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Stories

Mister Wilkens

By Paul Mirabile

Courtesy: Creative Commons

 “Indeed, so fierce was this sense of resistance to change, and so universal were the powers ascribed to it, that in reading the Orientalists one understands that the apocalypse to be feared was not the destruction of Western civilisation but rather the destruction of the barriers that kept East and West from each other.”

This unreferenced passage was found upon the mangled body of a certain Mister Wilkens after he had thrown himself from a speeding night express from Paris to Madrid. I, riding on that train, and possessing a peculiar nature for the bizarre, decided to investigate rhe reasons for such a gruesome suicide. Fortunately, upon arriving in Madrid, I ran into the Englishman who had shared the compartment in which Mister Wilkens had been travelling on that memorable night. I had seen him on the railway tracks whilst the train officials searched the surrounding embankments for the body of the poor man. Apparently, it had been Mister Wilkens’ travelling companion who had alerted the officials. He knew why Mister Wilkens had killed himself but seemed rather parsimonious with the details when questioned by the police or the press, feigning that he was about to fall asleep when the tragic event occurred, and was only awakened by a terrible laugh or scream. (Which we shall soon learn was a blatant lie!)

When I met him in Madrid by some extraordinary chance and bought him a drink at the famous beer saloon at the Plaza Santa Anna, made famous by its association with Ernest Hemingway who drank and got rowdy there, I offered the man money to divulge the reason for the suicide to me. He bluntly refused. I explained my idiosyncrasies towards the bizarre and he, smiling a wicked smile, promised to tell me only if I would not submit the story for publication or spread its contents orally to the press, friends or family until he authorised me to do so. As to my offer of payment, he suggested two hundred quid would do! I agreed all agog, albeit the amount of money seemed to be rather steep. In any case, I assured him that I had neither friends nor family, and that I had no great love for journalists. His story, thus, would be perfectly safe with me.

This was how I came to be the first to put into writing the nature of Mister Wilkens and the reasons for his suicide. Now if readers ask themselves how I’ve managed to publish the testimony without breaking my solemn oath, I would then have to elaborate on the unforeseeable and tragic end of my informer (whose name, by the way, I never learned). But that is yet another story. Permit me to recount this one first.

*

“We were the only two in the compartment.” My English informant began smugly in a slightly high nasal tone while the air smelt somewhat of that Cambridge midnight lamp oil. “I can genuinely recollect at the train station in Paris that his personality was of a sullen, meek sort, one of a man who had fallen hard, got up, but only to fall again. He wore a tragic, tormented face, and if I recall correctly, every two or three minutes suffered an unsightly twitch under his left eye that made the other eye seem exorbitant. Anyway, once we had left Paris far behind, he engaged in the most singular gambit as regards the way in which he sought to enlist my attention : ‘Have you ever travelled to the Orient ?’ The gambit put so bluntly shook me out of my dreamy thoughts. I noted that his left eye began to twitch as if it sought to put me out even before I ventured an answer.

“‘No I haven’t, although I’ve read many travel writers and adventurers’ tales of the Orient.’

“‘Oh really !’ he snorted in overt contempt. ‘For example ?’

“ ‘Well … there’s Marco Polo.’

“He guffawed : ‘He never left his dingy cell in Venice, the seedy bugger !’ I shrugged my shoulders.

“ ‘I have perused Sir Richard Burton[1].’

“He lifted an appraising eyebrow : ‘Yes, a remarkable polyglot and reader of the Oriental heart ; an ethnologist and anthropologist avant la lettre. He was, nevertheless, a man fraught with prejudices and terribly dogmatic. Alas, a man of his times. Yet, his writings do hold much insight, and so humorous at that. Did he not say that England was just a tiny island ? He secretly despised it for he breathed more spacious air in Asia, Africa and Continental Europe.’ He adjusted his badly knotted tie. ‘Go on …’

“ ‘I’ve read all of Alexandra David-Néel’s novels[2]?’ I pursued with an amused air of a child.

“ ‘Ah ! Now there’s an outstanding, pugnacious explorer ! She outstrips them all — except Burton of course — in intrepidity, intelligence, will-power and writing style. Her sarcasm and irony suit my humour, whilst her practice and research into Buddhism bear the seriousness of any so called specialist or expert.’ He smiled a self-congratulatory smile as if he had brought up the name himself. I must admit that I too was pleased at his overt approval; indeed, to have outsmarted the Brits and the Tibetans through cunning and acumen in order to reach Lhasa on foot safe and sound was a fantastic feat.

“My travelling companion lifted his chin for me to continue my enumeration : ‘Pierre Loti[3] ?’

“He snorted : ‘Please be serious, sir.’ And he yawned.

“‘André Malraux[4],’ I jested.

“He threw up his hands : ‘His novels are wonderful, but his Orient is as imaginary as his imaginary museums.’

“‘Pearl Buck[5] ?’ I countered with excessive decorum as if all this were just a parlour game.

“ ‘Hum … yes, she is the only Westerner who really knew China, more so than the American journalists Louis Strong and Edgar Snow. Read her Nobel Prize speech, it’s an incredible lesson in Chinese literature. Yes, Pearl Buck had a genuine love for the East. Her books plunge us into the remotest depths of twentieth century rural China. The Mother is a sparkling piece of penmanship …’

“ ‘I shall not name all the modern travel-writers to the East whom I have read on my train rides, many of whose narratives are quite dull and stereotyped.’ I rejoined, hoping to put an end to this ridiculous ‘parlour game’.

“ ‘So right you are, sir,’ he beamed. He sat back in his seat fidgeting with the buttons on his vest, some of which were missing. ‘I noted, too ….’

“Our compartment door slid open violently. The conductor practically jumped in demanding our tickets. My heart almost jumped with his jump ! Anyway, we dutifully showed them to him. When he had jumped out, so to speak, Mister Wilkens, although unperturbed by all this jumping about, seemed, none the less, beset by something, his eyes staring blankly at the table aside the window where he had placed a shoulder-bag, perhaps because he had lost the thread of our conversation. He looked up and blurted out: ‘You know sir, I spent over forty years living in the East : Turkey, Syria, Armenia, India, China, Laos, Mongolia, not as a conquering dolt, a cosmopolitan snob or a professional prig, but as a pilgrim in quest of my humane origins.’

“My travelling companion was in a state of unusual excitement. ‘Humane origins ?’ I repeated with a soupçon of irony.

“ ‘Yes, humane origins. I see that you fail to grasp the essence of that formula. Humane is another word for Humanism, my dear fellow. Humane defines our human heritage, the fount of our soul and spirit.’

“Just at that moment several French customs officials slid our door open and asked for our passports. When they were examined and returned, a few minutes later the Spanish police entered and inspected them in the same taciturn manner. As soon as these formalities had been completed we leaned back in our seats.

“I sat politely, absorbed in Mister Wilkens’ rather dark comments, exposed with such bursts of emotion. I swallowed every word he said, albeit the digestion caused me great discomfort. Be that as it may, sceptical at first, I grew somewhat more interested as he rambled on, amused at the man’s gyrating gesticulations, wondering, however, if he had gleaned his monologue from a book or from his own experiences as he so pompously pretended. This being said, I did feel a certain fraternal respect for him, although I will confess that he annoyed me with that composed self-sufficient poise. A poise I had stupidly preened in my old university days at Cambridge; you know, the eloquence of words, however boastful and bombastic, hollowing out dismal logic and stale equations. But I was dead sure that if I hadn’t been to Cambridge, this man would have never even addressed a single word to me. He sniffed out his ‘own kind’ ! But of this ‘kind’ I was particularly sceptical and mistrustful, especially of pedants like him. A sentiment of distrust one encounters in people who throw themselves upon you, spilling out their watered down philosophies or immature phantasies during long hours in trains. To be fair though, I did not detect this incorrigible comportment in Mister Wilkens’ hurried, but measured spurts. His words were solid, linked together like the shiny mail-coats of those fine mediaeval smithies.

“ ‘Are you then not content with your many years spent amongst the populations of Asia ?’ It was a mundane question but… 

“ ‘Disorientation …’

“ ‘What ? Disorientation ?’

“ ‘Yes, disorientation, sir. Look at the word closely : ‘dis-‘ apart from and ‘orient’ … I am separated from the Orient … my Orient ; like dis-order, out of order, or dis-jointed, out of joint. Or how does disease appeal to you : out of or separated from ‘ease’, or disaster, out of the harmonious movements of the ‘astres‘ or stars ? The Eastern stars of course. Have I made myself understood ?’ He sneezed.

“I nodded without conviction. That pedantic tone, plus his semantic shenanigans unnerved me as well as that left eye of his which had been twitching with each jerky gesture of head and hands. He then began wringing those hands of his like some sort of maniac, gazing at the top berth above me, starry-eyed.

“ ‘Were you there on mission ?’ I ventured, hoping to regain his attention.

“ ‘Mission ? Yes, my mission ; not there, but here in Europe. I must relocate my orientation here in the West, if that is at all possible, given the fact that I am completely disorientated.’ He scratched that twitching eye peevishly. ‘So many languages and cultures studied and taught all gone up in smoke. A tragic fire has set aflame my life since returning to Europe; it has turned all my dreams to ashes. All my written and spoken words wrapped in the flame of a setting sun! And I can assure you sir, no phoenix will ever arise from them. Once disorientated, always disorientated as they say.’ He reached for his shoulder-bag, pulled out a soft-covered book, opening it at random with a look of disdain.

“I must admit that I found it painstaking to follow Mister Wilkens’ histrionic tirade with any seriousness. There he sat, lofty and smile-less, his head swaying listlessly from one side to the other like a puppet. His twitching eye had become intolerable to look at; I turned my head away and peered out of the window. Darkness had mantled the low-lying countryside in a softness that diverted my attention momentarily from those inflamed words. During this dream-like state, the darkness absorbing me within her lush, humid vortex, it seemed to me — though I am hardly a psychologist — that my travelling companion had experienced a traumatic relationship crisis with peoples of very alien values to his own European ones, a crisis that exhausted and put to trial his intellectual and emotional limits, exhausting him of any margin of repartee, driving him to self-accusation, even to self-maceration. His ‘Oriental’ experiences hardly broadened his vision of the world; on the contrary, they left him in an utter state of culpability. I felt that all his monologuing, if I may use that ugly word, was a confession pronounced before the hour of death. This may be an exaggeration, but I did sense that Mister Wilkens had been touched by some unknown madness, perhaps a loss of identification or an explosion of a multitude of identifications with which he could not cope … nor wished to cope! He made weird grimaces, sighed, fidgeted about in his seat, ignoring me completely until the train pulled into a station. Three minutes later we pulled out.  Mister Wilkens had not once raised his eyes from that book, which I am sure he was not reading at all.

“If I remember correctly it was a very cold night, the sky, a crisp, obsidian black, the stars, frozen, and the moon, full and bright. I dare say our compartment was so cold that we were forced to bundle up in our overcoats. Mister Wilkens looked up at me several times from his pretended book-reading, though he displayed no desire for conversation. I broke in on him once, rather bombastically, lauding the French railway system. He nodded apathetically, then plunged his pug nose back into those pages. A few moments later the conductor poked his head in to apologise about the heating that, he promised, should be coming on shortly. I sighed in relief for I was freezing.

“Mister Wilkens cast me a cursory glance: ‘Have you studied things seriously, sir ?  I mean the things in life, yourself, for example ?’

“I found the question impertinent, but answered, none the less: ‘Yes I have as a matter of fact … including myself,’ I retorted, holding my head haughtily high. ‘I too have travelled widely.’ He snorted. I remember at that point I had taken off my overcoat, for the heating was slowly coming back on. Mister Wilkens, however, kept his on in spite of the beads of sweat rising to the surface of his high, furrowed forehead. He offered no repartee, thumbing nervously through that book of his.

“I thought to retaliate, judging him an unmannerly upstart: ‘So you consider yourself an Orientalist ?’

“He looked up from his ‘perusing’ and stared at me as if I had insulted him with the grossest of four-lettered words. ‘That is an ugly word,’ he sneered. ‘All your years at Cambridge have taught you nothing.  Anyway, to answer your question: no, I am not an Orientalist. Alas, as I have just finished explaining, everything has gone up into smoke: to have learned all those languages for nothing… to have undertaken all those voyages for nothing; to have taught and written for nothing ! Do you understand, sir … For nothing …’

“ ‘But …’

“ ‘But what ? Please, don’t pretend to console or pamper me, I abhor puerile commiseration. For nothing, sir. Do you realise that besides this train from Paris to Madrid back and forth, back and forth …’  A woman threw open our compartment door to step in, but when she saw Mister Wilkens’ twisted face and his twitching eye, she gasped and slammed it shut. He scoffed, fell mute and turned to the window.  

