By Dustin Pickering
Dustin Pickering is the founder of Transcendent Zero Press and editor-in-chief of Harbinger Asylum. He has authored several poetry collections, a short story collection, and a novella. He is a Pushcart nominee and was a finalist in Adelaide Literary Journal’s short story contest in 2018. He is a former contributor to Huffington Post.
By Sapna Agarwal
I haven’t travelled much recently but I remember when I was in the middle of a ‘hi-flying’ job (literally here) and had to travel internationally twice a month, the only good sleep I had was in-flight. This was unusual because most people I know cannot sleep well — especially in economy class.
The reasons I could sleep so well were many – the ordinary ones were that I was generally fatigued after my fourteen-hour job; I was not interested in the alcohol on board; I am 5ft nothing and could be comfortable in the economy class seat ( much to the envy of the Germans in Lufthansa flights ); the microwaved food didn’t excite me so I didn’t need food breaks and hence loo breaks.
But the real reasons (and that is why I am linking it to the lockdown) was that I was mentally at peace since once on board there was nothing under my control.
I was blissfully devoid of FOMO – fear of missing out on the chance of utilising my time better. There was nothing I could do high up there – no clearing long pending tasks like visiting the bank, replacing my torn handbag, arranging for a birthday party, getting my car serviced — in general all the tasks that I postponed with guilt while on land. In air, I was at peace that for the next 22 hours everything could wait. Once I had mental peace, I could just roll up and go to sleep. It was magic. There were times when the air hostess ( Quantas and Thai in particular) would wake me up and insist I eat something instead of sleeping for 15 hours straight.
The other thing that made in-flight sleep so peaceful was that there was little my accident-phobic self could do to save myself in case of a disaster. I do not have the same peace of mind while travelling by taxi, bus or train. In a taxi or bus, I always keep an eye on the driver willing him to avert any head-on crash. In a train where I cannot see the driver, I am normally evaluating my chances of escape in case of a collision. But in a flight, it is binary – in the unlikely event of a crash there is nothing a hapless passenger can do. So, I could sleep in peace.
Now after many years the lockdown is giving me the same feeling — a calm, soothing feeling that there is not much I can do except wash my hands.
One — There is no urgent task I can complete because everything is closed and legitimately so.
Two — In case of a disaster, that is the deadly virus takes over the entire world, there is very little I can do.
So I’d rather say my little prayer, roll up and catch up on my sleep – peacefully.
Sapna Agarwal is a management professional and has worked in the corporate and education sectors for long years. She writes short poems and articles mostly on current issues. She is a keen observer of human nature and how they react in good times and bad. She lives in Bangalore with her eleven-year-old daughter.
The date Borderless Journal completes its first month, 14th April, coincides with Poila Baisakh, or the first day of the Bengali new year, the Tamil New year, Sinhalese and Nepali New year, the second day of Songkran, the Thai new year (April 13- 15), the start of Bohag Bihu (an Assamese festival commemorating harvest and the new year, April 14 to 20), the second day of the Indian new year, Baisakhi. Let us celebrate along with the journal’s first month birthday this profusion of festivals, which would have been big with celebration for many but shrinks to online greetings because of the pandemic. Hey, did I use the word ‘shrink’? It actually grows bigger because there are so many more of us celebrating the occasion together in a virtual world.
The good news is though the pandemic continues to infect the globe, some areas look hopeful with the curve flattening. The way this virus has unified mankind is unprecedented. Bill Gates has acknowledged this in an interview with CNBC by just mentioning 7 billion doses of the vaccine… thus gathering all mankind into one-fold, beyond all boundaries. It was wonderful to have a world thought leader reach out to the whole humanity, even if for a moment — the thought of all of us being considered as part of an aggregate made for a feeling of inclusion.
This is the inclusivity that one hopes to highlight in Borderless Journal.
Today, borderlessjournal.com completes a month of its existence in our virtual world connecting all of us beyond all borders. Hopefully, it will be a virtual journal for all seven billion people that populate this wonderful green planet we call the Earth. We have travelled with writers to various parts of the world — many still remain unexplored. When some of the contributors ask me, which country does the journal belong to — I tell them — we are where you are. When astronauts watch the Earth from outer space, what do they see? What do clouds see?
