed in the drawing room itself?’ ‘Drawing room?’ to Farheen’s mind it didn’t deserve a place in the beautiful drawing room of the new house because the visiting friends and the sons of noble men did not consider it to be an antique piece, nor did their eyes venture to roam through the alleys of the tales of the lost sovereignty. They only laughed, openly, ‘oh sister…so you are there…from what rugged curio shop did you buy it?’<br />For asharaf this royal vase had only this much of attraction that his father’s respect for it had grown a bit too profound in his declining age and father, despite the passage of time, was still imprisoned in the castle of bygone sovereignty wherefrom it was, perhaps, not easy any more to get out at this age of his.<br />Yes, if it were the matter of looking for hatred attached to this ancient token, the vase, it could be found in the eyes of the mother only. Glaucoma had cast its effect there, but, despite their being over-shadowed by the dense fog, her eyes, turning the pages of the merciless past, could not speak but would say, ‘Lo. What a royal vase? Children have erected a house, and I was the one who having married you had come to the thatched collage, and since spent the whole but belonging to what kingdom? There meals of day are what even a beggar can manage.’<br />My name is Asharaf. Asharaf jahangeer.<br />I had no taste for history books in my childhood. As I grew up I developed an aversion to history. To me it was a horrifying mirror. The idea of my seeing my reflection in it filled me with horror. To me the pages of history seemed to be cruel. Since the time I stepped on the threshold of my childhood, the silence peeping from behind the infirm arches hurt me. After my birth my father submitted himself to the mosque and to the prayers (prescribed by Islamic law). In this atmosphere of want when my mother’s irritability expressed itself against my father, he, to show his helplessness takes the shelter of that royal vase forgetting everything else. ‘Lo. How could have thought that the descendants of Taimoor dynasty would come to such a wretched state and the issues would suffer for want of petty coins.’ <br />Shaba was younger to me by two years. When she saw father and mother quarrelling, she would shut herself up in her room, curl herself on the bed and soak the pillow with her tears.<br />On there cruel pages of history I get just a glimpse of ‘Taimooriya paper bag store.’ lucklessness when he opened a small shop dealing in paper bags. Descending from the royal throne to the occupation of a paper bag seller to pacify the hell of the stomach my father had lost uh that was within himself. Peeping out from that ruthless of history, even today the tears are discernible in the eyes---the tears that were visible in the mornings in my father’s ‘dry’ eyes. Red and swollen, they would tell all the tale of the previous night, that what-like it felt to see the present tomb from the ‘royal hujra’ father was horrified by the present and history pleased him.<br />It was, perhaps, during those days that the story of my hatred of history began. Memoirs of history and tombs seemed to me to be like a filthy spider web enmeshed in which some insect had died. During those days of struggle how could we be deemed to be human beings? We were insects, dead insects…and the tattered house, telling the tales of the past royal glory, looked like a tomb, and our concern about getting rid of which was on the increase day-to-day.<br />Does history require any explanations? - Or, it keeps defining itself in some way or the other according to the time. With my growing age, in the strange environment of home, a new flame of hope had got lightened, and with it. I had seen the changing face of history or, say, a new aspect of the explanation of history.<br />The news of my appointment had come from two places. One was for the post of a lecturer at a new place, and the other was for the post of a field-officer in a reputed firm. This change had come along with a new and full explanation of an aspect of history in the making.<br />It was during these days that a quarrel had erupted between two groups of students in a college. And this discord took such dimensions that the whole of the city, even the little alleys of it reverberated with the shrieks of the horrified youth. Shops began to get closed. In a panic shutters began to be drawn down and shops closed. Those who couldn’t close them were looted. Other people were looking at the happenings from their windows and roofs. In those days such conflicts between the violent groups of students of the colleges of the city were nothing new, as I came out of the room, mother and Saba were looking at me much alarmed.<br />‘Father hasn’t come….!’<br />‘Who should know where he is?’<br />My mother voice, one among so many shrieking voices from the road, trembled.<br />When two hours had passed father came back with his shaky voice…to tell us that the louts had looted the shop. The paper bags were thrown away onto the road, machine parts were taken apart. Deciphering the look in father’s eyes---that were fastened to the royal vase on the balcony, I was passing along new paths of history and its explanation. Father was simply affecting for us his being disheartened and terrorized. He was by no means burdened or distressed, not even over fact that the shop had got looted and the question how we were going to meet the household expenses now. He was looking steadily at the royal vase. This contradiction fully explained the history. He had given precedence to the golden past over the frightfulness of the present.<br />‘What shall we do now?’ mother had lowered her head seeing a bat taking its flight from the courtyard to the veranda.<br />I said quietly, ‘father needn’t do anything now for I have got an offer of employment.’<br />No. at the moment the shine that rippled in father’s eyes would be missing in the eyes of Taimoor. Kings when they returned to their palaces after a war had been won.<br />Love gives a meaning to your life. Perhaps it is a better and proper time when that slender and tall Farheen should also be talked about. Farheen, who would press between her teeth an end of a corner of her shawl, and feel annoyed because once and again her shawl would not keep in its pro9per place, and perplexed as soon as she faced my eyes. The time when Ferheen had begun her visits to our house as Saba’s friend slipped off unnoticed, but by her arrival she won the heart of all the members of the family. Putting oil in father’s hair, sometimes taking, per force, the work off my mother’s hand in the kitchen, or combing Saba’s hair, she had silently declared that the house was hers and whatever she did was for the sake of her own house. A little conversation in the beginning, then a little bashfulness and then certain things in the presence of father and mother.<br />‘Why doesn’t he say prayers?’<br /> ‘What’s the use of reading lots and lots of books?’<br /> ‘he ought to visit the mosque, on Fridays at least.’<br /> Father, tell him if others don’t.’<br /> Or, at some other time asking Saba.<br />‘Why is your brother wearing angry airs all the time?<br />And one day finding Faheen alone in the kolkari of the house, I surreptitiously took this chit of a girl into my arms. Instead of crying out, ‘Ui Allah’ and taking to her heels, she almost nestled herself in my embrace and closed her eyes. Tremblingly, as if a river having been thirsty for years had got some solace. She whispered.<br />‘Some one will come.’<br />‘Then why do you make so much of mischief?’<br />Her ear-lobes were deep red, her eye-lids fluttered; the corner of her shawl had slipped a little. In a low voice she replied.<br />‘Please say a prayer, that brings brightness to the house.’<br />Pulling her once again to my chast I said,<br />‘Look here, Farheen I pay my respect to religion. But, you see the desolation of this crumbling house. This house, and so many questions arising there from, has carried me off the rituals, and the situation has prevailed for how long, I don’t recollect. But don’t get frightened. I am not so far removed that can’t come back. But you will not persuade me about the matter.’<br />With her frightened eyes, taking leave of me she said this much, ‘Never mind, I’ll say prayers for you too. I’ll beg for Rod’s pardon for you too.<br />Adjusting her shawl, Fareen had gone away in a hurry. At that very moment, on her having collided with the wall a large patch of crisp white-wash patch crust had fallen off the wall. Perhaps it was a knock by the present and a small part of the history had fallen off because of this momentary romantic feeling.<br />Why do so many lizards creep up the walls of old houses? My sight happened to fall on the wall wherefrom two lizards were looking at me attentively. I was looking at the weak ceiling of the room that trickled when it rained, the other near by walls were blackened because of the smoke from the kitchen fire. Thick bamboo poles had been installed to give support to the ceiling. Now these poles, having passed a very long period supporting their fall any moment.<br />A fragrance having touched me softly had just departed. The house had grown old. Father’s paper bags had been looted and the glow of the history of the brilliance less royal vase had succeeded in pacifying father’s eyes. While departing Farheen left behind, in my body the feel of the fragrance and the heat of her own inflamed body.<br />I had to make my choice. The two placement opportunities were there for me. I made up any mind to accept the offer by Delhi’s reputed firm-a journey from a small courtyard to a big one. There lay a chance of seeing the living history of Delhi while I stood rooted in the black one. Delhi where monuments of the beautiful past of Taimoor dynasty was sounding its knock at every step.<br />A handful of history:<br /> The news of my future departure for Delhi had spread through the house and for that reason the tales of students commotion and father’s paper-bag shop having been looted, were missing at the dinner table. In the eyes of father there gleamed the beautiful thoroughfare of the past and this road of the by gone ages there gleamed the red and white domes of kil-e-mualla.<br />‘so, you are going to Delhi?’<br />Father’s voice sounded as if I were going to the abode of our ancestors, to see our ancient residences.<br />After dinner at night we came up onto the roof. The moon was shining brightly in the sky. No speck of cloud was there any where in the sky. Our handy cots were laid out on the roof. I was on the one, Saba on another & father’s cot lay by the front balcony. Looking at the moon father got lost in the reminiscences of the history and the royal vase.<br />‘It was the month of may…. How should the things come to memory now? They are ancient—ancestral stories, passing from mouth to mouth, seem as if the whole thing has been from one’s own eyes…..’<br />Saba got up. And came to the father’s cot. She began to squeeze father’s head gently with her hands. Father’s eyes closed.<br />A fierce rebellion had taken place a rebellion! But only the spattering of dates remain when the actual dates have passed out. Those spatterings are repeated by the coming ages in their own ways. The rebellion was just as any rebellion would be. Who were the faithless?—our people, or the English? –was difficult to define. Aged 90, the old pensioner emperor was physically short of nothing. Doing nothing, he received Rs one lakh. The British officials worked in accordance with his consent only.<br />The time was about 8 and 9 the emperor was in his chamber of telling the rosary. Perhaps the prayer was over. As he came to the window, he saw clouds of smoke hovering over the far si9de of the river jamuna. The emperor sensed danger. He drew back flustered. He sent his camel men to see what the matter was. They returned and told him in embarrassed tones that the platoons of the rebel had come from Meerut. Brandishing their swords, giving fall rein to their horses, they were reckless soldiers coming from Meerut, raising commotion, massacring indiscriminately. The bungalows of the British had been around. Any English man who happened to came across was slayed. There was panic in the whole of the city through Calcutta gate. The English got the door shut. Death showered itself on Delhi. The fire of rebellion spread out far and wide. Whssen some calm resumed. After this carnage, the atmosphere reverberated with the slogan. ‘The uni9verse is Gods. The country is kings but the emperor who had passed through a long way of experiences knows that the rebels had terminated his days of peace; the future will be accompanied by ruin. And that was what exactly happened.<br />Father cleared his vocal cars audibly…was serene for a white...And then, once again, was shut within the dark caves of the history.<br />‘There was a compulsion on the part of the emperor. He had to support the rebels and also not to support them. They were his own subject who appealed to him to drive away the British and to command the royal authority once again. Now, it was either the emperor’s compulsion or the pressure of the golden history of Taimoor dynasty that, despite being angry with the rebels, he was compelled to accede to their desire…and then…how long could sentimental Indians keep their stand against the fraudulent British. The British forces entered the city through Kashmere Gate, Morie Gate, and Kabuli Gate. Massacre was let loose in the capital city. <br />Father turned to his side.<br />‘Shanzeb, ancestral record of the dynasty passes through the name. Tunny beghum was in pie Bagh. Ladies and the other women of the palace were assembled in the hall. The news was that the emperor had made preparations to hide himself in the tomb of Humayun, and the royal declaration was, ‘efforts should be made to preserve own lives.’ The tumultuous assault of the British could crack down upon the palace any moment. The palace was in a state of topsy-turvy. Futile efforts were being made to save lives. Shahzeb knew that in this state of disturbance all the near and dear ones would got separated….how could sympathy be expected to be there at the heart of the wounded British? But he did not want to leave the palace without any princely token with him…and there was the royal vase….leaving the palace, he made a parcel of this royal token, held Tunny begum by the hand and got out. By the time the news had gained currency that the emperor was taken prisoner and carried away to Delhi. The princes were killed near Khooni Darwaza and their heads brought on a platter covered with a dish cloth, to the listless emperor. Aah! This was the extreme of cruelty.<br />The clear and moon-lit bright sky was suddenly overcast by a few floating clouds that took the moon in their embrace.<br />Father was preparing to get asleep….’and then, this royal vase,’ he mumbled very quietly, ‘the last token…when I see it, I forget the ruin.’<br />Father once again passed into the caves of the past. And I had to complete my preparations for my departure for Delhi.<br />History and explanation<br />I know that history explains itself in its own way according to the time. Sometimes time presents it, making it cruel and unbearable, and at some other time it discovers for itself as clear a face as sparkling water from within the most callous faces of history.<br />But I had no idea that having come to Delhi any experiences could attach themselves with the past golden history in such a way. For that reason, this history of mine contains not only the history of the royal vase, but it has branches connected with it that, otherwise, would have been lost like the tributaries into the ocean-like greater history. No. perhaps you will not fully comprehend the truth contained in the fact that I am going to narrate, I must linger here a bit longer and make the things clearer.<br />At the time of my departure for Delhi father was pleased.<br />‘Just see, history has given us one more chance,’ he said.<br />‘That of hoisting the flag on Lal Quila or searching out the royal throne and occupying it once more,’ I mumbled.<br />During my days in Delhi, for four to five years, I didn’t face much difficulty in finding a beautiful floor for myself. You are already familiar with the story how father had insisted upon setting the royal vase in the drawing room as a prestigious token. And was successful in making it agreed to. Time rolled on. Saba got married and was happy in her father-in-law’s house. Farheen gained control over the household. The pressures and pains of there five years had, to some extent, made me a Delhi-wallah. Now this Asharaf Jahangeer, perhaps, was gaining courage, to some. Extent to look into the eyes of history. In the beginning Farheen had also thought of taking up a job, but changed her mind. She did not consider it necessary to sacrifice the ease and pleasure of life for a job. Moreover, after Favvad was born her responsibilities had also begun to mount with her growing age.<br />Outside the house, on the veranda, flower pots were set in a row. It was a holiday. I had already had a little quarrel with Farheen about a bonsai lemon plant.<br />‘You are mad. The plant will die.’<br />‘If it didn’t.?’<br />‘It will die.’<br />‘And if it didn’t?’<br />‘Well, let us see what turns up on time.’<br />On that holiday Fareen came on to the veranda. Hurried back to me, and then holding me by the wrist took me out to the verandah swiftly. The pot bonsai plant already bore a foretoken of the arrival of miniature lemons. I was almost taken aback, couldn’t believe myself. Farheen was all elation…. As if the history had stretched out its limbs. The imperialism asleep within me through years woke up quietly. What ever I was saying. I did not know what it was. Perhaps it was a fun only…but it was perhaps a defeated emperor speaking…<br />‘Yes, the defeat accepted. Speak out…what do you ask for? You can gain independence it you wish to…, can get a divorce from me,<br />‘Divorce! Talaq?’ Farheen shuddered. The minute lemon buds peeping from the plant had hid themselves under the light-green leaves for fear of the chilly gusts.<br />‘What….what did you say?’ Farheen was looking at me with her frightened eyes.<br />‘no.’ I myself was surprised. The absurd words had no sense here. Perhaps such matters running continually on news channels had turned me into a cruel ruler at that weird moment. A thing that I had never imagined of. A thing that filled great terror in the eyes of heartily laughing Farheen perhaps I had seen the blood oozing out or dripping from the minute citruses borne on the branches of history.<br />Farheen’s eyes were misty that night.<br />‘I don’t know why you said like that, but there must be something within you. You may tell me that, or you may not. You are absent from the house. You are a renowned person. You have calls from women. You are engaged in meetings. Tell me the truth Asharaf. Didn’t you think of Favvad for a second even?<br />I saw favvad was asleep on bed.<br />‘I am sorry…,’ could be the cure. I was trying to fight against myself, but the sentence ‘I’m sorry’ couldn’t come up to my lips till the end. After all what monstrous thing had I done? Just a little joke. And it is not a talaq if you utter the word just for a joke. Such jokes can pass between a wife and her husband. But Farheen seemed to be hurt. Perhaps she had kept crying over the joke for a long time. Her eyes were swollen.<br />‘Why don’t you say prayers?<br />‘That is the matter that stands between myself and my God.’<br />‘No. it’s not a matter between you and your God only,’ Farheen cried out, ‘now there is favvad also he is five years old now. He has to know his religion. He is to be seated to read the Quraan Sharif. Father also was saying yesterday, ‘Don’t make him another Asharaf….’<br />Farheen was silent for a moment.<br />‘if you said the prayers, you would be afraid of God, and then you wouldn’t have abused me so gravely. How should you know for us, the women, a talaque is much more dark than the death itself.’<br />Once again she burst out crying. At this occasion the defeated emperor roared out,<br />‘you are mad. You don’t have the capacity to digest even a little joke. Will I have to measure and weigh every word before I speak to you? That was just a cup of tea. A holiday is rare. You laid waste this holiday.’<br />I had shouted so very loudly that the sound soared high up to the dull rounded pinnacles of the Lal Quila. Favvad got up and began to cry. Having evicted myself of the dust storm gathering at my heart, as I descended to my drawing room, my eyes caught the sight of the royal vase, involuntarily. I felt as if there was some relation between myself and this royal vase, a relation that I probably felt, but had tried to keep away the awareness from myself.<br />I had the feeling; the silent eyes of father were looking at me from behind the closed doors of the adjacent room. Perhaps mother also was there behind him, mother with lack-luster eyes…perhaps it was a moment of my own examination for me. Then, was it a new explanation of the history connected with the royal vase, whatsoever happened today? The way in which the beastliness had taken possession of me in an unguarded moment of mine had never before taken possession of me. Had the dictator slumbering in my blood taken a turn? Or, was it a common thing?—a story that repeated itself against the natural behavior that had been mine till now.<br />And I had to make Fareen realize that whatever I had said connected with the bonsai lemon plant was just a small joke, and also to prove that it was a joke. Two or three times—and at one of the times, in a very romantic mood, taking Farheen within my arms and kissing her—I had said to her, then, why don’t you accept the talaque from me?’ and having said this much I had laughed out boisterously, crying out, ‘see! How gravely frightened you are! A talaq is not performed just by such an utterance. It was just a little joke. But why does your face grow so very pale?’ <br />But, perhaps, I did not know that at times history in its own explanation is so ruthless and cruel that two lives are set at a stake.<br />The politics of ‘Fatwa’<br /> The company in which I was one of the directors is named Millard Company. Mallard had launched a number of products---soap, oil, Basmati—in the market. Within a few years Millard become the first choice in the household. Presently, I had the responsibilities ranging from entertaining the foreign delegates to making an advertisement film for a new product. For making such a film I had recurred the services of a prominent and famous bollywood film director. After consultations, the director had secured the services of a renowned cricketer. No advertisement of this cricketer had appeared on any channel as yet.<br /> Perhaps the story of my bad luck or the sinking of my star begins here. The advertisement was finalized. Having been finalized the budget came to me. And after I had signed, the director shot three films, ten to forty seconds each. The advertisement had come up satisfactorily well. But my ill-luck had also begun here. A panel of the board of directors had serious objections with regard to this cricketer. The story of his taking drugs and beating his wife had been highlighted on the news channels. The board was of the opinion that as the advertisement came, Indian families will oppose it, resulting in the failure of the product because our products are called house hold products, and the matter took so great a momentum that all the members of the board of directors took their stand against me. On the other hand I was alone---and these were the days when the story of Farheen’s anger had begun. On the veranda the bonsai lemon plant was in its youth but my household to have come under the influence of some evil eye. I desired to talk with Farheen when I returned at nights, but her anger was nowhere near to coming to an end. My blood pressure shot up as soon as I got back home. Coming back from my office I hoped to have calm and peace at home, but Farheen’s presence had begun to make me irritable now. At seemed as if some animal within me kept telling me quietly at every moment I spent by Farheen that none the other but farheen was responsible for all this and my mind would go on experiencing the heat as if put on the red hot coal. Under such conditions I expected I shall get help, I shall get encouragement from my wife. But, not to say anything of the help, my petty joke had also been attached with the interminable anger by Farheen. The difficulty with me that at home I could nto speaks to anyone about the opposition or the conspiracy going on in the office4 against me.<br />That night, perhaps, the volcano at my heart had erupted out. A meeting of the board of directors was held again about the advertisement film. Perhaps I have never suffe4red such a great humiliation in my life. When I reached home my mind had already ceasedAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-25685274111078004242010-04-01T09:59:00.000-07:002010-04-01T10:00:23.744-07:00the rain ,darkness and..The Rain, Darkness and….<br />(This story is absolutely imaginary. It bears no relationship with any writer, publisher or dispute.)<br /><br />It is not proper to link the whole sequence of happenings—that you will try to know, hereafter, through this story—with any unbelievable or dramatic occurrence, though there are, perhaps, some truths that are strange and alarming. It is difficult to imagine whether you have come across any such situations in your life when oral communication is lost and, instead of that. Extreme silence or cognizance of some presence remains that touches you, 9in the deep of silence, and says. ‘There is some one….’ This story was, all of a sudden, born of such an extra-ordinary moment.<br /><br />1<br /> <br />The atmosphere was calm and lifeless. It can be said with confidence that you can’t hope of raising any sounds or movements in such a calm and lifeless atmosphere. At this moment everything was in accordance with expectations, that is, such as Shantanu had thought of. A day with bright but indifferent sun. a heavy autumnal morning and, in my garden, the rows of odorless flower plants—Sune, Gilbahri, and Tili—that I had brought from my Alsatian free publisher a few days ago. Your sense of self esteem about the great achievement of having been born a Homosapien may suffer a rude shock if you have been, like Bernard Shaw. Fondly upholding the conviction that a man may be transformed into a superman, when you read the epithet ‘Alsatian free’ for the English publisher I must apologize for that yet assert that he deserved no better compliment per Shantanu’s reckoning. After unexpected and exceptional success of ‘Vaasanaa Hai Do Raste’ this English publisher, having come to Shantanu are passing through some sadness—some deep agony said,<br />‘Excuse me. For some astrological considerate I had to choose an ill-omened day to visit you.’<br />‘An ill-omened day?’<br />‘I sold off my old and faithful Alsatian on this day. But I did not suffer any loss Shasnanu.’<br />He had all the particulars of expenditure, with regard to the Alsatian, on his busy finger tips. A separate room for him. So much on his diet. There was no mention of his faithfulness and love among the accounts. So, if observed minutely, this English publisher (who was an Indian but, since he published English books and with the impression formed by the way of his way of living, to Shantanu’s mind this very name for him seemed to be quite appropriate), the sale of Alsatians was in no way a deal incurring a loss in any way. And accordingly, to the mind of Marget Alior, of all the books he had published, this ‘dog’ pleased so well that she made up her mind to buy him at any cost. In this way, with one percent emotion and ninety-nine percent of economic considerations the bargain was settled and Miss Marget with the dog pressed to he fleshy bosom, felt emotional relations with the dog for a while. Then accompanied by the dog, she took her flight to the land of Mahashweta or the village of Nazarul,<br />So, to be short, ‘Seine’,’Gilbahri’ and ‘Tili’ flowers were under our consideration. It was this very ‘Alsatian Free’ who had brought them for him. And in response to this act of his Shantanu asked him some questions that were, more or less, of the following character,<br />‘where do these flowers grow?’<br />‘In Italy.’<br />‘Do Italian ladies also like these flowers?’<br />The candid answer should have been a ‘No’; for they were beautiful sans sweetness of smell could it mean that beautiful ladies also lack brilliance and fragrance? In the publisher’s opinion the answer was a definite ‘No’, but so far as literary environment is concerned, there are chances that it will cast its effect in the future. And that too, when a man quite familiar with these flowers is a publisher also, who should come to your door and take greater interest in these flowers than in your literary creations.<br />There were many more other questions. For example, ‘Will the climate here suit them?-or, are these flowers used in medicines giving you energy and strength just Viagra etc. do? (Obviously, the publisher had no answer to many of these questions).<br />Much the same had happened on that heavy autumnal morning, the happening that had imparted their imprint on the mind of Shantanu that stayed on there.<br />Every time he adds his books, he was sure poetry is a false vision, literature is not a touch. To spend the whole of one’s life in the hope of a reward worth Rs one lakh is not a disciplinary action against ones life. This petty amount, Rs one lakh, he gets transferred to his A.I.O. account as soon as his second or third edition is published.<br />“The whole of one’s life only for a prize rewarding one’s achievements?...My foot….”<br />Shantanu used to laugh out. He remembered a number of his friends. One of them was Sadhan chakraborty, chewed betel leaves, took tobacco snuff, didn’t mind even to see where his nose would ease itself. He didn’t care even to see that it caused cough to others. He took his snuff box, applied the powdered tobacco into his nostrils and sat down to thinks. After a little while freed himself from his trans, caught an end of his lion cloth and cleaned his nose. Now Shantanu is in discord with such for good-for-nothing persons. He has had grave quarrels with a number of them on their trying to pose themselves as ‘literary primes’. For an example take that very Saghan Chakroborty, and just listen to the conversation that occurred the previous November.<br />‘Your literary creations have disproportionately keener stink of your tobacco snuff…’<br />‘Oh! So you have begun to understand literature too.’ This was counter attack by Saghana Chakraborty.<br />‘Literature is in your snuff. If you’re thinking during the interval between inhaling the snuff and wiping it off your nose is literature, please excuse me.’<br />‘What…?’ there were wrinkles on the brows of Saghan.<br />‘was such a day ever to come when I should have to listen to your discourses on literature! Brother, if you are a creative genius, let me remain a mangy dog, and that too sans hair straying from lane to lane.<br />‘Anyway, what’s it that you want to say?’ Saghan glared. The thin bones of the body twitched.<br />Bursting out in a peal of laughter Shantanu said,<br />‘Listen to me Saghan Chakraborty. One of the two quarrelling persons told the other that he had taken him to be a gentleman. The other one replied that he had also taken him to be a gentleman. Now, the first one said, “O.K...I take my words back.” Ha…ha…ha...<br />In lieu of a sentence that might have been the closing one, Saghan Chakraborty remained silent and I can recall the expression of defeat on his countenance, even today.<br />‘Have come to you with a purpose.’<br />‘What?’<br />‘Wanted some money.’<br />‘Why don’t you ask your publisher for it?’<br />‘I do ask him. But, again and again….’ Saghan was applying snuff to his nostrils.<br />‘Really. We are mangy dogs of the street. Shy dogs whom every good for nothing publisher kicks off. They all want to publish books, but when they have to pay for it …A shy dog…shy even when he is creating literature. Perhaps for this reason the whole system has remained unaltered through centuries.<br />The atmosphere was calm and lifeless, but someone like Dushyanta tried to toss up a stone. An explosion was heard where there was no movement felt earlier. Though it created no crash, created no stir, but it did raise a commotion within the atmosphere. Intensely deep silence was broken up with the blast caused by some weary some conversation. In the spacious cabin of the English publisher, he was looking at the cover-flap of his newly released book, with the eyes expressing the feeling of a bit of restlessness and a sense of deep disappointment. No. the colour is not suitable. The selection of colors is wrong. And why this abstract art? Why should a girl be felt to be a well or a snake? In its place, why couldn’t there be a very time when two young writers, there be a living, beautiful girl?’