“Large snowflakes fell. They formed little rims of melting sleet on the window. The wind whipped them about, giving an impression of so many odd geometric configurations. During that uneasy interlude I searched frantically for something to say. I couldn’t bear that slice of silence arching over us, that biting irony of contempt.

“Before I was able to say what I had finally conjured up to say, he burst brusquely into my crowded thoughts: ‘I must tell you a little story about Sandy, a mate of ours at Cambridge with whom we would go out on Saturday nights to “drink up the town” as the Americans say! There we were, a bit tipsy, carousing with the crowd, having a jolly good time, and Sandy, making a perfect bore of himself. So, to enliven the ambience I mustered everyone’s attention to inform them that I had stuck up for Sandy a week ago. Hearing his name suddenly mentioned, he raised his fat face out of the beer mug and looked blankly at me. I turned to Sandy and said : ”Sandy, how ungrateful you are, just think, I stuck up for you the other day, someone said that Sandy wasn’t fit to live with the pigs and I said that he certainly was !” All of us roared with laughter whilst poor Sandy buried his pasty face in the froth of his beer. In fact the whole pub was howling with laughter. It was truly a smashing night out.’

“Mister Wilkens was choking with laughter. He appeared so pathetic to me. He wore such a cretinous smirk on his twitching face. That revolting anecdote of his was cheap and full of childish contempt. Was he doing this purposely to disgust me, to urge me to get up and leave the compartment? He calmed down and eyed me with a sort of conspiratorial smile: ‘Have you ever thought of taking the Leap, sir ?’ He pushed his tortured face forward waiting for an answer. His hysterical tone had shaken me up a bit. I wished only now to be left alone. 

“ ‘The leap ?’ I asked, examining him rather warily. It was an odd word which he emphasised with an accompanying gesture of his hand raised high overhead. He noted the tint of circumspection in my voice. He sneered and threw open our compartment window. Stretching his hand out, he caught the flakes of snow that shone in the half-lit wintry night. I made no move. Cold air rushed into the warmth of the compartment. I nodded towards the window. He feigned to ignore me and his sneer erupted into a series of ugly snickers. I snuggled up in a corner and for an instant thought it best to leave him to his madness. It was becoming frightfully cold, and furthermore, his attitude frightened me, his gestures were nervous, erratic. His face, morose, spiteful. He kept tapping his feet and hands, playing nervously with the frayed ends of the cuffs of his shirt. Was it because of the cold or some inner anxiety? I sensed that he was displeased with the tone of my voice and most probably even disgusted with my company, and was undoubtedly endeavouring to communicate it to me. I sprang to my feet to take leave of him. He grasped my shoulder. His fingers were wiry, hard as steel.

“ ‘Yes, the leap, my good fellow. Leaps are like twilights and rainbows, terribly brief. Do you understand who all those peanuts in a jar are ? No, you have understood absolutely nothing of what I have been saying.’ I stood gaping at him, frozen in terror. He released his grip and in one violent movement pushed me aside against the compartment door. ‘You may plead in my favour that I’ve had my day in the sun; I shan’t disapprove of that banality. But tell me, sir, you, so well cultivated, was it all then just fairy dust ? A forty-year timeless fairy tale existence before … before the plunge into this nightmare, waking up into a dank, grim prison of biological and material utility ? Are we all forbidden to accomplish our dreams ? Must we live out our lives in a stifling cocoon of time- and energy-consuming survival of the fittest ? Well sir, yes, I’ve had my day in the bold, rising sun, but it has since sunk …’ Mister Wilkens threw back his head in the most theatrical fashion, grabbed his book, leapt up on to the table aside the window then rolled out of it without uttering the slightest sound. Confounded, I made no effort to stop him. At length, coming to myself, I ran for the conductor. The rest of the story you know.”

When he had finished his account and his fifth beer (which I had been paying for) I again promised him that I would neither write nor mention this unusual event to anyone. I enquired, however, about  the book he had been reading or pretended to be reading in the train. My informer said that he had tumbled out of the window with it cradled in his arms, but no one, apparently, made any effort to find it. I paid him, and without another word, he stood and left the beer-hall.

At this point the reader is undoubtedly eager to know why I have broken my vow and have divulged the tragic end of Mister Wilkens. Well, let me record without going into details that a similar tragedy befell my English informer some months ago on the December 9, 1976, on a night train between Paris and Madrid, so reported El Pais[6]. A large photo of him reminded me that I had never asked him his name, and it was only by the photo that I knew it was my informer. Perhaps he, like Mister Wilkens, had also made the leap, although I doubt whether he dabbled in the field of Orientalism. This being said, I hope these suicides are not contagious, and that because of poor Mister Wilken’s embryonic virus, I too have been contaminated by his travelling companion! To look at it from another point of view, however, I have often wondered about that book; that is, Mister Wilkens’ book which he had held in his arms when he leapt out of the speeding train. My guess is that it may be the key in understanding the reason for killing himself, that and the citation found on him, which I have put into quotation as an epigraph to my narrative, and unfortunately –I must confess– whose author I have never been able to discover. I’m sure the key to the mystery lies in that name of the book.

[1]    (1821-1890) British military officer, explorer, erudite, writer and polyglot.

[2]    (1868-1969) French explorer, intellectual and writer.

[3]    (1850-1923) French military officer, traveller and writer.

[4]    (1901-1976) French writer, traveller and Minister of Culture under President General De Gaulle.

[5]    (1892-1973) American writer, winner of the Nobe Prize for Literature in 1938, born in China.

[6]   The national newspaper of Spain (The Nation)

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
Stories

A Troubled Soul

By Mahim Hussain

“Amma[1], it . . . it feels like fire is running through my veins!”

These were the words Abir uttered sitting on the rear seat of their car. His mother, a fifty-five-year-old woman, was sitting right beside him. She was trying to help her son any way she could to relieve him of his suffering. With moist eyes, she kept massaging Abir’s hands and neck constantly.

“Everything is going to be all right, abba[2]. Try to relax,” she said to her son.

Leaving other cars behind, the white Toyota sped through the street – piercing the thickness of the night. Their deft driver devoted all his attention to dodging and overtaking other cars on the road. The car had headed to the Labaid Hospital, situated in the Dhanmondi area of the bustling city of Dhaka.

Abir’s older brother, Rafique, was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. He kept turning back frequently to see how his younger brother was doing.

“Amma . . . I can’t breathe . . . I can’t breathe amma!” Abir cried out to his mother.

Abir’s mother pleaded with Rafique to lower the wind shield on his side. Without being asked, the driver flicked a switch swiftly, and the windshield came down with a whirring sound. Abir, with the help of his mother, managed to get his head out of the window to breathe fresh air. With his head sticking outside the car, he could see the taillights of the passing cars growing faint in the distance. To the boy, it seemed like red and yellow fairies were flying in the darkness. Soon, Abir slid back on his mom’s lap, as he could no longer bear the weight of his head.

“Don’t worry, amma. We will get their soon,” Rafique tried to console his anxious mother.   

About forty minutes later, the car entered through the lofty gate of the hospital – battling an abysmal traffic jam. They were lucky it was a weekend. On any other night of the week, it would have taken them at least an hour and a half to get there from the Mirpur area. By the time they arrived at the emergency entrance, Abir had already lost his consciousness. He could not move any of his limbs or open his eyes.

A door man and two female nurses came out of the emergency department running. They carefully hauled Abir out of the car. Then, putting him on a stretcher, they hastily took the boy inside the emergency department. Rafique and his mother ran after them, frantically.

Passing a long corridor, they entered a ward. The nurses again lifted Abir gently off the stretcher and laid him on one of the empty beds. At ten-thirty of the night, the whole ward was empty and quiet. The nurses started to commence their usual protocol. One nurse put a clip of a pulse meter on the boy’s index finger of his right hand. It was attached to a screen above the bed with a cord. Another nurse tied the strap of a blood pressure machine, connected to the same screen. While Abir’s family was worried to see him unconscious, one of the nurses tried to calm them down. She told Rafique to accompany her to the information desk and fill out some forms. The other nurse kept her eyes on the screen, monitoring the patient’s vitals.

After observing the patient for about ten minutes, the nurse blurted out: “His pulse is too weak. I am calling the duty doctor.”

“Ha! What happened nurse? What’s wrong with my son?” cried out the mother.

Without responding to her, the nurse ran out of the ward in a hurry. Abir’s mother was in tears. She started rubbing Abir’s chest incessantly, overwhelmed by apprehension.

Before long, the nurse came running with the duty doctor. After glancing at the monitor for a moment, the doctor turned around and said to the nurse: “The pulse and pressure rates are too low. We can’t treat him here.”

By this time, Rafique was back. The female doctor told him that they didn’t have all the equipments in the emergency ward to treat a critical patient like his brother.

While the doctor and Rafique were engaged in a discussion, suddenly, Abir started having convulsion.

“Nurse, call the ICU upstairs. Tell them that we are bringing a patient, quickly!” the doctor passed the order.

As the hospital staff pushed the movable bed and took the boy inside an elevator, Abir’s mother started to lament.

“What’s happened to my little boy, Rafique? Bring my Abir back to me . . .  bring him back!”                     

Rafique took his mother in his arms and held her tightly. He too was on the verge of falling apart. But he bit his lips and managed to keep his poise. Rafique was the eldest son. If he had broken down, who was going to take care of his family? With glistening eyes, Rafique recalled the fateful day when it all started.

Rafique entered their apartment of a three-storied building with a heavy, black briefcase in his hand. Their family doctor walked behind him with brisk steps. Going past the dining room, they walked straight inside Abir’s bedroom.

As soon as they entered, Rafique felt a piece of glass getting crushed under his left shoe. Raising his head, he saw broken pieces of a plate and some food were strewn all over the floor. His mother was cleaning up the mess with a sweep and a scraper. His father, seated on Abir’s bed, stood up seeing the doctor.

“Look, doctor, what he has done to himself this time,” said Abir’s father, pointing at his son in the bed.

The doctor looked at the boy over his reading glasses.

Sixteen-year-old Abir was lying in the bed quietly. But his chest was rising and falling in quick succession. He had his face covered with his forearms. A white bandage was wrapped around his left wrist. On one side of the bandage, blood had seeped through and had left a big stain.

“Some time last night, he tried to cut the veins of his wrist with a blade,” Abir’s father related with a distressed tone. “This morning we found him in the bed with blood all over the bed sheet.”

The doctor kept his gaze fixed on the boy and listened to Abir’s father intently.

 “Moreover, he has not eaten anything in two days. A few minutes ago, his mother brought some food for him. But as soon as she got close to him, he took the plate off her hand and smashed it on the floor. He has been having angry outbursts quite frequently these last few days,” added the father.

The doctor slowly walked to the bed and sat beside the boy warily.

“Well, dear boy. Let uncle see your hand,” saying this, he gently picked up Abir’s wounded hand. The doctor examined his wrist from different angles and tried checking his pulse.

Only a few moments had passed, when suddenly, Abir sat up and pulled his arm out of the doctor’s hand with a savage jerk.

“Let go of my hand, you devil!” screamed the boy.

The doctor jumped off the bed, and Abir’s parents lunged to restrain the boy. Rafique kept the doctor from losing balance, and quickly took him in the dining room.

He sat the doctor at the table and poured him a glass of water.

Glug, glug, glug, ahh . . .

“Rafique, I don’t think Abir was able to cut any of his major veins. If he did, he would have bled out over the night and have been unconscious by now. The bandage on his wrist was done nicely and the bleeding has stopped.” confirmed the doctor. “However, as you have shared with me earlier, Abir has been showing such erratic behavior for several months now. So, his problem is actually psychiatric rather than physical.”

“Yes, doctor. We have taken him to a psychiatrist named Samsul Huq, twice. But during the last session, he suddenly got violent and hurled a glass of water at the doctor. Thankfully no one got hurt. But after that, we could not take him to the doctor again,” shared Rafique.  