The first month of the journal has been promising with many writers sharing their narratives — poetry, essays, short stories and musings. Readers have come back to us with wonderful feedback. I hope you will keep visiting us. Our editorial board has been active sending writers and their own writing too. They are all fabulous writers much like all of you. The resultant effect is Countercurrents.org has offered content sharing — where we exchange content. A number of our essays and musings have been republished in Countercurrents.org. A couple of articles have been quoted, one was in an Urdu journal with credits acknowledged to Borderless. One of our articles was also republished in another online journal with an acknowledgement to us. We also discovered our name in a Canadian listing (Mississauga Writers’s Group) for submissions — a pleasant surprise. We are crossing borders without a passport!
We have had a good start — perhaps you can call it a beginner’s luck, or will it continue?
That depends on all of you! Because this journal is yours, ours and belongs to everyone. I wish, I dream of 7.8 billion humans living in equity with access to food, potable water, housing, education and internet — reading and contributing to Borderless Journal in the spirit of “oneness to humanity” or ubuntu.
Let’s make it happen!
Mitali Chakravarty
Founding Editor, borderlessjournal.com
Farouk Gulsara from Malaysia
People, mainly the theistic type, are in a dilemma now. They are currently undergoing a test of faith of sorts. On the one hand, they feel they should not have been subjected through such a trial. Whoever had heard of man-made laws preventing believers from performing their daily mandatory salutations of the Divine Forces? Furthermore, at this time of calamity, if they cannot turn to the Divine for help, what else can they do?
But wait…
Why did the Divine Forces ‘send’ such a test to us? Does He not love us so much? After all the cajoling over generations, and the importance that humankind had accorded to the divine forces all times, why are we continuously put to the test? Is it some kind of Divine Mirth for the amusement of the Maker and a testbed to gauge our devotion?
Why are the first spaces to be emptied all the places of worship? How can they be hotbeds for infection? Are they justified is asking, “My Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Has God ditched his followers stricken with COVID-19 by shutting down religious centres with no prayer meetings? Social distancing seems to be the only panacea for the pandemic. Perhaps He is telling us that blind faith does not work.
Above all, intelligence and cognitive power would make us stronger as a race. Perhaps the answer would be, “I am here just for your solace. I cannot possibly change the trajectory of the Universe just because you cajoled me in prayers. Imagine the catastrophe that could cause to the others. I have other requests too, you know!”
It has happened many times before…
There was a time when worshippers were contented when their scriptures protected them from dangers of the pleasure of the forbidden fruit. They thought it was only the deviants who were at the receiving end of God’s wrath. So, when people like Paul Ehrlich came up with his magic bullet, Salvarsan, to treat syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease willed to punish the wayward, he received no accolades but instead, Ehrlich was pelted with stones, and his home was torched. He was scorned for siding with the sinners and going against the overpowering might of God.
All through our civilisation, believers took it upon themselves to symbolise the omnipotence of Divinity by constructing grandiose erections in the name of His splendour. True — these abodes have been useful to house believers and non-believers at times of crises before. These robust megalithic structures are of limited use as they are of restricted use to care for the homeless. They have been labelled as sites of super-spreaders and is out of bounds to worshippers and asylum seekers alike…
We are left with the power of human intellect and science to overcome this as we have done many times. In years to come, this current episode would be just a fleeting moment in the annals of human history. Catastrophes, one after another, we have bowled over. Floods, famines, earthquakes, tsunamis, world wars — we have defeated all. This will add another feather to our cap.
We did not attain the status of the de facto spokesperson of the planet for nothing.
We shall overcome.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decides to stimulate his non-dominant part on his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, ‘Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy’ and ‘Real Lessons from Reel Life’, he writes regularly in his blog ‘Rifle Range Boy’.