<br />And this was the very time when two young writers, sitting on the sofa in the cabin, were discussing the poems by Josef brad ski.<br />‘people… are dying….’<br />‘when we are pouring. Scotch in glasses or killing cockroaches, people are dying.’ Yarning up, Shantanu saw. For a moment the whole of the building was transformed into a helpless youth, where only the stump of a bold and withered had remained. Political analyses began. The second world war, alliances, stories of clashes, Vietnam war, to Grenada, Afghanistan to Iraq…chile to panama and Nicaragua. The stayed innocent children of Philistine ….and….<br />People are dying while we are transacting our nameless desires….. Make pleasure houses…lose or gain confidence…buy mutton or chicken….people are dying…..<br />Turning to Shantanu, cast a look…an impulse to become apart of this horrible discussion arose within him…people are making love too…while we are tying a knot or pouring Scotch…in parks…at houses..On roads…islands…deserts and heaths…people are embracing…making love…despite battles and wars…. Kissing each other… clasping each other in their arms. And the point to remember is-it is not only they who are young; it is they also who are much more advanced in their age having left their youthful days for behind…<br />This was the appropriate time. To tie the moment, or to take the moment in one’s confidence, that secretly told Shantanu that the world is still suspended at the cross-roads…and who have suspended them? It is they….people whose talks are more dangerous than any lethal weapon….<br />The sound of something shattering was heard… it was a glass fallen down into the floor.. From the receptionist girl to the two young philosophers counting the deaths on political global scale, mustered up their courage to look into that direction…she was a girl. No. a lady, bob. Hair, fair complexion, the intoxicating body…as the flames of a red hot hissing stove. The age seemed, somehow, to have freezed the rising tempests of the ocean for eternity…the resentment on the face of the lady was explicitly visible…Desai, that is, the English publisher, in his Endeavour to say something, looked either. Like an innocent lamb, or cunning like a tiger. The woman held a paper in her hand and was saying something in a loud voice, flashing up the paper. Shantanu got out of the glass cabin on the pretext of picking up his old book. The lady was beautiful. The tree of her being was bearing so many roses that sent up their exquisite fragrance from her beautiful face—the rubier now because of her growing anger. Perhaps, innocent of the fragrance she was busy in clarifying her points of argument. Her sentences were explosive….<br />‘No, you shouldn’t have done that, not in the least to the man on his death bed….’<br />‘See…I…nothing like that…you…easily….can talk sitting in the chair.’ To escape from her assaults, Deasi was seeking the help of words.<br />‘No, never. And you, talking so restfully, asking me to sit down, do you the meaning of rest? A common man may become Sharma only after having sacrificed his rest for the life, with an unsparing dedication. Do you know what it means? Transformation into a Shimal Sharma?<br />‘For us he is a symbol of honor and greatness…’<br />‘Oh! Not that je is, he was. You have made him a mere puny piece of history. He was on his bed in hospital. He was ill. And what were you doing for Shimal? You were filling up your pockets, erecting your buildings, enlarging your bank accounts. But on whose earnings? Whose money? Shimal’s. You are the exploiters of gentle people like Shimal. In your baseness you have been violating his gentility…’the face of the woman was now red. I used to tell Shimal, change your publisher. But he was occupied with his criterion of greatness in his creation only. Or, he was nourishing within himself the childish desire of seeing great memories turning into history. But is that a solution to all the problems? The values born of cultural inheritance, a tussle of moral imprints, and the writing of protestations about things….were not these the epithets attached to his life. Long writing, in the name of understanding his creations, or reactions? All a fuss. Had Shimal written literature of protestation, he would have protested against the fiscal evaluation of his words, would have asked for proper evaluations? But take heed. It is not Shimal now. It is I, and I will not spare you.’ <br />For a second, looking at the English publisher, she saw the eyes of a goat that had been slaughtered and whom the butcher was going to flay. Poor Deasai..Shantanu had already made his preparations for his exit. He did not know why it was so, or what right he had to do so, or in the words of Shananu Chakraborty. Why do you care for society or the things concerning society? Keep selling what you are selling. There are so many to buy it. For the rest? You need not investigate after the values or search for the new values….<br />But the attraction of the beauty of speech of the woman was so great that he came out and after a few minutes only the woman was seen coming out too in the full blaze of her rage advancing towards her little Zen…she was in her stylish jeans and a red t-shirt. Moving towards her car she cast a glance towards Shanftanu, and this was the very moment when Shantanu, and this was the very moment when Shantanu found himself ready for a direct address to her.<br />‘Please, could you spare a minute for me?’<br />‘Why? Standing at the reception you had been listing to us.’ She bore an angry look. Her eye-brows had an angry curve.<br />‘Yes.’<br />‘That matters little to me. I don’t have any interest in you.’<br />Even after the Zen had sped away like a blast of wind, the words of the lady kept ringing in my ears—‘that matters little to me. I don’t have any interest in you.’ Shantanu smiled serenely. He did not imagine that there could be any talk more free than this one in his first meeting with her. But his heart said, a second meeting was due to occur. Quite soon.<br /><br />2<br /><br />And it was not just a chance happing, nor was the environment calm and dead. The magic sheet of the night was spread as far as the eye could see. And innumerable stars twinkling on this sheet were trying to establish the belief that there was no need to produce a commotion by tossing up a piece of stone. To Shantanu, living lonely had become a part of his beautiful life. To him girls were more a symbol of romance. And sex than a source of inspiration, the would tempt him in so very beautiful nights, or play Menaka Roopsi and Gandhari in his bed, but Mandira?<br /> The twinkling stars would at a time form the shape of a snake, at another a well, and at still another fish—the symbols of sex. And in every symbol he heard the music of the flowing stream that Mandira’s body was….in the presence of the stars, just in a moment Mandira’s body got transformed into an exquisitely beautiful piece of art. And, it may be said, at the moment Shantanu was firm on his notion about art. Is art only a concept, only to be kept in or to occupy a place in a gallery? Is Mandira also a concept only?—devoted to an aged, now expired, man?<br /> The caravan of twinkling stars was creeping on the blue sheet of the sky…and now these stars were transformed into a great piece of art by some great artist. And Mandira was there in it, ‘I am not a well, nor a snake, nor a fish even…I am a poem…just a piece of poetic composition…why don’t you read?’<br /> Shantanu recollected. On that day when the Zen had disappeared speeding away, he returned to the glass cabin. Desai was awaiting him.<br /> ‘Where had you gone to?’<br /> ‘Out, for a smoke.’<br /> ‘Anyway, that was good of you. With his down cast eyes and a cheque book in his hand, Desai was lost in some thought. The spring-bow of his glasses near his eyes slipped again and again.<br />‘You did not do well to sell away your Alsatian.’ He stopped in the middle of his narration.<br />‘Ha….ha….’ Desai laughed… ‘So, you remember. You do remember that Alsatian, or you don’t?’<br />‘Why not? We have been together for such a long time…you remember the Alsatian, but a sick writer, who was lying on a bed in a hospital, you forgot?<br />Desai gave a start, but instantly broke into a loud laughter,<br />‘So you heard us?’<br />‘Had to, who was that girl?’<br />‘Not a girl. Call her a woman. She is Mandira, Composes poems, paints. God off her feet swayed by the compositions of Shimal and…’<br />‘they got married.’<br />‘yes. Did not consider over his age the difference between her age and Shimals was vast, over two times.’<br />Shantanu was just going to say ‘love is never mindful of age differences.’ But checked himself. The English publisher was not in a mood of talking about the matters concerning love. He did not know much of love. But Shanuanu was against keeping love within confines. Love is a swift flowing river, and this river can neither be retained within confines nor can a bridge be constructed over it as it continues to flow with all its violence. He had kept love apart from literature. To him love was the beauty of the body than of the soul. And he could freely stand against those who opposed this beauty…immaterial, if this person be his English publisher even…<br />Desai was laughing boisterously.<br />‘This maze of royalty…everybody is not a Shantanu…’<br />Shantanu felt, the body of laughing Desai was transformed into a dog’s tail, wagging vigourously.<br />‘Why?’<br />‘Because you know letter than I do.’ Desai was becoming serious now. He was fair complexioned. Dark glasses over his eyes. When he tried to think his face would get transformed into that of an otter….he was laughing.<br />‘Oh Shantanu, just see you…tell me, what need was there for me to nurse within me this disease called literature? All the dunce…,’ he paused for a moment, ‘take themselves to be Shakespeare, Arundhati or Kiran Desai. Do they do so or not?’ he was laughing in all his vulgarity. ‘They think they can make a hole in the sky. They think every passer by on the road knows them as he knows Shahrukh khan or Amitabh bachchan. Should he come out masses would encircle him.’ Desai was laughing… ‘Autograph, autograph…sons of a bitch. In same composers even they won’t read them for whom they write. And they think there are persons who read them in every house. Even the dogs in the streets are licking up his literature. How do they sell? Who buys them?’<br />He pulled out a book of Shimal who had an enormous nose.<br />‘See the first edition. It is five hundred only. Isn’t it? Now think of the expenses one incurs in printing out 500 copies. Who knows it better than you do? Even these would be difficult to sell out were there no support from the government godowns. And Mandira thinks we are making crores by selling out Shimal. We are erecting palaces, making mansons…in fact….’<br />Desai was whispering now. ‘ A frustrated lady… there comes a time when such women having chewed for long the stone of a mango eject it out and then want to count the tree….the trees that bear money. But the trees yielding what an amount of money. Brother…Don’t you follow me Shanranu?’<br />And this was the point where Desai blundered. Under such circumstances Shantanu might have for given him and forgotten all his anger, but the rude way of referring to Mandira was unbearable to him. Likings and disliking have their own psychological bases…Shantanu’s face were expressive of his annoyance. He gently interfered.<br />‘Have you got your blood pressure checked?’<br />‘Why?’<br />‘Get it checked Desai Shantanu words was icy cold. ‘Don’t you remember Desai…my first book…?’<br />‘Oh, that one… ‘Sex and life…’<br />‘Yes, I am asking you about that very book. How many volumes of it were published in the first edition? In lakhs, despite that you had to publish new editions every year.<br />‘Oh, no! Desai put in front of him the cheque-book that he had held for a long time. ‘This is the amount of royalty this year. You can scan all the vouchers if you like to. You sell, and so it is a joy to offer heavy amounts of royalty to you. But that writer…’ the frown was there on Desai’s brows. ‘May curse fall upon Nimisha Deshpande who handed over this publishing house of hers to me. We fared well publishing English, children’s books on sex paid heed to the advice of friends and well wishers. ‘Do publish literature too. Of course, money is there, but there is fame too. Great people will visit you.’ But those great ones did not prove to be really great.’ Once again there were wrinkles seen round his month expressing his disgust. ‘They all take themselves to be vikram seth and Arundhati Roy. I say, show your worth by your sale.’<br />Mandira’s phone number shone out on the diary folio lying open in front of him. At this juncture Shantanu stopped the savorless discussion. Picked the diary up, memorized the number for a moment, took out his mobile and got the number saved. For what purpose? Perhaps he himself had no idea. Took his cheque and left for home<br />Shantanu felt that the wind was on the rise. A caravan of clouds drifted across the sky. The shine of the stars was out. Reaching home he brought indira’s number on his cell phone screen a number of times but did not send out a call. Every time he was lost in deep thinking. ‘what should I do? What is there for me to tell her? Why do I desire to see her? And that too when she is the widow of a celebrated author, Shimal. The lady who herself is an artist, writes poem. Once again he brought the cherished number on to the mobile screen. The momentary consideration of propriety got veiled by the layers of fragrance, for the present. He was feeling a strange stir is his body.<br />The question was asked in English, in a voice bearing a tings of anger. ‘who are you.’<br />‘it is I. Shantanu. On the outside of the office of Royal King Publisher….’<br />‘Oh the outside?’ she seemed to be thinking. ‘I can’t recall anything.<br />‘On the matter of royalty on books by Shimal….’<br />‘Oh. Did I not tell you I have?’<br />‘no interest in you? But the other person may take interest in you, isn’t it? I mean, in the literature. In Shamal’s and your literature.’ Shantanu added in a little lower tone, ‘wanted to see you. Don’t deny me please.’<br />The phone was switched off.<br />To be short, Shantanu had no differently in finding the address of Shimal’s house. He did not ask Desai her address. The avoidance of Desai was deliberate.<br />What followed was something like passing through a dense and deep fog, and that too for a person like Shantanu who was born in a family of businessmen in which there was neither any struggle for existence nor any window for the artistic tastes to let in. money was everything. The family, that counted money from morning till night. He couldn’t be definite about the time since when he had acquired the habit of reading pocket books or romantic novels. For Shantanu they exposed other romantic worlds, the worlds where the doors opened stealthily for Shantanu as the night deepened. By the time he attained manhood he had travelled from the world of money to the world of romanticism. During this period, sparing some vacant time for himself, he wrote two novels. Usually the heroines of the novels were the ones who actually figured in his life, or those who accompanied him in his loneliness of abstraction. Initially the members of his family opposed this writing business, but the businessman father set an idea in his mind firmly that if penmanship brings you remunerations as any other prospering business will do, do write, otherwise take up the business. His novels like ‘the king is sellable’ made him the emperor of the world pocket books within no time. Soon after, the process of its adoption for the film began and this literary journey of Shantanu led him to greater monetary success than his father’s business did for him. After that Shantanu had never to turn back in his march to successes. He changed his publishers many a time. He had other offers, too, apart from the world of pocket books. This was the time when he came closer to his English publisher who praised his Alsatian much more highly than he did any piece of literature, though Shantanu could never discern in his personality the swiftness of an Alsatian. Every time when he talked of a cheque or an advance royalty he looked like a stray dog and that too mangy one. Nevertheless, for Shantanu Desai was a big party. He did not want to leave him whatever it might cost him.<br />Shantanu did not marry. He always liked the pomp and show of a single life, and also the delusion of considering himself an author and being called so by others. He was, however, out of this fog at times when his status as an author was put to question. The truth of his own world was more acceptable to him than the truths of the blank world of other authors. After all he was also fighting against what was undesirable in the society-against blind faiths. Love was also an ingredient of the social structure and for that reason his heroes and heroines love passionately. Shantanu had read Premchand. He had also read Sharatchand. In the beginning he had tried to read a book by Shimal too, but Shimal could not be read by him. Or, better to say, he could not read so very dry literary a book. At times he found himself unable to understand why such books are written and, after all, who reads them.<br />On the next day, exactly at 11 o’clock, he was at the gate of Mandira’s flat. One thing that caused him some embarrassment was the awareness that there was a time when Shimal lived there.<br />The sun was pleasantly bright. The vegetation looked serene. Shantanu felt that at time Shimal too used to sit there bringing out his chair from the study. From the time he entered the house to the time he sank in the sofa of the drawing room, he was constantly occupied with the thought of shimal. There was a large portrait of Shimal in front of him. <br />The maid servant brought in a glass of water and moment’s later Mandira was there with a tea-tray in her hands. She was in her smartly fitting jeans and a red T-shirt. She put the tea tray on the table. No sooner had we begun her formal talks than she began her assaults with dry question.<br />‘What do you do?’<br />‘I’m a writer.’<br />‘Writer?’ Mandira took a start. ‘Writer, Nothing in you shows you to be a writer. A writer is distinct even by his behave. Have tea please.’ Passing on the her assault continued.<br />‘Do you know what literature is?’<br />‘Well…’<br />‘Anyhow, what is your name?’<br />Shantanu told her his name. there was a flutter in the two twinkling eyes. They closed and then opened up….’Shantanu? that pocket-book author?’ Mandira was laughing. ‘The king is Sellabli….’ There was a film also. A c-grade film on a c-grade novel…So that is you. Desai, the publisher, and you too. You sell like not-cake. And there is a category of readers that reads you.’ There was anger in her laughter. ‘People who eat groundnut and puffed rice while on their travel, sitting in the railway compartments.’ Her eye-lids were tense. Thinking of himself Shantanu was wonder struck. Such patience in him even after so many explosive expressions. Of hers! Perhaps he had fore thought of it. This fire was a part of Mandira’s youth. When she was angry, the whole of her body would turn into a beautiful little rose bush…all the symbols. The well, the snake, would come together in her buxom body and raise a storm in his muscles.<br />‘So, you are a creative writer, a man of letters….!’ Mandira was laughing. ‘Do you know what is a creative expression? What does it take to become a Shimal? In my very tender age I thought one day I would take a leap into the swimming pool—that was his body—and forget everything else. You don’t even know what the truth to the height of perfection in art through his compositions…Do you know, I would wake up at nights and see him writing. While he, lika a master composer, proceeded in his writhing, the whole of his body seemed to produced an enchanting melody. I heard the melody. I still her him. While writing the whole of his body was a fine musical instrument, and he himself was the player of it. In his room the angels that bore grace and light would gather round him. Do you know what ‘words’ are? How they are used? Words are not petty things that one could waste away for nothing. As you do. They are to be treasured, to be used sparingly and judiciously. In the way as Shimal did. There…that was his table…he is still writing…’<br />There were tears in Mandira’s eyes. For a moment a shine came in them. She got up trembling. Moved ahead ….kissed the chair…restored to her seat.<br />‘Were you an author, I wouldn’t have called for you. Shimal was the only artist, all the rest are rest are artisans.’<br />Tea cups were empty. Mandira’s eyes still looked strained… ‘but why did you come to see me?’ she laughed, ‘will you fight for me? Against Desai? Will you console me? Will you remember Shimal? I should presume, you haven’t read even a single book by him. Is it not?’<br />‘You are right, tried to read one. Couldn’t go through the whole of it.’ <br />Mandira laughed out aloud. ‘That is Shimal’s victory Shimal wouldn’t be Shimal if the likes of you could comprehend him. He would be a Shantanu. No?’<br />She was laughing. For a moment there happened to be an explosion in this stance of laughing of hers. The lily white hand, while passing across the table touched Shantanu’s. the little touch had all the power of the tsunami waves exercised on Shananu’s being. The expression on Mandira’s face altered too. The experience of the hot, steaming touch was more thrilling that the preceding multitude of his experiences with human bodies.<br />Mandira drew in a cold breath. ‘In fact in the present global system we have forgotten our mother tongue, that is the tragedy of it. Our slavery to the British gave us this curse, I. e. English. Our reading, living and assimilating even what is there in our native culture our habits and ideals-has got colored with English, through and through. We have adopted their tongue. In fact the subjection of the native languages of many a country is the out come of their weak economy. Had Shimal written in English only, he would have attained a different standing. He could write if he wanted to, but his own experiences, his ideals and impressions had so very deep impress on him that he could not think of writing in any other tongue. And for that reason people like Desai…’<br />Something happened suddenly. Mandira stopped for a moment. She was looking towards the chair at the front. A sense of awe seemed to fill her eyes.<br />The books in the almirah arranged in rows, Shimal’s table, old fashioned chair, colour falling off the wall in flacks, but rows and rows of flower pots—long lines of them. By the time Shantanu reached this colony. He had visualized this ‘literary solitude’ and the philosophical beams of sun light filtering through the boughs. But the uproariousness of the silence that he had witnessed in the whole of the colony, and in Mandira’s flat in particular, was discernible in the awe-struck eyes of Mandira, now. The philosophie4s ceased to stir. her pupils were dilated with awe and her ears cautions as if they heard some steps. She was looking towards Shimal’s room with her constant gaze…<br />‘There is some one…no. since morning today I have had a feeling that there is some one …did you…’<br />Mandira turned to Shatanu…and what followed was unbelievable…all of a sudden she held Shantanu’s hand.<br />Mandira turned to Shantanu…and what followed was unbelievable….all of a sudden she held Shantanu’s hand.<br />‘in the morning when I came here, he was standing here….did you hear the steps…and then…..there in the room.she almost shrieked, ‘I am asking you. Did you see him or you didn’t.<br />Then she cried out aloud, ‘Sumitra!’<br />The maid working in the house came in rushing, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter, Madam?’ Mandira’s eyes were red with anger. ‘You closed the rear window, or you didn’t?’ I had asked you to do that in the morning itself. Always keep that window shut. This happening has been continuing for the last two months. There is…there is someone…someone who having come here…didn’t you hear sumita? She roared, ‘get lost. Go and close the window.’<br />‘Madam, it is scarcely 12.’<br />‘Scarcely twelve,’ she mimicked. The fear was quite obvious on her face. ‘Twelve o’clock…can a thief not come at 12 o’clock? Go. First close the window. You…here?’<br />She held Shantanu firmly by the hand unmindful of his acquiescence or otherwise. She moved towards Shimal’s room.<br />‘He was there. Did you see him or didn’t? No please, speak out. Do tell me the truth. Didn’t you also see him there? Near this very chair was he. It wasn’t a shadow…he was looking at us. But….’<br />Mandira released the hand. ‘Who could he be? And the windows have wire nettings. Where can he have escaped to? May be, while talking we just got a momentary wink, and he took advantage of that. But, after all, why does he come?-and where does he go to?<br />Suddenly her body trembled. Her eyes dilated. Because of her astonishment. It seemed as if she tried to listen to some sound very attentively. In a flash she turned and took Shantanu’s hand. ‘He is in the house still.’ She was pointing in her child-like simplicity. ‘he is present…listen..His foot steps…he is going upstairs now,…on the stairs..Some with me.’ Mandira turned swiftly.<br />Stairs began in the corridor. Narrow stairs. There light was dim. She halted moment arily, cast a glance at him. And then making a motion to him swiftly ascended the stairs. There was an open room at the upper end of the stairs. Ventilators were shut. There was a curtain on the window, a heavy one. Besides books in bundles. And a broaden sofa set. Other useless things also were there. A clean bed was laid there. ‘He came here. These are Shimal’s books. The publisher sent them a few days ago. See. Gaven’t been unwrapped yet…’ all of a sudden she cried, ‘see, he is there. He is still there…’ see cried out in a trembling voice, ‘who is there…’ a shadow caused by a beam of light behind the curtain fell on the floor. ‘Have you still any doubts?’ she said. She was looking at him with her wild eyes. ‘Who is there? She cried. And suddenly she caught a glance of a spider’s web. Over the window. Just close to it was a lizard on the wall. She shrieked. Suddenly at that very moment Shantanu felt as if he was covered up with volcanic eruptions. Forgetting everything else she had turned and submerged herself in his body. He felt a great shudder. And then he felt, the most beautiful music ever created in the world was being played inaudibly within himhslf. Her hips were firm. They were, perhaps, the most beautiful hips in the world. The feet were all a shiver. Thousands of fireworks were being let off within himself, he felt. The very next moment a change took place nothing loss than an explosion to him. In a flash she stood apart from his body, looked at him with anger and shouted, ‘haven’t you departed yet? Drank water, sipped your tea, what are you doing here now? See, what time by the watch is. I can’t bear the presence of a person like you for such a length of time.’ Looking at hem Mandira shouted, ‘don’t look at me. Be gone…’ before departing Shantanu turned to have look of hers. Her eyes were still dilated with fear. She was mumbling, ‘there is someone.’<br />Shantanu passed out through the open gate. The bushes outside the flat were motion less, a swing for children was still oscillating. Perhaps some child had just left it. The outside lawn felt soft. The leaves fallen off the trees lay on the grass. The strange silence in the atmosphere was the transformation of the voice of frightened Mandira. ‘There is someone.’ But, perhaps, there was one. Having come out he started his car. He did not have any sense of guilt or guilt or remorse on his part. In the words of Mandira, ‘he was not hurt, not even one percent.’<br />By the time he came out and got into his car, the warmth of Mandira’s burning hand and the feel of her touch had permeated his whole body. He smiled as he put his hands on the stearing. By the time the car caught speed he had reviewed the whole of the wondrous happenings of the morning.<br />But the question was why did the happenings take this shape.’ Was it just Mandira’s confusion? Why did Mandira get confused when he uttered the name, Desai? Has this hallucination been going on since long? Or, was it the presence of a man, other than her husband, in her room that had stirred her up that much? Suddenly in his vision she was transformed from Mandira to the snake, the fish, or the cover page about which he had developed a non-appreceative view at the first sight. The whole of Mandira was before him, speaking pointedly to Desai of the Royal publishing house in his cabin two days ago. And then here…at Shimal’s residence…a most childish fear taking her in its possession. Was it a chance happening? Or was it a compulsion for Mandira to give it a dramatic turn? Could a woman find any attraction in a male body, aged and full of wrinkles? And that too having the support of literary creations only! For how long? For how many days? A dream hero, perplexed by the moments of shock and sorrow, can get transformed into a villain too. How many times he must have turned into a villain? When ever everyday little necessities couldn’t be met with squarely how could a lady at Mandira’s tender age sail on merrily and contentedly with a hero on her dream voyage? Was it any unquenched longing in her that had soon mall figure in the form of himself? Words were lost, only tactile relations remained—a living touch, expressing itself.<br />The unbelievable and dramatic situation had made it clear to Shantanu that he would find Mandira no more. But, had he got at the truth?- that after Shimals death Mandira was actually caught by some unknown fear and turned into a psychotic case?<br />A month passed like a swift blowing wind. He couldn’t come in contact with Mandira—neither had he phoned her nor did she. The controversy with the Royal Publishing House, of course, was there on the head lines.<br /><br /><br />3<br /><br /> The truth is it is not proper to consider the whole the reference or happening by linking it to any definite date. The world is changing fast—and Shantanu had an awareness of it. Society, the ways of living, Clothing’s, ways of entertainment, preferences in food and eating, films, heroes and heroines…they all are under the process of change. From miracles to science and psychology, from other girls come in contact to Mandira…the touch, the feel of it, seemed to have stayed in his senses and body. Oral communication was lost. The touch remained the shricking touch as the hissing flames of a stove, burning hot, making a sound. If the whole of it is visualized, there remains the close reaction of Mandira only---the frightened Mandira who is clasping to her chest and whose hips, pressed closely to him seem to beat like the pulse Shantanu has fresh in his memory, that mysterious night, when he was standing on the balcony of his house and innumerable stars were flowing away in the sky. He had seen something more too. No. it was mot a delusion, nor a story or fiction. The scene had enlivened the dense that we are not the only being in the universe. Shantanu had suddenly witnessed an ET in the blue carpet of the sky that was spread far and wide-extra terrestrial or aliens—a life, an intelligence from for beyond the earth, a new being. Not a flying saucer, rather so many stars together had formed an alien body. And suddenly mandira’s face replaced the ET. And if, that seemingly impossible happening when Mandira, possessed by fear and dismay, had taken him into her embrace, be necessary to be connected with any definite date, it was that very night when he had seen that alien body in the galaxy…and as he gazed on, it changed into Mandira. How and why about it can’t be dressed with an answer—from science to psychology. But why had that happened? And after that, for a month, there was nothing but rumours.<br /> The angry letters of Mandira against the Royal Publishing House and Desai also found wide circulation. Mandira said all the accounts of royalty given to Shimal Sharma by Mr. Desai, the proprietor of the Royal Publishing House were fictitious. During the lat few months of his life Shimal had asked Desai repeatedly to give him the account of his books but Desai had no intentions to give him any. And seen it, he would have detached himself from the Royal Publishing House, that very moment.<br /> Papers and magazines were fulkl of the matter of dispute between Mandira and Desai. Mandira had leveled against him some still graver accusations too. Some of them were hard and sharp. What were the sources of income of the Royal? What is the secret of the manson worth crores in junagarh? Mandira wanted to know, in straight forward words—what type of business it was in which the writer ix the loser—and on some day begs for his own money and dies—and the publisher went no founding mansons worth crores of rupees?