“Humn . . . At this moment, he is not in the condition to be taken anywhere. So, I suggest you go back to the psychiatrist and tell him about Abir’s present condition,” concluded the doctor.                                                                     

*

Doctor Huq’s chamber was in a mental health rehabilitation center in the affluent neighbourhood of Gulshan. Rafique had been sitting outside his chamber with other visitors. It was a big lobby under a wooden shed. There were about thirty people outside the chamber, waiting for their turn. A middle-aged man was sitting behind a small table facing the visitors. As patients were coming out of the room, the assistant was calling the next person in serial. Rafique had been waiting there for about two hours now. Feeling bored and exhausted, he was snoozing sitting on his cozy little chair.

“Mr. Rafique Ahmed . . . who is Rafique Ahmed?” inquired the assistant sternly.

When his name was called loudly a second time, Rafique woke with a shudder. In frenetic motion, he got off the chair and almost dashed inside the chamber.

It was a spacious, soundproof room with a gigantic air-cooler hanging above the door. On the far end of the room, there was a big mahogany desk. In the middle of the desk, there was a plastic dummy head with an open brain coming out of it. Beside it, there was a pile of big, thick medical books and journals on one side of the desk. On the other side were two pen holders containing pens of different colors and design. In the front of the desk, there were two cane-made chairs for the visitors to sit on. A few feet from them lay a big, comfortable couch on which a patient could easily lie down. The doctor was sitting on the other side of the desk on a reclining chair the size of a throne.

Professor Huq was an elderly man with long, cotton-like beard and hair. He always wore a fatua[3] and loose pajamas and a big smile on his face. As soon as Rafique entered, the doctor recognised him. It was Rafique who had accompanied Abir to his clinic a week ago. The doctor nodded and made a gestured with his hand, telling him to take a sit.

“How are you doing? Didn’t you bring your brother today?” asked the doctor.

“No, doctor, Abir is not doing too well. He is having mood swings again. Two days ago, he tried to kill himself by slashing his wrist. We don’t understand what is going on with him. Why is he acting like this, doctor?” exclaimed Rafique in a tensed voice.

“Well, Mr. Rafique, I’ve told you on the first day that Abir is showing symptoms of bi-polar disorder. A typical bi-polar person has periods of energetic activities followed by bouts of severe depression. But some of these symptoms may vary from person to person. In your brother’s case, he has moments of angry outbursts followed by long periods of depression. And it’s not uncommon for bi-polars to have suicidal thoughts,” informed the doctor.

“But, doctor, how are we supposed to thwart him from harming himself?” inquired Rafique.

“The condition he is in right now, he needs to take some medications. Here, I am writing down the name of a medicine called Lithosun SR, which contains the chemical lithium. Across the world, lithium has been proven to prevent suicidal thoughts. But there is a catch. Too much of lithium can cause toxicity in the blood, which could be fatal. Therefore, he should take exactly 400 mg per day, and not more than that. In addition, Abir needs to have his blood tested every fortnight to check the level of lithium in his body,” enlightened the doctor.

After that, he tore a page from his pad and handed it to Rafique.

*

                                                         

At six in the evening on the Friday night, Abir was sitting on his study table. It was a medium sized table with a bookshelf attached on one side. The shelf was laden with books, copies and note papers. A history book was open in front of him. Because of his illness, the boy had not been able to attend his school for two months. His final term exam was in two weeks. After taking the prescribed medication for a month, his thoughts of self-harm started to subside.

It had been an hour. The boy was struggling to focus on the book. But so far, he had not been able to read a single line. He was having difficulty concentrating. All kinds of negative thoughts were churning inside his fragile mind. Soon, fat tears started trickling down his cheeks. Abir could not fathom, why was he unable to control his emotions? Why did he feel so gloomy and miserable all the time?

Unable to bear the frustration anymore, suddenly he stood up with a grunt and tore the book into small pieces. Then, he picked up other books from the bookshelf and started throwing them in the air. This rampage lasted a few minutes. Then, he dashed away from the table, crashed on his bed and started to sob burying his face in the pillow.

After lying there motionless for a while, the boy raised his head for a moment. Incidentally, his eyes fell on the side table attached to his bed. He saw the container of his medication lying on the table, beside his bottle of water.

If I took some extra pills, it should help me get rid of the melancholic thoughts.

Slowly, he clambered on the side of the bed and picked up the container. Popping it open in a fit of impulse, her started pushing several pills down his throat at once and drank a lot of water. Afterward, he lay in the bed, still struggling to harness his emotions.

Around 08:00 p.m., Abir’s mother knocked on his door.

“Baba[4] Abir? Come out, son. Dinner has been served.”

Not getting any response for a while, she opened the door which was unlocked from inside. Walking in, she was flabbergasted to find torn books and papers scattered on the floor. Facing the other way, her son was lying in the bed and seemed to be asleep.

The mother walked to the bed and sat next to him.

“Abir? What’s wrong, abba?”                        

There was no response. His mother got little concerned. She held his shoulder and turned his torso toward her.

“Wake up, sweetheart. The dinner is getting cold.”

After calling him several times, the boy lifted his heavy eyelids gradually.

“Amma . . . I am not feeling so well. My . . . my head is throbbing in pain.”

Saying these words, the boy closed his eyes again. His mother nudged his shoulder several times, trying to keep him awake. But the boy slowly succumbed deeper and deeper to the side effect of the medicine.

“Mr. Rafque . . . Mr. Rafique!”

The voice of the duty doctor brought the man back to present time.

“What’s going on, doctor? How is my little brother doing,” asked Rafique agitatedly.

“Your brother has been shifted to the ICU. The overdose of the medicine has rendered him unconscious. We are trying to separate the toxic substance in his blood with some medicines and saline. But his pulse rate is still low. Nothing can be said until few hours pass,” reported the doctor and walked away.

Hearing this news, Abir’s mother started wailing and was at the brink of losing her senses. Rafique laid his mother on a bed and tried to pacify her.

Meanwhile, Abir lay in one corner of the ICU with all kinds of tubes and electric wires attached to his body – battling with death.

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[1] Mother

[2] Father

[3] A short, kameez-like collarless shirt worn by people of South Asia

[4] Father

Mahim Hussain is a 38-year-old man and lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He couldn’t finish high school diploma. However, that did not deter him from reading and learning on his own.

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Stories

Arthur’s Subterranean Adventure

By Paul Mirabile

Courtesy: Creative Commons

Arthur was a secretive lad, a strapping boy of alcoves and copses, of coombs and chasms … of shadows. He had no friends nor at school, neither in the neighbourhood. His extraordinary imagination provided him all that he required to communicate with the marvels of the world.

It was early spring, and unseasonably warm. After school, Arthur would rush up to his room to examine, over and over again, maps of the world and his large globe, which he turned ever so slowly, scrutinizing all latitudes and longitudes. The sixteen-year-old boy had been brewing a remarkable idea for months, and now would be the time for that idea to take a definite form: Dig a tunnel from his village that would lead him diagonally to Australia! The idea had struck him like a lightning bolt. It seemed perfectly feasible as he spun that globe round and round. He would have to tunnel southwards to the asthenosphere[1], then veer eastwards. It would take a year… No! Perhaps years. But it could be done…

For now, however, certain preliminaries had to be dispensed with: locating the exact place to start digging without being seen, concealing the tools, the ladder, the dug up dirt. Yes, it was quite a lofty programme that required organisation and determination.

He looked beyond the meadow from his upstairs room window, over the rye fields and into the thick woods where hidden in the thickets lay a seventeenth century cemetery into which no one ever ventured. That would be the perfect location to start his tunnel. His father had all that he needed; that is, a pickaxe, a shovel and a bucket. As to the dirt, he would just scatter that about the woods or fill in the plots that had long since sunken deep with their fallen, crumbling tombstones. Arthur wasn’t afraid of the dead, nor of their ghosts.

To put his journey into action he needed time, and above all, the utmost secrecy. No one must guess his intentions, especially not his parents. On Monday after school, Arthur went out on reconnaissance. He changed his clothes and trotted into the woods beyond the meadow. In the abandoned cemetery, he began searching for a place to dig. He strolled in and out of the tombstones amusing himself by reading the epitaphs on the cracked tombs, most of them having been written in Latin. Huge, yawning holes filled with weeds and yellow grass could be possible candidates for the digging, but … Arthur stopped dead in his tracks.

Behind a copse of sycamores and weeping willows, he spied out a low stone structure that appeared to be an old, village well. And indeed it was! He had never seen it before. A well rigged out with a rusting hand crank and bucket to boot. When he bent over the coping, he noted that iron rungs ran down the mossy side of it which, undoubtedly, served as a ladder. The coping had been broken on two sides, but there seemed no danger of it further crumbling. He peeked down, the bottom appeared dry. Arthur drew back in great excitement, for if the well were deep enough, how much time and energy he could save ! This was surely a good omen. Still, he would need to climb down with a torch to inspect the bottom. Arthur cringed at the thought of rats or other rodents of the subterranean world. He would just have to muster all the courage he possessed. He felt like dancing. And indeed he did, in and out of the sinking tombstones. What a wonderful beginning to his adventure, to his voyage to the centre of the Earth … and beyond to the lands of kangaroos and koala bears. 

The adventurer wasted not a moment. The next day, and the many more that followed, after school he would change, pack a clean shirt and trousers, gloves and sneakers in a backpack so that after his digging he could change his boots and work clothes before returning home. He hid the pickaxe and small shovel in the woods near the well, knowing perfectly well that his father, a rather absent-minded man, would never miss them. In fact, his father never had any need for them since he used the tools at the construction site.

As Arthur thought, the iron rungs proved to be sturdy. Equipped with his helmet, onto which he had strapped a torch, he descended into the well, mindful not to touch the moss or slime. At first, the horrible stench of rats or of their urine caused him to retch, but he got used to that.

The bottom, clayey, showed no signs of water, so he inspected the fractured stones of the sides following the needle of his compass, which slowly swung to a south-easterly direction, and there broke through the stone easy enough, picking and shovelling away the earth. Every half-hour or so he would fill the well-bucket, climb the rungs and pull it up with the hand crank. It was laboriously boring and tiresome work but better than carrying that bucket up and down those rungs.

Day after day, month after month, alone in his underground solitude, Arthur banged away at the brittle earth, carving out a tunnel into which he could easily crawl until seven o’clock in the evening. To tell the truth, the going was easier than expected. He would leave the tools in the tunnel (who would ever find them?), climb up, change into his ‘dinner clothes’ and return home, where his parents would be preparing their meal. He would run upstairs, jump into the shower (his fingernails were black with soil) and saunter down to join them at the table. The usual conversation ensued: How was school ? Where had he been the whole afternoon ? Had he any homework … and so on and so forth.

Everyday Arthur trained his mind and body to adopt to this new adventure, however arduous and lonely. His body grew leaner and muscular, his face taunt. His parents admired their son, who seemed to be in brighter spirits the past few months, more pleasant at the dining table, more affectionate, too, in the evening while chatting. His gradual metamorphosis truly surprised them, although his father couldn’t quite understand why the bright summer sunshine hadn’t tanned his son’s manly face ! But being a discreet father he never enquired about this unusual pallor.

After seven months of tunnelling, Arthur observed that the underworld temperature had risen considerably. His breathing grew erratic, oftentimes accompanied by bouts of coughing, even retching. Was he still in the Earth’s lithosphere, some forty-five miles thick ? The increase in the pressure and density of the air worked its way into and through his aching muscles and bones. His mind drifted to the upper world: the singing birds, the blue skies when it wasn’t raining, the fresh, cool breezes … Here, in the underworld all he heard were the screeching of rats and at times a deep, rumbling sound, hollow, unidentifiable.

One day as he toiled with much difficulty, hammering through a layer of granite, he discovered a coin. It was a two pence with the effigy of a queen, and on the reverse side a plume of ostrich feathers with a coronet. He smiled. It was his first underworld gratification. He would investigate the origins of his find more closely when back in his room. Which he did with much zeal. Arthur learned from a numismatic entry in his encyclopaedia that this coin dated from the 1970s, composed of bronze, copper and zinc.  The head was that of Queen Elizabeth the Second. He placed his prize delicately in a box, hiding it in a secret place lest his parents, by chance, should discover it.