By Vasile Baghiu
(First appeared in the volume Cât de departe a mers/ How Far Have I Gone, 2008)
Vasile Baghiu (b. 1965) is a Romanian writer, author of eight books of poetry, a collection of short stories and three novels published in his country. He has been awarded a few writers-in-residence grants, in Germany, Austria, Scotland and Switzerland. Some of his works have appeared in translation in magazines and anthologies such as Penmen Review, Magma Poetry, Southern Ocean Review, The Orange Room Review, Stellar Showcase Journal, L.A. Melange, Poetry Can, Banipal, Cordite Poetry Review, The Aalitra Review, Bordertown. Co-author of the poetry collection Transatlantic Crossings: The Constant Language of Poetry, (TJMF Publishing, USA, 2006). Vasile had in the past diverse work experiences as a nurse, including a sanatorium. A psychologist and a teacher now, married, he has a daughter and a son. He currently is working simultaneously on a new novel, a new collection of poems and a non-fiction book.
By Tao Wang from Wuhan
I run a research group made up of more than 20 graduate students, and in a “normal” workday my job is to supervise and direct them on research activities related to opto-electronic devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes. I also teach an undergraduate course in polymer physics during our teaching season, with lectures two times a week. I would normally also go to conferences, although not every week.
The city of Wuhan and the residential compounds within it responded differently at different stages of the pandemic. At the beginning of the outbreak, normal life was not affected much as the number of infected people was low. On 23 January, Wuhan was locked down, with nobody able to leave the city; however, in the early days of the lockdown people could still walk freely outside their homes. This was soon changed so that nobody could leave their residential compound except those involved in essential work, as evidence showed that less strict measures were not preventing the spread of the corona virus.
Life under lockdown
During the lockdown, a lot of medical and other resources were sent to Wuhan, and many volunteers helped deliver groceries to residential compounds, assist the vulnerable, and bring food to doctors and nurses on the front line. At first, patients with mild symptoms were asked to return home and self-isolate – partly due to the shortage of hospital beds and other resources, and partly due to a lack of experience in how to treat a virus that humans had not encountered before. Again, this soon changed, as the virus continued to spread, clusters of infections appeared, and people with mild conditions developed more serious symptoms.
To deal exclusively with corona virus patients, Wuhan constructed two new hospitals from scratch in 10 days. Another 16 makeshift hospitals were also built, some of them in one day. Other provinces in China also sent many thousands of doctors and nurses to hospitals in Hubei.
This enabled health workers to collect and treat all patients in hospital and closely watch those who have been in close contacts with patients. The number of new cases reduced immediately with these actions, and this – along with a reduced number of patients in hospitals after their cure and discharge – helped to ease the crisis.
I have kept myself fairly busy while self-isolating at home during the lockdown time in Wuhan. Whilst we report our body temperatures every day to local health volunteers and try to keep our life free of chaos and panic, we also try to do some of the work we would expect to do in a normal time.
My students and I have online meetings every two weeks, during which we discuss some of the latest literature related to their projects. We finished writing and revising a few manuscripts, and I also wrote two grant proposals (it is proposal writing time between January and March in China). At the beginning of the new semester in March, university students in Wuhan were asked not to return on campus due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and all face-to-face lectures have been turned to online virtual ones. This minimizes the disruption to their studies, while also ensuring their health and safety.
Emerging from the epidemic
For the past 20 days, very few new cases of corona virus have been reported in Wuhan, and as of today the total number of corona virus patients is less than 500. So, after 11 weeks of lockdown, people in Wuhan were allowed to leave the city from midnight on 8 April.
Thanks to the great achievement of putting down a pandemic in about two months, people in “epidemic-free” residential compounds are now allowed to leave their homes, for example to do grocery shopping in supermarkets. A lot of commercial units have resumed functioning. The authorities are evaluating how to ensure public health and safety in these new circumstances, and when that is settled our students will be allowed to return to campus. I actually tidied up my office today, and I am waiting for our students to be back, which I am sure won’t take long.
With great efforts from people in every country, this extraordinary crisis will surely be overcome, and we will be back to “normal” life.