<br /> In her letter Mandira registered her anger and resentment in a piercing language with the implication that if there was still operative such establishments as the department of income tax and CBI, why they did not come forward to expose the scandal low activities of publishers. Giving a record of Shimali’s books she asked if the royalty of Shimal books amount to one lakh till 1995 how it came down to zero today. If the readers had disappeared. But the publisher was creating property in this business of his.<br /> The dispute had begun, assertions and claims of writers had begun to pour in on such a day Saghun Chakraborty arrived sniffing his tobacco snuff and wiping his nose with his lion cloth.<br /> ‘now publishers don’t rely on the sale of books…’ he was in a serious mood. ‘Publishers rely on government purchases. How a purchase is settled is not known to the authors even. And that is the reason publishers do not care for writers. The problem will continue to exist till the purchase of books is not made public.’<br /> Shantanu looked up.<br /> Safghan was turning the pages of the book lying in front of him, but he was mumbling too. ‘what to say of us! Wrote a book and the whole of the books is there contained in a floppy. How much this little floppy earns for the publisher in the market you can’t even imagine. The truth is, Shantanu, no publisher maintains transparency in the matter of books. There are some writers who don’t want the royalty. Sitting in high chairs they help publishers sell their books. You will see how long Mandira’s controversy continues.’ <br /> BUT Mandira’s struggle continued. Such was the time when another letter of Mandira got published in papers.<br /> ‘it is regretfully declared that the Royal publishing House, hereby remain no more the authorized publishers of my husband, late Shimal Sharma. The account they sent us about the sale of books has been found to be dubious.’<br /> Shantanu felt that the dispute is not to come to an end in near future. it must get aggravated. The trumpet was to be blown by this person or that, today or on another day. This war is begun by Mandira and, perhaps, she will emerge victorious….<br /> But, perhaps, it is an ever recurring thing. We live in a disconcerting world of ET or the dreams of aliens even today. Even today, at some tender moment in the night a innumerable stars shine only to transform themselves into a flying saucer or an ET. Some Mandira, bating in the condescending rays of the seen cries out, ‘there is some one.’<br /><br /><br />4<br /><br /> Once again he was in all the likeness of his own father that night. On the outside the night was flowing freely. Moon-light was bleaching the objects…he had kept. The window opens conscientiously. The Scotch bottle was emptied.<br /> Perhaps an intoxicated person thinks more deeply than he otherwise would. The details of his previous royalties were there in front of him. He went through them again and again. He was becoming more and angrier on Desai and say to him. ‘ssaaley, for this very reason I thought, time and again, that it was better for me to start my own publication than to suffer the fraud by the likes of you…should publish my own books.’<br /> The previous accounts of the vouchers of his two books were missing. The account of the last five years also looked doubtful. Casting off the dead scales of a writer from his body he was in the shoes of his father, an unadulterated businessman, only.<br /> Shantnua put the vouchers aside. He came to the terrace, walking. For a little while he kept looking at the constellations in the sky. Next, he pulled out his mobile and began to dial Desai’s number. Desai was there at the other end.<br /> Shantanu roared. ‘it is twelve at night saaley. My fun of Scotch got grated because of you Saaley,’ Shantanu was speaking abusively. ‘I’ll come to your house to thrash you.’<br /> ‘ha….ha…,’ Desai was trying to laugh. ‘Do come. You do. Why are you getting cross? If there is any mistake in the vouchers we shall see to it. Take from me ten Scotch bottles for one my dear….’<br /> Hearing him laugh Shatanu also laughed, ‘My fraternity is a different one, firangee. I belong to your Alsatian breed. I would bite rather than barks.’<br /> By the time he restored himself to his room in the quiet of the brightly moon-light , some very dark comments that had been made during his conversation at Mandira’s came to his memory. Shantanu had deliberately kept preserved the memory of them.<br /> ‘Have you ever considered why the books by a writer like Shimal are printed in so very small a number?’<br /> ‘every one cannot digest them, is it?’<br /> ‘but he fights for all.’<br /> Yes…’<br /> ‘Then, why did he not fight his own battle?...i mean against his own publisher?’<br /> It seemed as if some one like Dushyanta had tossed a piece of rock in the dead quietness. For a moment Mandira’s whole body trembled.<br /> ‘I am not an author but I can analyses the whole matter,’ Shananu shot an unerring arrow. ‘Being given to the business of writing your author becomes a sky creative. In fact he becomes unable to fight any war, not even his own.’<br /> Just on the next day, as I opened the main gate of desai’s bungalow, I once again heard the barking of an Alsatian.<br /> ‘so Mallika Bengal has returned you your Alsatain.’<br /> ‘no Shantanu….’ Desai laughed. ‘one Alsatian is out, another is in. one has only to be a lover of a good breed dog.’<br /> Sipping his tea he asked in a murmur, ‘and what about the matter concerning Mandira?’ Dasai was laughing. ‘don’t you know? There has been a compromise. Such matters begin and got closed too….’<br /> He tossed a big piece of bread towards the Alsatain which was caught by the Alasatian in the mid air.<br /> In front of him the sun made two shadows of them on the lawn. Suddenly there came to his vision the face of Mandira, ‘there is some one….’<br /> The Asatian barked for the second time and in response to it another piece of fresh bread was tossed to him.<br /> Shanftanu felt very sad. By the time he returned home a strange quiet or a load over burdened his whole being. The atmosphere was once again very quiet and lifeless. As he returned to his room seeing the flowers of ‘Scine’, Gilbehri’ and ‘Tili. He was started. Though he was in the habit of living alone, an explosion had gone off somewhere. He switched on the lights. The window was closed, but the curtain fluttered. He retured to look at the bed. Innumerable furrows were there visible on the bed sheet. While departing he had forgotten to extinguish the piece of cigarette in the ash tray. Smoke was still rising there. The rows of paintings on the wall seemed to have become alive and moving even. Suddenly he felt a shiver. His frightened eyes once again turned to look at the window. He saw the curtain waving and a low shriek escaped from him. ‘There is some one, there is.’ But there was none. It was just a delusion on his part. And, this was the time when he made up his mind that he would try to visit mandira once again, breaking all the limits of decency.<br /> And this was just a chance occurrence, or what, that the answer from the other end, without any observance of formality or extending any questions, was, ‘please come, better in the evening.’<br /> When Shantanu reached the beautiful colony of late Shimal, all of a sudden the music of falling rain drops heralded some new mischance…..<br /> She was alone in the house, in a sky-blue night-wear. When he got in, she was sitting on a chair, extending out her hand to fill up her palm with the falling rain drops. She looked up, then said in a murmur, ‘come in. I am collecting diamonds on my palm.’<br /> It was difficult to say whether the tender fair palm had really turned themselves into diamonds or into fire. It was a rare sight. Rarer than the sight of a rainbow in the rainy season sky. But Shantanu had not come to watch the rarity of such a sight at this time. On the level of thoughts that he composed to picturize himself, he seemed to have turned into a dog at one time, and a toad at another. This was the first time that he was bitten by the fangs of words that made him think if he had made a mistake in closing pen-man-ship as his main occupation. I couldn’t restrain myself.<br /> ‘Why did you do this?’<br /> Mandira stood there partially soaked. The rain drops on her face partly expressed the heat and partly her perplexity. She turned. There was an expression of wonder on her face.<br /> ‘What did I do?’<br /> ‘Why did you compromise?’ Shantanu was looking fixedly into her eyes.<br /> There was a sharp clap of thunder.<br /> ‘Come in. had I an apprehension of the rain, I wouldn’t have asked you to come this evening.’ Her voice was heavy.<br /> Having come in, suddenly he was perplexed. Shimal’s photograph was missing from the table. The room it self had an air of change. The sofa-set also was rearranged. She sat down on a chair, as if they intended to shut and then to open alternately. And then her lips moved.<br /> ‘Some times a struggle is that of a person faced by him all alone. Sometimes we are defeated by ourselves. Sometimes we lose words that should define ourselves—quite apart from our being authors or painters. The canvas stands blank, the brush sans colors, pen silent and the words making literature unconvincing…’<br /> Turning, she cast a look, got up from the sofa and then came to me.<br /> ‘Listen to me Shantanu…every person wants another one, a little smaller than himself. Every important person in the market wants a less important person. Big words sometimes seek the li9ghter and smaller words. My flight was high but there was some other one with a higher flight. I felt, compromise was a part of business that one had to make regardless of any feelings of victory or defeat….’<br /> There was thunder-clap.<br /> She mumbled, ‘I had nothing to lose, and nothing to gain even. Entertaining the feeling of ourselves being great we lose everything, perhaps,…so many inborn desires too…’<br />She moved ahead. Rain drops came in through the window. Closing the window she said in a whisper.<br />‘The maid servant has gone home. Her child is sick. Will you stay here tonight...For me…?’<br />She was looking across the window…despite the flashes and the thunder, Shantanu was still lost in the current of her works spoken awhile ago. ‘Every person wants a smaller one.’<br />There was a fresh flash. Having closed the window, Mandira came in and stood in front of frog cane to his mind, the one he had seen near the rows of odorless Tile and Gilbari plants.<br />He felt Mandira’s palms move close to his eyes. Perhaps the blinding flash of the lightning had settled itself in his eyes. Despite the heavy rain, flashes of lightning and thunder of the cloud, Shantanu had scanned what explosive results the situation might bring in.<br />‘Won’t you stay?...please speak.’ At the moment Mandira’s eyes seemed to converse with the vapour laden clouds, on equal terms.<br />Shantanu said something very quietly—or tried to say something. But, at that very moment a forceful gust of wind spend the shut panels of the window and Shantanu’s answer was lost in the thunder of the cloud.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-8437406275505872082010-04-01T09:57:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:58:56.335-07:00you are going to be a part of the storyYou are going to be a Part of the story<br /><br />Only an old man can understand the working of another old man’s mind. Its workings are beyond the comprehension of a child or the young. One can never divine what twists and turns of the mind cause an old man to suddenly start beaming, and the next moment to pull a long face.<br /> I start feeling uneasy sitting in one place. But things arte not what they used to be with old age overtaking me, my head reels as I try to rise to my feet. My knee joints ache and my hand shake. Wishing to be propped up in bed, I call out to my grandson, ‘Bablu...oh, Bablu!’<br /> The next moment he comes running to my room. ‘Yes, Grandpa?’<br /> With a gesture I ask him to sit me up in bed. Bablu puts his hand behind my back and helps me sit up against the pillow. A array of questions lines up in my mind. What should I do? Where should I go? I have lost the habit of sticking to just one place. I have numerous friends who go about on social visits, tapping their walking sticks on the ground as they walk. I was always proud of my strong hands. I am no doubt tired but I am loath to go about holding a walking stick as a sign of my infirmity. Coming out of my room I call out to my daughter-in-law… ‘Shedaan…Ismat…Naheed…is nobody there?’<br /> There are sounds of whispering from the kitchen. I know these young women must be curling up their noses at my call at this odd hour and more so at my senile eccentricity. ‘How tiring Abba can be, this is no time for tea but he must have his cup of tea, there is no getting away from it, they would be saying.<br /> I …….age one never predict what a man will need and …..Watching oneself disintegrate under the creeping shadow of death, one calls out for anything one needs or even, out of some strange impulse, far what one doesn’t need. Little do these young women know that suppressing a plethora of desires, some funny and some not so funny, is another name for old man is not supposed to cry or laugh loudly. These can be mistaken for signs of approaching insanity. It will make the children gather around him. His grandchildren will be upset and his daughters-in law will ask, ‘What’s the matter, Abba?’ what will I tell them? That they should leave me alone? In his lonely hours, old memories can torment an old man. Dormant memories can suddenly come alive and make him weep. And old man too has a past and memories of a wife who is no more. She might have left him behind by just two or three years in this race of time. But to him it appears as if she is centuries ahead of him on her journey.<br /> I dump myself heavily on the chowki—a journey from my room to the chowki, a journey from old living moments. An old man can’t even weep unrestrainedly. He has to keep his emotions on a leash. He must divert his mind with his grandchildren, his daughter-in-law. He must have his mind pigeon-holed for bizarre and new-fangled ideas. He must delude himself with the thought which makes him say, ‘you doddering old man, the game is not yet up. It is because of you that the house looks so gay alive. Your glum silence, your sad visage, can wipe the smile from your children’s faces and stop them from cackling. All because of you.’<br /> Ismat comes with tea. Behind her, Naheed stands smiling. ‘Abba, why have you come out your room—at this hour?’<br /> I pretend as if I have not heard Naheed. My lips are curled in a smile—a deep, pretentious smile. Oh, what great concern they show for the old man!<br /> ‘Beti, Ismat, how much saccharine have you put in my tea?’ I asked my daughter-in-law.<br /> Shadaan says, ‘Abba, you should have stayed in your room. It’s so chilly outside.’<br /> Like any old man, I listen to her without speaking. What great care these young women take of the old man. They want to give him every comfort. How should I tell them that in old age one is governed by one’s passing moods which can prove to be self-devouring at times.<br /> All my working life I was a high-ranking official, holding a responsible position. Lide a circus ring master, when an officer enters the ‘arerra’ he sweeps everyone before him. People must. Abide by his whims and he must have his way in everything. Like a spoilt child he wants all his demands to be met. ‘Abba, it’s very cold and you are wearing only a thin shirt.’<br /> I stop sipping my tea and take stock of things for myself. Yes, it’s quite chilly. Ismat is right. Picking up my cup of tea I proceed towards my room. I must stay in bed for some time more. There is nothing better than a magazine to while away the time in bed. Keep reading till sleep overtakes you. What more is there left to be accomplished in life? All the children have been married off. I now only look forward to death, when I’ll drift into senility and my eyes will close for ever. Who wants to live alone? My friends have left me one by one. And those who remain are slowly moving towards the precipice, towards the final doom. Suddenly the words ring painfully in my ears. ‘Did you hear? So-and-so is gone!’ I feel stunned for a moment. Something breaks within me. But by now I’ve inured myself against such news. I’m prepared for the eventuality. In the beginning such news used to give me a jolt and its effect lingered making me sad for weeks. Even now such news affects me, but not with the same intensity a s before. May be because at my age I’m expecting this kind of news and it loses its sting.<br /> For some time I recount the qualities of the head and heart of the departed soul. And then as always, I revert to mundane affairs linked with domesticity. Maybe after my death my friends will also list my qualities in the same manner.<br /> As if something has struck out of the blue, I suddenly feel inert. This always happens when my mind is occupied with thoughts of death. I try to extricate myself from this goofy word; ‘death’ one more day is gone. When did Asea die? How long ago was it? Asea! As I recall the name, tears throb in my eye and a voice coming from somewhere encompasses me. ‘Saheb, Saheb, won’t you go to the club? Give Saheb some tea… its time for Saheb’s dinner.’s<br /> Asea is running around in the house, attending to so many things at the same time. And strangely enough, time has still kept on the run. I retired from service and yet Asea showed on signs of age. Yet, she broke her promise, and disappeared for ever behind the clouds.<br /> I felt for the first time that I would not be able to bear the burden of life. Old age is a disease which man can suffer stoically with a wife by his side as a prop. To pass his life along becomes drudgery. He can spend his life in the midst of members of his family, searching for the flashes of happiness. How I miss that sunshine of the which I entombed in the darkness of the graveyard many years ago. From that day on, the desire to live also died. There is just an unending sequence of nights in which sleeping-pills and other medicines figure prominently. Time itself looks aged and so does strong-limbed Asea. In the bodily contours of life I have begun to feel the intensity of surging pain. My old friend, Majju, had rightly said, ‘in old age even medicines do not yield results.’ As it is, as one advances in years one is prone to a multiplicity of ailments. How many of them can be pinpointed treatment?<br /> It is for this reason that my friends who assemble in my house in the brecing morning light do not talk of the vagaries of life. They go straight to the question of impending death in a most facile manner. Who knows when death will knock at our doors? When will the final call come? <br /> The other day I got a jolt. It was about ten in the morning. As on other mornings, Majju, Faruq, and Zafar were sitting in their chairs chatting with one another. They were waiting for Ali who was overdue. Ali would usually come tapping his lathi on the ground, halt at the door and throw a salaam at them in a manner characteristically his own. ‘Mahboob Bhai, Salaam ulikam.’ He would then single me out for his greetings. Lying in bed I would raise my eyes from my book, cast a glance at him and reciprocate his greetings with a loud salaam. Putting aside his lathi he would settle down in a chair.<br /> That morning Ali came much later than usual. Majju had cataract in his eyes. While trying to make out Ali’s figure in the strong sunlight his myopic eyes sparkled for a moment. ‘Bhai, have you been feasting on kurma and kabab?’ Majju asked in a bantering tone. ‘you are looking so cheerful.’<br /> ‘Majju Bhai, this time we will eat kurma and kabab in your house,’ Ali said in his sharp metallic voice. ‘Cooked by bhabi. You’ll feed us on kurma-kabab, won’t you?’<br /> ‘Yes, bhai. Why not?’ it was on rare occasions that Majjur spoke with such confidence. ‘Imran will be coming the day after,’ he said scraping at the earth with his lathi. I’ll be flush with money with his coming. Come o Friday, we shall have both kurma and kabab.<br /> ‘we shall all join you, ‘Faruq chipped in giving a hilarious laugh as was his went.<br /> ‘it’s Majju’s invitation! A special occasion indeed,’ I said. ‘let me try to get up. I’m tired of lying in bed.’<br /> ‘Mahboob Bhai, keep lying down,’ Ali insisted.<br /> But my sentiments got the better of me and I called out to my grandson, ‘Babu, we would like to have tea.’<br /> How many days are there to Friday? It is just round the corner. But I didn’t feel very enthusiastic about it. I keep asking myself how would a stingy and tight-fisted man like Majju throw a feast for us. Maybe he was doing it out of affection for his friends. They sat there laughing and joking—all of them in a hilarious mood over the prospect of extracting a feast from Majju.<br /> Another day dawned and they had assembled in my room for the morning gossip. It was Ali’s daily routine and he was very finicky about it. Tapping his lathi on the ground, he would show up pat at ten. Even in his old age he looked so strong and hefty. His wife had passed away many years ago and he had no children. He messed both very much. Majju was also waiting for him like the others what could have dept him away? Tomorrow would be Friday. Imran would be here tonight, Majju was thinking to himself. He made some quick calculations on his fingers.<br /> Just then a boy came from Ali’s house.<br /> ‘Ali sahib has passed away.’<br /> ‘What?’<br /> ‘What?’<br /> A hush fell over the room. Majju looked at Faruq and Faruq at Zafar and Zafar at me. I tried to get up. Nobody spoke. The only sound was a crow cawing raucously on the parapet of the opposite roof. Majjur got up quickly and rushed out swinging his lathi at the offending bird. ‘go, go! Hush, hush!’ he croaked in his thick voice. Cawing loudly, the crow flew away. Many cold and warm breaths rose wheezily in the room. I felt as if a storm had burst upon the room.<br /> ‘So Ali is gone.’ The room was again steeped in silence.<br /> ‘At what time will they carry him off for burial?’<br /> ‘In the evening. After the evening namaz.’<br /> Trembling lips again shivered into silence.<br /> ‘What happened to Ali?’<br /> ‘Nothing. He was perfectly all right. In the morning he woke up in the normal course and asked for water. Then he complained of pain in his chest. He lay down in bed and asked us to call the doctor. But before the doctor came….’<br /> The boy went away. Uneasiness spread in the room. The chair in front was lying vacant. The one Ali had occupied yesterday, and the day before, and the day previous to that. Whenever he came, he sat in this very chair. Majju sat, slowly shaking his lathi. Yesterday he had invited the poor old man to have food with him. But little did he know...His eyes turned dull and lusterless. ‘He was a very good football player-our Ali,’ I said, as if to myself. ‘We were together and retired together. He played better football than me. He was in such good health, even at his age. He is gone—our Ali.”<br /> The morning had turned better. Babbu came in with the tea and the cups were passed round. They started drinking in silence. Ali’s chair was vacant. Again and again their gaze travelled to that chair. All talk by-passed the subject of Ali. Was it anymore necessary to rope him in to this talk? Who knew whose turn would come next? We were all lined up in the same row—all of us in readiness to depart from the same row. And Ali…<br /> Ali used to come every day. But he will never come again. Every day he laughed and made others laugh. But no more of that. Every day he teased Majju. Those happy moments already seemed so far away. Wasn’t his death a momentous event? Why didn’t his death stop the conversation that went on? Could anything be more momentous than death? Where were those tears gone? Zafar, Faruq, Majju—why had they cut out Ali from their talk? A quick sharp jolt and that was the end of it, they had again complacently gone back to their usual routine.<br /> It was getting on to be afternoon. Our gossip session had long since petered out. In the evening we had to join Ali’s funeral procession. Majju was the first to leave and did it tapping his lathi on the ground. Then it was Faruq’s turn, followed by Zafar. I was left alone in the room. ‘Abba, time for your food,’ I heard one of my daughters-in-law calling out to me.<br /> It is past at night but there is no sleep in my eyes. I had returned soon after sunset, after lowering Ali in to the grave. At this stage of my life, as I reflect on the vagaries of life, I realize that life is neither a puzzle nor a mystery. Only the four walls of the graveyard revolve before my eyes and it makes me wonder if that is what constitutes life? Something poised on an axis. Now nothing sounds strange to me. Or it could just as well be that everything sounds strange to me and I hear a voice within me proclaiming to me, ‘beware, a story will write itself. The answer silenced me.<br /> This voice in my room at one o’clock in the silence of the night greatly agitated my mind. ‘be warned,’ it says, ‘ the story is going to use you. It is because you have experienced life in its fullness. You know about death. And also about life. People turn away in fear from looking into this deep well which is called death. But at this turning point of your life you have learnt about the quintessence of life that lies in the no-man’s land between life and death. There is a big void between life and death, nothing, except an urge to live on. You have to cross this distance between life and death. You just close your eyes and drift into sleep. That is the hard core of reality. After eating your food you will also like sleeping and then go to sleep. This destinations journey will slowly reach its ultimate goal. And then a long silence and the closed book. Mahboob, are you conscious of the fact that it is one o’clock in the morning and you every day. Therefore, be on the alert. The story about you is soon going to write itself. Yes, it will soon be written.’Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-48533440302471898512010-04-01T09:56:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:57:49.486-07:00parkinson,s diseaseParkinson’s Disease<br /><br /><br />Love moves you to the core. Love wounds you, shatters you or, God only knows what the more it does. But they say love begins to disquiet you even with the first occurrence of the feeling.<br /><br />The old man and the bet<br /> <br />The room had no windows, no ventilators. No sooner did you close the door and moved on the glass-like glistening floor feeling the cool of the air-conditioner than the deep depression would pervade you. The whole….<br /> ‘You…know…ha...ha!’<br /> He was laughing. He that is Ramesh Kalara. His status in the call centre of Marijuana Company was that of a hi-fi director. This was an additional flight for him. As soon as the talk lighted on the subject he would, in an instant, get transformed into an intellectual.<br /> ‘Ho...Ho…...’<br /> He was still laughing-an aimless laugh. But my eyes seemed to have been captured by another sight.<br /> ‘Did you notice it, Ramesh? The short quick continuous motion? He…. In fact…he is shaking. Yes, not such as one usually will…but he is shaking….’<br /> ‘You…of course….’ Ramesh spoke in ice-cold voice.<br /> ‘You mean….he keeps swaying as if….’<br /> The wasted flaccid body of the old man could be seen by a person passing through the main gate, crossing the veranda or getting into the private room of Ramesh Kalara. He sat at a fixed place on a chair by the room with its netting ….but he was shaking. No. you do not shake like this sitting in an aero plane passing through dense clouds. Not even when you are facing an enemy’s bullet. Passengers in speeding shatabdi express will not shake like this. The most helpless, in the scantiest of their clothing’s, soaked by the drizzle in the severely cold night will not shake like this. Perhaps this was the reason that as Ramesh Kalara laughed every time my attention was caught by that old man who unconcerned with your smiles or even boisterous laughs kept on shaking.<br /> ‘Ho...Ho…ho…’ Ramesh turned towards me. ‘Old people are meant for shaking. For, passing along the roads of their vast experiences they already have caused things to shake to such an extent that nothing remains unshaken by the time they are old. And as such they keep their own selves shaking’ once again Ramesh burst out laughing-a boisterous laugh, neighing like a spirited horse and shaking all over. He made me recall many a happening of the day.<br /> The whole of the day seemed to have been occupied by the thoughts of old people. A young man has the stories of the aged more than he has that of his own youthful days. Their attention to the old is something like their attention towards the things that posed challenge and concern before them. ‘See,’ they say to themselves, ‘you are going to be turned into the same…, that is, after a few years only, and then you will find yourself standing at the threshold of helplessness. But some young persons try to live in the present only disregarding the heart rending stories and the old age because they are much too frightened to look into the fear generating mirror of the future.<br /> Once again Ramesh laughed out aloud.<br /> ‘Ho…ho…, my sentimental friend. There was an elephant and a blind man. Oh, no. I know what’s going on at your heart, the same cold of helplessness.’ There persisted on the chair an existence shaking continually, at a higher temp0erature of the outer room. Ramesh stopped for a moment, looked at me, and added, ‘they can’t bear the cool, my sentimental friend. That’s why they keep shaking.<br /> ‘Ah, definitely my friend. But I can say, one day, having been terrified by his seclusion and loneliness, he will suffer so great a heat...That…No. you are laughing…believe me my dear friends, he will cease to shake.’<br /> At first I…I myself was not aware of what I was saying. Or. Perhaps, my afore mentioned words of reaction show that nothing could be done about the involuntary shaking of the body that presented itself there.<br /> ‘Ho…ho…it means you too are a real buffoon, my dear...’he was shrieking under a fit of uncontrollable, laughter, holding his belly with his hands. ‘That means,’ he said, ‘you believe in miracles, even today.'<br /> Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, for that reason a miracle had happened, but happened, but the form of the miracle was a transformed one.<br /><br />The sovereign power of falsehood<br /> <br />Wrinkles appeared on his nose as he spoke. A part of his spoken sentence would get dissolved with his breath, consequently, lost to the audience. The hair above his forehead, on the front was disappearing fast. Many affairs of Ramesh Kalara’s life were such as were, perhaps, known to me only. Exceptionally ambitious he was. He had no scruple in going across the limits if it served his purpose. Falsehood, naturally, became a strong weapon in his hands. In other words, you might reckon him as one of the persons who would accept falsehood as the ideal. His marriage, too, took place under interesting circumstances. The would be wife belonged to a hi-fi family. They were the days when an interesting series of his falsehoods had already begun. It was in his very young age that his ambition had told him if he wanted to take a swift flight; he must learn to throttle others, to pay routine visits to the abodes of politicians and influential personages and to make money by creating employment opportunity for an interesting suppliant. This was followed by discotheques, waiting on the seats in the lobbies of five star hotels, and the like. Just a little of indiscriminate altering helped him acquire a second-hand car too. A beautiful Tata Safari he got almost for nothing. This chance happened to occur in the following way. This safari belonged to a doctor. The doctor was involved in some complicated case. Ramesh Kalara helped the doctor ease his position by virtue of his approach to a certain minister. Later on when the Tata Safari met with an accident, the doctor took the vehicle to be ill-omened and decided to replace it by another one. This helped Kalara buy the Safari at a wishful price.<br /> Quite unexpectedly, one day he happened to come across Muskaan in the lobby of Miranda five star hotels. She was in her jeans and sleeveless shirt… Questions and answers were exchanged. Ramesh said quietly, ‘I’ve appeared at I.A.S. examination…’ Ramesh, of courses, had a taste for clothes. This was the outcome of his regular visits to five star hotels, or, whatsoever other reasons might have contributed to it, but because his clothing’s showed his refined tastes, and also that his English was stylish, it was possible for one to presume that this Kalara, though showing wrinkles on his nose again and again as he spoke, could aspire for a place as on I.A.S. officer.