As the Autumn months slid by, the whirling leaves had no effect on Arthur as he tunnelled and tunnelled, deeper and deeper, always in an easterly direction. And as he did, he discovered coins of the most extraordinary mint : A very rare 1937 Edward the Seventh brass three pence, three hammered coins from the seventeenth or fifteenth century called ‘Limas‘, during the reign of George the Second, two ‘Groats‘ from the fifteenth century from which Henry the Seventh gleamed perfectly visible. His box grew heavier and heavier with these extracted treasures whose wealth must have been estimable. Arthur’s excitement reached an apex when he scraped out of the extracted earth two imported coins of Frankish mint, a denier[2] and a sou[3]. Three days later, he added to his precious hoard a ‘Gold Slater’ whose effigy of Julius Caesar left him breathless.

Dreams of reaching the centre of the Earth visited his restless sleep every night now. He dreamed of encountering dwarves mining for gold, clinging to the walls of gigantic shafts tapping and hammering away. He dreamed of boring into enormous chambers glittering with sunny gems or sprouting with enormous mushrooms. One night he found himself on a deserted strand gasping at a vast ocean, out of whose fuming, stilled waters huge reptiles swam, whilst others lay bathing on the sunless sands. He would awake in a cold sweat. He had been reading too much of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Winter. Arthur crunched over a frosty bed of snow ‘back to work’. The weather had become terribly cold in the ‘upperworld’, whereas in the ‘lowerworld’, Arthur’s world, temperatures had become almost unbearable. How deep had he dug ? The outer crust of the Earth measured some 3,400 miles. His digging, shovelling, climbing up and down the rungs had become so laborious. At times he lay down flat on his belly in the damp tunnel and sobbed. Arthur reckoned that it would take years and years of unending toil to reach the centre of the Earth like his Jules Verne hero, much less the lands of kangaroos and koala bears. His spirits brightened, though, when he dug up three ‘Henistbury Head’ coins dating from 150 B.C., no doubt imported from Roman Gaul. They had been in circulation in England since the times of the Keltic tribes living in Dorset and Somerset, so he learned from a numismatic magazine he had recently purchased. In spite of this cheery event, the days went by rather drearily.

Then the miracle occurred! Banging away listlessly into the bleak and black airless universe in which he was engulfed, his shovel broke through a thin layer of sand sediment which tumbled into a pocket of emptiness. Arthur carved out a hole large enough to crawl through and lo and behold he found himself in a tunnel; a vast tunnel high enough to stand in, wide enough for two, even three men to walk abreast ! It must be a miner’s tunnel– he thought, and with a burst of fatigued emotion, leapt for joy. A miracle! A miracle!

How many miles would he gain? How many extracted buckets saved? How much energy economized? He could now walk, even trot if he felt so inclined. And the tunnel led downwards, deeper and deeper into the Earth. He checked his compass, not only deeper to the South, but also veering to the East. The work had been done for him.

Arthur checked his watch ; he still had an hour or two, although with Winter, night fell early. None the less, he had to explore this miracle a bit more before crawling back to the well. Which he did, jogging along, leaping now and then, inspecting the wooden framework of the tunnel, rotting here, split there, but still solid. He stopped in his tracks : At his feet lay a yellowing, rat pellet-filled newspaper : “The Dundee Evening Telegraph?”  he queried aloud. Odd, there was no echo here. He shouted. Nothing. Shrugging his shoulders, he picked up the paper and put it in his backpack to be examined once in his room. He spun on his heels and hurried back to the well: running, crawling and climbing.

As expected, his older sister came home for the Christmas holidays from university. Arthur was jolly glad to see her but said nothing of his subterranean adventure. That must never be revealed to anyone, even to his sister whom he loved very much, and in whom he had always confided his most intimate secrets. He chose to take a rest for that week; he had earned a bit of a holiday, and after all, the miners’ tunnel would save him days, even months of labour. That night when alone, he checked the newspaper found in the tunnel: 1934. Incredible. A miner must have packed his lunch in it.

When the festivities had ended and his sister had departed Arthur returned to his timeless underworld. The mine was longer than he imagined. He walked on and on and on, descending ever deeper, the heat oppressing him, compressing him. He laughed nervously: Would he stumble upon Smeagol or Gollum frantically searching for his ‘precious’ (ring), or Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit, he, frantically searching for a way out of his underworld impasse? Or a dragon’s lair, where the hoary creature lay upon its hoard of gold? At times he swore he heard the gnomic chanting of bearded dwarves, their rhyming tunes. He laughed and laughed at these imagined airs. Was he to become a dwarf, too … Or a Hobbit, lost in the dark, inventing riddles?

The air became thinner and thinner, his head lighter and lighter. He laughed and laughed. His dreamy thoughts wandered to his parents, completely unaware of his underworld activities, to his teachers, who marvelled at his good scores in history, geography and natural science. He laughed and laughed. How many hours at night had he pored over the history of his treasured coins, their minting and circulation? How many hours had he studied the layers of the Earth, its rock formations? He had scored the highest marks in his class! His parents were so proud of him, a bit sceptical at first, but none the less, proud. They had always favoured his sister, indeed highly intelligent, more intelligent than him. Perhaps they would now consider him ‘university material’ like his sister. Perhaps. But who really cared! And he laughed and laughed as he walked and trotted.

He must have reached the asthenosphere at this time because seams of sand sediment, roan red, broke through the rotting frame beams as he trained his torchlight on them. Yet, according to his research this meant that the temperatures would be ranging at 900 degrees ! Impossible. It was the last layer, some 250 miles wide and 1, 700 miles from the Earth’s crust. Could he have come that far into Mother Earth ? He shuddered at the thought and broke out into peals of hysterical laughter. So much laughter that he began to cry. Hot tears rolled abundantly down his dirty, hairless cheeks. He heard the plump-bellied rats screech around him and covered his ears.

Arthur walked on and on in sluggish footfalls imagining himself in Australia without having had to fly or sail. His head spun, and as it did frightful images of underworld creatures passed before his puffy, red eyes. Breathing had become a toilsome effort, whilst his heart beat at rapid paces. Suddenly Arthur’s torchlight fell upon a mass of rock. The tunnel had come to an abrupt end!

He stood face to face with seams of sediment stone, dull green. He listlessly took out his compass: The digger would have to renew his digging, slightly to the right. This very plain and painful fact soured his spirits. But at least he would not have to fill bucket after bucket with extracted earth ; he had only to shovel it out and throw it into the miners’ tunnel. That, at least, was somewhat of a compensation. He checked his watch, three more hours. So he set immediately to work, albeit with unenthusiastic, torpid strokes of his pickaxe, so heavy his limbs had grown, so hot the temperature had risen, so thin the air had become.

As he picked away in a slow-motion dream state, he saw himself near the liquid core of the Earth. What would he find: A vast ocean or sea? But that was 1, 700 miles deep under the crust of the Earth. Nonsense. He had lost all track of measured miles, of time … of reality. The digging, however, was easy enough, the earth dripping with humidity and somewhat sandy. “It must be the lower mantle of the asthenosphere,” he whispered as if not to disturb the spirits of the underworld. One last stroke before retiring for the day.

Besides, he had an examination in mathematics in the morning and had to go over his notes. He raised his pickaxe but there it remained in mid-air. Some weird noise caught his attention. He pressed his ear to the hot rocky earth; a distant swishing like a flush of bats unsettled him. He crawled back a bit then struck a blow to the rocky noise. Arthur gasped as a blast of hot air flushed his face rowan red. He screamed in pain, crawling backwards, rubbing his face with a gloved hand. The tunnel filled with steaming air, followed shortly by blasts of scolding water which sent the boy tumbling over and over. He rolled and floundered about in the tremendous rush of hot, scalding water. They were driving him towards the miners’ tunnel at incredible speed. He could hardly keep his head above the flow; a flow that scorched his chin and cheekbones.

His backpack was borne along with the rush as were hundreds and hundreds of rats or other creatures of the underworld, for he heard their high, pathetic screeches above the precipitating din. Keeping his head above the rolling flood he was propelled into the miners’ tunnel where he managed to get to his feet.

Arthur grabbed his backpack and dragged his water-logged boots as quickly as he could towards the first tunnel, the rushing flow somewhat slackened by the steep upward inclination of the miners’ tunnel. A myriad of rats were scurrying on all sides of him, as if they were keeping pace with their underworld companion. Arthur, no longer frightened of them, but thinking only of his own salvation, pushed on upwards, the waters now swirling about his feet. They were gaining momentum. The boy fell several times, crying aloud, praying that he would get out alive. Then a terrible thought seized him: He was responsible for this disaster. For indeed it was a disaster! A terrible one indeed that no one was to know … No one ! But what would happen when the flow reached the well ? Arthur trembled at the very thought of it.

The boy slushed on and on as the now cooling waters rose to his ankles … to his calves. When he spotted the first tunnel, diving into it, he was literally crawling through torrents of a lukewarm current, whose incredible swiftness swung him from one side of the wall to another. Parts of the tunnel were now caving in. Screams rose in his throat, choking him, making him cry: Would he be buried alive through his own monstrous making? Why had he not consulted a speleologist before undertaking such a dangerous journey ? No ! All this had to remain his secret … for ever…

And poor Arthur bounced along with that current, gasping for breath, dog-paddling alongside rats, mice and moles. Hours and hours seemed to pass. His limbs weakend. His head bobbed above the flow like a cork. But there, just ahead, the salutary shaft of light of the well. Out he was flung like the cork of a champagne bottle into the miry clay of the pit. He scrambled for the trusty rungs, climbed frantically towards the palely lit sanctuary of the upperworld, taking a look now and then at the ever-rising waters bearing all the beasts of the underworld …

Arthur threw himself over the coping, took a last peek down at the slow but steady rise of the unleashed watery fury, then dashed into the cemetery to change his clothes. Indeed, his parents must not know anything about this mishap. He stood shivering in the failing light of evening. The greyish sky was so low. He felt drops on his feverish face. It was sleet or snow. “The pickaxe and shovel ?” he cried out in a tearful voice. “ Ah, who would ever find them ?” In the dim whitish glow he thought he espied tribes of rats streaming out over the coping, scurrying for safety into the woods. They too sought sanctuary in the light of the upper world, deprived now of the secure darkness of theirs … and his ? It was all so paradoxical.

Without further ado, Arthur made a bee-line for home. No light shone at any window. His parents must have been out. So much the better. He charged up to his room, into the shower to scrape the dirt and filth out of his fingernails and hair, put cream on his rowan-red face, then fell on his bed, exhausted, crying like a baby.

When his parents came home and noticed all the lights off in the sitting room, they mounted the stairway and knocked at Arthur’s door somewhat perplexed at the sullen atmosphere of the house. But there he was, their loving son, studiously going over his notes for the next morning’s mathematics examination. He smiled at them and they smiled back. How happy they were that Arthur took his schooling so seriously, his father, however, somewhat wary about the his son’s sunburnt face ! In early Spring ? Anyway, they were sure that he would be excellent ‘university material’ like his older sister. They closed the door quietly.

The next morning Arthur awoke to the disturbing sounds of fire engines and police sirens. Through his window he looked out over the meadow, the rye fields and into the thick woods where firemen, police and neighbours had gathered to witness and stave off the dark waters spiralling up from the abandoned village well… from some dark subterranean past into the greyish wee morning hours of the present.

[1] The layer of semi-molten rocks under the lithosphere

[2] A penny.

[3] A shilling.

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
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The Trial of Veg Biryani

By Anagha Narasimha

A cloud of dust erupted as the grand hall with chandeliers and decorated wall paintings was opened for the first time in a decade. The Council of Biryanis last gathered when they uncovered the advent of Biryani Ice-Cream and passed a unanimous resolution against it. Alas, if only the current controversy were as simple as that one! Biryanis have reigned over the entire region of India for the past one and a half centuries by adapting to the various cultures and traditions in this vast country. As the cliché goes, they have exhibited unity in diversity in the way they have stood the onslaught of noodles, momos, sushis, pizzas, burgers, etc. Yet, it is only now, in the era of social media, that their unity is truly being tested. Finally, they are faced with a bunch of conflicting views that have forced them to resolve it amicably before it takes the form of a full-fledged war.