But this new normality won’t be the same as the one that existed before. It is going to change our society in ways we haven’t fully anticipated. I hope the changes are positive rather than negative. We should live in more healthy ways so that we can share this planet with other beings, and that will require everyone to think things over after the disruption is finished.
I do see positive things in all nations across the globe: responsibility, selflessness, self-discipline, unity and resolve. As for positive things in my professional life, the lockdown gave me time to look back and think over what I have done in my research activities over the past few years, and particularly to evaluate whether they are as methodologically robust as they could be. I have some thoughts on that and will start from those once I am able to return to my laboratory.
I hope the rest of the world can get hope from my experience in Wuhan. If we stick to social distancing, wash hands and wear masks, this pandemic is certainly controllable.
This post is part of a series on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the personal and professional lives of physicists around the world. If you’d like to share your own perspective, please contact us at pwld@ioppublishing.org.
Tao Wang is an experimental physicist in the School of Materials Science & Engineering at Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China.
First Published in Countercurrents.org
By Amit Shankar Saha
Fear in Times of Corona
Wish Fulfilment
Today when you read your poems and I am far away
the rains will bend their direction to mourn the distance,
the lights will sit heavy on the evening of remembrance,
a lake in Kashmir will abruptly freeze in sorrow,
a mirage in Kutch will waylay a traveler for water,
memory will weave a flower patterned chintz curtain,
the dreams of the curtain will cover the world like a storm,
a poet will squeeze the universe in his palms and say,
“Today when you read your poems and I am far away
I wish the words that escape your lips come all my way.”
Quarantined Night
Amit Shankar Saha is an award-winning poet and short story writer. He has won the Poiesis Award,, Wordweavers Prize, Nissim International Runner-up Prize. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the co-founder of Rhythm Divine Poets and Assistant Secretary of Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library. His poems are in Best Indian Poetry Anthology 2018 and he has read at Sahitya Akademi. His collections of poems are titled “Balconies of Time” and “Fugitive Words”. He has a PhD in English from Calcutta University and teaches in the English Department of Seacom Skills University.
By Devraj Singh Kalsi
Our admiration, interest, and respect spikes for countries where the spread of Covid-19 is flattened or limited with early measures. As we track global statistics on a daily basis, any country with less than 1000 cases makes us react with Wow and How. As we scroll further down the list, those with 500 or less than 100 cases make us feel positive and we conclude: This is the place to live. These may or may not be counted as fantasy lands or ideal destinations in normal times, but when it comes to survival, we salute them for keeping citizens safe in these dark times.
When I discussed this with some friends in an online chat, they are reluctant to bat for developed and advanced nations now. Countries more efficient in the management of crisis and saving human lives, countries more benevolent towards the poor, countries with more nature-friendly policies, countries where a citizen is considered much more than a statistic are weighed against the traditional heavyweights. When the pandemic subsides and people have lesser emotional stress, perhaps the same set of questions will have completely different answers. Or maybe, the magnitude of this crisis enables us to imagine grief more closely and we are compelled to revise our assessment of growth, development, and quality living.
While the recovery phase will take its time, the nations least affected will have having a clear advantage over the severely affected ones. Whether they will be able to leverage on their strengths and give the world the option of a better life with limited but sufficient resources remains to be seen.
Economists and artists will get busy mapping the COVID-19 impact on people once the pandemic is contained. GDP predictions, recession, relief packages and stimulus will form the key discussions. The wealthy of every nation will look for growing economies to park their funds and they will come together to create rich economies — lured by maximum plough back of profits. They will look for economies with double-digit annual growth or for high single-digit economies with enormous potential to double up in the short term itself.
Job losers and fresh job seekers will migrate in search of better and stable options anywhere in the world. The top ten nations for immigrants will be another interesting development. Many new countries will enter this list and many big names will be excluded from the list. Globalisation will become a word of caution for some nations while the rest of the world will begin to harness its potential.