<br /> Perhaps this was the story of Muskaan’s coming closer to Kalara. Much was added to this story as the time rolled on. For example, Kalara’s introduction to Muskaan’s businessman father winning his confidence. Imposing rides in Tata Safari. Stylish manners.<br /> The residnes of the old and disappearing culture had, somehow, retained itself in the aged and broken down body. They were safe in Kalara’s father. To Ramesh Kalara, Ranvir Kalara, who lived in an ancient two roomed house, was nothing more than a tiresome burden, or an unseemly speck. He tolerates this ‘existence’ or ‘rubbish’ only because of his blood relation. Mother was dead. Both the sisters were in their father-in-law’s houses. Ramesh had to manage for a decent house that he would need when he got married.<br /> Ramesh got a heavy loan sanctioned by the bank. He hoped that every thing will be set right as soon as the bird laying golden eggs is under his roof.<br /> This was the very time when a fearsome eclipse took place. The father, conscious of the morals of his son, and enduring the abuses from him mutely began to shake, as a horse would. Perhaps, the ailment was the outcome of his suppression of the fire that lay smoothing at his heat since long ago. He fell a prey to such a disease as had never been or known previously in the family.<br /> Soon, after Kalara had got the sum he bought a bungalow also in Preet vihar. Another story lay behind the transaction of the bungalow. This bungalow belonged to a widow whose sons were settled in a foreign land since Ramesh visited her regularly, and helped her perform some trivial activities as the occasion demanded; the old lady fell under the spell of Kalara. The widow was to go to and live with her beloved daughter in the latter’s small house in Rohini before her flight to the foreign land after two months. The lady wanted to dispose off the bungalow. The price was settled. The payment was to be done in two installments. As the documentation proceed on Kalara declared in clear words that his interest in getting the deal registered in his own name lay only in the fact that the responsibility of the payments that were to be made should rest on him. Half of the story that emerged out is, the widow could not get even the first half of the payment before she departed for the foreign land. She lodged a case against the Kalara. But cases like that opened against Kalara and closed too, not infrequently.<br /> When Muskaan came to her new home, explosions occurred, one after the other. But in his practical life Ramesh entertained no disturbances or discontents. For example, Muskaan asked-<br /> ‘Were you not taking your I.A.S. exam?’<br /> ‘No’<br /> ‘Why did you tell a lie?’<br /> ‘To make an impression on you.’<br /> A room in the house was occupied by the broken down old body on which Ramesh on which Ramesh couldn’t spend any money for that seemed to him to be like setting a bet on a deal horse at a race course.<br /> Muskaan kept crying for a number of days. Her businessman father consoled her, and to hive his son-in-laws a sound footing, he entrusted him with the reigns of the call centre, Marijuana Company, in partnership with himself. This was the time when, having gambled and won the objects of every dream, he himself became something like a dream. Bereft of sentimentality, care for the press, ideals, relations, the whole of his history and geography was money only. And in his race for money he did not keep himself to any particular mode or direction. All the possible fields were open to him.<br /> And quite removed from them was the presence of the old body that, seated on a chair, continued to shake day in and day out. And to me, If there could be anything that would excite wonder in me, it was the shaking of Ranveer Kalara. On his wrinkled face the flesh hung loose. The spectacles had disappeared. His shirt and pantaloon were so very disproportionately loose on his body that he looked like a scare-crow on a bamboo pole. His limbs were disabled. It was difficult to ascertain what his eyes looked at any given moment. But could there be any hope for a miracle to happen to his body and bring about a change for the better with the passage of time? Perhaps, not and so, on that holiday when Ramesh had come home, I went to the room where the scare-crow, Ranveer by name, was left alone to keep sitting in the chair and shaking. After looking at him for some time carefully I was a bit worried and irritated too.<br /> ‘Yes, keep shaking. You too can shake, for the whole of the country is shaking. The public is shaking. Public verdict is shaking. Politics is shaking. Every thing, from the parliament to the streets is shaking. And no earthquake is required to make the bases, that possessed the firmness of good reasons, shake. And that is the reason that nothing is stale, from the individual to the whole country, from society to politics, from religion to discipline. All are shaking.<br /> ‘Have there been any miracles? Ho….ho…’ the all-in-all of Marijuana Company was standing before him now. ‘Friend, Listen to me. A miracle has happen here only. He was pointing at his head. Once again he was eager to tell me that he was not just a partner in Marijuana Company. He was the boss. A little of greasing the palm, a little of falsehood, a little of fraud---and once again he succeeded in giving a blow, a little harder this time, to the businessman, father of Muskaan. His x-partner was a close friend of Muskaan’s father. He had accepted the partnership on the insistence of Muskaan’s father only. But, as Ramesh said, ‘you have to dislodge all the bricks, one by one, that formerly supported you…’<br /> ‘But that will make you fall too. I mean you’ll be unsafe.’<br /> ‘O, no,’ he was laughing, ‘self-reliant. No sooner are all the bricks removed than you become cautions and careful about your own safety, not depending upon anyone else for it.’ In the manner of a philosopher, looking at the window he was saying, ‘with the passage of time dreams and struggles have changed market. And to stand in its support a bit of selfishness was to be adopted. In fact, my friend, there is nothing new about it. To live a life different from the commoners, as I desired, has been my desire all the time,’ he said softly, ‘in this new colonial culture we have to write our own history and geography according to our own ability. And for that, everything like self sacrifice, renunciation of selfish pleasure seeking, self purification, age old ideals, or any thing so called valuable…., al must be dedicated selfish pursuits….’ He coughed softly, ‘but I have still kept a little of my selfishness apart, Indian as I am, in the interest of that chair set alone, on which your miracle is shaking. On a certain day to come that shaking will cease and then the chair will be removed to another room. On that day that part of my abstention from selfishness will get wiped off too….’<br /> It was a horrible truth. And perhaps this was the reason that I had set my hopes on that rare moment of time when the shaking of the old man should come to an end, perhaps because of my habit of following the age old, rotten, Marxist formula ‘ a change even in an individual.’ The meaning of our dialogue got diversified, carrying a worthy or an unworthy meaning.<br /> At every opportune time Ramesh, with all the evidence of his being, would set himself to tearing into bits the time, history and culture. My ways were different. Perhaps it was the reason that all the changes I happened to observe in him exhibited themselves to be something like a horrible cultural upheaval to me. In the age of new global software, out sourcing, the mall, reality shows, cosmopolitan cities gaining global dimensions, I seemed to be akin to some dinosaur of the prehistoric age whereas Ramesh was on his natural evolutionary path moving in accordance with the shifts in markets and the codes of the age. He was moving just along with his own lines.<br /> But there it was that a small happening took place. Immediately after Khanna had been removed from Marijuana Company, a new director, Shilpi, took his seat. A view change was in the offing. After that the news that followed and reached me too, had the impressions of fragrance, rains, butterfly, and deceit-all in their little proportions. J knew that shilpi had taken our king of falsehood in thrall. Perhaps struggling against our own circumstances we happen to come to a situation where we surrender ourselves to the temptation of the feminine body and just the presence of a woman becomes the means of smoothing out so many creases in our lives and happenings there in.<br /><br />In the place of the old man<br /> <br />I could not believe that after a period of a few months only I shall have to come across such an odd circumstance. Ramesh asked me to come to him but, now, the voice was not that of a villain or a hero. I could discern the cry of a defeated man in the voice. Although it was my second or third meeting after a lapse of a few months only, Ramesh, in his own room, looked as if he had been sick for years. From the very beginning he had been trying to look calm and composed, but soon he seemed to be losing his grounds.<br /> The room had neither any window nor ventilator open. And as soon as the door was shut, the cool of the air-conditioner suddenly acquired a new form at my heart. Ramesh was seated in a chair. With a cigar in his lips, he was lost in some deep thinking. His ‘you know…ho…ho’ was missing today. His words had got lost in certain narrow streets.<br /> ‘I heard, muskaan is going to divorce you.’ I said. Turning up he looked at me, ‘we have been married for two years. She has been divorcing me since the very first day she came…’ he said.<br /> ‘What does she want?’<br /> ‘Simple. She wants a divorce. There is a ruling of the Supreme Court that a wife can claim her divorce even on the basis of the mental harassment inflicted on her by her husband. It could be a simple excuse, the words of Ramesh were explosive, ‘but she couldn’t do that till now.’<br /> ‘Two years is certainly not on enormous amount of time.’<br /> ‘Yes.’<br /> ‘Don’t you think that in your flight you wagered your own life and domesticity?’ I asked.<br /> ‘I never felt like that.’ Ramesh shook the ash off his cigarette. ‘Every one has the right to take a flight. After all, what is politics? a desire and effort to shake off the opponent. What treatment did general Parvez Musharraf meted out to Nawaz Sharif? And the helicopter accident of Sanjay Gandhi? Did people not connect the accident with Indira Gandhi? It was politics only that tempted Aurangzeb to confine his father and slaughter his brother. What did emperor Ashoka do...he put his own brothers to death. I did not kill any body.’<br /> ‘There is a difference between politics and home.’<br /> ‘No difference is there; let it be the house or the society. For every place there is a politics of its own kind.’<br /> ‘is Shilpi too a part of this politics?’<br /> Suddenly there seemed to have happened an explosion within him. He crushed the cigarette into the ash-try. There was a terrible change in his countenance. He got up. Moved towards the window, switched off the air-conditioner, and opened the window as if he wanted to keep himself from nausea and suffocation. The decayed body was seated on the chair on the front, shaking as ever, nut I had seen a wave in Kalara’s body that shook him as I named Shilpi. This was the very first of such an observation on my part. Something devastating must have happened, which, perhaps he was not fully aware of, or, there was something extra-ordinary that he wanted to bring forth. When he returned, it seemed a lot had already befallen him in a flash. He sat down. Sitting in his chair he burst out crying uncontuollably, in the way as a heart-broden child only could.<br /> Perhaps, this was the scene for which this story was born….a sensational, maddening scene. Kalara and tears! To the eyes of a thousand, Kalara was a man who had ruthlessness only to0 show for tears. Could there have happened such a coincidence of circumstances that made Kalara’s heart bleed and made him cry? Perhaps it was impossible for me to believe, but it had happened. He was crying. His tears rolled down his cheeks. I stood there bent over him. ‘cry out the pain. You should cry. I think it is your right to lighter yourself, even by crying. If my presence is an obstruction to you, I may….’<br /> Ramesh held me by the hand instantly.<br /> ‘No. stays here. You’ll go nowhere….for I am going to tell you what I wouldn’t have told any other one? He was wiping his tears. He seemed to be making an effort to compose himself, or putting in order the frayed impressions of the story.<br /> ‘But how shall I begin the story? Will any person believe it? He said. Despite the cool of the air-conditioner, sweat drops were collecting on Kalara’s forehead.<br /> All the stories in the world begin with love. in fact, the world has no philosophy of its own. Love itself is the philosophy for love is eternal. Will any person believe that a person like myself, who could ne called a flint-hearted one, a stone image, or any other such thing, and quite appropriately too, is, at the core of his heart…., please, be kind enough to listen to me. Muskaan was not my love. To me, during this little span of time, she was more the daughter of a businessman than the wife.’ Ramesh wiped away the sweat with his handkerchief. ‘In my early age I read stories too, by such story writers as Moupassant, Chekhov and O’henny. At the time was impossible to believe in the truthfulness of the tales as they would bewilder me. I said to myself, ‘did it happen so? Could it be so? Or he….what’s the good name? Yes. Stephen Zwig. 24 hours in a woman’s life. And she gave those hours to a man who was not worthy of being a lover. I wonder if Zwing wrote this story for me.’ He stopped to connect the threads of his tale. ‘She got into my cabin as if in a breath. It was about 11 o’clock. No. I can draw a picture of the moment quite precisely. Perhaps the Ramesh Kalara of the former days could not do so, for she had brought along with her the intoxication of love and passion. Blue jeans, a number of embroidery flower-lets, hung from them, touched her beautiful white sandals. The upper garment-a T-shirt, white one. This was the time when my peon, who brought me to felt a shock as he got in. the first flower of ‘Neelambar sansai was peeping out, and the battery cell of the wall clock having struck 11 went to sleep. Do you follow me? She came in and freezed the time by her arrival.’<br /> ‘No. I don’t want to go back empty handed. By the way I am born to win only, she said sensing herself to be in full command of the situation and knowing the power of her beauty she advanced her resume. ‘Please look. Don’t you feel that I can give a new life to this- your call centre?’ she took a step backwards, ‘sir, look at me. My experience is not written on that blank paper. It is here also, in my eyes, in my body.’ Sir, look at me. My experience is not written on that blank paper. It is here also, in my eyes, in my body.’ All this was like a fantasy, as if a fantasy was changing itself into a reality. A person like myself who in business matters can use unrefined or rude language only, or who can never tolerate the words of pride or authority ….but what could I do? I had surrendered myself to the glow of her beauty. Or one could say, I was softening myself at heart and almost shaking physically.<br /> ‘As Shilpi came in my life, everything began to happen in a way as it had never happened before. For example, during a night, under the glow of myriad of stars, I stood on the balcony watching the moon; taken by a spell of strange intoxication I began to hum a film song tune. It seemed, for the first time a new man was born within me who was a lover of or husband to Muskaaan. She understood the touch of my hands that, now, had the feel of lovers. Many and many woman in the world has the sixth sense that they can recognize the fragrance of an alien love in the hands of their husbands. Muskaan pushed off my hands uncourteously. ‘Away. These hands bear the feel of some other one. In the skin of your hand there is some other one very near to becoming your love….Listen, it is not you Ramesh Kalara,’ Muskaan said. She turned to her side as she lay, and suddenly awareness downed upon me. It was not my hands only, but the whole body on which Shilpi was imposing her personality. By degrees. And it was discernible not on the feel of my touch only but on the whole of my physical existence. That night before I fell asleep I said to myself, Kalara, transforms yourself into a poet, and you are lost. The bases of your progress are founded on dishonesty, lie, and the things that are so foreign that no love can have any access to them. But on that day in the cabin….perhaps it was a part of my own well thought of plan….but what followed thereafter…..’<br /> Ramesh stopped suddenly. ‘Does love make a fool of you? As, it did in the story by Z wig when that married woman eloped with that young man. Is it not detestable that a married woman should elope with a stranger, and that too when she has the husband and the offspring. To think of Shilpi when Muskaan was already there! But perhaps my heart had not only secretly consented to it but given it due respect too, for it was my very first effort, looking back since my very childhood to this day that I should have endeavored to that. I was behaving simply as a man touching the bounds of love without any considerations to selfish impulses.’<br /> I had fixed my gaze on Kalara. No, it wasn’t possible that this man should fall into romantic feelings. The new culture of commercialization had changed the meaning of sex. Perhaps it had got mixed up in the ‘cocktail’ of romance suffered internally. At this moment this very cocktail was apparent on the face of Ramesh. He took a deep breath and proceeded.<br /> ‘I have a private room of mine in the office. Everything happened per my planning. Exciting music broadcast by world space Radio was in the air. I had sprayed the room to make the air sweet. All the staff, as a rule, is in by ten. I was awaiting Shilpi only. I had thought much about it, and also believed that nothing would be objectionable, perhaps, to open minded Shilpi. As she entered my room all was fragrance there. Looking round the room she succeeded in making out what was there at my heart. Coming swiftly she stood erect before me. She began to say, ‘I don’t believe in stretching the issues like a piece of rubber. Do you desire to get me?’ holding my hands into hers she added, ‘then please uncover me….’ Shilpi’s existence was akin to Monalisa’s whose smile had been beyond comprehension and was so perhaps to the artist himself too.<br /> ‘the clothings dropped down one by one, but Shilpi stood there clothed in her indifference. In all her nakedness she was there in front of me looking into my eyes. A woman’s body is a musical instrument, but every man doesn’t have the art of playing upon it. ‘can you tell me what part of my body passesses fire at its utmost? Here…’ she pointed at her breasts. And then, ‘here…here….here…’ her hands moving downwards from her lips to other soft parts of her body came to her ear loves, ‘here…bring your lips here. Sorry, I can’t call you ‘sir’ at the present moment.’ The panes on the window were glass ones, through them one could see the world outside but it was difficult to see the things inside the room from the out side. Looking at the rows of the multi-sky-scraper buildings, she turned, all of a sudden. With terror struck eyes she cried out, ‘vulture, my god! A culture on the opposite building.’ The volcanic eruptions within me turned into snow. She dressed up. ‘sorry sir… you can understand. No? a vulture on the building just opposite to yours, at 11 o’clock during the day! I could never stand vultures….ever since I was a child…’ having dressed up she was outside the room. After some time when I was able to recover myself after this explosive situation, she was already in her cabin in her head bent over files.’ Ramesh Kalara took a cool breath. ‘Perhaps it was a cruel act against me, the act that gave me a new mental shock. I advanced towards the window. Having induced in me her own sexuality she had left me. The emotion was not only growing intense with the passage of time, but was becoming more and more tormenting to me. She was always there within me with all her beauty, and it was increasing my mental tension continuously. Some times I would debate at heart whether she was really indifferent or posed to seem to be so, in the same way as on her physical level she was wild as well as normal at one and the same time. In her cruelty she was affecting my virility too; perhaps because I was close to her many a time but I could not ask her for our physical closeness any mere. I don’t know if it was the outcome of my helplessness or the shock of the vulture incident, I too began to see vultures out side my house.’<br /> ‘on that night too I was possessed by the very helplessness. Muskaan was shrinking, ‘I had been to the office today. Your office is showing loss continuously since Ramesh uncle left it. And you? It is said that you are not serious at all about your work. Remember, it is your office but mine as well.’ After a Ramesh added, ‘but I continued to roar for a considerable time, though I cannot recall now the matter or the content of what I said. As I recovered my senses and lay in bed all sick, Muskaan shook my very existence by her next step. She said, ‘it was the first mental stroke. No danger as yet and she laughed out. The very next moment she handed over to me an envelop, saying, ‘it is shilpi’s resignation letter. She has got a placement some-where else, in a bigger company.<br /> The old man and his shaking<br /> ‘So she left you?’<br /> ‘God knows’<br /> ‘But as Muskaan told you she had got a better placement somewhere?’<br /> ‘I don’t know.’ Ramesh breathed in desperately. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and holding it in his lips seemed to have got lost in some deep reflections.<br /> ‘I was a petty actor in politics, my friend. Perhaps I could play my part only to the extent that my selfishness dictated me to. But the politics played on the level of relations kills you. She disappeared all of a sudden and, perhaps, this was the time when I became upset mentally. I had seen the beauty of her body. Or, I should say, in a few minutes Shilpi had taken me in thrall. Perhaps she knew that it was through Shilpi only that she…’ in the ash-tray Ramesh shook the ash off his cigarette. ‘Like a mad man I searched for Shilpi. On that night at about 11 o’clock, as I parked the car in the lawn, I saw Shilpi getting off a car along with Muskaan. She was beast perturbed by my presence. She stood there rather proudly like a champion. Anyway, having suffered a new mental stroke, I was trying to compose myself. My words were lost to me. Perhaps it was on that very night that I had suffered a second mental stroke.’ Once again Ramesh was looking out of the window. ‘I think there comes a time when we begin to shake…’ the rest of what he said stuck to his throat.<br /> We came out of the room and there awaited a rude shock for me. The old sluggish body was there in front of us. I gave a start.<br /> ‘Did you see, Ramesh?’<br /> ‘Yes.’ Ramesh was death pale.<br /> ‘No. you didn’t observe, or did you?<br /> Unblinkingly Ramesh was looking at the mute old man who was shaking continuously. The man also smiled, and I can say on oath, as we came out and cast a glance at him, he had ceased shaking for a second.<br /> While trying to answer me Ramesh shook a bit. I did not turn to cast a second glance at the old man.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-46150516167753215212010-04-01T09:55:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:56:19.514-07:00saying farewel to this centurySaying Farewell to this Century….<br /><br /><br />1<br /> <br />“So what’s the solution for this?”<br /> There was a hint of perplexity in papa’s eyes. The tone was devoid of emotions, the face had turned a bit pale.<br /> There was a hollow grimness in Mom’s demeanor. “Why not prevent the guest from coming at all… I mean…”<br /> There was an air of finality to that decision.<br /> “But would Riya agree?”<br /> Papa’s modernity was still under trial,<br /> The suddenly evolving tense situation had, at different levels, taken all three of them in its grip- Papa, Mummy, Riya!<br /><br />2<br /><br />Riya was not among those sort of girls who could, till not very long ago, be found even in the stories of ismat chughtai….Naive, impish, playing with dolls, pricking her fingers with her needle-and thread, prancing and soaring on the wings of wind, sitting between the mirasans andsinging songs to the beat of the dholak at weddings, lunging to take some teeny-weepy baby in her arms, at which the older women couldn’t help remarking, “Hey, you are still a child yourself, what if the baby drops from your hands…”<br /> But there’s another aspect to all this too. We can as well say that Riya is one amongst those girls who used to inhabit our short stories. Even the stories of Ismat Chaghtai. Now shyly clutching a bit of aanchal between the teeth, now going capering like a deer, as tender as a rabbit and just as vivacious, bringing tears in her eyes at the slightest provocation, entangling kites on the roof in the kite-flying season, flinging herself, heart and soul, over any boy that she fell in love with, secretly writing letters to him when she was alone..And getting frightened at the slightest sound of someone approaching…<br /> Riya was a child then. She had a dream. There are many horses and a dark tunnel. The horses and a dark tunnel. The horses are blindfolded. They are galloping away at full speed.<br /> “Why did I see that the horses were blindfolded. There were questions in Riya’s eyes.<br /> “Were those horses flying?”<br /> “Yes, they were flying in the air.”<br /> “Were they sturdy and young?” Papa turned towards her with a smile. “Because it was you, Riya. Don’t run so fast. The horses were blindfolded so that they would not crash against the walls of the tunnel.”<br /><br /><br />3<br /><br />They had been born in colonies and had brought their own cultures with them. They belonged to the world of “Brands,” Or they would themselves turn into a “Brand” as soon as they were born. They were enclosed within their own walls- or we should rather say bedrooms- or their drawing rooms. They were beginning their journey with the MTV culture.<br />Suppose someone says.. (In the words of the German writer, Herman Hesse) a bird is going to be born from an egg. The egg is a cosmos that wants to be born; it will have to destroy and obliterate a world to do so.<br />Readers! My apologies. This story isn’t written in the same way as other stories. It couldn’t have been. Just as we can’t be content with the mere statement that the world is changing. Simply stating that the world is changing doesn’t bring out the full force of this image of a bird and an egg. Because, the bird is struggling to break who is being born would have to shatter the existing world first.<br />And just like Hesse had told Sinclair in ‘Damein’, the demise of the old world is at the hand. This world would take a new shape. The stench of death is emanating from it. Nothing new can come about without death. There will be war. You will see what great turmoil there is all around. People will enjoy it. Tired of their boredom, they are waiting for the massacre to begin. In fact, the New World has begun, and this is going to be terrible for those who are still clinging to the old one.<br />So readers! This news isn’t going ot bring any happiness. The night of 31st December, when such a thick fog was enveloping the sky that you couldn’t see each other’s hand, the people, locked up in their rooms, hotels, bars and discotheques were preparing fo9r the celebrations to welcome the New Year. And the thick fog at the conclusion of the Twentieth Century had brought this news for Mr. Arjun Daitya Kar and his modern wife, Reema Kar, that their fourteen-year old daughter was going to become the mother of a child.<br /><br />4<br /><br />This ‘world’ wasn’t like this earlier. Arjun Daitya kar, the father of our heroine, Riya, had to wage a struggle for the sake of this world. Earlier, he had very little piece of earth and a little patch of sky, a little bit of religion and a little bit of socialism. He had few dreams in the beginning. Then, all of a sudden, they started his business with small bits of computer parts. And yes, perhaps, whatever data was stored before that in the ‘floppy’ of the past had been ‘deleted’ by then. But new seasons and new circumstances had brought in a pile of fresh data that too was stored in ‘floppies’ after it had been saved by Mr. Daitya Kar in his mind.<br /> Mr. Nilambar was also stored on one such floppy. The same Mr. Nilamber who was a senior executive in a company that sold PCLF 486 computers at monthly installments. Seeing Riya at some party, he had extended his hand in friendship towards her, (This was Mr. Daitya Kar’s own conjecture.) or, we should say, he had even started visiting their house, which something that Mr. Daitya Kar had initially disapproved. He had only countenanced such things because friendship with Mr. Nilambar held the prospect of some benefits for his business.<br /> Anyhow, Nilambar’s friendship may or may not have done anything else, but it had put a small burning matchstick to the firework of his dreams, dreams that had been lying dormant in him.<br /> Nilambar was friendly with people who had acquired new wealth. After meeting such people, he would give out all the news about the latest fads and in-things, like…one must go on a tour to Egypt, take a boat-ride on the Nile, climb the Pyramids of Jebel Seina. It was through him that he came to know that smoking ‘Havana’ cigars had a taste of its own, than if you drank brands like ‘Kohba’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or ‘Bolivia and Punch’, it would draw the attention of any wealthy man towards you, just like having lunch and dinner at ‘Balthazaro’s’ in New York, or eating your favorite things at Manhattam’s fomous Moroccan restaurant, ‘Che Zaiqaa’, or if you had an old bottle of ‘Spring Buck’ whisky that would be appreciated by any wealthy connhoisseur, and if you had Tom Ford’s designer bags, shoes, clothes or belt.. To make an impression on the people of your community, you could send your children to spend their holidays at the summer camps in Switzerland that were run by Leslie’s, and if possible, your wife too, and then enjoy your life with your favorite mistress, speeding around with her in BMW or LUXES, or in some high-speed TARGA CARRIER, PROCHE or XS4XSUTTON.<br /> Daiyta Kar had a suspicion those days. ‘Have you sent your wife with the children too…’<br /> “Ha…ha… ha….! Nilambar had laughed at that, but his voice had seemed so wretched and doleful, as if, in his own words, the CBI had got wind of the secret accounts in Swiss or Bangkok Banks of one of his newly- rich friends. In other words, the game had slipped away at crystal Baccarat, the game of cards played by gamblers.<br /> “What’s the problem with you….? Riya would smile at him like a psychiatrist. Her every word seemed measured. “You shouln’t have any misgivings about me. If he is making a fool of himself, then you shouldn’t be foolish enough to stop him. The sort of life that you have now was missing before. You understand what I am saying, don’t you, and there’s some contribution of that son of a bitch Nilambar too in this change. He always gives something or the other every time he comes. Diamonds, jewelry.. and if, in return, he tells your wife how beautiful she is then listen to him Daitya Kar! Become a complete businessman…if you want to achieve something in life, and then learn to overlook a few things…..<br /> Good or bad, righty or wrong, whatever conjectures were being made regarding this incident, it had its beginning in just this sort of ‘logic’, or, in Nilambar’s words, driving rashly through the rush hour on a street in New York, his car had suddenly careened into many other cars. <br /><br />5<br /><br />If he ever got angry with Riya when she was a child, Rama would always silence him… “Children need a world in which they can be free. “A world under this roof.”<br />Daitya Kar kept his silence. But he was repeatedly assailed by the feeling that behind the unfettered world that was being provided for Riya, his own world was being snatched away from him, or, as if different worlds were being created for each of them. His, Riya’s and Rama’s. Sometimes he would see his tiny Riya performing aerobic with the music system blaring in the background, or he would come across Nilamber, explaining something in whispers to Rama in some room. And like a shrewd wife, Rama would stop him and get up from the chair.