The reason for the conflict was a simple tweet and the comments that ensued. One of the stand-up comedians, letting go of their fear of being jailed, took a dig at vegetable biryani. Their post read: “The world now has 8 billion people and 0 veg (or vegetarian) biryanis”. Nowadays, a tweet is mightier than a tabloid front cover, and that stand-up comedian learnt it the hard way. Meat lovers cheered, vegetarians/vegans booed, and some even claimed their religious sentiments were hurt (stand-up comics keep finding new ways to get behind bars!). Out of nowhere, self-designated linguistic experts showed up in the comments section to provide gyaan[1] on the etymology of the word “Biryani”. There was no dearth of prime-time news hour debates and they all debated the existence of Veg Biryani as that’s what the Nation wanted to know. A combined effect of all these pushed Biryanis to an existential crisis, and they gathered in the grand hall to settle it once and for all by putting the Veg Biryani through trial.  

Mutton Biryani, the proud recipient of the “Most Popular Biryani Award”, sat at the centre of the table, displaying its aristocratic demeanour. Next to it, Beef Biryani sat thinking about the bleak future that lay ahead of it. It held a firm footing in certain parts; Whereas, had no existence, or even shunned because of its existence in other parts. Chicken Biryani sat opposite the Mutton Biryani, eyeing to replace the Mutton Biryani from being the most popular Biryani. Next to it, Fish Biryani sat with a smirk on its face, whose dominance in the coastal region was unparalleled (probably the reason behind the smirk).

While they were growing tired of the awkward silence, our central character, Veg Biryani, who does not command the same loyalty as that of his contemporaries, but manages to be in the good books of all, made its entrance.

“Do not tell me we are here because of the tweet of a buffoon!” Veg Biryani’s frustration knew no bounds.

Mutton Biryani, was ready with a reply in a sonorous voice, “We are afraid that is indeed the case.”

To which, Fish Biryani added, “We have entered the era of social media trial,” which elicited laughter from everyone.

Mutton Biryani quickly brought everyone back to the issue with its question, “So tell us why we should consider you a Biryani?”

For every “Why?” out there, the most convenient answer would be “Why not?” Veg Biryani started with the same. A few minutes of silence ensued, which forced Veg Biryani to elaborate. “The essence of Biryani is in the process of making it in layers. As long as you stick to the process, what you add to it is of no consequence.”

Chicken Biryani intervened: “That’s just one of the ways of cooking Biryani. You have the popular Biryanis originating from Tamil Nadu that aren’t layered.”

Beef Biryani added: “The Bengaluru’s beloved Donne Biryani isn’t layered.”

“So, put them on trial.” Veg Biryani ejaculated.

Mutton Biryani responded: “We are aware of the intersectionality and how different attributes such as place of origin, the type of rice, the spices, the aroma, and various other markers of difference intersect and reflect large social structures of gastronomic preference; However, our current issue is to decide whether meat is an essential and necessary requirement of Biryani?”

Veg Biryani wasted no time replying, “Well, in that case, you should answer that in the negative.”

Chicken Biryani responded, “We would be glad to do that once you present your argument.”

Veg Biryani tried everything at its disposal to not get furious and said, “What arguments are you asking for? This is a classic case of petitio principii[2]– your premises presume the very conclusion that you ask me to demonstrate. You define what amounts to a Biryani. You exclude me from the said definition. Then you ask me to prove why I must be considered a Biryani. This is preposterous.”

Beef Biryani, who was a mute spectator, could not resist its growing frustration at the fact that it had to lose out on a holiday to listen to this and muttered, “At the end of the day we all rely on some preposition which can neither be proved nor be disproved. Why can’t you skip to the part where you actually help us in deciding the issue at hand?”

Veg Biryani sighed and started, what seemed to be a long elaborated speech, “Traditionally…”

Which was cut short by Fish Biryani’s jape, “Traditionally there was no such thing as Veg Biryani.”

Ignoring the intended joke, Veg Biryani continued, “Traditionally, Biryani is supposed to be cooked with the bottom layer containing marinated meat, or any substitute, and the next layer consisting of rice along with all the spices. Remember what it means to be a Biryani. We always stood up to the grand ideals of inclusivity. Biryani finds a place in every household and on all occasions. It can embellish a royal feast, at the same time, satisfy the appetite of a common working human, yearning for comfort food. It can feature in the scintillating menu of a five-star restaurant, and at the same time, be the crowd puller in a small low-key food joint on the corner of a street. It is perhaps the only dish that can be served as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Demographers refer to it as Omnipresent. It’s preferred all over India – North, South, East, West, and across all castes and religions. Secular in its letter and spirit. I beg you not to limit it to one particular strand of society by snatching away their Veg Biryani from them. Stay true to our vision – ‘Ghar Ghar Biryani Har Ghar Biryani[3].’

“Moreover, seventy per cent of Indians become vegetarians on Mondays or Thursdays or Saturdays. Some on all three days. And then there is Navratri, Shravana, Karthika[4], etc. etc. Don’t they deserve their Biryani during these long arduous days of staying a vegetarian? Do you want to further their suffering by making them feel like they are eating Pulao[5]?

“Now they are coming up with plant-based meat Biryani. How would you classify them? We are living in the era of neo-liberalisation. If you want to be truly global and compete with Pizzas and Burgers, you got to have Veg Biryani just like they have Veg Pizzas and Burgers. Especially when the whole world is going bonkers over veganism…”

Mutton Biryani interjected saying, “But the majoritarian sentiments are against it.”

Veg Biryani continued, “Since when did we start acting as per the majority?”

Fish Biryani said, “Ah, I’m not sure. But, my bet would be, when we accepted democracy.”

Veg Biryani replied, “Oh come out of the fantasy. When has the majority ever taken the right decision? That’s the reason we have this counsel. That is the reason why we have gathered here today.”

Mutton Biryani interjected, “All right. We have had enough. Let’s take a time out and get back in fifteen minutes with a decision.” Mutton Biryani walked out lighting a cigarette.

Veg Biryani, although, made an elaborate argument for inclusivity, somewhere felt it wasn’t convincing. That’s usually the case with ethos. You don’t let lengthy arguments cluttered with jargon cloud your judgment. It is the guiding principle differentiating truth from justification, which is embedded in all of us, where logic or reason holds little or no relevance. Veg Biryani was no different and was aware that the way to win the trial was not through sophisticated arguments. It was shrewd enough to know the politics that led to the trial and decided to play the same game as others in the trial. Chicken Biryani’s ambition to replace Mutton Biryani as the Most Popular Biryani was a piece of common knowledge and all that Chicken Biryani had to do was to push the right buttons to convert that ambition into animosity.

Veg Biryani, through highly reliable sources, got hold of a video clipping where Mutton Biryani displayed its contempt for Chicken Biryani openly. Mutton Biryani was heard saying, “Chicken Biryani was invented out of an accident. They invented it when one fine day there were more guests and they ran out of Mutton. Now this bugger wants to replace me. Biryani is synonymous with Mutton Biryani, and Chicken Biryani exists only because everyone can’t afford Mutton Biryani.” Veg Biryani made sure that the said video clipping reached Chicken Biryani’s mobile and they could hear Mutton Biryani and Chicken Biryani fighting over it outside. Fish Biryani, who was scrolling through social media, and Beef Biryani, who was going through account statements, were surprised that Mutton Biryani and Chicken Biryani were fighting over something as trivial as the result of this trial. Only Veg Biryani knew better and the fight reassured that its status as a Biryani continued un-besmirched. It had made a pact with Chicken Biryani and knew that Mutton Biryani would accede to Chicken Biryani’s demand to avoid a civil war.

Both, Mutton Biryani and Chicken Biryani entered the hall holding each other’s hand, with a hideous grin carved onto their countenance. Although Mutton Biryani wielded authority, it had no option but to pronounce Chicken Biryani’s verdict.

“It’s now time to put this squabble, masquerading as a trial, to rest. Whatever may be the dissensions, the practical needs and the ramification of denouncing the Veg Biryani from our closely-knit community, outweighs the trivial speculation as to the essential attributes of a Biryani; Wherefore, I declare that Veg Biryani…. remains a Biryani.”

Chicken Biryani was proud, Veg Biryani was relieved, and Mutton Biryani was dejected. As they all started to walk out, Fish Biryani proposed to make the concluding remarks. “Well, what I would like to say, gathering all the humility at my disposal, without an iota of intention to hurt anyone’s sentiment, while remaining steadfast to the ideals of truth and justice, upholding the true essence of Biryani, is… Crap! I forgot what I wanted to say…” None even waited to hear what Fish Biryani had to say as they were already at the door.

Vegetable biryani
Mutton Biriyani
Courtesy: Creative Commons

[1] knowledge

[2] Begging the question

[3] Translates to ‘Every home should have Biryani’.

[4] Festivals where some turn vegetarian

[5] The primary difference between a pulao and biryani is the method of preparation. Biryani is normally more spiced than a pulao.

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Anagha Narasimha C N, an advocate by profession, is also a poet and writer. His poems in Kannada and English are published in various online journals and he is actively involved in playwriting and theatre production. 

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Categories
Stories

Am I Enough?

By Sarpreet Kaur

The Call

“Hello”

“Hello, beta[1]. How are you?” a gentle voice of my mother came from the other end.

I started crying.

“Why are you crying? Everything alright na?”

“Maa, you know. Nothing is right. I can’t live like this anymore.” I answered through muffled sobs.

“Don’t you dare to say that word again. If your father hears, you know what will happen. Give it time. It is going to be alright.” she answered with an air of finality.

“How is Ajay?” she asked starting the ‘so-called normal conversation’.

“He is well.” I played along.

“Had your food?” she asked genuinely concerned.

“Yes.”

“How’s the weather nowadays?” she was out of things to talk about now.

“It’s better.” I replied

She concluded the call.

“Never even think about it and take care there is a viral fever around.”

Diary

Hey Diary. My name is Rumi. I am 29 years old. I work with a software company. I am married to a software engineer for the last three years. And I am sad. I have been sad for so long that I think I was born this way but I know that can’t be. I used to be happy. Every weekend I get a call from my mother. It is strictly weekends only as she doesn’t want to be an intrusion in her daughter’s happy married life. After every phone call, my heart shatters into million pieces and the shackles around my wrists tighten a little more. I thought my mother would be the one to have the key to these locks but ironically she pleaded with me to hide the shackles and even forced me to promise never to talk about it.

I know I am too old to be writing in a diary but I don’t have anyone to talk to. No one listens to me anymore. And a few people who listen, they judge me. They judge me at that very instant when I say ‘the word’. The same word that my mother asked me to never mention.

Divorce

I want to shout “I hate my life. I don’t want to live with him anymore. I want a divorce.”

But the voice never comes out. It trails off somewhere. Somewhere dark. Somewhere deep. Somewhere within me.

The Call

“Don’t take it to heart. Stop finding meaning in everything. You have a job. You have a house. You have a husband,” my mother continued the next weekend when she heard a weak hello from my side.

Then came the questions

“Does Ajay ever hit you?”

“No.”

“Does he stops you from working?”

“No.”

“Does he ask you to do something that you don’t want to?”

“No.”

“Then Rumi I don’t understand what is the problem?”

Silence from my side. She reiterated

“Tell me. What do you want?”

“Respect Maa. I want respect.” I answered surprising even myself.

“Huh.” She coughed a sly laughter.

And the line went dead…..

I guess my father must have come in the room.

Diary

“Is this the only way to live?” Tell me diary Is it? I will tell you what happened at lunch today.

Ajay came for lunch.

“Please set the table.” he said while washing his hands.

“The table is already set. I am just coming.” I replied from the kitchen.

When I came back, I saw that he had already started eating. I just stood there with empty plate in my hand. He was too busy on his phone to notice me.

Today is Friday and my mother is going to call again in a short while. The time of call is always between lunch and evening tea. My father is sleeping then you see. And she is going to ask, “Had good lunch? How is he?”

I want to tell her the truth but how will I? How will I tell her that he started eating without waiting for me? How can I explain it to her that he should have waited for me? How can I explain this to my mother? That mother who thinks that first the husband should eat. That mother who takes pride in waiting for her husband to finish the food before picking up her own plate. How can I explain to her when she thinks this is normal? How can I tell her that her normal is not my normal? I want to shout at her and ask her why was she so keen on giving me education? Education that put funny ideas like gender equality in my mind. That evil education that taught me that husband and wife should eat together. Why mother? Why? I also want to tell her about all other moments. All those moments that she thinks is normal and is not a big deal. But mother it is. It is a big deal when he forgets to introduce me to his colleagues. It is a big deal when he cancels movie plans without checking with me. It is a big deal when he is broodingly sitting on the bed by my side but when his friend calls he laughs, shares and smiles.

The Call

“You are still thinking about it and ruining your day. Why can’t you talk happily?” she was disappointed after listening to the same sad daughter voice.