Tragedies inspire artists. The political class that creates global tragedies will be defeated by nature this time. Man-made tragedies kindle the angst in artists far more than the natural ones, even if the extent of damage remains the same or even greater. Being lovers of nature, the community of artists will not be ruthless towards the eco systems. They will blame mankind for being unkind, for the excesses against nature, and treat every natural disaster as the planet’s brave attempt to heal or reclaim what it lost. Artists will remind people and countries to be friendlier towards the Earth as will environmentalists, who have always emphasised harmonious co-existence with nature. This enthusiastic drive will continue with full force.
As soon as the element of greed raises its ugly head and the countries become competitive to provide a ‘better life’ or restore the ‘better’ life, the return towards normal will start. Although we live under greater threat, we have greater confidence that we will survive every kind of threat. The resumption of the predictable cycle will make us return to our lives of consumerism, to flaunt fancy gadgets or something precious to suggest our material abundance. The lessons from COVID-19 will be forgotten and buried.
Rich countries fear the death of their privileged status more than the death of thousands and millions of people. Those who survive will need to live in the same country with pride in its strengths. A country with the highest casualties will continue to say it is far below the expected numbers. If a million die, they will boast of saving many millions more. They will boost the morale of the nation with solidarity drives and keep them upbeat about a quick bounce back. It is a humongous task that brings a battery of opinion makers, public relation strategists and pliant media to play a constructive role in helping governments build – or rebuild – their image.
However, as critical assessment will have lesser tolerance, masses will expect their governments to do what is required. In such times, elected leaders will get the opportunity to showcase their potential. State leaders will grow in stature through their performance. National leaders will find suitable roles other than criticising the government. Social service measures to benefit the poor will help them connect better. Instead of lampooning the governments, people should be seen aligned with the government. These images will linger in the public mind for long. And a new class of leaders will emerge as viable alternatives –some reaching the helm through sacrifice, some reaching it through service.
It will not matter whether democracies deliver the best care or totalitarian regimes perform better. Any kind of governance will find resonance if the citizens conclude their leaders prevented severe loss of human lives. At the end of the day, survival matters. The political class has understood it is not only important to do enough, but it is equally important to be seen you are doing enough. When one game seems lost, the other has to be won.
Global leaders are trying their best to tell their citizens they have a responsive and proactive government. When elected leaders get affected by the virus, they appear vulnerable as individuals. When they get cured faster, they prove their stronger ability to fight and survive. A subtle message that the nation is safe in their hands.
Devraj Singh Kalsi works as a senior copywriter in Kolkata. His short stories and essays have been published in Deccan Herald, Tehelka, Kitaab, Earthen Lamp Journal, Assam Tribune, and The Statesman. Pal Motors is first novel.
By Sushant Thapa
Every day he visits my home and takes only a one-rupee coin. Not more and not less. If I try to give him a two-rupee coin, he asks, “Do you want me to take this coin?” and he won’t take it. He is in the habit of taking a one-rupee coin from my home and perhaps many other homes. I can only see him coming to my home to take a coin. I do not care if he visits other homes and collects coins, for I care about his visit to my home because of his regular habits.
We see him in gatherings and ceremonies at other places. He sits flat on the ground. They serve him well in many social functions. Unconcerned, he sits politely and leaves in a well-mannered way. Yet, his daily habit of taking a one-rupee coin from my home worries me.
“How very forgetful of him!” says my dad if he is late.
His tension is unlike that of a housemaid who lights a single cigarette in the afternoon after finishing her morning chores. A single cigarette puts the maid to relief. But a single coin puts the man to unrest every day.
People say he is loosely wired. Decades have passed. But he has not changed his habit. Everybody in the town has ceased to talk about him now. They are not worried about his activities. He is dressed untidily in dirty clothes often. He is well built, stout and tall. He seems to come from a healthy family. The only thing that concerns him is the daily collection a one-rupee coin from every home. He might have hoarded a vast amount by now.
He used to talk to my grandfather in those days when I was young. He would see my grandfather having lunch at the dinner table through the window, and he’d say, “Well, you are having your lunch, should I not be having my coin?” I used to be young but now I can write his story. I’m a grown-up man now, and I can write things about the one-rupee man.