<br /> When we move ahead in life, our desires run farther ahead of us…<br /> Here was a boundless world that had filled Rama’s eyes. She was so bewitched with glamour that whenever he found her face to face with Riya, Daitya Kar would be filled with dread that she was either inducing her to dreams, or that she was lost in them herself. A dark, tunnel had descended into the depths of her eyes and neighing, blindfolded, galloping horses…..<br /> Daitya Kar was never able to forget that dream of Riya’s…Yes! Just by those horses, he would be compelled to compare them with the horses of Jonathan Swift…What are you, a mere human. You have such thin, slender arms and legs…Look at me…I’m the Chariot of the Gods… the horse was standing proud and erect, like some king before man, its enslaved subject. Daitya Kar realizes that man is nothing in comparison to the horses. Nothing but a helpless, ill-fated creature, surviving only on dreams.<br /> Nilambar would say withy a laugh, “We are people of the Remote Culture. If there are many people living together, each one wants to view the programs on different channels. If the program on Sony isn’t interesting, switch over to Zee with the click of the remote button. If Zee too fail to grip, then MTV, or Sports, or VTV. After all, the remote is there.. If you don’t like your husband change your husband, if you don’t like your wife then..” “What about the children…You can’t change children by the remote.”<br /> Daitya Kar asks. Nilambar falls silent all of a sudden.<br /> <br /> But no, what renders Daitya Kar’s situation so helpless is that, on the one hand, he goes along with the system, and yet, on the other, he keeps on rejecting it at every step. If he doesn’t go along with the system, there is darkness, and the neighing horses in the dream loose their way in the dark tunnel. And when he goes along helplessly with the system, something gnaws at his insides that is, it gnaws at him on one level, the level at which he has to strangle the opposition that his conscience puts up when he gives acceptance to the system. At least he tries to do so. Any how, the fact is that he is compelled to live a life (we won’t call it wretched) he doesn’t have the strength to struggle.<br /> Daitya Kar had imagined a world even during the days of his struggle, a world full of romance, a life full of beauty. And he had imagined and thought about it even in those days of a hemmed in, small-town milieu, because there used to be an enchanting realm of love that had existed then, in spite of all the constraints and hardships of those days. His parents, an amalgam of joy and sorrow, then their own parents, the neighbors, aunts and uncles. The poetry of love speckled the valley of life like the stars in the sky.<br /> Then, the sun was simply the sun. the earth was simply the earth, and the sky, just the sky. The moonlight sprinkled through the night then, and the stars were full of enchanting stories. Nature took you in the roofs… Those cots were coated with the grime of tales and fables….<br /> Daitya Kar felt that it was not just nature, or the environment that has been snatched away from the children, they have been robbed of life itself. They were children and so they used to think like children, looked like children, but would you… would you call Riya a child? Does Riya still appear to be a child? The lotuses blooming in Rama’s eyes have wilted. She is like a child because she is a child, but observing the 12 years old Riya, Daitya Kar would be filled with dread…No, Riya has become a young woman.<br /> “No”, there was a harshness in Rama’s voice… “that’s what I am saying…She shouldn’t look like a child anymore…”<br /> “But Why? Daitya Kar’s voice was suffused with fear. “Because, if she looks like a child anymore, it would be a disadvantage to her. It would hurt her career, her future…”<br /> The father hidden inside Daitya Kar come to hold the front.<br /> “Twenty-year old children go to school. Where does the future come the mestakes that we made… because this is the age when…”<br /> Daitya Kar was frightened.<br /> “Don’t fear…What ever I’ll do, it will be for Riya’s benefit.”<br /> “But What will you do? Will you turn her into a woman…In the name of her future…”<br /> Daitya Kar felt that Rama should have laughed at his sarcasm, instead, Rama had turned serious.<br /> “Yes, I’ll turn her into a woman…”<br /> “Have you gone mad….?”<br /> “No… I have decided. I’ll get Riya to have hormone injections.”<br /> Daitya Kar had been jolted even then, when Rama had talked about the world of glamour. Modeling the bold and brazen life of young actress… Nilabmbaer had asked with a laugh once. “Why do laughing. Nilambar had cited the latest example of Mamta Kulkarni. Daitya Kar thinks that the father’s forbearance must have been put to test. Moreover, here there was body fitness, ingenuity and frankness, and all of these led to the world of glamour. Beauty Quiz’s, Miss India, Miss world, Miss universe….watching their daughter’s body exposed before the worked, watching her bared legs would certainly make the parents feel so proud.<br /><br />6<br /><br /> This incident took place during the days when the high-flying Nilamber had suddenly tripped….<br /> Nilamber’s company was getting disturbed about the declining demand for its products. An decision was taken, why not wind up the company that was incurring so much loss. Suddenly, executives like Nilamber, who were being given such fat paychecks, were out of job.<br /> Nilambar’s lips were trenbling that day… just like someone falling to the earth from a great height.<br /> “Stop her…She is flying too fast….”<br /> “But now…Perhaps, it was too late now.” It wasn’t Daitya Kar, it was the voice of a utterly helpless father.<br /> “Do something…” Nilamber’s voice betrayed how frightened he was. “The girl has unknowingly chosen a gas chamber for herself, she’ll suffocate. First, it was the discotheque, and then bars, hormone injections…Her next stop could well be the condom…stop her!”<br /> Daitya Kar was in a state of such wretched misery that even the word “condom” wasn’t able to join him out of it... He could see that this Liberalism, this Consumerism, had turned Riya into a woman even before she took these hormone injections.<br /> He was compelled to see all this with his closed eyes. He could see the old world dying too. The bird was struggling to break out of the egg…He could fee4l the stench of death...Nothing new could happen without death…People need the hysteria that was the gift of war and mayhem…Hysteria…Sensation….Perhaps, the New World had begun…And this beginning was terrible for people like them…People who were still clinging to the Old World….<br /> In the meantime, many small incidents went on happening… Like Rama plugging for ‘Modeling’ with all the force she could muster…Like the gradual stopping of Nilamber’s visits to their house…Like Riya beginning to keep glum and silent. A deep, drown-out-sadness, like a melancholy that is born of some searing tragedy, or which is common with victims of depression. And he could see how Rama was being steadily crushed and beaten underneath this deep drawn-out-sadness. He was certain that the world was round. But he wasn’t sure that Rama could ever again return in the form of a woman. Either this was total defeat, or, it was the last page of that incident when Riya had attempted suicide by swallowing those sleeping pills…<br /> Had the bird broken out to the egg?<br /> For Arjun Daitya Kar, it was a mystical moment of self-realization… but a horrible scene was still left to unfold. Riya had regained consciousness, but her Medical Report was still to come. But whatever was going to be revealed in the Report could be read in Riya’s eyes even now. It was as if a chill had suddenly descended on the whole house. A haze of mist that separated them from each other like strangers... A shriek reverberated, a sound of something crashing to pieces. Daitya Kar and Rama came running only to see Riya standing in front of them at the door of her house. Her clothes in tatters, her eyes burning like coals. She held a half-broken bottle of soda in her hand, and there was a strange sort of tautness on her face that had been born out of sheer anger. “What do you people want to know…If you pester me too much then…?”<br /> Daitya Kar knew. Films and the violence that was portrayed in films naturally had their effect on the minds of children. His emotions too had c hilled in the cold haze of the mist. And then, there was just one day left for a new day to begin, or, he was going to hear some news that was going to shock him out of his senses on the last day of the old year. Or….the bird of a new beginning was going to break out of the egg.<br /> <br />8<br /><br />How did all this happen? Daitya Kar would stand still amongst the crowed of questions. Is all of this just a truth of the darkness of these times? The idealism of the days of Independence, Lohia’s Socialism… and then all these ‘isms’ were broken into so many grouping of class and creeds. Materialism, Consumerism, the ideology of Scams… Even if a single brick of liberalism was put anywhere, then what would we call this generation …captive of a sense of insecurity, tense, wretched, as if they were leaving themselves open to attack…but from whom….these children who had grown up in an émigré or fugitive culture. They find refuge from their tension to be confronted at the next step with a route to crime. Those bloodshot eyes of Riya…they are not brave or strong, they are weak. Deciding to commit suicide in a moment, and then trying to find the meaning of life in such decisions...Victims of personal, internalized violence…with fury in their eyes, a generation ready to sacrifice itself in the name of any form of hysteria...but who is responsible for bringing this generation to this situation? Every generation is compelled to accept some sort of influence from the generation that precedes it. So that secular, liberal person dwelling inside Daitya Kar was nothing but a symbol, a myth and it was because of that person’s influence that Riya has been forced to write these pages. The horses are neighing. The blindfolds over their eyes are coming loose… the on the whole house. A haze of mist that separated them from each other like strangers… a shriek reverberated, a sound of something crashing to piedes. Daitya Kar and Rama came running only to see Riya standing in front of them at the door of her house. Her clothes in tatters, her eyes burning like coals. She held a half-broken bottle of soda in her hand, and there was a strange sort of tautness on her face that had been born out of sheer anger. “What do you people want to know…it you pester me too much then…”<br /> Daitya Kar all this happen? Daitya Kar would stand still amonst the crowed of question. Is all of this just a truth of the days of independence, Lohia’s Socialism…and them all these isms were broken into so many grouping of class and creeds? Materialism, Consumerism, the ideology of Scams... even if a single brick of liberalism was put anywhere, then what would we call this generation…the MTV condom generation…Captive of a sense of insecurity, tense, wretched, as if they were the victims of some terrinle deceit, or as if they were leaving themselves open to attack…but from home…these children who had grown up in an émigré or fugitive culture. They find refuge from their tension only to be confronted at the next step with a route to crime. Those bloodshot eyes of Riya…they are not brave or strong, they are weak, deciding to commit suicide in a moment, and then trying to find the meaning of life in such decisions…victims of personal, internalized violence...With fury in their eyes, a generation ready to sacrifice itself in the name of any form of hysterias..But who is responsible for bringing this generation to this situation? Every generation is compelled to accept some sort of influence from the generation that precedes it. So that secular, liberal person dwelling inside Daitya Kar was nothing but a symbol, a myth and it was because of that person’s influence that Riya has been forced to write these pages. The horses are neighing. The blindfolds over their eyes are coming loose…the horses can now smash into the walls of the long, dark tunnel….<br /> 31st December… A thick blanket of fog was spread till far into the distance outside the house…There was very little time left for the New Year to arrive…But the sound of bursting crackers could still be heard outside. These were sounds of the farewell to the departing Twentieth Century..or preparations to welcome the New Year. A century was being envelope in mist. A new century was being born from the thick fog. The Medical Report had come, bringing the story of a new birth.<br /> “She…is still a child.”<br /> “You made her take those hormone injections….”<br /> “But…She still a child…”<br /> The cold was making the teeth chatter….it was bitterly cold outside. And a spite of the coming New Year, there was an eerie desolation.<br /> “What can happen now? Rama’s lips had started trembling.<br /> “Even earlier it was you who always decided for her…And so…”<br /> “Don’t you have the strength to take a decision….”<br /> “Or…I would never have allowed my girl to take hormone injections.”<br /> “Dreams were blossoming in my eyes. Like others , I too wished to see my daughter on the TV screen.”<br /> “Then why did you discard it….”<br /> “Because…” Rama’s voice was like ice. “He didn’t seem to be a man to me…”<br /> “No. He was human like you and me…” Datiya Kar was saddened by a thought…He was like a computer that had become obsolete and worthless because another new and better produced had come into the market.<br /><br /><br />9<br /><br />The crackers had started bursting outside…Perhaps the time for the New Year’s arrival was near…He knew that in spite of the bitter cold outside, children and the young crowd would have come out on the streets, full of excitement and happiness…or they would be sitting in their homes, waiting for the needles of their clocks to join together. Rama is silent...They can hear a strange whispering. There are still more revolutions to come. The revolutions that are expected in the years to come, in the fields of biotechnology and genetics…Perhaps, at our next station, we would be entering the era of Nino-Technology. A new ara would begin, more horrible than the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park..Your would be able to make and keep a copy of every living and natural thing, like the biotech cloning of plants, microscopic trees, or creating atmospheric and climatic conditions inside your room<br />He heaves a sad sigh….These ceaseless revolutions have made a ‘bonsai’ of us….<br /> “But what is the solution for this?”<br /> Rama’s eyes are fixed on his face. “What have you decided about Riya?”<br /> But perhaps, he isn’t in a condition to think about any thing. The needles of the clock have fused with each other. The bursting of crackers outside has gathered pace. Getting up from his place, he walks like a robot towards the gate and opens the door. Perhaps to welcome in the New Year or to bid a lasting farewell to the Twentieth Century. The bitter cold outside, the fog spread like a sheet…the haze till far in the distance…The sounds of laughter of some children can be heard. Perhaps they would be dancing and singing with each other and bursting crackers.<br /> But Daitya dar…it was as if the cold had frozen him to the spot…the bird has come out breaking the egg….or…<br /> The horse, galloping inside the tunnel without a blindfold, was lying spattered with blood after colliding against the walls of the tunnel.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-84308860806231630672010-04-01T09:54:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:55:10.913-07:00a dinner party after the riotA Dinner Party after the Riot<br /><br />Coming to the aquarium he stopped. A magnificent world was illuminated with in the glass walls—a spray of twinkling tiny bubbles and in between them the fish with their gold-like sheen, dancing and trying to make him forget all the stories of the past. He saw carefully. A tiny fish lay inert on the sandy bottom of the aquarium , quiet, like a dead one, unlike the others moving and dancing, it lay completely exhausted by the shining little babbles at the bottom.<br /> ‘it is dead.’<br /> ‘no, it isn’t dead , no. it’s simply posing …after a short while it will wake up to action and begin to dance with the others.’<br /> ‘Who cares.’ He was annoyed with the fish. ‘Who cares…How does it matter if it dies…?’<br /> ‘just touch and see. One.. two….three….’ he was advancing his finger slowly towards the aquarium glass.<br /> In a corner on the right there stood men, four of them in all, with wine glasses in their hands. One of them happened to look at the aquarium. He drew the others’ attention to the glass-box.<br /> ‘See, see what he is doing.’<br /> ‘poor fish.’<br /> ‘Not the fish, he….see him.’<br /> ‘Oh, how romantic…!’<br /> ‘Romantic?’<br /> ‘Yes.’<br /> ‘You find romantic in every thing.'<br /> ‘Romance itself is a thing like that.’<br /> ‘But what is romantic there in it?’<br /> ‘See, in his eyes, Oh, an endless curiosity. And what he is curious about you can see for yourselves….these moving and dancing fairies of water in the thin glass castle…How romantic!’<br /> ‘Oh no. they are not fairies. And , even if they were….. I don’t like confusion, to create ramp by bringing two things together. The fish…dancing carelessly in their glass castle….a dreamland ….a dream island…’<br /> ‘But see him. He is the object to look at. That is, the way he is trying to touch it, or see it closely. Did you mark his body language? See his eyes are small but having a fine curve in them. The body is supple. He is curious to touch it with his hand but has patience too…. And let there be tied a string of small bells round his ankle, the melody produced by them would equal the notes of a nightingale….’<br /> ‘But, a string of small bells…’<br /> ‘That makes no difference…’<br /> ‘No, there is a difference….see. he has drawn his hand back.’<br /> ‘I tell you, he will advance his hand once again…’<br /> ‘I say he won’t.’<br /> ‘I say….’<br /> ‘Bet on it.’<br /> ‘Done.’<br /> ‘What worth….?’<br /> ‘Don’t meddle with the issue now…’<br /> ‘The wine glass is almost empty…’<br /> ‘Don’t change the subject.’<br /> ‘All the music is in wine. It is wine that speaks.’<br /> ‘Don’t alter the stand.’<br /> ‘The bet is done.’<br /> ‘No. No bet. Suppose you suggested something unmentionable….’<br /> ‘Or, for example an accommodation in the enclave under construction?<br /> ‘Be sure. I shall not ask you for that even.’<br /> ‘For example…’<br /> ‘For example….when the time comes….’<br /> ‘You contemptible wretch.’<br /> One of them dashed the wine glass against the floor violently. The rest of them tried to check him.<br /> ‘No…no…mister…’<br /> Despite the clang nothing changed. The scene remained the same as it had been earlier. There were very many people in the party lost in their own affairs. None cared for the crash in the least, for the glass or for the splinters. None turned to look at him.<br /> ‘Ha…ha….ha….’ all the four were laughing now.<br /> The person standing by the aquarium squatted down.<br /> ‘See…see…see him.’<br /> ‘Ha…ha….ha…’<br /> ‘It is, as they say-neither head nor tail. The tossed coin descended upright….’<br /> ‘Why not. Ssaley, spoiled my pleasant mood.<br /> ‘Why can’t you ask for shabnam, why? Is she mine only? She…’<br /> ‘Yes? She….’<br /> The other one breathed in heavily.<br /> ‘And Ssaaly, you in that enclave…’<br /> ‘In a little space…What’s that?- the verse by ghalib?’<br /> ‘Not by ghalib. By Mir…’<br /> ‘Abey saaley, not Mir. bahadur shah zafar.’<br /> He recited the lines.<br /> ‘Kitna hai badnaseeb zafar dafer ke liye,<br /> Do gaz zameen bhi na mili ku-e-yaar mein.’<br /><br /> [ So hard of luck is Zafar about his eternal rest/ that he could not have even two yard length of land in the alley of his beloved ones.]<br /><br /> ‘What a verse is it, dear? I am swayed by it whenever I listen to it.’<br /> ‘But saaley, I am angry over the accusation. Is the land mine?’<br /> ‘No!.<br /> ‘Is it this person’s?’<br /> No.’<br /> ‘Then?...Every body knows whose it is, then, why couldn’t you ask for a piece of it?’<br /> ‘I made a mistake…’<br /> ‘No, not a mistake because you are not out of that devilish way of thinking in which our shades of skin…our possessions…I mean, that much-you all must understand, what the more can I say?’<br /> He was not concerned with the party. He was carefree now. He had been so many parties like that one. Or, it may be safely said, he had not only heard but seen also so many tales of happenings- particularly, stories about the parties celebrating the victories after a war, major, general, high ranking officials, wives of military men, avoiding political talk and just enjoying the fun of pleasant talk among themselves. Once it so happened that he was assigned the jab of looking after the canteen arrangements.<br /> ‘But these parties…?’<br /> ‘War and riot?’<br /> ‘No, he doesn’t want to think. Thinking puts him under strain. The brain feels like splitting up.’<br /> ‘want to go home?’<br /> Sattar had made up his mind. He had to go home..his home. None can check him from his going home..and why anyone should?’<br /> ‘Enjoyed yourself?’ kittoo nangdeya was asking.<br /> ‘Ya…ya…ya…’<br /> ‘Why? You liked it well! Or, you didn’t sattar?’<br /> ‘Why should he not?’ were eyeing our wives surrepticiously…kyon be?’<br /> Satish bandya smiled broadly.<br /> ‘Ya…ya…’<br /> ‘So? Your intentions now?’<br /> ‘Shall go home.’<br /> ‘Why?’<br /> ‘Shall go home.’ A child-like smile played on his lips. ‘ Will you let me?’<br /> ‘Yes, yes. Why not?’<br /> ‘ I shall go home,’ he repeated for the third time.<br /> ‘Yes…In now way we wish you not to go at your pleasure. But going just now…? Do you follow me? No ?’<br /> Like a child out of wits he played the same old tape, ‘ I have to go home. Won’t you let me?’<br /> Once again he came and stopped by the aquarium where the tiny fish lay dead on the sandy bottom of the glass house. He was looking at the fish intently. He had no interest left in him for the playfulness of the other fish.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-33136646109165743832010-04-01T09:53:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:54:05.910-07:00the telephoneTHE TELEPHONE<br /><br />It was a night before that night—a dark and ugly night. The day had been a long and weary one. And now the night…My wife, as was her wont, had gone off to sleep, turning on the ogher side. I think I had wished her goodnight in a whisper. So softly, that she couldn’t even hear it. So gently, that only I was witness to my words…Yes, I had whispered goodnight to her and probably even given her a goodnight kiss….I had even hugged my two year old sleeping nearby. Before that, that is before going to bed I had even thanked my wife, out of habit, for the grey shirt she had bought me. What a pity! I detest grey and my wife hasn’t discovered this in the five years we’ve been married. But she had bought the shirt nevertheless and I had to express my gratitude. I did, and resting my head on the pillow, I lay down.<br />“Thanks honey. You…at least thought of a new shirt for me. No matter how old a man gets, a new garment always gives him a new feeling. I’ll wear it tomorrow. Positively tomorrow…to the office.”<br />My wife got bored with this meaningless blabber, turned the other way and fell asleep. I had spoilt one whole day for this night. What all<br /><br />Translated by Naila Anjum<br />I had planned! But the fault lies in planning. Once we make op our minds about something, we are crippled. Because words complete their lesson as they jump around within our minds. And when they are required to recall the lesson, they are unable to do so.<br />Today, I had spent whole morning in daydreaming. In speculation. And in thought which had long ceased to enter my mind….<br />“Good morning. Do you remember something?” Earlier, your sweet, melodious voice used to wake me up. Your tapering fingers would run through my hair. Suddenly, flowers of heaving breath bloomed on your face and a faint scent came riding on the breath… the bangles tinkled on your wrists and some of them, when they cracked in the beautiful moments of our lovemaking, reminded us of their presence.<br />A morning of this kind, some empty fragrant day, some such cheerful afternoon of evening drenched in melody, beautiful night… I had really forgotten.<br />My mood was ruined today early morning. A rat died near the bathroom. To expect any energy from my wife was useless. Even after removing the dead mouse away from the house, the terrible stench lingered in the air. And with the smell I began to brood. The train of ideas created a riot in my head and heart.<br />Just one mouse! Just one mouse is enough to spoil a day?<br />Probably. But what would you have talked to her about?<br />Oh I haven’t thought about it. Maybe about days past, all those moments which were lovely, beautiful, graceful, and sparkling.<br />I have locked them up in some attaché of suitcase and sunk them into oblivion.<br />Then go and open it.<br />It’s not that easy.<br />Then keep quiet. Make a compromise. Let the creeper of life grow unhindered. It’ll grow old and wither away, it’ll fall off.<br />No, it’s a painful experience. More hurtful and horrible than the announcement of the death of the mouse.<br />So?<br />I haven’t laughed for days. Really, it has been ages since I laughed heartily.<br />Earlier you used to do a lot of thing, remember?<br />In front of the house there was a row of naked eucalyptus trees. The ground was brown, strewn with damp and dead leaves. If there were mountains around, if one could see the dazzling pearl. Like snow on the peaks. Foolish and sentimental. Sheer emotionalism.<br />Earlier I did many things that had to do with emotions. Then too this fragile girl existed. In an effort to make my eyes more and more attractive…. How stupid I used to look, only she can tell, but back then she didn’t speak. She only smiled gently.<br />“You’re looking great!”<br />“Me!”<br />The song of rivers filled my face became as fresh as a waterfall. There were many such occasions when we flowed without any rhyme of reason. We burst into laughter without any apparent cause, we became exuberant for nothing at all.<br />Back then, we were as excited and carefree as the mountains. We were as naïve and innocent as children, as stylish as flowers, and blooming like them too. Then we used to laugh genuinely. We ran like waterfalls.<br />Then we were in love.<br />Then the seasons were not as dry, the air was not so heavy, the nights were not so dark and ugly. The days were not so sad and hot. Then we did not argue, we did not get upset with serious talk. We were alive then, we made merry, we stayed happy, and our faces were always sunny.<br />And we used to smile with or without any reason. We used to laugh, whether there was an occasion for it or not.<br />I haven’t laughed for days. I must laugh. It has been ages since I have rejoiced.<br />Today the whole day, a day before the dark and ugly night, I kept doing this. That is, I spent the whole day looking for the happiness meant for me.<br />Today was eventful. For instance, early in the morning, I loudly called out to my wife on seeing the dead mouse.<br />“Look an elephant has died here.”<br />My wife came, holding her nose and looking anxious. Just then, the tumbler made of bone china dropped from Somi’s hands and the shards dispersed on the floor.<br />She looked at me accusingly, with anger. I picked up a stick and said jokingly, “I’ll bid farewell to it with arms.”<br />“Go and throw it away.” She was acting crazy. “look here, Somi is crying. For god’s sake console him. But no, first ….oh! I can’t stand the smell. For god’s sake…”<br />She repeated “for god’s sake” twice and slapping Somi angrily, she dragged him inside.<br />I concentrated. Somi was howling inside and her angry outbursts could be heard outside. I thought about myself-my languorous voice carried a sleepy laughter that was like the fading smell of a wilting flower.<br />No. Before leaving for office, I wasn’t pleased at all. Over the last two to three years I have been going out in silence, grief welling up inside me. As usual, I stepped out of the house.<br />The seat next to mine in the office is james’s. on reaching my desk, I got furious to see the file on the desk covered with millions of crawling ants.<br />“have you organized a feast for the ants?” james asked me with a smile.<br />“How did the ants come here?”<br />“You have invited them yourself,” james was laughing, “I didn’t ask the peon to clear your desk so that you could make full arrangement for the ants feast.”<br />Stupid james. I felt a pang of envy. How heartily he could laugh.<br />No, these moments are a gift to me…perhaps to laugh and feel happy. I must laugh. “Why james, don’t you think their party should be lavish?”<br />I poured some water into the glass from the jug kept on the table. Then I lifted the ants off the file with a pen and slowed started putting them in the glass.<br />“What are you doing?” james asked in astonishment.<br />“I’m helping them reach their destination. They are looking for some spiritual system, don’t you think? Why are you making a face james? Don’t you agree with me?” perhaps[s there was a smile on my face. “Don’t you think that the entire universe could be mere nothingness to them, and they could be moving towards that negation of existence, crawling on the files?”<br />“No you are wrong,” james quickly lunged towards me. He snatched away the file and kept it aside. “ No, jokes apart, they will die.” There was an innocent anguish in his face. “You are terminating their lives, which you shouldn’t be doing.”<br />I noticed a hint of pensiveness in his voice. I thought for a while. Even I wasn’t too happy. Probably there was some terrible misunderstanding. For a while I kept quiet, head lowered.<br />“What’s the matter?” james interrupted my reverie.<br />“Nothing. I’m just feeling bored.”<br />“If you’re getting distracted, go home.”<br />“Yes, I’m going.”<br />While returning home, that stupid scene kept leaping on to my mind like flames. The ants floating in the glass, breathing their last.<br />Why did I do so?<br />Why indeed!<br />I don’t know. Just watching the army of ants I felt they must be tired. They’d feel relaxed if released into water. They’d dance a little, whirl around a bit and then I’d bring them back on dry surface, their sojourn completed. And after drying themselves, they’d go home. But they died.<br />You are downright evil. Today you’ve committed too many murders.<br />The earth was spitting fire. The hot flames of the sun were baking the body like an oven. I reached home after spending a very hot heavy, listless day in the office. And of be honest, the whole rite of laughter was left incomplete. That day I couldn’t laugh. Lassitude clung to me even after my wife had returned home in the evening. But the train of thoughts was still moving on. Once again…after all it has been ages since we met. Even while having tea or eating dinner with my wife and son, I couldn’t laugh my share with them. My wife had bought the shirt on her way back from the office. The grey shirt.<br />Thus, one died early in the morning the next day, Somi did not drop a bone china tumbler. That day both of us had permission to go out. I tried several times to say something to her at every favourable opportunity, listen honey, today with you… after years…no! Do you remember the last time we laughed? In the zoo, no in the children’s park while eating ice creams. No, I have to rack y brains hard. It has been days. Nome of us laugh…let us try it some day for a change. Let us laugh a little.<br />She was perturbed, burdened with clothes and other things. Waving her bag, she disappeared with her problems.<br />Doesn’t matter, I consoled myself. She will come back in the evening. And before that, I have to ponder over the many reasons for laughter. What is it that can make me laugh and what is it that can make her happy-some lovely, ridiculous incident listening to which she’ll forget herself and burst into laughter? What is it that she likes? Something by looking at which she becomes happy? Bangles…no, she does not wear them now. Jewellery perhaps…no, now she does not even like jewellery. Since she has started earning her own money, she is not interested in any such thing.<br />What if I tidy the whole house…and when she comes back she finds the food already cooked….and the kitchen sparkling clean…no, these things are commonplace. Such acts pleased her earlier, but now…<br />What if I tell her a joke, some funny anecdote, an interesting event of some news of the neighbourhood…no, even these things will not elicit more than a nod from her.