“I am not happy. What part of it are you not able to understand?” I shouted and immediately realised it was impolite and mean. She doesn’t deserve this.

“I am sorry Maa. I really am.”

“It’s okay beta. Just talk to him once. Sometimes the most complex problems have the simplest solutions.”

“Yes Maa.”

Diary

I liked my mother’s advice. So I thought of giving it a go. I made tea. Gave one cup to him and took a sip from mine.

“How was your day?” I initiated

“It was good. How was your day?” he asked

“It was good.” I replied

A long silence.…….

Was it few second or few minutes. I can’t tell. But I can tell that it felt like a very, very, long time.

He made an effort this time —

“How is your new project coming along at work?”

“It’s going great. How are your new clients?”

“They are good.”

A long silence again………..

“We have to go to a wedding this weekend at your aunt’s place.” I informed

“Yes we have to.”

At last we picked our phones, took a sigh of relief and scrolled our evening away.

Diary today I realised something unusual. It is not only him. It’s me too. I also didn’t have anything to ask him. I tried to think. I tried to make a conversation. But my mind was blank. We don’t have anything in common nowadays. I wonder did he also rack his brains to find something to talk about? Was he also as tongue tied as I was?

The Call

“Beta divorcees are given no respect in society. You want respect na? Do you think divorcing will give you respect?” My mother replied in a hushed tone when I again committed the big mistake of saying the forbidden word.

“I know Maa.”

“Food done?”

“Yes Maa.”

“How’s health?”

“Good Maa.”

“Take care. Your father just came.”

“Bye maa.”

Diary

We went for dinner with our friends tonight. It was a good dinner — a fancy restaurant, soft lighting and calm ambience. We dressed up putting in all the efforts we could. We laughed with our friends reminiscing old times, had a good feast but I still came back with a heavy heart. Diary is there some problem with me? Is my mother right? Do I expect too much? I wanted him to complement me on my dress. I wanted him to hold my hand when we entered the restaurant. I wanted him to steal a few glances of my sweet neckline. I wanted a bigger connection diary.

Should I be happy and a little contented that we at least went for dinner?

Is it me?

Will it never be enough for me?

Do I want too much?

The Call

“Maa Is everything alright? Is papa fine?” It was unusual of her to call during a weekday and that too after 8 pm.

“Yes. Yes all good. My sister, your maasi, came today and she gave a wonderful solution to your problem.”

“What Maa?” I asked and instantly regretted.

“Have a kid and everything will be alright beta. Just have a kid. The relationship will improve and you will have a happy family then. Being a mother is the most rewarding thing. You will get all the happiness and respect that you seek from your kid then.”

“Like you are getting from me Maa.” I snapped and then realised that Ajay was looking directly at me. I was so startled when I saw my mother’s call at this hour that I forgot to get up and go out in the balcony like I usually do. I guess, he must have heard what she just said. My phone’s volume is always on blast and clearly audible to the person sitting next to me.

“Shit!” I muttered.

“Okay Maa. Good night now.”

No Mother No Diary Just Us

He looked at me. I looked at him. For the first time I could see that he wanted to talk. For the first time I was eager to talk to him. And we did. We talked. He talked keeping his ego aside and I talked keeping my self-respect at bay.

“Let’s get divorce.” he blurted out.

After a brief pause, he continued —

“I don’t want to bring a new life in this world. It’s a sad world. We made it sad. I. Sorry. I made you sad. You deserve happiness. I am not a bad person.”

He produced these bits and pieces. His eyes cast down, he played nervously with his ring finger.

“I am sorry. Really. You deserve all the happiness too. I am also not bad. We are…,”

I choked

“We are just different.” he completed.

That day he gave me the key to my shackles. Then he stretched his own arms in front of me and for the very first time in our whole married life I saw a big chain around his wrists holding on to an even bigger lock. Was I too blind till date to see his shackles? And then I felt something in my back pocket. It was the key to his lock. I smiled and handed it over.

Diary

Sometimes it just doesn’t work. There isn’t always a ‘Victim’ and a ‘Devil’ in a marriage. Sometimes it’s just a bad marriage. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Today I give priority to happiness rather than some worldly opinions. If that makes me selfish then – Yes! I am selfish. I am selfishly happy. 

[1] Child

Sarpeet Kaur is a writer based out of Mayabunder, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. She has worked on many projects dealing with the islands. She likes to capture the colourful cultures of India, enigmatic human emotions and flawless nature in her words and lock them forever into bundles of pages.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Stories

Muhammad Ali’s Signature

By S. Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by Dr B. Chandramouli

The man was around 30. He had sleepless eyes, unkempt hair, and pale lips. He had on a grey half sleeve shirt and blue pants which did not match. Wearing rubber slippers with frayed edges, he was carrying a cloth bag, which he guarded closely on his lap, as if it contained a rare object. Because persons like him were a common sight at the taluka[1] office, no one paid him any attention. He had the hesitant look of someone about to request a loan. He was sitting in a slanted position leaning on his right leg.

The taluka office assumes a relaxed atmosphere during lunchtime. Losing its stiffness, it becomes more like a public library. Workers smile; you can talk to them easily. Maybe he was waiting for that stretch of time. They had built this new office with three floors on a side street near the end of the overhead bridge. When you think of a taluka office, you get the picture of a dusty neem tree, dirty steps and semi-dark rooms; this building was not like that. But there was a jeep blocking the entrance and abandoned bikes that reminded of the old office.

Most government offices did not have lifts; even if they did, they did not work. This office also had only a big staircase. While climbing the stairs, you could see a big government poster pasted on the opposite wall. The office had big windows, like in wedding halls. One worker who did not like too much light had opened only half of the window near his seat. During lunchtime, there was big traffic of vendors: Bagyathammal who sells hot murukku in a silver bucket; Muthu, who sells sweets and snacks; Kasim, who sells towels and lungis, and Kalaivani, who sells nighties and cotton sarees. The workers at the office were their favourite customers.

They continued to visit, even though the office had moved. Especially, Kesavan who sells the hot coconut sweet ‘boli’,  had a free run of this office; he would enter regardless of who was there. He will place two bolis wrapped in newspaper on the Tahsildar’s table.

Bagyathammal  could climb the stairs slowly only because she was overweight  and also had a corn on her foot. They would know of her arrival just by the noise the silver bucket made on the steps. Many workers would be satiated only after munching on her murukku after lunch. They had a water cooler for cold water, which the old office did not have. Kasim would always fill his green bottle with the cold water. He would relish drinking that cold water with a unique expression of bliss on his face. Except for the boy from the tea stall opposite, and Subbiah from the xerox store, most people who came to the office were there to get certificates for caste, income, residency or land ownership. You could easily identify them by their looks. Being nervous, they would drop and scatter their certificates; some could not even answer the questions.  Though all the wooden tables were similar, only the table where the officer received the petitions would appear huge to them. Even the leaders in the pictures hung on the wall were unsmiling.

After lunch, many of the workers would not return to their tables immediately. Some would go downstairs to smoke. Raghavan, who was going downstairs, noticed the man sitting aslant.

“What do you want?” he asked while passing.

When the man hesitantly said, “You see.., I.. well,…”

Raghavan told him, “Go inside and ask.”

Some workers had returned after the lunch break.  Jayanthi was keeping her washed tiffin box near the window. The man stood in front of Sabapathy’s table and called out — “Sir…”

.

Sabapathy was searching for a pin to use as a toothpick. Thinking that the man was selling some snacks, he asked, “What did you bring?”

The man produced an old photograph from his bag and said. “Muhammad Ali’s photo.”

Startled and uncomprehending, Sabapathy asked, “What is that?”

“Muhammad Ali Sir, the world famous boxer. My father is the one standing nearby; see here, it has Muhammad Ali’s  signature at the bottom.”

“OK, but why are you showing it to me?” asked Sabapathy, not understanding.

“They took it when Muhammad Ali came to Madras.”

“That is all fine. Are you here to give some petition?”

“I came to sell Muhammad Ali’s signature, Sir,” he said hesitantly.

Sabapathy did not understand what he said.

“Selling a signature?… But what can I do with it?” asked sarcastically.

The man hung his head and said, “It is a very valuable signature, Sir. I have money problems at home; that is why I came to sell.”

Sabapathy smiled sarcastically, as if he has found the right person to pass the time with and said, “I know nothing about boxing. See Sekhar in the corner seat? Show it to him.”

Sekhar was the one who can get a loan for anybody in the office. Nobody knew where he got the money from. But he would get a commission of Rs50 for every Rs1000.He had loaned many of his colleagues money during contingencies. He would strictly collect his share on payday.

The man went to Sekhar and showed him the old photograph.

Sekhar  looked up at it and asked thoughtfully, “Do you want a death certificate?”

“No, Sir; this is Muhammad Ali.”

“Muhammad Ali means?” Sekhar asked, confused.

“Famous boxing champion; he came to Madras in 1980. He boxed with Jimmy Ellis in front of MGR. My dad was a big boxer in those days; he lost one eye in boxing, but could still fight very well. Muhammad Ali himself had congratulated him. They took this photo when Muhammad Ali was staying  in Connemara hotel. There was a huge crowd to see him. My dad was waiting to get his signature on this photo. Muhammad Ali himself took him to his room and signed it for him. My father was thrilled.” he was narrating it like a story.

“Just tell me what you want now,” said Sekhar.

“Please buy this signature. All I want is Rs 500.”

Sekhar did not expect this.

“What am I going to do with this — clean my tongue?” Sekhar asked angrily.

“Do not say that Sir. Muhammad Ali’s signature has value.”

“Let us see how many people in this office know who Muhammad Ali is.” As if taking up a great challenge, Sekhar grabbed the photo from the man and gathered all the office staff in front of him.

Sekhar said in a mocking tone,

 “If anyone can correctly identify the man in this photo, I will give the person Rs100.”

One lady asked, “An actor?”

“There is a tailor in my street who looks just like him; his ears are exactly like his,” said Jayanthi.

“Isn’t he the football champion?” asked Mani.

Rangachari was the one who correctly said.

“That is Muhammad Ali, World heavyweight boxing champion. He was born Cassius Clay; he later changed his name to Muhammad Ali.”

“Correct Sir; and it is his signature. At least you can buy this.”

“I do not  even have enough time to box with my wife; what am I going to do this? If it was a foreign stamp, at least I could give it to my daughter,” said Rangachari in a mocking voice.

“Do not say that, Sir. I can cut off my father’s picture. Please give me Rs 500,” the man pleaded.

“Five hundred rupees is too much for a signature,” said Rangachari.

“You people demand like that too,” he thought. But he swallowed the thought and said, “If my dad were alive, he would not sell this.”

“It is alright if you want to sell, but where did you come to the taluka office?” asked Rangachari mockingly.

“You are all educated people. I thought you would know the value of this.”

“Forget the signature; you see, even if Muhammad Ali himself comes here, there is no value.” Rangachari laughed automatically, as if he has cracked a joke.

Meanwhile, hearing some footsteps on the stair, peon Munusamy announced that the Tahsildar[2] has arrived.

The safari suit clad Tahsildar Rathinasamy must have noticed the man as he went to his room. He rang the bell as soon as he sat down.

Peon Munusamy hurried into the room.

“Who is that guy standing outside? Is he selling perfume? I told you not to let people like that.”

Munusamy said, “He is not selling perfume, Sir; he came to sell some photo.”

“Ask him to come in,” the Tahsildar said angrily.

The peon told the man who was standing helplessly that the Tahsildar wanted to see him.

The man entered the room slowly.

The Tahsildar asked him with a stern face, “What is this, a marketplace where anyone can walk in and sell stuff? Who are you and why did you come here?”

The man was scared at his anger and hesitantly said, “Muhammad Ali’s signature…photo”

“Ask S1 to come in,” said the Tahsildar angrily.

Sabapathy came.

“Is this a government office or an exhibition? How did you let this man in?”

“We thought he came to give some petition. But he is spinning a yarn about a photograph.”

The Tahsildar said loudly “We should not leave it like this; you call the police. If we grab someone like this, the next one will be afraid to come.”

The man said with a troubled face, “Sorry, sir. I will leave,” he turned to walk out.

“What do you have in your hand? Show it to me.” the Tahsildar asked with the same anger.

The man showed him the photo with Muhammad Ali and his father.

“Did you come to get a donation?”