Many times, I have placed a coin in front of the man myself. I would place it on the windowsill, he would murmur something, and I would say — “It’s there.” Silently, he would feel the coin with his hand and take it. He would say nothing to me.
Once, my little niece gave him a two-rupee coin. The man asked my dad, “Why do you create such confusion? Why do you give me two rupees instead of one?”
Once a day, we see him standing in front of the window of my house, but he is very careful not to visit more than once a day. Perhaps it bothers him, and that’s why he is particular about it.
Some say he was a rich businessman, and that his business partners deceived him and he lost every penny he invested. He got detached from the business world, but he does collect a one-rupee coin from everyone. He continued to have a relationship with the monetary world in as much that he would have his daily dole of a one rupee coin. He makes sure that he comes to collect a one rupee coin from us, and we get bothered about handing him his single one-rupee coin. The give and take process dilutes the tension. Yet, it seems to be a never-ending process that holds the burden for both parties.
Sushant Thapa is a recent post-graduate in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His short story “The Glass Slate” has been published in Kitaab.org from Singapore. His poems and essays have been published in Republica daily from Kathmandu. His short stories and poems have also been published by The Writers’ Club, New Jersey, United States. He revels in rock music, poetry, books and movies from his home in Biratnagar, Nepal.
A short story by Avishek Parui
The day when his second novel was rejected in the same cold cursory manner the earlier one had been, Pavish Reuk decided to take a stroll across the city. He didn’t have much in his mind then, except a half-bitter tingling that always grew out of his failures. As he stood at the crossing with a crowd of scared masked men waiting for the green that summons pedestrians to march across the throbbing cars, Pavish Reuk realized that his whole life had been a string of failures.
He had been a failure at the crucial points in his student-life, excelling in the unimportant exams. He had been a failure in romance, having lost the only woman he had loved, as he didn’t have enough courage to tell her. He had been a failure professionally, failing in all the career-oreinted competitive exams and ending up as a lowly clerk in a semi-nationalized bank about to go bankrupt. Most importantly to him, he had been a failure as a writer, something he had always wanted to become.
Now, at the age of thirty-nine, with his greasy glasses, shrinking legs, and balding head, Pavish Reuk was in a loveless marriage with a disappointed wife and two children, none particularly fond of him. And yet, Pavish thought, despite having failed in almost all aspects of life, failure still saddened him, it still gave him the feeling of being denied, still, after all these years. This thought surprised him; it touched him with something that felt like happiness. Perhaps it meant, Pavish thought, that he still bore some dream, some debris of optimism that was hurt each time it was not fulfilled. Sensitivity to failures is somewhat a success. Pushed by a restless young man who muffled beneath his mask, Pavish began to cross the street. It had turned green while the last thought crossed his mind.
It had begun to drizzle, and the March Kolkata evening glistened with lights of various shades, strangely silhouetted by the many masked faces that marched slowly down the boulevards on either side of the main street. As the rain swished across the twilight shadows with the gusts of wind, and the cars’ lights mixed with the shafts from the streetlamps on either side, Pavish Reuk began to walk, breathing in the mixed smell of rain, dust, and sweat that spread along the pavement. He was not carrying an umbrella and though his thin hair looked thinner and his small frame smaller in the rain swept crowd, Pavish felt something resembling reverie beginning to fill him in. Suddenly a big black police van with a dirty diesel smell screeched to a halt by the road. Two policemen got off and walked briskly into the by-lanes that flanked the corner of the pavement. The sight of the van made Pavish afraid, though he did not understand why. It seemed to have a sinister message stuck to its dented sides. That, and the sound of a lame dog wailing at a corner of the pavement, took Pavish Reuk to where he did not want to go this evening: the memory of his last, rudely rejected novel.