<br />The hot summer sun was hovering angrily over all the avenues of entertainment. No, I must tell her that we haven’t grown so old that even after belonging to each other we can’t be fellow travelers. Does it look good? What is it that has happened between us? So much harshness, bitterness, insipidity…so much silence. Can’t we bridge this gap? No, it’s all right….we have to stay alive. Everyone gone on like this… this truth comes before everyone at least once in a lifetime. But I have never ever thought about this truth in such a manner. No, never, I could never imagine…I only dreamt. In my dreams golden shadows had floated….I dreamt of myriad cities. I watched flying horses in dreams. On those horses two hands beckoned me. They made magic signs to me. I have always been a dreamer….always a dreamer…how could I become like this?<br />No, I must change. I have to make an effort to laugh. With Somi, with her. Let’s go out. No. she will not refuse right away but even if she consents, a sleepy heaviness will stay with her, then, we will return not nothing will happen. Nothing that would feel like a puff of exhilarating breeze.<br />This was the very night for which all these preparations had been made. She came back from the office. I had returned before her. She threw her bag on the bed and entered the kitchen as soon as arrived.<br />“What’s the matter?”<br />“The ants….”<br />“What…”<br />Before I could express my surprise, she remarked. “Nothing. There are ants in the sugar. These disgusting creatures have a way of settling down permanently on sweet things as if….”<br />“ A way of setting down…” The thought was amusing to me.<br />She was extremely serious. “In this season lots of ants come. Why? Because of the heat? No matter how tightly one keeps the lid closed, the ants…”<br />Someone was murmuring inside me. Whispering or laughing…this whole universe is nothingness to them, moving towards their destination of non-existence, sometimes in files, sometimes in cans of sugar…<br />“Did you say something?”<br />“No..” I murmured, trying to examine myself. She got up to change her clothes. The whole day passed with its dullness, and the night approached.<br />I heard her footfalls. She had come in after switching off the lights outside Somi had fallen asleep.<br />“You haven’t slept till now?” She was smiling.<br />I saw her smile and was taken aback. My face tried to put on different expressions but could not muster a single one.<br />“What’s the matter? Oh yes, I forgot to tell you” She gradually moved forward and sat on the bed. There was a special kind of glow on her face. My heart was beating aloud.<br />“Have you any idea what it could be? Guess.” She was testing me.<br />“No,” I said after thinking really hard. I couldn’t guess. “Why don’t you tell me?”<br />She got up to switch off the lights. Then she looked at me with a smile. “I forget to tell you. We’ve got the telephone connection…”<br />She switched off the lights. I couldn’t see her expression. But she was saying, “Now listen, you shouldn’t keep yourself hooked to the phone,” while turning on my side. There was a hint of disapproval in my voice too, “Why should I be hooked to it? There would be more calls for you.”Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-86759732838856111562010-04-01T09:51:00.002-07:002010-04-01T09:52:57.959-07:00the rain ,the forest and sheThe rain, the forest and she………<br /><br />“No love is not this”<br />“No love is not that either”<br />“Please stop. Anything that you will say at present about love will amount to have been said in a hurry. Have you seen love?” I said looking squarely into the eyes of my friends in the din of the coffee house table. Though, on my having said this, all my friends sitting there made a mistake in taking me to be the ghost of O’Henri’s famous story, “Ghost”. And, for that reason on of them smiled and said, “I wonder whether you will disappear having asked us “if we had seen love.”<br />‘Yes, I will, if you are not going to offer me a smoke.<br />My mind was alive with the vision of the train and its echoing whistles. I wondered if O’ Henry’s character, the ghost, was still present-in some vacant railway compartment that was resounding its own silence or amid the uproar of railway engine whistles-but the puff of an ordinary cigarette, the rings of smoke, the remembrance come alive, and the touch of cool, soothing, romantic wind incarnating some beauty face to face in the psychic world, was enough to transport me into a new land.<br />No. At that time it was not easy for me to think. I could not even think that love happens but once. And, on the second occasion? Does a satisfied person have just a desire for sex rather than love? Well, let us grant it. Now, let us suppose there is a man who has loved, gets married, and after the marriage if happens to find a different face reflected in the stream of fire?-a different body, a different countenance! No, we need not scrutinize the caves of history from napoleon to Nehru; the love remains love only even after it has substituted. A hundred faces of its own supposing you get soaked with it to the same extent, get submerged into it to the same depths, and feel the same every time……….<br />Instantly an innocent looking face flashed up before the eyes.<br />‘Are you going to propose noodles for me to eat?<br />‘No’.<br />‘Why?’<br />‘I don’t eat noodles.’<br />‘Don’t eat. But you can offer me to eat. Ha….. ha….. ha………’<br />As she laughed, there were flowers spread out all around. But I did not like the laughter in the least. When she ceased laughing, she touched my hand gently, as if she were counting the fingers. Some flame flared up, but passing through the stream of her very young age, cooled down.<br />‘Why? What happened?’<br />‘No. Nothing at all.’<br />‘Then, why did you withdraw your hand?’<br />‘Just so,’ I mumbled. I was frightened of her piercing eyes.<br />‘No just so’ you were frightened. Ha……..ha……..ha……..’<br />A strange mischief was born in her eyes. Clapping unrestrainedly she put forth a second burst of laughter, ‘Frightened,……..frightened!’<br />‘Yes. I got frightened, but why do you do all such things?’<br />‘First, you tell me, why you get frightened?’<br />Whenever she found I was passing through an ordeal, she would laugh out, ‘In a breathe I am transformed into a ball of fire, isn’t it? A girl who had played in your lap, and now just a touch from her makes you pass through the sensations of thrill and the complex of guilt too. Listen to me. Now I can’t be contained within your lap. Just try to lift me up to take in your lap.’<br />Shanta had no hard feelings towards her for she was born after we had already been married. Her father, who was our neighbour, was a painter, a meritorious artist.<br />Normally when such artists in small cities, despite all their worthiness, fail to attain remarkable heights, get frustrated. The same was true about Dillon. Papers and magazines, heaps of books and he, sitting there scratching his over grown beard, would get transformed into a philosopher, ‘In this consumer-culture society, on some day or the other, the predicament of art was sure to follow. When money gains in importance, art must lose its recognition. What a station is going to be attained by the people like us who have nothing but devotion and commitment……………………….’<br />Whenever I cited the examples of great artists like M.F. Hussain who rolled in money, he would suddenly feel downcast,<br />‘All the supremacy of money. An artist has to forgo the inclinations of his soul too. How many of them become a Hussain? The paintings of how many of the artists reach art galleries? How many of the visitors to the art galleries are connoisseurs? It is only the big names that sell. The big names are put to auction. People buy them as they will buy a pair of panties, a condom or an underwear.’ A few visitors buy them and carry them home as a conscientious effort on their part to give an intellectual touch to their drawing rooms where it is not the subtlety of the art but the price that is highlighted. An artist is descended to the status of a commodity only, today. I have heard lately, someone bought Hussain for Rs.31crore for a year,’ Dhillon was resentful. ‘The power of money has wasted away the power of resistence…….and one day…..in this new system, all the things of art will dwindle away to the status of useless things.’<br />When Dhillon was gone, Sakshi came in. Shanta had been out. A strange look made itself manifested on her face as soon as she saw me.<br />‘How is it that your father is always angry?’ I asked.<br />‘He keeps fighting against all the world.’<br />‘But why?’<br />‘He likes….,’ she checked herself in her speech. Her eyes looked unfathomable.’<br />She blushed deeply and lowered her eyes.<br />‘Your father is angry with all the world, and you………?’<br />Shakshi laughed out softly, ‘I know only love. The very word itself makes me crazy. I wish to take a flight …to touch the sky, to become a butterfly….and….the rain, a waterfall,’ she was looking into my eyes, ‘and you?’<br />‘I don’t know……..’<br />‘You know all but suffer from fright. I’m unable to understand why you feel frightened. I’m of the age of your daughter…..right?.....but not your daughter exactly,’ she was laughing. ‘I don’t know why it did happen to me. But, perhaps, I had become fond of you since my childhood. And then suddenly when I found you in the mirror while I was looking at my own reflection, I was amazed. You, in your entirety, were present in the mirror, looking at me, with your enigmatic eyes. Some hair on your temples looked grey……..had an impulse at heart to pick up father’s painting brush and colors them black. Then looked at you once again and felt the grey becomes you as it goes with you in your full manliness, your full maturity….’<br />The room was hushed. The wind froze. Time ceased to roll on. A quieter of excitements ran through me. Shakshi took a step forward. The disposition of bashfulness was won over now. A steadfast young woman who was a lover and who would exert herself to safeguard her right to love was born at her heart. The one who could snatch away this right for herself from a wife too, for she had answers to satisfy all the scruples. Softly she touched my hand with hers; and the very touch caused a thrill run through me….as some dull opiate would…She kissed my hand…..<br />The myriad stars of the heavens twinkled within her eyes.<br />‘Admit the truth or don’t………, you also are in love with me. Tell me whether you are, or aren’t. Her lips came upon mine quietly. A turbulence made itself felt. The freshness of the feel in the touch could not be equaled by that of a red red rose newly sprung, nor could the rose have that warmth….that heat.<br />But the very touch reminded me of shanta, and a sense of guilt overpowered me. As I separated myself in a flash, Shanta stood there like a question embodied. With resentment and dismay in her eyes she asked me.<br />‘Why do you keep me deprived of my right? She was angry. ‘Why did you separate yourself when you also wanted the same thing? Try to be truthful. You are truthful where others are concerned, why false when it is you, the concerned. Tell me if you did not like my coming over here, or my kissing you like this. But you suffer from fright. Why don’t you do away with this sense of fright in you? One aspect of the truth, isn’t it what you would say? But, suppose she had any, what would you do? Or, what should you have done?’<br />Shakshi’s eyes had descended into mine. She added, ‘Will I have to tell you that all the truths are not cast in a single mould. The have their separate recognizable identities. Should I tell you that love is born of a very natural phenomenon? Love is not a deliberate creation. Should I desist from loving you for the reason that you are my father’s friend? But there are no such prohibitions imposed by the religious books. Then ? Why should I not love you?<br />The pendulum clock on the wall seemed to have got awakened to motion. For a moment it felt as if the room was shaken by an unseen earthquake. A deep hush overspread itself at heart, and the numerous branches of the silence became alive on their own under the influence of the earthquake.<br /><br />The confession of Aaditya Kapoor <br /><br /> I, that is, Aaditya Kapoor. I don’t know what you would do had a story like that begun in your own life. What like it feels, silently watching the growth of a guilty conscience developing within a person, can be understood by you by seeing me. My son Alok reads in Dehradun. Eleven-year old. Shakshi is older than him by seven years only. When they are together they seem to be a brother and a sister. They quarrel also as a brother and sister will. Now, it happened just on that day only. Looking for Alok she came into my room- riding of the chariot of air, as she always does. The feel that Alok is there in the house enhances my feeling of fear. Shakshi took hold of my hands quietly.<br />‘ Tell me that you don’t love me.’<br />‘I don’t.’<br />‘On oath of Alok?’<br />‘On oath of Alok, I mumbled, and instantly felt startled. In case there were some pleasant gusts of wind for Shakshi, then……? Why did I take an oath on Alok? O my God: What has possessed me?<br />Next morning, quarrelling with Alok, she looked at me and smiled.<br />‘Be emancipated from your oath. I’ve come back having made a propitiatory offering worth rupes one hundred in the name of Alok.’ As she laughed gleefully, her white teeth sparkled like pearls on a fine string.<br />‘What offering?’ Shanta had come out.<br />‘I’ve been to temple. Just praying for Alok’s long life, made an offering there.<br />Shakshi found me alone, once again.<br />‘ keep from speaking on oath. It is a sin. And money is required to make offerings. Will you give me- your second wife, your little wife-money for offerings again and again?’ Shakshi ran away, laughing.<br />Her peel of laughter still pursued me…….her concluding words in particular…. ‘He is a son of mine too…..How does it matter if he was not born of me……?’ So many glaciers within me were breaking and moving down the valley.<br />No, It was, perhaps, not easy at that time to think if one falls in love but for once. And on the second occasion? Does there still remain an indefinable longing even after one is divided, and shared by the wife and the family?-A suppressed desire that sparkles off the smoldering wood? No. Nothing was easy to think of at that time. Shakshi was always a small child to Shanta’s mind, the one who in her childhood woo let come from to her and nestle herself in Shanta’s lap. A vast world of recollection still persisted. There was a little cat, Kitty. During the winter it would come and quietly slip under the quilt. Shakshi would also come to listen to my stories. Once, while listening to me, not the little. Kitty but Shakshi slipped into my bed, I was much startled-for the first time. Her hands were warm. The look on her face was different. Shakshi was thirteen years old at the time. She bent a little and then transferred the weight of her beyond the window was a mass of vegetation-forest like……..shanta got in with atea in her hands, seeing shakshi drowsing said, ‘If we had the daughter…..’, had set fire at my heart. Kitty, sitting somewhere in a corner mewed. He looked at Kitty. A shade of anger could be discerned in its eyes for shakshi. I shivered. Very quietly shakshi’s hand slipped up to my chest and, perhaps, I was under some psychological pressure in this strange situation. Opened the window. A dense forest flourished in the dark. There were two or three little bungalows on one side of the forest, and a mosque also at some distance. At the present moment the solitude of the forest seemed to have enveloped me.<br />Was it a repetition of some Lolita within me? Some time in the night, while holding shanta in my arms, I found it was shakshi’s face that had come to freeze on the screen of my vision, for a long time too just one face gained intransience among the proceeding caravans of the stars. At the time of sexual intercourse with Shanta, the face of little Lolita would flash up and Shanta would vanish. In the dark the vision of Shakshi would become alive…her mischievous fingers….her maiden form shaping itself in a mould. And, at the moment thousands of ants would get access into me. Suddenly when my hot body turned icy cold, Shanta would turn and ask, ‘what happened?’ My growing age and indifference to sex would help her reach an answer to her question, but Shakshi would be there within my minds frame, looking at me in the dark of might with her enormous eyes, rippling writhing becoming a full fledged question, even after he was separated from Shanta.<br />Time rolled on. So many incidents connected with Shakshi attached themselves to his life. Sometimes marriage ceremonies, sometimes Shakshi’s coming first to him when she wore a new dress, giving a helping hand to Shanta in the kitchen, but, quite commonly, her squabble with Shanta over her laying my table, ‘Let me serve please she would say. ‘she is usurping up all my right,’ once Shanta said loving.<br /><br />That gave me a rude shock.<br />And once again, on a certain night Shanta froze the hands in their serpentine movements when she said, ‘Perhaps our own daughter will not do as much as Shakshi does’….<br />The dense forest flourished on the outside.<br />The hands turning into snakes fell down as a lizard on the wall could….once again I was under a self analysis, or thinking for own self or lost in my own maze…. Aditya kapoor…what does all this mean? Are you getting perverted? Shakshi is like your own daughter…And then Shakshi’s tone would attack…. Like one, but not a daughter exactly. Then another voice would attack, and a burning body under the impulse of strong gusts of wind coming from the forest would slowly cool down.<br />An incident that occurred the next day. Having done with the breakfast Shanta had gone to a house in the neighbourhood to participate in some religious rituals going on there. Shakshi seemed to have been awaiting her chance. No sooner did Shanta go out than Shakshi got in like a ship rolling on the sea. Waves this was exactly their time when I was getting ready to9 go and take my bath, of course, with a towel only round the loin just I heard a footstep and there was Shakshi standing in front of me. <br />The wind stopped. Time stopped. Shakshi was seventeen now…her eyes wide open in a gaze…and suddenly I felt a flame flare up inside me. An unwounted sense of guilt erupted there in. as I was about to move ahead, Shakshi barred the path as solidly as a wall. He eyes sparkled, hands trembled, lips and cheeks too partook something of the trembling. Her hands advanced, snakes wriggled on my bare chest, instantly I closed my eyes. And then…all of a sudden I felt as if the world would come to an end, the land seemed to slide away from under the feet and the walls shake. The thirsty lips of shakshi pressed themselves against mine. And equally instantly the words spoken by Shanta in the silent dark night revived themselves forcefully, ‘perhaps our own daughter won’t do as much as Shakshi does.’ The air stopped Shakshi’s hands were glowing coals, blazing fire-balls. Passing through my own ordeal I was beyond my capacity to think judiciously, unprotected, wavering. As I pushed Shaksahi aside gently. She hung to me like a wild creeper clinging desperately to a tree. The very next moment, as I was suffering from my guilty conscience or remorse, I gave her a sharp slap. It resounded. There came a flash of fear in her eyes. She looked at him intently and then posed to retreat saying.<br />‘Lo! I won my this right also.’<br />‘What right? I stammered.<br />‘Suffering a blow from you.’<br />She turned her face. The cheek was purple. Then she turned and she did put her lips o9n mine, and then retreated. Pointing to her cheek she said<br />‘Now try to erase it out. It is you…your token. I’ll keep it alive. She was laughing.<br />‘Go and have your bath. But the I’ll tell you one thing, you are afraid. But the truth is—you think of me—perhaps all the time. You are never free from me, and will never be, ever.’<br />She turned to go, but stopped.<br />‘The world is undergoing a change. Change yourself too, Aditya.’<br />‘Aditya !’ this was the first time that she had called me by my name. the name ‘Aditya’ reverberated in my mind. I was under the shower, getting soaked. The spray of water beat on my head and body producing their own rhythoric sound, but her voice at my heart persisted, ‘Aditya… Aditya….Aditya….<br />The word transformed itself into an unfaltering echo. The echo in the wet nude body made itself manifest, and its ruthlessness too.<br />Perhaps Shanta had made up her mind never to comprehend the change that had occurred in life. But , had there really occurred a change in my life? While going through the equations of vice or sin, many at a time I had to go through the act of killing of my own thoughts. Shakshi had now begun to assert her own right to love even in small matters. I felt this turbulence was felt, besides me and Shakshi, by all—the heaven, the earth, the mirror on the wall in my bedroom, the nooks and corners of my house where at each and every occasion possible Shakshi would give me a lesson in love along with a renewed realization of her youth. Perhaps the current of time had weakened me. Her touch gave me an unwanted pleasure. But, simultaneously, a new awakening would take me into its gold making the blazing fire ball enter the slabs of ice, turning it cold. The wonder was that the matter was manifest to all the objects in the house from a corner of the house to the walls, but no human being was aware of it—neither my neighbours, nor my family members, nor Shakshi’s family members. I thought time puts an end to so many stories on its own accord.<br />These were the days when dhillon was much concerned about the marriage of Shakshi. To some extent it was caused by the insistence of Shakshi’s mother, and to some extent also because of his failing health and his disappointments born of his failures in his life—that, now, Dhillon wanted to free himself from the responsibility of Shakshi’s marriage.<br />Suddenly somewhere some leaf got detached from its twig. Some unheard shriek echoed, and the wind rustling through the dense forest raised a storm with in. standing at a short distance from my eyes was looking at me, horrified and unblinkingly. Sitting on his wooden bed, reclining on his pillow, Dhillon with his down cast head was breaking the ice of his words.<br />‘values of art have changed. Idioms have changed. The world has entered from the twenty-first into the twenty-second. But how long we can go on blaming others. We didn’t change ourselves. Ideals have changed. Colour and canvases have changed….if we could change ourselves a little…he began to cough.<br />The contemporary painting has become a thing for the elite class. And we are the ones who are carrying along the art on the pattern of the past. If we had endowed our art with a little light of the new intellectuality, new ways of thinking, perhaps the old age wouldn’t have overpowered us so very soon…’ the cough, once again, Compelled Dhillon to pause. ‘I have passed almost all my life now with my own imperfections and failures, but Shakshi!..’<br />Shakshi stood there in the shade of a wall.<br />In a little powered voice Dhillon said, ‘there is a boy under my consideration. A painter, It was a chance I pappened to see him last week. He regards me as his master although he is unlike me. He is ambitious. I think Shakshi…’<br />As if shots boomed one after another. Shakshi stuck to the wall. When I looked at her, she seemed to be trembling caught by the webs of her own conflicting emotions. She had turned pale.<br />Shanta came out of the kitchen.<br />‘Brother, it was good of you to do so,’ she said. ‘Finding promising young men is a rarity. See how she blushed with shame.’<br />Shakshi dashed off instantly.<br />I got petrified. Who could have seen her tears other than I. But those tears! They were not weak as others generally are.<br />Suddenly I lost my voice. For the first time I had felt a heavy punch at my heart. Never had occurred there any such feeling at my heart caused by anything concerned with Shakshi. But now the unexpected declaration of marriage….<br />I was standing by the window once again, after Dhillon had deposited. On the outside the forest flourished. The trees swayed from side to side. The gusts of cold wind coming in had foretold me of some tempest or great forest fire breaking out but who could have expected it to happen so very soon.<br />And, at the End, the Rain<br />On that day, it was raining. a torrential downpour. This was the time when the curtain was about to drop on this story I love rains. Amply I cherish thousands of sweet memories of them. Even today the rain sets itself. With its infinite possibilities, to pass me over to some utopia or fairy land. To me rain is not just water falling in showers, it is like the sweet sensation of getting soaked in the cascade of my own sentimentality. As sea waves are…I wonder if standing on the sea-shore you have ever watched the waves flowing in the dark and quiet of night. Listen to the noise of the wind and watch the sudden spurt of the waves come to the shore having covered a long course. Something convulsed within me in the like manner- giving a violent shake to the whole of my being, like the breaking waves.<br />On that day, as a specialty of the occasion it continued raining heavily through the day, as if the setter of question-paper for life had set such question for me as were an ordeal for me to go through. I stood amazed. And just before this happening everything was either normal, or not so. But, yes, there were signs of the on coming rains.<br /> A number of happenings occurred that day. Dhillon fixed the date of Shakshi’s marriage. It was to take place after two months. Arrangements were to be made at my house. Shakshi, sitting at some distance and biting her nails would cast a glance at me now and then. She looked pale. A phone call in the morning that day a phonic message told my wife that Shakshi’s only uncle died. Shanta’s tears ran unabated since the time. She, as well as Alok, was to catch the 3 p.m. train.<br />The third issue concerned me. I was in fever. Shanta felt worried. Who would look after me in her absence?<br />‘Brother, he knows nothing. He doesn’t know about anything in the house where it is placed. I will return tomorrow, but to-night…?’ she said.<br />In fond memory of her departed uncle Shanta was wiping her tears with an edge of her ‘saari’.<br />Dhillon turned to cast a glance.<br />This was the very moment when the thunder of the clouds, for the first times, made its presence manifest, as if it was a drum-beat declaring the opening of the war, the thunder rumbled on. The icy words of Shakshi dissolved themselves in the far off rumble.<br />‘Go sister. I am here. I’ll stay here tonight I’ll take full care of him.’<br />‘See. The very problem id solved…,’ Dhillon commented smiling.<br />Shanta smiled lovingly and said, ‘I needn’t worry when Shakshi is here. Shakshi will take care of him.’<br />Shakshi’s face betrayed no emotions. With her full sensitive lips, she sat there biting her finger nails…<br />And then a number of thunder claps sounded themselves seemingly all together.<br />The ocean waves at my heart that had been calm initially, were beginning to gain momentum, preparatory to some war.<br />Dhillon departed from our home. Shanta and Alok left the house at 2 O’clock. As I moved ahead, adjusting my situation to my blood-pressure, I heard the outer door being closed from the inside. It was Shakshi. And now only the two of us remained there in the house.<br />And this was the time when a fine drizzle had started.<br />I got into the room. My breathing was deeper, though for no opparent reason. My awareness of Shakshi’s presence there excited me. Perhaps the temperature had shot up. A burning sensation was there in my forehead. My temp[les seemed to be on fire. I was sensitive to every sound. One…two… but no Shakshi came in. where did she linger on? I got up and walked out. On the outside Shakshi was lying down facing downwards. She was crying. Her sobs hurt me deeply. It was raining. At quite short a distance water was dripping from the awning. I closed my eyes, controlled the tempest rising at heart. As I came closer to Shakshi I felt I could withhold no longer. As if there was a volcano, a dormant one. And no sooner did I touch Shakshi than it would burst open. The veranda near the awning was wet. I drew my self back, came to my bed and lay down. The clock on the wall struck three. The pendulum was in motion. Suddenly, my body felt like having been transformed into a pendulum. She was coming. I closed my eyes hurriedly.<br />She held tea in her hand. She put the tea-cup on the table nearby. Medical tables were there in her hand. She came closer to me with the tablets and some water in a glass. She touched my forehead gently and got started.<br />‘take the medicine. I know you haven’t had a wink. Now don’t play a part. Fever is high.’<br />I saw her eyes. They were swollen for weeping. She was in a sky-blue shalwar and jumper having sky-blue flower prints on it. Her hands looked extremely beautiful. Taking medicine hand, for the first time I saw her body having the enchanting curves of her youth. fair complexion. long hair. long slender neck. Very soft and full lips. She noticed me looking at her and eyes to the ground. She didn’t stay there any longer. Went out of the room. I was passing through my self-analysis-entangling and struggling with myself every moment. About two hours passed. I got out and found Shakshi asleep in the previous posture, the same as when she was crying. The fiery glow of the promine4nces of her body curves was conspicuous from under her salwar and kameez. Very beautiful feet. Her fingers-as if they had been chiseled out. The rain abated a bit but soon after the thunder began. But the thunder, this time, had vigour and enthusiasm. It appeared as if the rain would never come to an end if it started for once. At seven Shakshi was awake once again. She brought me my bread. I was aware that Shakshi must be under going a tremendous conflict internally, probably much more than I was. ‘ But why es she so silent,’ I thought ‘Has she compromised with her new situation? She is to stay here for the whole night to-night. Where will she put up? But, why is she so silent? Has she compromised with her new situation?’ the thought occurred again and again.<br />But, perhaps, she hadn’t. there came the time for the dormant volcano to arrupt. It was nine at night, when Shakshi had seen me finish up my meal and the last dose of medicine as well.<br />On the outside it was raining rather heavily. The falling rain drops played a strange music. I moved forward and opened the window. On the outside the forest flourished. A wet forest. Lightning flashed at that very moments, and despite the dark it momentarily brightened up the fearsome plants and trees. And them I heard the foot-steps Shakshi came in with a pillow in her hands. She puts the pillow beside mine on the bed. And before I could look at her with wonder, she rendered me unspeakable. ‘I’ll sleep with you. At my disposal I have this very night only.’<br />There was a strong flash.<br />On the outside the forest flourished. From time to time the lighting flashed.<br />‘I’ve got you only for one night. Do you know how I spent the last seven hours? I lived with you, I was alone though. Lying alone I felt your presence in every pore of my body and limbs.<br />She was quite familiar with the room. She reached Shanta’s wardrobe as if it were her own. She took out a blue nighty. ‘Must be a bit loose’ she said. ‘Why don’t you speak?’ she shouted. ‘Why are you dumb founded?’<br />With the nighty she covered her face and burst out crying.<br />‘I’ll get married in two months. I was not to go into the world of brushes and canvas. Why did you let me go? Couldn’t you keep me with you?’<br />Clad in the nighty, coming to me, Shakshi stood erect.<br />Once again the lighting glowed white.<br />Her vody was very hot. The prominences of her body were well consp[icuous. She bent forward and put the fire of her lips on to mine …..<br />Her body emitted heat.<br />‘Satiate me. I don’t want to remain incomplete. For God’s sake don’t bring between us the disparity of our ages. Satisfy me. Give me life…’<br />I couldn’t turn back to see through the open window the forest getting drenched in the rain. Perhaps there was a lighting. Perhaps it had struck the forest violently. The whole of the forest seemed to have been set on fire. I was very-very weak at the moment…..<br />Or, perhaps, I was born for this moment only.<br />Have you seen love? No, come out with the truth. Have you seen love?<br />Suddenly I got lost like the ghost of O’ Henry. The wet forest was animated, and the rain in the forest-in colours the features of Shakshi had replaced mine….<br />So many rainy seasons…..so many autumns have passed since then….or….they are passing away.