“No Sir; I came to sell Muhammad Ali’s signature,”  he said in a weak voice.

“Don’t you have some other place for that?” the Tahsildar threw the photograph on the table carelessly.

“It is alright  sir; just give me the photo; I will leave”

By this time, Rangachari had entered the room and described about Muhammad Ali in fluent English; the Tahsildar listened, only half understanding.

“Who will buy this?”

“There are collectors for this. You can get for 5000, or 10,000 rupees for that.”

“Is that right?”

“Severe money problems at home; that is why I came to sell.” the man repeated.

“What am I going to do if I buy this?  I do not even have a place to hang my picture at my home.” the Tahsildar expressed his sense of humour with that statement.

At his juncture, Sekhar  came to the office and said, “It is a new type of fraud, Sir. They print a picture off the internet and try to sell it.”

“No Sir. This is my father.”

“Do you have any certificate to prove it?” asked Sekhar.

“Why should I deceive you, Sir,” the man asked pitifully.

 “Sekhar is correct.  Nowadays, it is difficult to trust anyone; we should be cautious,” said Rangachari.

“Get rid of him and post a notice saying no outside persons are allowed here.” said Tahsildar.

The man took the photograph from the table and placed it in his bag, and  walked downstairs.

An old man waiting to submit some petition asked him if the Tahsildar has arrived. He answered yes and left.

It was after three. He felt like fainting because of extreme hunger. The street was hot in the scorching sun. There was no breeze. He walked towards  the bus stand to catch a bus to his suburban home.

 Suddenly the bag in his hand felt heavy. It sounded as though someone was laughing.

Was that Muhammad Ali laughing?

 It was as if his arm was  being dragged down by the heavy bag.

He took out the photo and looked at it. His father’s face standing near Muhammad Ali had a unique smile.

He was wondering what he is going to do by taking the photo back to his home.

There was a tar drum standing under the tamarind tree; it was leaking tar. He took out the photo and stuck it on the tar. Muhammad Ali was looking at the street baking in the scorching sun from the photograph stuck to the tar tin.

As if to express his anger, he shrugged off his slippers and started walking barefoot at a fast pace.

 The road stretched like the tongue of a strange beast.

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[1] regional

[2] Collector

S. Ramakrishnan is an eminent Tamil writer who has won the Sahitya Akademi Award in the Tamil Language category in 2018. He has published 10 novels, 20 collections of short stories, 75 collections of essays, 15 books for children, 3 books of translation and 9 plays. He also has a collection of interviews to his credit. His short stories are noted for their modern story-telling style in Tamil and have been translated and published in English, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada and French.  

Dr.Chandramouli is a retired physician.. He is fluent in English and Tamil. He has done several English to Tamil, and Tamil to English. He has published some of them.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Stories

The Whirlpool

By Abdullah Rayhan

The bird just died in his hand, a brown bird with a yellow beak. It didn’t bleed, but its senses were silent beneath the greenish-dark eyelids. The tiny heart within its chest didn’t beat anymore. “What have I done!” thought Manik.

He put the slingshot back into his torn pocket and tenderly held the dead shalik[1] in his sunburnt arms. Something inside his chest thumped heavily as if a mad giant was scampering within him. A gloomy whirlpool of clouded sorrow confused Manik. Where did his happiness go?

Two months ago, when his elder brother Ratan crafted this slingshot for him, Manik started to dream of hunting a bird with it. As Ratan cut the stick and attached the elastic to the leather pad, Manik crafted a colourful tapestry in his mind. Thousands of times, he imagined the bright, flamboyant vision of shooting birds with pebbles and capturing them once they had fallen to the ground. His mind would light up at the thought of it all.

But after the slingshot was built, and Manik threw his first shot with it, he realized it wouldn’t be as easy as he assumed. He nagged his brother to teach him how to shoot perfectly, but Ratan got irritated.

“Isn’t it enough that I made this slingshot for you? Don’t disturb me, or I will break it apart”. Ratan had yelled.

However, this didn’t deter Manik. He went on exploring his village, looking for a vulnerable bird. He would have a handful of tiny pebbles in the pocket of his dirty khakis. Their weight would weigh down his pants a little, and he would pull it up repeatedly.

In his own mind, Manik was a hunter. His one and only goal was to hunt down a bird. The moment the bird tumbled, Manik would cage it in his fists and put it inside the small mosquito net he used to sleep in when he was an infant. Everything was arranged. He even had his mother mend the hole in the net. Now there wouldn’t be any way for the bird to escape!

But where was the bird? That’s what Manik tried to hunt all day long.

He would wake up before the first ray of the sun blanketed their village because that’s when birds were abundant. Though his mother would scold him, he didn’t care much.

His hunt would begin near the bank of the canal. On either side of the stream, there were numerous nests of shalik, doves, and sparrows. Manik could never pinpoint the location of the nests, but he was aware of where the birds lived.

Right beside the canal, he would walk on the dewy grass and collect tiny stones for the day. While collecting the pebbles, he would sling some if he saw any bird, and obviously, he missed every time. His stone collection continued until the sun rose higher in the horizon. Then he would run around the village. Occasionally to spot a prey, he would tiptoe quietly and cautiously.

He would see hundreds of birds sitting here and there. But Maniks’ amateur hands would miss them by a yard, and the bird would fly away at the sound of the slingshot. After a week or two of this routine, almost all the birds were familiar with the little hunter who had a bad target and pulled up his pants every now and then. Thus, Manik had a hard time finding any prey.

He would sit silently in the bushes for hours and hours, waiting for at least a sparrow to show up. But nothing did. Every bird was aware of Manik now. The barber told Manik that his attempts had scared off all the feathered friends.

Just like every year, on the carpet of shadows beside the bamboo forest, the barber was shaving Maniks’ hair for the summer.

The barber said mockingly, “How is the hunting going?” while running the blade on his half shaven head.

Manik sat on a high stool with his feet dangling in the air, “There aren’t any bird around. I wonder why!” A tone of disappointment vibrated in his words.

“Well, probably they are scared because they all know your intention.” The barber said, not stopping the razor.

“So, what should I do?” Manik asked with genuine concern.

“You can try looking for birds in my village.”

“Will you take me?” Manik said, excitedly turning his face toward the barber who was still shaving the back part. This sudden jerk sliced a thin, long cut on Manik’s bald head. Blood began to slowly stream out of the fresh wound.

“Ehhe[2]! I asked you to sit still. Look what happened.” The barber washed Manik’s head and finished the rest of the job irritated. He was annoyed by the sudden movement.

But, even with a cut on his head, Manik was delighted by the thought of exploring a new territory. The next day he followed the barber. It was noon when Manik reached the new village.

The new village was just like his native one. The same trees, same odour of bamboo, wet mud, and the stench of cow dung were an imitation of his home. There were a lot of birds here too. The whisper of their fluttering wings expanded a new sky of hope in Manik. “I will catch one for sure,” he thought as he started on his hunting mission.

After missing a few, Manik found a shalik sitting on a bamboo fence. Manik was stealthy this time. He slowly approached a hedge near his target. From behind the bush, Manik stared at the bird for a while, memorising its position. Then he slowly grabbed his slingshot, drew out a good, round stone from his pocket, and set it on the leather pad properly. Holding the handle with a steady grip, he pulled the elastic with all his might to the back of his ear. The target was fixed on the bird.

Swoosh…

A tiny stone ran into a tiny bird. The prey fell on the ground and twitched its thin yellow feet for a few seconds. And then, the Shalik was still.

Maniks’ heart immediately filled up with victorious ecstasy. He couldn’t believe he had finally hit a bird. Holding on to the slingshot, he ran to his prize and picked it up.

But the smile faded away from his face in an instant. He realised that the bird had died. The profound innocence that slept inside him suddenly woke and stared at the dead life with melancholic eyes.

The brown Shalik lay like cold silence in his clutch. Its feathers dampened as Maniks’ tears fell on them. Though weeping like a beaten child, Manik didn’t know why he was crying. Something heavy was crumbling inside of him. His heart thumped loudly under his dust-covered chest.

Other birds gathered around and watched a small bald boy, wearing loose pants and torn shirt, digging a small hole in the ground with his bare hand. The sadness in his eyes echoed the vibration of his cracked heart. A small stream of thick, transparent mucus drooled down his nose, and he kept sucking it back as he patted the ground. When the hole was deep enough, the boy gently laid the Shalik to rest and then spread the loose soil all over the dead bird. A hefty cloud continued to blur his sight while a heart-wrenching torment swarmed inside him. He felt he was crumbling.

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[1] Common mynah

[2] An exclamation of regret

Abdullah Rayhan is an English literature student who loves to read novels and write stories about simple and insignificant aspects of life.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Look but with Love

By Sreelekha Chatterjee

The laptop glows, as Ruby gazes at the email sent by an author. Her bespectacled, middle-aged eyes are like two ignited blocks of coal, burning with irritation from the constant stare at the computer and the revelation that the message has brought.

Dear Editor Ruby,
         Please reinsert the word “effigy” in the following sentence as the author himself wasn’t burnt down. Probably the word had been inadvertently missed out at the time of typesetting.

Typeset sentence: “Mr White was burnt down by a group of agitators who thought that his book dealt with controversial topics.”

Original sentence: “Mr White’s effigy was burnt down by a group of agitators who thought that his book dealt with controversial topics.”

Comparing the original manuscript with that of the copyedited version, Ruby calls Victor to her desk.

 “Tell me the meaning of the word ‘effigy’?” She asks with an air of seriousness about her, adjusting her glasses which have almost reached the tip of her nose.

The frivolous young lad, in his early twenties, keeps quiet, toys with his mobile, while his eyes waver around the books, clutter of files, papers on her table. He notices the page tugged onto the clipboard in front of her table where he reads the well-known lines once again: “When I take a long time to finish, I’m slow, but when my boss takes a long time, he is thorough.”

Victor usually takes a long time to edit the manuscripts and the end result is mostly devastating, though he always makes a point to look everything up in the dictionary as well as do an online search on the internet. What he is unable to understand is that despite all his efforts, things don’t turn up the way they should have been and lead to fresh miseries. He stares at the clipboard and thinks of inserting another line there which he mumbles under his breath with a supercilious smile:“When you take a long time to discuss about something, then you are wasting your time, but when your boss takes a long time to discusses it, then it’s a serious matter that needs attention.”

He keeps his head obstinately lowered, determined that he will not look up.

Ruby squirms in her chair, observing his quivering lips. Is he muttering abuses? Or, calling her a devil (as they do behind her back)?

“Look at me, look into my eyes. Last time you’d queried an author about ellipsis points at several quoted instances in his article and asked him what he intended by that. Don’t you know what they are meant for?”

Victor winces as his face twists, struggling hard to appear unmoved. Impatiently, he wriggles his right toe on the floor as if he’ll create holes in it or trample her down.

“A copyeditor needs to be hawk-eyed. Use your damn eyes. The editing eyes reach the desired perfection based on their use and cultivation. Last time you misspelt the word ‘snacks’ in the sentence and it read: ‘Tea, coffee, and sacks served here.’ And you didn’t correct the word ‘molest’ to ‘mullet’—‘His eyes sparkled like the shiny skin of the molest.’ The words ‘soul’ and ‘peace’ were replaced by some ridiculous words in the sentence: ‘May his sole rest in piece. Can you bake a cake with flowers as was mentioned in the sentence—‘The main ingredient of the cake was flower.’”

In response to Ruby’s usual mocking harangue, he recalls a famous quote on shame and vulnerability:“Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.”

His sun sign is Cancer and he believes in the prophecies made by a Panditji every morning on a popular TV channel. Though he didn’t quite understand what Panditji’s astrological predictions for the day indicated when he watched the show early in the morning, but now it feels somewhat relevant in the present context:“Remember, the things that are occurring today are not happening ‘to’ you. You need to have a greater perspective in mind to understand that the so-called challenges you are facing at the moment aren’t what they appear to be. Turn your experience into wisdom and you’ll find the way ahead.” 

That morning when he was stuck at the traffic signal, he recalled having seen a truck on which it was written “Sunil Treaders”. People often say that they write wrong spellings to attract attention, then why is it that editors are blamed for all the spelling errors that the authors make.

“When an editor makes a mistake, he is an idiot, but when an author makes a mistake, he is only human.” He utters in a low voice so that it doesn’t reach Ruby.

“Why don’t you look at me?” she yells.