His last novel was about a shepherd boy who loses his way in a blizzard and discovers a magic stone in the cave he took shelter during the storm. The stone enables him to see the truths out of other people’s lives and create stories out of those. As the boy starts using the stone, he becomes a brilliant storyteller, famous in the taverns, enthralling the people in his valley and even beyond it, till the people realize he makes up his stories from the incidents in their lives, from the carefully hidden secrets that were somehow prized open by the boy’s imagination. In the end, the people gather together and kill the boy through a public execution, but not before he had swallowed the magic stone. The next morning, as they wake up, the people in his valley cannot remember anything that had happened to any of them. The novel ends with the oldest man in the valley breaking down in tears for a reason he did not understand, while the others gathered around him, looking at him wail with a blank expression in their faces. A blizzard with a deadly epidemic was about to set in.
Pavish had drawn the novel with many characters and had named his central protagonist Pratham. There was also a series of subplots that had carried the novel to three hundred pages. But the only publisher Pavish knew and could approach hated the idea of the novel. The editor had clearly stated that his theme was more like an old-fashioned fairy tale and would have no takers in the modern world. Pavish loved the novel as it grew out of the flesh of his imagination. He could particularly relate Pratham to himself and had taken care to give him the attributes of his own younger days. But both he and Pratham had failed and as Pavish entered the staircase that led down on to the metro station, he decided not to write any novel anymore. The raindrops had become fatter by then.
Not knowing exactly where to go, not sure why he entered the metro station either, Pavish Reuk stood in the long snaky queue before the ticket counter. When he reached the counter after what seemed an eternity, Pavish mumbled the name of the next station as he put forth the exact fare through the narrow slit. There was a growing commotion in the metro station. The ticket-punching turnstile had broken down and an increasingly angry crowd swore at the nervous crew that tried to fix it. There was something numbing and scary about the way the people looked now, as if all of them were dreading a disease to break out, a massive infection about to spread like a contagion. Most of them were wearing masks which made them faceless in Pavish’s eyes. The broken turnstile seemed to have triggered some collective claustrophobia of being trapped in a tunnel full of worms. Pavish looked at the group of masked men and women around him.
There was this big burly man in blue shirt with a wart on his forehead who swore the loudest at the incompetence of the crew. There was this very attractive woman dressed in a red top that reminded Pavish of an accident he had seen from close three years back, in which a young girl lay in a pool of blood after being run over by a speeding truck. If the girl had lived, thought Pavish, she would have been as old as this woman. Trying to figure out if the girl looked like this woman as well, Pavish saw the woman staring back at him with a knowing half-smile that scared him. She wasn’t wearing a mask.
There was this absent-minded young man of about twenty-six, already balding, with a brooding look of a jilted lover or a confused philosopher, or both. A group of teenaged schoolgirls chatted away about something funny that had happened in school. Pavish tried to eavesdrop but he was too far away. He had always been too far away, he realised, from the real centers of interest.
Trying to recall with difficulty the content of a long letter he had been asked to type in office the previous day, Pavish fixed his gaze at the wart on the forehead of the big man that seemed to grow in size with his focus. It grew till it was an orange-red haze and would’ve grown bigger had it not been for the sound that rose above the noise of the human voices within the station.
The turnstile handle had given way to the machinations of the metro-crew and people were about to gush in like a flood of insects set free to infect each other. Between the moment when the turnstile broke with a loud crash and the one that saw the long-waiting crowd rush in, something happened inside Pavish Reuk. A loud cacophony of conflicting voices sent Pavish’s mind in a wild disarray even as he tried to figure out where those came from. The breaking of the turnstile, with its loud noise of collapse, had ushered in strange voices that spoke very fast, like a group of jugglers performing simultaneously with colored balls and knives. The many marks from the many wet shoes and slippers spread like a maze across the platform floor, a testimony to the drizzle above, as Pavish closed his eyes to listen…