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-59578914948232790022010-04-01T09:51:00.001-07:002010-04-01T09:51:41.279-07:00manto and the dreamMunto and the Dream<br /><br />I had been seeing him there for three or four days. When? Where? --perhaps it is not possible for me to describe sequentially…or you might say this also that I am possessed by a psychological fear, and it is for that reason that I am unable to tell you anything. At nights I wake up abruptly because of fear. And then I feel as if I were on an unfamiliar road or in an unknown bus. And again I feel a police van comes and halts in front of my bus. The policemen are surrounding the bus. They are in an offensive mood. And then, lying on the road, there is a dead body soaked in blood and encircled, the story of a false encounter. And the policemen, dreaming of their promotion, busy in preparing reports…..<br /> No, perhaps now I need not tell you at all who I am and where I live. I am a minority girl belonging to the community that is a large one, as much as, it will be a mestake to take it to be less than 20-25 crore, as the census will verify. I don’t know even why our political leaders have doomed them by impressing upon them the sense of being a minority when such a large population is larger than that of many a country. Let the matter pass on. I don’t want to indulge in such political mazes. I simply to want to come to the dream that amazed and startled me.<br />Clad in white but unclean kurta-peyajama, a pair of worn out sandals, on the eyes a pair of very old fashioned spectacles, the eyes dangerously sharp…wearing the shine that would surpass the shine in the eyes of the eagle. But, at the present a deep solemnity had replaced the shine.<br />He was in the room, at the writing table, without my permission. He had rendered his teeth dark and fingers yellow by constant smoking. His hair was in a mess. He had not considered it necessary to brush it.<br />I had been seeing him for the last three days. I had got frightened on the first day. An unknown make person in my room! Frightened, I had asked him in confusion.<br />‘Who are you?’<br />‘Oh! A mistake,’ he replied in a very low voice.<br />‘What are you writing?’<br />He turned his eyes towards me,<br />‘Want to write something, but… I’ve lost the words. Can you recall, there was a time when I would write one story every day, and comfortably too?<br />‘Don’t pose. A story every day! This happened only once, and that for one month only. You didn’t have money to buy you cigarettes and wine. You would write a story, give it to the editor of the magazine and buy a bottle of liquor when you got the money. You didn’t care for your dear wife even….’<br />But it seemed as if he did not hear me. He was looking into space.<br />‘I had words and words, even at the moment when Toba Take Singh was about to close his eyes on the no-man’s –land… and…that…appallingly cold flesh…! Perhaps all that comes to my recollection…that disastrous afternoon… when hearing the voice of the doctor the had begun to unfasten her shelwar. No. I had words even at that time.<br />‘and now?’<br />As I was still looking at him he disappeared.<br />He, that is Munto. Saddat Hasan Munto.<br />I had got badly startled by the dream.<br />Well! Let me tell you even my name. Kausarb bee..or.. why don’t you choose a name for me that might please you?<br />The times were disturbed even when I was born. Now and then fierce disturbances erupted even when I had grown up to be a girl. The tiny bells tied round the ankles of barbarity and terror produced the noise so very grating to my ears that I befriended books at my very tender age. And, unawares, reading the books gained friendship of this Munto who wore glasses on his large but deceptive eyes. To me it was almost inconceivable that this lean and thin person, sick looking man of letters, could intervene between me and my dreams.<br />No. it is necessary to give you a reference of that day.<br />Once again the city was overcast by the vultures of terror. Police vans visited the area populated by the minority cast much more frequently that they otherwise would. Not a long time elapsed since the unfortunate happening had taken place two or three years ago. The disaster was alive once again, in a different guise though.<br />I am not a journalist. And you can see such scenes on TV screen happening every day. I can recall only this much-<br />It had rained heavily that morning. Frightened, we stayed secluded, self-imprisoned with in our own home. What like it is to feel alienated in one’s own home, you may imagine that. On that day we had an early supper. As none of us was interested in the telecast stories of false encounters. We went to bed early. I came into my room, closed the window and lay down quietly.<br /><br />No. Oh! I must beg your pardon for that weird dream. But, that night, Munto was in my room once again. And this was not a whim of my eyes.<br />‘let us go for an outing.’<br />‘Have you gone crazy? There is a curfew like noiselessness on the out side.’<br />‘I known. The conditions are not good.’<br />‘Then? The police will arrest you.’<br />‘Won’t arrest,’ he said laughing,’ perform an encounter directly.’<br />‘You know all this…., yet a proposal of an outing!’<br />Suddenly he turned grave.<br />‘Nothing will happen. We shall get back after a round of a mile or two.’<br />‘A mile or two … on foot?’<br />‘Sssh, I’ve got a car, by stealth…,’ he was laughing. ‘it is known to a few only that I had chauffeured for Quayade-Azam-Mohammad Ali Jinnah too.’<br />‘ I know. You drove his car into a collision.’<br />Munto was laughing. ‘you needn’t worry. I shall be driving this time carefully.’<br />I looked at the clock. It was three at night.<br />The road was deserted. I opened the window. The ground was still wet. I couldn’t understand what an attraction was there in this 42-43 years old, lean and thin creative writer that I accompanied him, enchanted.<br />The road, wet because of the rain, the sounds of dogs barking and whining.’ We took seats in the car. It sped fast. Drowsing police vans at short intervals but Munto was lost in his own thoughts. It seemed as if he desired to fill up his eyes with the vision of the city its solitude. At one or two places the police stopped us and ashed him a question or two. What answer Munto gave them laughing is unknown to me. I only saw this much that in the dark Munto had put a holy sandal mark on his forehead. He would laugh over the fright that held me captive.<br />‘hadn’t I told you that nothing was happen to us?...let’s cover just a little more distance…’<br />And now Munto steered the car into such a direction as made me cry out.<br />‘Where are you going to?’<br />‘Sssh ! he put his finger on his lips. ‘History does not die in such a short span of time. No need to say anything. Just keep on moving.’<br />I wanted to say, ‘History never dies,’ but I don’t know what made me keep my silence.<br />It was over four now. Now we were in a poor colony inhabited by the minority, where there stood mud and thatched huts of laborers or those who kept draught horses.<br />Dogs were still barking. Morning was already there for some of those horses. In some house kitchen-fire was alive. Some children are also seen in front of a few houses…the women were seen doing something going in and coming out of their huts…and suddenly that accident occurred…a terrible accident. There happened to come in front of the car a little minority boy, and also a little calf, at one and the same moment. To Munto, who was driving in a carefree mood, it was the very time to take a decision with in a flash of time.<br />No, if you prefer you may leave the story here. I won’t ask you to continue reading..for what you are going to read now is impractical, loathsome and violating the human right as well.<br />In the last fraction of the second as I was shutting up my eyes in desperation I chanced to catch a glimpse of the young calf bolting away. Munto had steered the car towards the minority boy.<br />No. I repeat. Please separate the cruel words said here presently from the story.<br />We were back home.<br />Munto was standing near the window bars. His spectacles were soiled with dust. He was smoking cigarettes recklessly.<br />‘You could have saved the boy,’ I shrieked out.<br />‘Only one-either the boy or the calf.’ Munto shrieked out more vehemently. ‘The casualty of a minority boy will be forgotten with in two hours. But, do you know what the accidental death of a calf in that locality means?’<br />Munto turned. He tore the papers on the table into little bits and threw them into the dustbin.<br />Munto disappeared, but the chair on which he had been sitting was still rocking.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-28757119779235864402010-04-01T09:49:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:50:50.494-07:00mirror imageMirror image<br /><br /><br /><br />Looking into the mirror as a kid was always an illusion, it was not her, somebody else. She screamed, ‘It’s not me, who is this? This is not my face, I can’t live with anybody else’s face.’<br />ssRunning after and getting drenched in the waves, waves of the past and present, she yelled, “Jimmy, Jimmy come back! Please for heaven’s sake!” Her words made her shiver- What is the need to go so far. Waves after all are waves, violent, mad, unstoppable and even deaf. “Come back Jimmy! I won’t be able to run now.”<br />Jimmy, with that twinkle in his eyes and large smile on his face came near her. “What happened, Mummy? Why do you get nervous?” “Nervous, why shouldn’t I be nervous? The world seems to be a playground for you. Why do you have to run so fast?”<br />“If, Papa would have been here……”<br />Jimmy was laughing. She just stared at the child. His words, his style, his style of looking down even before finishing the question. It was all so familiar. She knew him, it was not Jimmy. No, not at all, it was somebody else. She was seeing somebody else in Jimmy. “No Jimmy, please don’t look like this, don’t behave like this. It seemed somebody had thrown a stone inside the pond of her heart. Pond, no it wasn’t a pond. Rather a sea, a violent, mad, angry sea.<br />“No….No Jimmy don’t be like him”!<br />‘Him’ was his Father.<br />Time had stopped, the waves stood still, some footprints she had lost way behind ….some faces she had forgotten, but some came along with her.<br />“When father and I used to come here……..” She held his hand, “You still remember your father?”<br />“Yes, of course”.<br />The same way of talking, she stood there like a statue. Quite blank, quite void, lost in the oblivion. For a second, she took Jimmy to be ‘somebody’ else……then for a second lost in being a mother.<br />“Jimmy…….”<br />She laughed, laughed with no reason to laugh.<br />It seemed that laughter was the medicine bringing her back to the reality of being a mother. Its not rare when people resemble their father, but Jimmy was different…just after one year of his birth it seemed the whole of their conversation revolved around Jimmy, “Look at his hands……eyes….his feet, even the fingers…..they all are like yours…..isn’t it?”<br />With astonishment in her eyes, she asked-“How do you feel, seeing yourself in Jimmy, so small. Uhhh….. How do you feel?” He also started to swim with her on waves of amazement. Taking pride in his son he kissed Jimmy’s hands, his lashes….<br />“Jimmy….Jimmy my son.”<br />Eyes can cross the oceans of wonder within no time……<br />“Everybody says he is your son. He is not even near my shadow. You must be feeling proud. I am telling you, I will get a daughter, after all even a mother needs somebody to look like her. It doesn’t matter how she looks but there should be somebody like her. Somebody completely born out of her, as blooming…… as radiant as fresh milk. Why are you looking at me like that? Yes, I will get a sister for Jimmy, to make him feel jealous. Well, a daughter looking like me….will you love her or because of the wheatish complexion…?”<br />Jimmy……Jimmy.<br />Sometimes how easily can you draw pictures wet sand, how suddenly, thinking of such things. And the emotions inside you break loose. She was looking at him, and he with those eyes, lips, with his whole body smiled at her. He bends down, on the wet sand waiting for the waves to soak them instead of the picture on the sand.<br />“Listen…. sometimes there is something else than the kid…. a moment belonging to us….are you listening? Where there is nobody, no wet sand, no waves, just us and only a spell of half closed, half opened eyes.”<br />“And if the spell suddenly breaks, then….<br />Jimmy jumped out of the bed onto her shoulder. She giggled. He also smiled at Jimmy.<br />“Just like you…….stay away form me” she scolds Jimmy playfully, and Jimmy like an unstoppable, violent storm plasters her with kisses. He is laughing……..<br />She is soaked with the kisses, just like the wet sand-“Leave me –Stupid”<br />“That was when Jimmy was an year old and it seemed that ‘he’ also along with me and Jimmy had to face the dense forests of life ……..”<br />She changed the date in the diary.<br />Jimmy was growing holding his father’s finger. Days became months and months became an year and it seemed that his father’s fingers merged into his.<br />Just like him. It seemed they were identical. His laughter….his habits.<br />“Were you like this……?”<br />“I don’t know”.<br />“No, you wouldn’t have been as beautiful… like Jimmy……. like cotton…so soft.”<br />She is reading his lips. His lips are very near…… near to her eyes-Losing themselves into each other, waiting to get lost……. there is a hint of impatience in his behaviour. How was I like….the way Jimmy dances, does his naughty things, makes noise…. his likes, his dislikes.<br />She was getting jealous.<br />“…Yes, as a kid, just like him, was always lost in clothes, used to take out a whole lot. I also didn’t like new clothes, it was always the old and dirty ones I use to like. I don’t know why. I liked rain. I liked the way earth flew with the air, I liked getting wet, sitting near the window, sketching. I used to enjoy it a lot. I didn’t like bad faces, I didn’t like oranges, didn’t like ‘Karela’. Are you listening to me?”<br />Her voice was lost somewhere in clamor of the waves. She just looked at them plainly. It seemed that somebody had cut his flesh and made an exact replica of him, as if somebody had given him a small mirror. Hey look, look at your childhood’s photograph.<br /><br />Jimmy’s small childish palms were growing bigger. The father was filled with joy excitement and a feeling of pride.<br />But who was jealous….Is Jimmy….?”<br />That day Jimmy suddenly stretched on the bed. There was a feeling of displeasure in his eyes. The displeasure, he had for her….. for a mother…<br />“Stay away….stay away from me mother……”<br />Darkness was spreading its wings, it seemed that the night was getting drawn into some lake. She wore her nightdress, woke up to switch on the blue night bulb. Jimmy eyes watched her every move…..her every action.<br />“Lights……Don’t turn off the lights”<br />“Why”<br />“I won’t be able to sleep. I will sleep in Papa’s arms”<br />He tilted his head a bit and nested it on his father’s shoulder. She smiled with meaningful eyes. She was shocked for a moment, their hands….their legs…their bodies…the only difference was that one was big and the other small. She came on to the bed after switching on the bulb.<br />Jimmy jumped onto her body, and she suddenly burst out laughing…I was getting jealous. Jimmy was loving her the same way as……<br />He was laughing.<br />She giggled.<br />Jimmy kissed her eyes, her forehead, he took her cheeks in his small hands and caressed them and….. bringing his small lips to hers………<br />Stay Away…..<br />She jumped like a fish in water, then laughed, released herself from his hold.<br />He was still smiling at Jimmy<br />She stammered, “See…how does he behaves….this…are you seeing this?”<br />“Yes” he laughed again, would you believe, Frayad said….have you read Frayad?” She felt insulted like scattered waves. “Everybody has read him…don’t act…but Jimmy…..he is just like you…..the wet sand was getting wetter and he was laughing.<br />That was when Jimmy was two years old and it seemed that He also, along with me and Jimmy had to face the dense forests of life…….<br />The dates in the diary were changed.<br />All of a sudden it seemed that Jimmy was growing. His eyes…...his lips and it seemed all of it was sinking in his father…no he was slowly disappearing. His eyes went first.<br /> Jimmy came before her eyes……Mummy!<br /> Then his lips…..then………<br />She used to check his father’s presence persistently in the dark- Are you there?<br />Sometimes Jimmy got surprised by it. Even while sleeping Jimmy’s hand used to remove hers from his father’s chest and suddenly changed position to come between them, followed by his usual laugh.<br />“Jimmy is growing.”<br />“Yes”<br />“We should be more careful with Jimmy, he has started observing things, and he repeats them too. You know his observation. Frayad once said sometimes a child becomes a man. No don’t get angry like foolish people, and don’t show me your eyes like that. It happens sometimes…..but a child will remain a child, like our Jimmy.”<br />Then, suddenly the days and night were lost somewhere.<br />And then it seemed as if she had lost a large part of her life somewhere, and then like the fog of ‘Sogwari’ in her eyes, she started looking for something in that four year child, Jimmy.<br />An accident, that was what it was, the same time in evening when the birds are retiring and the stars are starting to announce their arrival.<br />And then a star got lost somewhere.<br />She thought it to be the dense forest of life but it was nothing, only a thick cover of fog. A cover of haze, of darkness….a shadow. She just came to know about the accident, he didn’t return that evening, he never returned…….<br />She read Jimmy’s eyes.<br />“Papa didn’t come...?”<br />“No he will not come now!” she was crying.<br />Even after such accidents there is a life hidden somewhere, that life has to be found, has to be lived for those like Jimmy. And there is ‘something’ for oneself too, other that the accident. There is something other than the memories.<br />“Jimmy, are you listening? Dirty clothes, no, remove them Jimmy you have so many clothes, ‘Karela’ has vitamins Jimmy. Green vegetables, oranges make blood –you should eat them Jimmy….” Her voice was feeble, maybe Jimmy was not listening. She could see Jimmy in the darkness of night, Jimmy’s hand came over her eyes. Soft as a cushion. “Don’t cry Mummy, don’t cry….Papa…he will come, look I will become….” Even in the darkness she could feel the smile. Jimmy’s lips came to her forehead, he then kissed her eyes lovingly….He is loving her.<br />She got stunned like the waves. “Jimmy” Jimmy was frightened. She hugged Jimmy close to her heart……My son, my son, she is looking Jimmy’s father is smiling, she is telling him tales about Jimmy. Are you listening, after you have gone he becomes you, says, “I am Papa, are you listening?”<br />And then, like trees in Autumn, waiting to be decorated with new leaves, waiting for flowers and fruits to bloom-she saw that she was alone. Jimmy had started going to school, he has started wearing his school uniform. Maybe time flies like a ‘plane’. The morning and the evenings have changed. She woke up fast, went to Jimmy and said smilingly –“Listen, from today I will drop you to school. Is it alright, seasons change, Jimmy. She thought that Jimmy kept looking at her to his way to school. No, he is not ‘Him’, he is Jimmy.<br />That day with a new resolve, a new spirit she tore the diary. But before tearing it she wrote. “Now I will live for Jimmy, what right do I have to still carry something which no longer exists. I should look at Jimmy as Jimmy. Maybe, that is what is right for Jimmy….that he never faces any kind of inferiority complex.”<br />She tore that page too.<br />“Jimmy….Jimmy come back.”<br />“Why do you get so scared, Mummy?”<br />Jimmy’s small feet came running towards her. Jimmy was laughing, why you get so scared. Run, catch me.<br />He ran away, she is panting, he is running fast. She manages to catch him.<br />“No Jimmy, Jimmy stop…. Stop it Jimmy.”<br />Jimmy looks at her quite perplexed-as if asking why. And then suddenly she forgets everything….just stares at Jimmy. At Jimmy, his eyes….his lips…..<br />There is a feeling of amazement in his eyes, she holds Jimmy’s hand. She still stares at him.<br />How did it happen…how did it get into Jimmy? Her eyes,….her lips. “What happened Mummy?”<br />“No” she just giggled lightly.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-50828903910378665332010-04-01T09:46:00.000-07:002010-04-01T09:49:47.153-07:00my first story collection in english -coming backCOMING BACK<br /><br />“Would that love had the tongue so that the covers of lovers would come undone. When the tongue unfolds the secrecies and the ways of love, the heavens call out: O you, the concealer of love! Why do you conceal it? The wool and the cotton possess fire. The more you conceal them the more they manifest it.”<br /><br />There was no computer at the time<br />‘You have forgotten her; no?’<br />‘Can’t say…’<br />‘But I can say confidently. She hasn’t been there anywhere within you for the last five months.’<br />In the dark of night Tarana’s voice felt icy-cold..<br />‘Why should you believe so?’<br />She laughed out softly. ‘For, that world is only a make-believe one — a fairy land. And a fairy land is for children only. But when men like you go there, you carry along with a lot of suppressed desires that you can’t share with your wives even’ ….She became a bit serious… ‘But to forget her just in five months!? Sanyal, at least you must keep from taking after the mould of other men.’<br />The dark over powered me. The dark that, in spite of my quietly coming out onto the balcony, has over-powered the whole of my existence. All that had happened all of a sudden, … all the things. The whole world around me changed, and completely so. Time that had been moving on like rising waves, seemed to have acquired a magic wand in its hand. Time waved it. ‘Stop, you moving age! Stop there…. No. Recede back.’ Sailing in his middle age, on the threshold of his forties, the person was a young man once again. Time waved the magic wand once again. A very beautiful young lady was standing there…<br />Perhaps no magic wand was needed there. As soon as we entered that world, we grew romantic. It was the world where you just switched on a common electric button, there stood open all the doors of internet on the computer screen…<br />There was no magic here…<br /> No magic box here.<br />No horse of age… Only a river flowing along the magical fairy land. There was the bazaar of beauty. And suddenly, like a supernatural happening, there was a girl belonging to any country, any religion,any community; and she asked you,<br /> ‘Do you like romantic chat?’<br /> A fancy of the fairy land, emerging out of the fairy land, would brighten up, with all its elegance on the CAM or the Net Camera. I would set the microphone wire in my ears. The sweet romantic sound of ‘Jalatarang’ … and…The flowing stream of the gaining on age, with all of its images and beats of bygone days would get obliterated…<br />Perhaps, the world was not so shrunk then… The moon was shining in the sky. The sky was star sprinkled… Far away, …on the darkling sky a couple of floatin clouds were seen. But, the caravans of the twinkling stars stretched those clouds over themselves. And then leaving the moon and these caravans alone, those clouds proceeded on.<br />The computer did not exist then…<br />No internet was there… No mermaids were there…<br />The age had its own limits. And those limits couldn’t be moved forward or backward. But Love was there, even at that time ‘the platonic’ was perhaps more free then than it is now— the one that would settle down much deeper at heart than stray externally. The nights were moon-lit then. Should I look back, 16 years ago, some well defined cities of today would look like villages or small towns. No refrigerators, no telephones. Mobiles couldn’t be thought of. Despite their complexities and inconveniences the life in small towns was beautiful and lovely. Love had its own identity then. Had its own moods and manners, its own swellings of the sea. Like the rain-emanated scents of imagination, love<br />looked like a far high star shining in the sky, and it was not possible for every one to touch or even to see it.<br />But, perhaps, at the vulnerable stage of age, no sooner I befriended literature than the meanings of love changed for me. The keenly blowing wind that would carry you along with itself, and being blown away you couldn’t think, even in the least, what was happening to you. But your whole existence got submerged in that moment and felt the thrill of each and every moment.<br /> And suddenly, in the small town, in the form of Tarana, I had the chance of feeling myself lucky. The deer-like Tarana. With the whole of her being, she was made or written for me only. After a few brief meetings the feeling of airy flights…—people were, perhaps, not so very cultured in small cities till the time… or, so very commercial. Things had begun to take wings, to get speed. From our college to our homes, the tales and stories were gaining circulation… Sanyal – Tarana……Tarana- Sanyal….<br />But, as it seems, both of us were full of rebellion. Or, the family members of both the houses were quite aware of the rebellion.<br />That day as Tarana met me, our love, gradually gaining momentum, was preparing itself to create a new chapter.<br />It was a small narrow stream that we were standing by. At some distance the keeper of a make-shift-shop was selling onions and potatoes. Two dirty young boys were laughing, looking at us… Tarana touched my hand: ‘Why didn’t you come home? You are frightened…’<br />No. I’m not frightened.’<br />‘Don’t tell a lie. You are frightened; perhaps because of the stories touching us are gaining circulation. Do you know…?’ She tightened her grip on my hand. ‘I keep awake all through nights. The house, doors, windows, all disappear, as if they were parts of a castle made up of airy nothing. The whole of my countenance gets transformed into a broad smile only. And you get transformed into a beautiful psychic being…. I hold your hand, kiss you, soar away far and high; and I am all an embodied joy… a trance. There is an old well within the inner courtyard. I come out stealthily and sit silently on its parapet. While the whole house is asleep, I keep looking at the moon. The moon sets and you… What’s this Sanyal?<br />The keeper of the small make shift shop called out, ‘Potatoes, ..Onions…’ Both the little dirty boys were still looking at us. Tarana’s hand tightened on mine;<br />‘Tell me…. What’s this?’<br />‘Should I?’<br />‘O yes, do.’<br />‘The levels of Dopamine and Norepinecrin have gained in you.’<br />‘What?’ Tarana was startled. ‘What is it?.... dopamine?’<br />‘A chemical, darling, that produces the feeling of pleasure or joy in the mind…?<br />‘Tarana smiled, ‘That means love…and that?<br /> … and that? .. Nove… ‘Norepinecrin’<br />‘O yes, that very… so you are Sanyal… What’s that?<br />‘That also is a chemical that produces commotion and excitement at heart.?<br />Tarana gave a start, ‘So your love is just this much?... to watch the levels of dopamine and norepinecrin? Only this much is love? —an escape from literature to the world of chemistry…and that…<br />that happened to me!? At mid-night I opened the door and quietly got out of the house, just to look for you in the street. But then, I became aware of what I was doing. When I recollected, I got frightened. The whole of the street was deserted. Had people seen me at the time, who knows what they would not talk of me.’<br />‘Nothing. This shows the declining level of serotonin only.’<br /> ‘You mean…?’<br /> ‘The urge of sacrificing oneself for love… to the verge of insanity…’ <br />‘Slap you I will…’ Tarana burst out laughing. The two boys too, looking at us, pealed with laughter. On the balcony the night was welllit. The stars were playing the game of hide and seek.<br /> The emotions of sixteen years ago were ready to fall in showers, all at once. That long ago, only one name was there enshrined at heart and the mind — Tarana. And that name opened the doors of fragrance… In a vulnerable moment of solitude the swift-footed wind would cause a surge of excitement through the body, and then all my senses would be taken in thrall by a sentence of Tarana, “I know this much only that I must possess the object I love.”<br />It must be three o’clock at noon that day. As soon as I stepped on the threshold of my home, I came to know that Tarana was hospitalized. Passing on the news to me my sister-in-law looked at my face momentarily. My father, who was sitting silently on a cot, also shifted his glance onto my face. I put my books on the table standing nearby.<br />“I am going. I might not get back even at night.” Having uttered this much I got out of the room. I tried to, but it was difficult for me to guess the extent to which the level of chemicals — dopamine and Norepinecrin had shot up, or the level of serotonin gone down bringing her almost to a state of insanity<br />leading to her hospitalization. Anyhow, the condition could not be normal. In the pervious week itself, trying to get dissolved into every fibre of my being, she had shown the symptoms of the hard struggle that was undergoing within her. She had said:<br />“My breaths are breaking like the strings of pasta, and getting dispersed too. They want to see you all the time. Why do you go away Sanyal? Why don’t you keep with me in the way as stagnant time lives with me in my room at the time when thinking of you I get dissolved<br />in you.”<br /> Her palms were the red-hot coal. Recovering herself she continued. “Sometimes, something like the mist fills up the room, and then lots and lots of things of the world seem to resound in my room. You get lost in the mist and then it feels the string of breathwill get snapped…Don’t go away please. Stay by me Sanyal before the strings of breath get dispersed.”<br /> My feet moved fast. She was in the general ward. A couple of some other patients also were there besides her. As small cities have their own sense of history and courtesy, a number of women from her locality were also there around her. As she saw me, a strange delight that overspread itself on her face cannot be depicted in words. The next moment, despite the presence of other people and her own family members also in the general ward, she was in my arms…weak...sickly… She was trying to tell me that she could not speak, her voice was gone. I pressed her in my passionate embrace…. Tarana was crying. Holding her firmly against myself, and moving my fingers round her eyes very lovingly, I was saying:<br />“Assuredly I am here…your Sanyal… your voice. Didn’t you tell me I had the finest voice on earth and that no human voice could be sweeter than mine? At the present time you only have to listen to me, for I am the body, the voice and the soul for my Tarana…your voice. I’ll put the music of this voice on your lips, and your lips will be those of the most beautiful girl in the world. When you will converse with me in tune with my voice, the music created there by will be the sweetest one in the universe. But Tarana, today I am only an echo of yours. Feel my voice forgetting yours…<br />Tarana gathered up closer. Her hands felt firmer on my back. My shirt was getting soaked with sweat. As I lifted up her face, she was smiling — a smile that might be seen in a few of the finest masterpieces ever created.<br />I stayed on the bed next to hers in the general ward that night. It is known to all that the wind had wafted away the whiff of our odorous story through the small city. Now this story will take wings, disperse…but, perhaps, considering all the possibilities of the future I rested reassured.<br />The Net was not there at the time; mobiles also were not there. Even little common conveniences were far away from the general life. But the magic of love was there in all its profundity, and perhaps deeper than what it today is.<br />Outside, on the balcony the dance of stars continued in the milky shine of the moon. The young feeling that was there, sixteen years ago, stood revived.<br />But as any story began in the bygone days, the stories told by the maternal or paternal grandmother, a magic world would come alive in the wonderstruck eyes of the children lying on their beds<br />in the moon-lit night under the canopy of the blue heavens…There was a king…There was a queen… There was a demon…There was a magician… But, after sixteen years, in the modern world, the story will begin something like…There was a computer. A lake-fairy swam out on the Net. But there was no magic. Swimming on the water the fairy asked you, “Do you like romantic chat?”<br /><br />What relations do you have with her?