“That bugger Bobby, he was sleeping with the boss’s wife or else the old hag wouldn’t have favored him so much…kicked the bucket…road-accident…didn’t his sister die in a similar way…three years ago wasn’t it…what the heck…let’s see if I can make some inroads now…” “The new English teacher is cute, and I think he likes me… kept glancing back at me through the entire class… should be fun… I’ll wear my new ear-rings tomorrow…” “How did she come to know where I was last evening? I had told her I was at an office meeting… like I do every time I go out… is she spying on me now?” “The film was crap…had to come along with him and waste so much money and time…as if this is a good time to come to a cinema hall in the first place, with all the scare going around… I should’ve stayed at home and completed the new problems of integral calculus…he’s so stupid sometimes… laughed like a fool at all the corny jokes during the film…don’t think we can stay together for much longer.” “She’s gone insane…bringing her mother over to stay with us…driven out of her son’s house…and bang she arrives in her son-in-law’s house like a pest…” “How am I going to pay back the loan? 50,000 a month…how…how…why did I let them talk me into it? I can’t…can’t…can’t anymore.” “A paper on The Waste Land…we are doomed…it’s so long…and so boring…can’t get anything out of it…Eliot’s personal grouse… why must we suffer…the other group got to do just The Dead…just a short story…it’s so unfair…” “I asked her specifically to take the pill every night…she’s so silly… can’t remember a damn thing…and now…who should I see now to get it done quietly…just before my promotion…the dumb bimbo…and she’s got such a rotting reek in her breath now…” “I think the complete work of Kafka would be a good gift…he’s 17 now…he should love it…it’s on the 16th…can I get a hard cover so fast…paperback would look cheap…” “Ma’s been having the cough for two weeks now…I must take her to the doctor tomorrow…she will never come unless I force her…with the scare now for old people particularly.. I will take a half-day tomorrow and pick her up from home…” “The shares of Safe-Life are crashing down…must sell out and get out of it fast…” “Everything will be shut down soon” … “Bobby is dead…alas…”
It took Pavish Reuk a few seconds to realise that he had, by some long pent-up power that had chosen him now, gained access into the thoughts of the people around him. It was like being struck with a strange virus. He was hearing people speak inside their minds. The voices were criss-crossing the space between his ears like a buzz of busy bugs infecting someplace furiously. The words screamed out of the brains of the dwellers of the metro station, a group of strangers whose lives were now connected by this space-time, by the fear of a common contamination, by the wait for the next train. Pavish Reuk looked around to see if anybody could suspect what he was doing, but nobody in particular was staring at him. Relieved, Pavish walked to the centre of the platform and seated himself on a chair that was surprisingly empty considering the large crowd that had gathered around it. As he sank further deep into the monstrous melting pot of secret thoughts, Pavish remembered the one who could do the same, one he himself had created, and killed: Pratham.
Leaning forward in his chair so as to catch the thoughts better, Pavish looked like a slanted antenna as more and more stories buzzed inside him. Pratham had had a magic stone. For Pavish the sound of a turnstile breaking catapulted him into the belly of a super-sensory universe.
The stories grew out from fear, from secrets, from thoughts never put into words and Pavish Reuk knew right away he was inside the triumph that all artists crave for. He felt like an old typewriter suddenly brought back to life by an incessant clanking away of keys, in this crowded contaminated metro station as a drizzle fell on the floors above. Meanwhile, the two policemen near the signal crossing were walking back to their van. They had been informed of an infected man. One who could spread the disease. And hence had to be captured before it’s too late. Below them Pavish Reuk stood up as he heard the train coming in from a distance. He was full of stories now. He had stolen it all. Triumph, of the purest kind, had finally touched him and he knew he must win this time. Maybe that would redeem Pratham, his death, his failure.
As Pavish Reuk stood up he looked around and saw what he knew he would see. The people around were all looking at him. With sad, infected eyes. Gloomy, masked faces, waiting to slowly die. He was the chosen one now. Despite his unpublished novels, despite his balding head, despite his shrinking frame. The touch of that gaze made him surer of his purpose. He could not go back to failure now. To his loveless home of lack and disappointment. He must win from here. Genius, he had read somewhere a long time ago, lay in the ability to take an infinity of pain. With the smile of a sure man, Pavish Reuk walked to the edge of the platform. The yellow light sped along the rails and became a train. Pavish Reuk jumped into his triumph and disappeared. Outside, it continued to rain.
Avishek Parui (PhD, Durham) is Assistant Professor in English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He researches on storytelling, embodiment, and memory studies and is the author of Postmodern Literatures (Orient Blackswan).
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