<br />Tarana came in my life. We became a part of the rush of the cosmopolitan. And then we begot a little son too. Despite being a part of the rush of the cosmopolitan, the writer at my heart neither died nor did he go into oblivion, for Tarana did not let it fall into a slumber even for a moment. Her love was neither transient nor false. After our marriage too, to her eyes, her Sanyal was her lover. In my journey from literature to serials, Tarana had sacrificed all that could be called hers. If there had occurred any change in her, it was the physical one; the change that would co-occur as the mother begot a novel form of<br />her love, giving it a separate entity in the world. The impressions of fulfillment in seeing the child grow, changed the girl in her into a woman. But in most of her essentials she remained Tarana only; the same Tarana of sixteen years ago. But one day:<br />A computer arrived in the house, and the Net connection too. And there began a new story.<br />Is it that despite your loving some one very much, there remains a void at heart to be filled up?— or, an inconspicuous suppressed desire to be<br />gratified? Is a person seeking to fill up some nooks of his sexual urges with the help of the Net, not a divided personality, despite his having a very loving wife and equally dear children?<br />The world of the Net was the world of desires that lurked at the hearts of unsatiated young men, the aged, and the adolescent with a dream to feel satiated. From Orkut to High forward, Love Happens…and the Dream Comes to COM, there is a big racket of boys and girls with fictitious names all over the world, participating in the concerns of all — from children to the aged.<br />But there was a sense of guilt too at my heart. Why should this world get populated for me when Tarana was there? After all, why should we cherish a desire to get acquainted with unknown girls?<br />And that too, not just one but a thousand of them — a vast world of them taking in its fold so many countries, communities, religions; the vast world of the internet.<br />‘Is it a sin to enjoy the vast pleasures, and satisfaction therefrom, that this magical electronic world offers?’ I ask myself. One part of my self answers, ‘No harm. They all do it’; but the other part cautions me, ‘The satisfaction isfalse. They leave you more thirsty than otherwise.’<br />Despite the immeasurable love of home and relations, the new technology has opened up a new fountain head of unlimited love. You can no more be fully satiated with the homely love, for, you begin to feel the need of lots and lots of it. The sex urge, that was erstwhile checked by moral and cultural codes, has attained explosively violent dimensions…. But, perhaps the world besides ugly faces, has normal and very beautiful faces also... In addition to the evil there is much good too. In addition to the sex there is an urge to knowand understand one another. And one day suddenly…<br />As soon as I opened the Net I received a message on Yahoo screen. And, dear readers, there began this story. The message read: My name is Mahak. Mahak Ahmad. A resident of Lahore. Aged 23. Mother expired when I was five only. Thereafter I fell in the habit of two things— reading literature and telepathy. I read a story written by you. And then had to spend a month looking for your e-mail ID. I don’t have much time at my disposal to tell you all. It seems the whole of the system is poised to take a flight, the fastest one. I fell in love with you without any premeditations, for I have been touched by your story to the core of my heart. I would love you even if you were eighty years of age. Should you receive my mail, please send a prompt reply. And, yes. I am putting in an ad on Yahoo messenger for you. If possible, please do come in the evening. You know there is a difference of thirty minutes between Pak and Indian timings. Will you come? Yours Mahak.<br />God knows how many times I read the message. Just kept on reading it. In the world of literature and serials I had received so many letters before this one, had come across so many girls, but this e-mail made me feel flying in the air; as if the blood in my body were running faster… ‘Even if you were eighty years of age….’ The eyes went through the line again and again. ‘I am 23.’ Was there present within me a man with unsatisfied desires? Or, there was a man reaching 40 who felt pampered with the thought he could still be loved by a girl aged 22 or 23… I don’t know what the moment was, or what sentiments<br />had taken possession of me, by the time I wrote ‘Yours Sanyal’, I had sent the e-mail.<br />That very evening, for the first time, she came on Yahoo messenger, and it seemed as if the world, like some fairyland, had opened its doors for me…<br />A few mare days passed.<br />When you are in love, your love need not be declared. Its fragrance, like that of civet; makes itself known. The whole of your behaviour shows it. Many a time, presenting myself before Tarana, or while holding her in my arms I felt like a thief. But, as a man, I can tell you truthfully and honestly that at any<br />moment of my love to Tarana, Mahak did never have her presence within me. Does this mean that she was partially present in me while Tarana was wholly; or, was it because of Tarana’s love that although Mahak tried to occupy her place in my life she couldn’t? Or, remaining tied to a family was a compulsion on me? Or, in this glamorous world of the Net.<br />when do we meet physically? Perhaps, this excuse put heart in me, to some extent. But, although it was across the border, Mahak was present physically and of her presence I had read in the Net CAM, was it love? Had, in any way, Tarana’s love faded? And was it because of that I had involuntarily been turned to Mahak? Or, the virility of a man crossing forty had been revived having gained the company of a woman, the woman who not only loved him but wanted to get him with all his physicality.<br />But, perhaps, it did not become necessary for me to keep the truth hidden from Tarana’s eyes. Because, like the jungle storm, one day she came to know the whole truth. She was silent for a while.<br />‘Do you also love her?’ Tarana’s words were ice-cold.<br />‘I don’t know.’<br />‘Perhaps you do…’ She took a deep breath… but, the very next moment her eyes regained their age-old love…, the same frenzy, the same passion. Once again she saved me from my entering the slough of guilt. While departing she said only this much, ‘How would you have felt had there been any boy in my life?’<br />‘Sanyal!’ — passing through the self imposed ordeal I asked myself, ‘Sanyal, what will you do? What will you do the next, Sanyal? Time is trying to carry you alongwith its flow, but there is some<br />strong feeling too as your heart deters you.’<br />In the evening as I set the Net on, Mahak Ahmad was there on the line. As AOA was on light she wrote, first of all, AOA — the greeting ‘Assalamu- Allaikum’. And then the stream of words would open the doors of new utopia, and at the moment I was perhaps in some world above the earth, and words of Mahak were nothing but fragrance.<br /><br />From the chat-room<br />She asked. She asked a lot. She asked, which of the two — a bird and a dream– is the better one. The answer was ‘the bird’, because they breathe and they sing of love when it rains, or when it is ‘savan’: the month of rains and greenery all around. Dreams are unfaithful. They come; they vanish away too.’<br />She asked, ‘Why is it so that star, her favourite star, shining in the sky surpasses the moon?’<br />She asked, ‘Why aren’t you a rose, the one that I should pluck and then place by my heart; that you should pervade, like the fragrance, in my breath, my heart…’ ‘Why aren’t you a butterfly, the one that in my forgetfulness, having been maddened by the intoxication of pining for you, I should chase through<br />the beds of roses and having got my finger pricked should write in blood: ‘love’.<br />She asked, ‘Why aren’t you a raindrop, the first born of the season, that like a heavenly blessing should descend on my open, uplifted palm; and that I should kiss it and then place it on my head with a dream in my eyes —the dream of getting evaporated, to lose my identity and be one with you, getting<br />lost to the world.<br />She asked, ‘Before you stepped in my life, the world was not so very beautiful, or I had not perceived its beauty, why?’<br />She asked, ‘Why does a single moment not contain a million of moments within it? And those millions could enclose usand then forget to pass on!’<br />She said, ‘My death, if co-occurred with yours would be much more beautiful than this life is. Do come… taking my trembling hands in yours, close your eyes… for ever… with the sense of my being with you. My body, swaying in the most beautiful intoxication of life; my shining and singing eyes — when they open, they should open on an uninhabited island where there should be none but you, wherever I should<br />cast my eyes.’<br />And then she asked, ‘Listen, why did you get born so very early? – much more early than me… What a cruel revengeis it of yours? Well, you were born alright, but why didn’t you wait for me? Why<br />didn’t you care for my dreams… Why didn’t you hear my steps? For, I was always there in every particle of earth. In so many past, glorious years I was in no other form but fragrance. I was there, my soul. My shadow was there. It was only that you couldn’t perceive it.<br />She asked, ‘Why did you get married before I came? Why didn’t you wait for me?’<br />She asked, ‘Who are they that know you more than I do?... My fragrance should be there within you more than the impression of a flower, fragrance or dream. I should see you more than the wife, the sun or the moon does. I should touch you more than the blowing air does. I should descend upon your<br />being like a pleasant drizzle— the one that ran through life.<br />She said, ‘The palanquin of our lives be placed on the bed of flowers in an isolated island… and your arms like tender branches, be spread over my body…’.<br />And then she said, ‘Tell me the truth. Is there any one other than myself, breathing within you this moment?’ And after a moment’s hesitation asked, ‘Your wife?’<br />Let it be the dead silence or din, each has a poetry of its own. The air bears its own verses, fragrances, rhythm and tunes of love. It was possible that this story would not have taken birth. And, that too for a person like myself, that is, a person devoted to creation, whose unperturbed state of being could<br />be compared to that of the still waters, or the waves on the calm ocean.<br />But I beg your pardon. The time when this story begins is serious. And it is necessary that the present time and the human rights associated with it, be assigned the function of the witness. And much more necessary is the question arising at the heart of lovers, floating ambitiously over the waves of love, that why they are not birds or animals; and also, the watchful eyes of the Human Rights to watch if the community of menfolk is, in anyway, thwarting the rights of the womenfolk. But please, excuse me, Here there is no violation of human rights. Contrary to it there enters quietly a woman in the life of a man aged over forty, and leading a quiet married life. The woman was not a wife but a lover aged 22 whose eyes would transform into the rains, dreams and rainbows from time to time. Getting aside, she demanded, ‘Grant me my rights.’ The answer given was, ‘This right belongs to somebody else.’ Before she could exclaim ‘No’, she was as violent as a great river in flood could be.<br />‘No?’<br />‘If it were any other person’s right you would not be here. Tell me, why you are here. Why aren’t you there with the one who has the right?’<br />Perhaps she giggled…but she was still asking … and she asked… ‘Why do you feel so very frightened allowing me my own rights? Would I be here if you had lost your right to love? Near you? Near<br />your breath? In your movements…in your restlessness… in your worries…and in your fingers…that while typing on the computer get abstracted from the word to love, and from the word to a passionate persistence… from eyes to the dream, and from lips to the song.’<br />And then she said, ‘ Listen to me Flood!...I fly… I swim. On dewy imaginations I weave the webs of waves. Time flies like little butterflies with their colourful wings around me. Taking them to be the feel of yours I try to grasp them with my hands. Through the long long days I have wings on my body to fly in the rainbow sky. During the night, as I am flying with butterflies with feeling of being with you, I grasp the time with a feel of you, and tying it in a knot, conceal it in the coils of my hair…’<br />And then she asked, ‘ Does your son know that some one, besides his mother, has come into your life?’<br />This was the time when the heart of Venus throbbed, and the planet known as the ninth one in our solar system, Pluto, had been exiled.’<br />I closed the Net quietly. Anyhow, for a little while kept looking on at the blank screen of the computer. The letters were gone… No, they were shining… and the combinations of them was giving<br />shape to the face of a girl having come from some dreamland. Eyes were lost on the island that was Salan’s eyes…All the words on her flower-petal lips were for Salan only…The body trembled. I got up, opened the side-door and began to feel the words typed by Mahak. They seemed to peep from the blue sky across the balcony. I felt as if she were standing in front of me asking, ‘ How much do you love me?;—the words that were meteor shower; as if an explosion had occurred; as if a shiver ran through the spine…She, too, was looking at him with a smile that expressed pleasure and mystery, both, simultaneously.<br />‘Why don’t you speak? Tell me how much you love me.’<br />‘I don’t do any.’ I typed the few words. She burst out like the torrential rain.<br />‘You do, but you dare not…Well, how deeply does Tarana love you?’<br />‘Very.’<br />‘More than I do?’<br />‘Yes.’<br />‘No. She can’t do more.’ She seemed reassured. ‘No. None can love you more than I do — not even the heart that beats in your body; not even the eyes that would strike up a melodious tune of love just by casting a look ...and…and your lips that play with the name can love you to the extent that I do.’<br /> Mahak stopped. The conflict arising at her heart could be seen on the CAP. A thousand shadows arose and drowned in her eyes…Once again her fingers were on the type. My heart throb took a leap because of a flood of unfamiliar questions arising there in.<br />She said, ‘Well, listen…How much has Tarana touched you? I too wish to get transformed into ‘Savan’, into the rains, into the wind that should pass touching you…How does Tarana play on your body<br />with her fingers?...Very gently? …Very quietly? — like the dew drops falling down the leaves? How much has she seen your body? How much has Tarana known…? Isn’t it only that much as much a woman, bound to the role that she has to play as a wife, could know? Isn’t it only that much as the pain or<br />hunger…there is at a time in the body…would warrant? Isn’t it only that much as much there is the fever of hunger and sex-urge together in the body at a time? But how much does she see you when the two bodies are one? How many dreams can she visualize in every hair on your body? How much can she<br />discover you in the commotions of your breath? Does Tarana see in you, or she doesn’t, a new flood in you? — a new song, a new dream and a new flood?...?<br />Mahak continued to type and it seemed as if I were bathing in the rains of wonder every moment. What is this? Why do I become so very helpless as soon as Mahak comes. The cacti of questions begin to raise their heads from me within… ‘You have a son aged twelve,… on the threshold of becoming a full grown youth. She is older by ten years only.’<br /> Do you know the meaning of having crossed forty years of age if you are born in an Indian family? It means— a grave personality devoted to your family, the one who understood the responsibilities towards children. Having reached this age you emerge a mature person who is looked on by your society with reverence because the society knows this person is an invaluable symbol of our ideal society, is a representative. This person cannot love. And, to him, thinking of any extramarital love is nothing less<br />than his getting doomed. Here there is no room for any unexpected occurrences.<br />Even then Mahak had got in through the back door that had remained open, only god knows how. She had come in,and was asking for her full right to love.<br /><br />Tarana and question<br />Love is eternal.<br />The tales of global and geographical changes also are true. In the race of progress and development, there is also a row of mysterious happenings standing along with our worldly race; from miracles to inventions, from the system of downloading a man’s brain to the cloning of the human being. In this world of inventions and miracles the heart of Venus ceased to throb long long ago. Only God knows how long ago the heavenly star, that was love, got eliminated from its orbit, got shattered into innumerable number of pieces and was dispersed through the solar system. Plato, the symbol of trust was also exiled by the observers of the celestial bodies. But the splinters of the star — that was love — getting attached and detached with the masses of ice, seemed to be posing questions before mankind, ‘why did love get lost? Where did love evaporate? Why did you arrive on the land of hundreds of thousand years ago where there would be no life, the sun sans its fire — just a cool spherical body, and the lifeless earth…? At that time there shone a spark, and emerged out a ray from the star that was love itself. And after centuries a love story took birth… in the age of inventions, mysteries and the Jurassic… in the form of Tarana, in the form of Sailaan, or in the form of Mahak Ahmad.<br />‘Well, what did you think?’ Tarana’s eyes were peeping into mine.<br />‘Don’t know.’<br />‘There is an honesty in you that you did not fail to disclose to me that you too love Mahak…’<br /> I remained emotionless with my down cast eyes. ‘Well, tell me; do you have romantic talks too with her?’<br /> ‘Yes.’<br /> ‘Very much?’<br />‘Perhaps.’<br />‘Perhaps you would hold her hand too if she were in front of you…’ Tarana’s tone was icy. ‘Perhaps.’<br />‘No. Not perhaps. You would. Or, possibly more than that…,’ she checked herself in the mid-sentence.<br />‘Sanyal!’ she continued, ‘Didn’t you remember me, even for a moment while talking to Mahak?... Suppose you spent three hours with her in a day, it comes to 90 hours in a month, yes? …Don’t you remember Sanyal…’ Tarana held my hands. Swayed by the tender recollections of the bygone days her eyes were misty. ‘Don’t you remember? —you used to say a man who met a woman other than his wife but with the same fervour of love… may be deemed as having dismembered a part of his body. A person who met some other one again and again, is as good as the one who has dismembered all his body parts. Didn’t you say that? And you also said how such a person can take his wife or his children in his arms if he has already lost his limbs.’ Tarana looked at him, smiled, ‘I hope you are intact Sanyal, for me and my children…’<br />At my heart, my own shriek, smeared with blood, lay loaded with slabs of ice. in a moment, fighting against my own desperation, I took a decision.<br />‘That’s the truth of the Net, not of the body…’<br />‘Oh…,’ Tarana laughed out amiably.<br />‘They all Net, Where is the person who doesn’t do? ‘And people don’t share their experiences with their wives even.’<br />‘I don’t know the people, my love. I know Sanyal only…’ There was not the least resentment in Tarana’s voice. ‘You said that was the truth of the Net. Had you had romantic chat with her?’<br />‘Yes.’<br />‘Took her hand in yours?’<br />‘Yes.’<br />‘Kiss…?’<br />‘Perhaps.’<br />‘Not perhaps; say ‘yes’.’<br />‘Yes.’<br />‘On the lips?’<br />‘Yes…’<br />‘Well, let it be on the lips, the eyes… or as you like… for it is not easy to put into words how intense love is at a given moment, … but suppose you were before her … would you do all that Sanyal?’<br />‘But the condition is, if I were before her…’<br />‘You would turn into a ‘Tsunami. Isn’t it? Don’t get frightened Sanyal. Sometimes I feel like talking about petty things. Yesterday I kept thinking for a long time. After all where had I blundered?<br />Where did I leave a void within you in the past sixteen years? Where Sanyal? Tell me. But don’t think I’ll hinder you. I’ll just try to make you understand… for I have loved you. I have loved you intensely. It went all through my tender age. I won’t keep you from …. I will convince myself that my luck had only this much for me in store…. Where love falls under compulsion, is restrained, doesn’t remain love any longer…<br />selfishness comes in there…’<br />‘Then…?’<br />‘Tell me what you have thought about…’<br />My words got stuck to my throat. ‘Mahak wants to marry me…’<br />‘So…’<br />‘She says she will come to India…’<br />‘Ask her to come.’ Tarana took my hands in hers gently. ‘Ask Mahak to come.’<br />‘And you…?’<br />Tarana smiled mildly. ‘You know your Tarana. Never liked divisions ever since my childhood… placing Mahak’s hand in yours, I’ll quit quietly’. She turned away her face.<br />I felt ponderous thunderclaps operating at my heart. And during the moments that followed, there came before my eyes every aspect of Tarana’s beauteous face, her adornments — the sixteen year old Tarana. I felt, it was easy to slip into make-believe world, but very difficult to tread on the stony path of reality. While I was lost in my dreamy reflections. I felt as if I heard the soft musical sound of Tarana’s ankletwith bells, and in an instant, there was Tarana and Tarana only in my eyes, saying… ‘Then, do call her…’ I don’t know the reason why in the history of tales, till now, the wife is not the heroine. How is it that only the second or the third woman that comes in the life of a man is the heroine? Is it because offering her springs and dreams to her husband through the years of her youth, she gets lost somewhere? But, actually, having had her share in the history of the pleasures and pains of the household, she, in all her splendour, stands on the pedestal of the heroine supreme, having been observed and weighed every<br />moment. She is the fairy of the flowers. What is needed is the eyes that should recognize this flower-fairy. I was not in any sort of doubts. Detached from the waterfalls and rains of love, I was trying to study all the colours of this flower-fairy. And on that day, perhaps, my thoughts and sentiments reached Mahak. She asked me for the last time:<br />‘Tell me. Should I come to Delhi? I shall not be a burden on you, Sanyal, not even financially. I need your company only, the feel of your presence only. Yes or no, I demand your answer this very moment.’<br /> There was no echo within me, neither that of a fire-work nor that of a blast.<br />Giving much thought to it, I typed quietly, ‘No.’<br />Mahak signed out. She didn’t meet again. Moments rolled on to cover months, unawares. Perhaps five months passed.<br />To die in your town<br />And after the five months—<br />Perhaps, this was the time when I was alarmed to see a meteor turn into a long line of brightness to get lost only. But, perhaps, such a void gives birth to an elegy. Or, such a love, once again, gives to the world such a masterpiece as the Taj Mahal. But perhaps, at that time I had no idea that the visualization of such images as an elegiac composition or the Taj Mahal by seeing a shooting star could disturb me to such an extent in the future.<br />Tarana would ask, ‘you forgot her. No?’<br />‘Perhaps.’<br />‘Should she really have come, then?’<br />‘I don’t know.’<br />‘You are telling a lie…’ Her eyes would grow mischievous by the touch of love. ‘Had she come you wouldn’t have been able to exercise any control on yourself.’<br />‘I can’t say.’<br />‘Why does it happen so? When everything is going on smoothly in life, there enters some one quietly?’ She hesitated momentarily and then added, ‘There was no shortfall anywhere, in any form. Perhaps, we had not left anywhere any void, even such a one as could be natural in the life of a married couple, like an unattended door, or a gap through which any one could jump in to reach<br />you. But, perhaps, a life that has been granted for once only…<br />There is a free sheet of paper also. A person feels no guilt or remorse writing the name of any other person on it. Because it is the most exclusive road lying in between the person and his soul, the road that your wife and your children are not allowed to walk along.<br />Tarana turned to him. “Well, suppose she should come suddenly and stand before you, then? What will you do Sanyal? Will you deny her? Will you ask her to turn back? Or, say, that you have no relations with her. Or, … tell me.’<br />So many missiles continued to be shot into the sky, simultaneously…<br />“Listen to what the flute says.<br />It complains of our separation”<br />(From the verses of Maulana Roomi)<br />It was a morning as usual. But, perhaps, not quite as usual. It couldn’t be as usual as other mornings for Sanyal in particular. Just a night ago there was a Mahal ke kho jane ka tazkera. Everything was normal a night ago. After high waves in the ocean there were deep whirlpools but there was quiet after it. The waves were calm. And suddenly on that bright morning so many stones had been hurdled into the water, and so many webs of the waves were formed in the river.<br />A knock at the door at 7 in the morning.<br />The door bell seemed to have brought in an unexpected storm. The boy who opened the door was looking wonderfully at the woman standing before him. Dusky face, sky-blue kameez and a salwar matching in colour. A dupatta hanging down the shoulders.<br />‘You are Asif, aren’t you?’<br />And as Tarana came, she embraced her and cried as a sister would.<br />‘And you are Tarana…? I am Mahak. From Pakistan. Came last night. Where is Sanyal?’<br />The room seemed to have been caught by a tremendous earthquake. The son, nonplussed, looked at her. Tarana’s eyes still innocent, or concealing their truth were looking at her. As I came out the two impatient eyes were transformed into the eyes of a stone image that emerges out in mystery stories. She was pointing towards me with her finger. Words were lost to her. The feelings or sentiments had transformed the face and the body into a book, such as no human soul had been able to behold as yet…<br />The voice of Mahak trembled. ‘Tarana, could the two of us be in seclusion for two minutes…Could we talk?<br />The son, somewhat frightened, was in his mother’s arms. Tarana, smilingvaguely, seemed to be saying… ‘O, yes; why not?”<br /> But, perhaps, Tarana was not able to look into my eyes. Or, I could not muster up the courage to look at Tarana or the son. When and how she came and stood close to me, I couldn’t perceive.<br />‘Which room is yours?’ Her voice was cool. To my mind the fragrance from Pakistani garments was not different from the Indian ones.<br /> The room was transformed into an object quite strange to the world. Deep within me there rose the waves of fire that seemed to burn my very existence, trying to turn everything to ashes. The words were lost, disappeared into a channel or a cave. It was difficult to conjure up my thoughts about my son or Tarana standing outside the room. A cold wave had taken the room inits folds.<br />She was touching me : every joint of the finger, the nails, my clothes, my body, my soul, or the soul of my souls.<br />‘You are Sanyal. No? How can I believe myself. No. I can’t be so very fortunate. You…so close…so very …close… No. Don’t stop me… let me touch you. These are your fingers…these your garments…I can see you, touch you. I am so close to you and… how is it that I am still alive… seeing you.. Sanyal? Would that death capture me, this very instant while I am seeing, feeling and living the thought of you. You never thought that Mahak could come here too. Isn’t it? — Toyour country, to your city, into your house. In the frenzy of my breaths, stealthily, I had made an enclosure and put you therein. I never gave a thought to the inconvenience you may incur by this act of mine. Aren’t you all right?... Why don’t you speak Sanyal?<br />‘How did you come?’ came in a low tone, as some voice had resounded the valley of Kakeshiyan mountains, as all the freshness of the air carried along with the blood and circulating through the body had begun to inaudibly call out her name, forgetting all the things in the world…<br />‘Sponsored by the university a group of twenty, boys and girls, has come to visit the ancient monuments and buildings in Delhi. We arrived here last night. Every moment of the night was transformed into a breathing portrait of your name. The whole night I was in the state of worshipping you and in the morning as the first ray of the sun touched the earth, I concluded my prayers with the final bow and without telling any body…’<br />‘Didn’t you tell anybody?’<br />‘No.’<br />‘Suppose someone set out in search of you.’<br />This was the first shock of the earthquake. Innocently, she was still touching my fingers. ‘Hina knows aboutyou, but not much.’<br />‘Who is Hina?’<br />‘A friend of mine…,’ she spoke gently. ‘This morning at ten we have to report to the police headquarters just to observe some formalities. But I am quite unable to go.’ She was shuddering. Her eyes<br />were closed. ‘I want to absorb within myself the feel of your presence.’ And then she added in a very low voice, ‘The purpose of my having opened my eyes in the world will have been fulfilled…’<br />Like a child she turned towards me, and then she began to investigate the things in the room. ‘Isn’t this your bed? You must be there in the creases of the sheet, isn’t it Sanyal? They bear your touches of the private hours too. I need have all the feel of your touches. Speakto me; won’t you?’<br />She promptly advanced and lay down on the bed. For a moment she closed her eyes… then got up… adjusted her dupatta. She was laughing. No; she was crying. ‘Well, I visited my home too. Lay in bed too, saw my room also. Make me stay here with you please. Don’t let me go..’<br />Somewhere, far away, the tune of Maulana Roomi’s flute was there in the air, ‘Listen to what the flute says…’ The flute had turned these moments into disastrous moments. My face was transformed into a stone image. Thinking of Tarana and the son outside, I felt myself to be overcast by the dark clouds of misgivings; and Mahak with her eyes almost closed, resting her head on my chest, was lost in some alien<br />world…perhaps I was trembling. As I gently reached my trembling hand onto her back, she seemed to get lost into my chest, my breaths. But misgivings were there, holding their question-spears, ‘If Mahak did not depart?... How should I ask Mahak to go? Her not going back may create a disastrous scene. The matter is concerned with a girl, come from Pakistan, and now missing. And, then?<br />The recollection of so many stories, ranging from terrorist activities to suicide bombing, deeply disturbed me during those eternal seconds. But, probably, it was not possible to tell anything to Mahak. And, the fact is — I did not want that Mahak should separate herself from my body. Her love, elevating itself from just an intoxication to the level of worship, was getting dissolved into my very existence. And then time came to a stand still… In a flash Mahak stood apart from me, turned to me with a stream of tears running through her stony eyes.<br />‘I am going away. I’ll trouble you no more. I can’t even see my love worried. But it was necessary to see you once, to touch you, to preserve the feel of your touch at my heart.’<br />Her face bore a strange smile — ‘Don’t ask me to stay… And yes, don’t have a misconception that I shall get back to Pakistan.’ She smiled gently, ‘If I can’t live in your city, I can die here at least.’<br />Coming forward she pressed her hot lips on mine, and then swiftly got out of the room. And before I was able to comprehend anything, I felt the earth shake under my feet. The notes of the flute were nearer…<br />‘Since you have made me drunk, don’t impose confines on me. Codes of religion are not operative on the insane.’<br />(A verse from Maulana Roomi)<br />It seemed as if she had left her everlasting ‘presence’ in the room. She seemed to be breathing still on the bed, in the garments, on every joint in the finger. I was shivering all through. Her departing words still rang in my ears:<br />‘I may not live in your city,<br />But I can die here, at least.’Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4862642532712715363.post-91886420855207660142008-09-11T04:26:00.000-07:002008-09-11T04:28:21.268-07:00Delhi ki barishThe weather is so pleasant to day. It seems to rain all of us wait in impatience.....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09483432728814303596noreply@blogger.com2