Victor still keeps his eyes lowered or rather fixed on to the ground. Are those eyes loaded with tears?  

Suddenly, he recalls that Panditji had mentioned something important and he totally forgot about it. He mumbles what Panditji repeated again and again today morning, “All Cancerians should be cautious about their position today. They should be standing on the left side of all their senior officials to avoid any sort of conflict.” But he is standing in front of his boss. How will he change his position now? That’s why things are not going in his favour. Absentmindedly, he moves towards the nearby wall.

Immediately, Ruby says testily, “Where are you going? Come closer.” After a brief pause, she resumes watching him through the edge of her eyes, “Look into my eyes. It’s where the truth lies.”

In an instant he is strangely reminded of the phrase that he has mostly seen painted on the rear side of trucks, lorries:“Dekho magar pyaar se.” (“Look but with love.”)

At last he raises his head, his cheeks flushed red, sweaty, tense-limbed, and says, wide-eyed, showing his tobacco-stained blackish teeth, “I’ve never looked into the eyes of my wife, how can I look into yours?”

Sreelekha Chatterjee lives in New Delhi, India. Her short stories have been published in various national, international magazines, journals, and have been included in numerous print and online anthologies.

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The Mysterious Murder of Adamov Plut

By Paul Mirabile


Vanitas Still Life, painting by Evert Collier(1640 –1708). Courtesy: Creative Commons

Back home in Madrid, having abandoned Adamov Plut to his posthumous fate, I was a bit surprised that neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post reported anything about the murder, not even a paragraph, or as the French so imagitively put it, an entre-filet ! I soon realised, due to this journalistic silence, that the time had come for me to give a full account of my relation to Mr Plut ; that the time had come for me to expose, publicly, by way of this revelation, his ‘mysterious murder’.

My information is of the surest sources for the simple reason that it was I who had Mr Plut murdered ! Yes, I ! And for reasons that shall be shortly disclosed. A mysterious man he might have been; however, his methods of acquiring priceless books and other inestimable valuables can hardly be called mysterious: Mr Plut was a vulgar thief, a scoundrel, an ingenious trickster whose singular flair caused much grief to many individuals, enraged those whose trust had been flouted.

It was in Istanbul, where I was invited to sojourn with an Armenian merchant, that I witnessed Mr Plut’s dupery. And if my naive friend fell for his crooked smile, I certainly didn’t swallow his high tale of returning to pay him for the two illuminated manuscripts my friend had graciously offered the blighter on condition that he be held accountable for them. His thick, coarse lips translated a smile that held contempt and disdain towards those who trusted him. So infuriated and insulted did I feel on behalf of my friend that that I reacted on a lightning urge and decided to follow him. I said nothing of this to my disbelieving companion, but left immediately in pursuit of my game — and game it was — for I, to tell the truth, had nothing more substantial to do at the moment and felt disposed for a good hunt.

I said that Mr Plut was a genius. Yes, in his own way. However, genius has its limitations. His arrogance and haughtiness knew no bounds, although he knew that his foul doings had attracted the attention of police and Interpol. Some may surmise that a certain paranoia drove him to invent individuals tracking him down like a wild boar or moose. No, no one was tracking him down except me, and that as subtlety as possible. In Uzbekistan, I actually chatted with him over a cup of coffee on two occasions disguised as a professor of Slavic philology, dressed in a quilted chapan robe and silk embroidered tubeteyka cap. There we sat in Samarkand, sipping our thick beverages in the vaulted bazaar at one of the storied cafés that dot the town. He was all smiles, obsequious and gold-toothed. I had the impression that I was dealing with a child or a mentally-dwarfed man whose sense of reality lacked all discernment or sagacity. I concluded that he had come into quite a bit of money, and never having had to work for a livelihood, traipsed about the world at his leisure, buying or stealing books, cheating people out of their invaluable collections. So self-indulgent and confident was he that he never saw through my masquerade as we conversed in broken Russian.

It was at that café where I learned about his fabulous treasure, as he called his book hoard. Only an idiot would have divulged this information to a perfect stranger, but as I said, Mr Plut’s contemptible demeanour caused him to fall into the most infantile traps. Traps that I began laying out for him, and that would lead to his downfall. For I had begun to design my own plan to relieve the rogue of his fabulous possessions, all the more so since he also let slip that his parents had passed away, and he had inherited the house. How I would make his treasure mine and ‘disinherit’ the  owner  still remained vague in my mind.

We departed as ‘friends’, as two strangers seeking an answer to the mystery of their existence. Or so I made him believe. Mr Plut appeared to me a dying species, a worldly aesthete, in spite of his extreme vulgarity and ponderous gait, whose debonair demeanour masked a loathing for his victims, a bent for the lowest duplicity, a gratification in spinning the most treacherous stratagems in order to allay his desire to prevail.

Mr Plut slipped out of Uzbekistan without my knowing it. He probably used his Russian passport, one of the four of five in his possession. I felt a twinge of misgiving. Had the fat fellow got on to me? After many enquiries, I finally discovered that he had crossed into China at the Xinjiang border, and was hastening towards the Yunnan. Why ? I hadn’t the faintest idea …

His brief sojourn in the town of Lijiang enabled me to catch up with him. My Chinese was fluent enough not only to query his whereabouts in that lovely town, but more important still, to learn of his new ‘purchases’, once I had questioned the director of the Dongba Museum of Culture. Mr Plut had planned to gone there to acquire several Naxi pictographic sacred books, which he did from a rather corrupt priest with whom he had been corresponding for some time, using a special code so as not to be unmasked by the Chinese authorities of the Centre. The director only learned of this a week after the unlawful negotiations had occurred, and three or four very valuable Dongba liturgical books had been stolen. It goes without saying that the rapacious priest was severely punished.

I immediately left Lijiang much to my displeasure for it was indeed a quiet, pleasant place, and set out in hot pursuit of the marauder. I followed his all too familiar scent through Nepal into North-western India to the Zanskar region where he put up for a while at the Phuktal Gompa[1], a strange spot to make a halt. But a perfect hideout to gain time in order for planning his next move, whilst at the same time inveigling in the most repulsive manner his generous hosts.

The monastery is nestled in the most remotest of valleys, ensconced within a cliff of tuft of fairy chimneys, crags and honey-combed spires which bulge black and red against the background of sandy, dazzling ash and cinerous tones of hemp. I had trekked there from Lamayuru in twenty days, and as I was to learn, Mr Plut had arrived there three days ahead of me, but by way of Padum. To gain the main entrance of the gompa, the pilgrim had to climb a steep path, keeping his or her right shoulder to the seventeen chortens[2] that mark the steep climb towards the vaulted entrance. I had shaved my head, grown a long beard and donned a woollen chuba tightened around my waist with a long colourful sash. It kept me warm, for in spite of it being Summer, the nights were very cold, and my cell had only a small wood-burning stove to keep me warm.

I spent three weeks at the monastery, sleeping on a ratten matting, eating skieu, tsampa and chappatti, drinking steaming salt-buttered tea off a chopsey — a low, small table — reading or gazing out of the little window that offered me a full view of the dusty, treeless courtyard below, where monks would mutter their mantras, and beyond into soundless nights whose stars were generally veiled.

Without Mr Plut’s slightest suspicions, I assisted at all the ceremonies, mornings and evenings, even vigils, while in the afternoon, I would venture out into the monastic complex, twisting and turning in the warren of lanes, under the low archways and high ladders, at times pursuing my promenades upon the rather precipitous mountain paths. As to Mr Plut, he hardly left his cell, and when we did cross paths, he most probably took me for a Buddhist pilgrim. Once or twice I sat near him in the prayer hall in the meditation grotto, but he never attempted to communicate with me, albeit he did not seem very deep in prayer or contemplation. He was probably scheming his next miserable move. His face had become terribly pale and flabby. His darting, black eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into their sockets. Unable to sit cross-legged on the low benches at the back of the prayer hall, he sat ‘western style’, staring off into the clusters of chanting monks, tilting his huge, bobbing head every so often to the banging drums, blowing ox-horns and tinkling triangles. Observing him from afar, I sought to sound his soul, to wring out his innermost thoughts, to extract from his evident lassitude and apathy his flight from both his victims and himself. But Mr Plut was a sphinx. Would he rise out of his own ashes when his hour came ?

I left the good monks three days after his departure, a hasty one indeed. And they were furious! The scoundrel had stolen several pustuks[3] and thangkas, and failed to pay for the prayer masks that he ‘purchased’. They implored me to find the culprit, inform the police and recover their stolen property. It was perhaps the beseeching words of the infuriated monks, after having received such incomparable hospitality from them, that my plans to have the thief killed began to germinate ! The theft was not only gratuitous, it exposed the very ugliness of the man’s heart, blackened by greed, cynicism and remorselessness. It would only be a matter of time before he tasted a soupçon of his own medicine.

Meanwhile the cat would play with the mouse, a rather fat mouse at that ! I boarded the cargo ship that took the fugitive from Karachi to Oakland via Japan. On the long, monotonous voyage across the Pacific, my ominous shadow crossed his at the most unsuspecting moments. Attired as a Pashtun merchant, bearded, long-haired and turbaned, Mr Plut sensed an onerous presence whenever he laboriously carried his huge body across the decks. How many times had my eyes penetrated his anguish, his torment, his pangs, not of compunction, but of incomprehension. He scented a sleepless menace pressing him. Fear inflamed his dark, beady, mirthless eyes like the burning incision of the trenchant knife.

Oakland … Sacramento … Reno … Tombstone … Boulder … Santa Fe … Saint Louis … Chicago … New Orleans … Birmingham … Miami … Atlanta and finally New York. Yes, New York, where the curtains would finally fall on this tragic fat figure. Where upon the stage of 8 million walk-ons, and against the backdrop of the grottiest of hotels, the last act of Mr Plut’s abominable performance would be played out.

His infatuation with Louis Wolfson amused me, as well as his grandiose project to write twelve stories in twelve different languages signed by twelve different authors. I found all this quite pompous and pathetic. A real exercise in self-indulgence to say the least. All this information I culled when I ‘accidentally’ met him in the ill-lit corridor of that hotel on Water street in downtown Manhattan. In New York, I played the role of a French researcher in mediaeval literature, a field that he completely ignored, in spite of possessing several manuscripts of Anglo-Norman stamp, apparently purchased (so he said ?) from a London book-seller. I pretended to be interested, taking the opportunity to study him closely. Besides, he was such an inveterate liar how could one believe anything he said ? He lied to curry favour and win confidence, only to swindle and steal from the naive and simple-hearted. Better to observe his eyes, his gestures, his bouncing from one tongue to another. These were all genuine signs of his distorted psychological make-up. To play my part well, I sported an immaculate white suit, orange tie, a pair of silver-rimmed glasses and spanking new alligator shoes. I had shaved my beard and moustache and had my hair cut very short, leaving a few gossamer wisps which touched the tips of my ears and fell bouncily on my forehead.

Every day I followed his Humpty Dumpty gait as he waddled to and from the public library, in and out of Central Park. And it was there, in Central Park, that I noted two blond-haired rough fellows slouching on a bench, eating the remains of fried chips or chicken sandwiches, cursing and making gross signs at the passers-by, drinking beer and spitting. They were seated at the same bench daily — the bench that Mr Plut walked by every day. They seemed to know him because they would hoot at him, call him names and ask for money. Fatso passed by without even a glance at them.

One Saturday, I decided to approach the two ruffians. They sized me up with obvious contempt, and made it perfectly clear that I was intruding on their ‘territory’. I sat down none the less, and exposed my scheme to be rid of Mr Plut once and for all, explaining how the culprit had cheated and robbed so many people. The two burly blokes, former marines in the Green Beret (or so they vaunted!) listened attentively as I unfolded my plan: Three thousand dollars for each if they would simply walk up to his room in the early morning hours, the night porter always being asleep, knock at his door and kill him, however, without any blood shed or theft of his belongings. It must be a murder without reason, without any sign of bestial violence. One of them suggested strangulation. Yes, excellent idea. It would thus be a ‘clean’ murder.

And so it was, very professional at that I must say. They were paid off, as agreed. And I left New York two days later, as planned, a very satisfied man indeed …

This all happened five years ago. Now … well, here is where my account ends and my confession begins. For you see, Mr Plut was never really murdered ! Those two ‘ruffians’ were in fact F.B.I. agents who had been trailing me since disembarking in California. To tell the truth, Interpol and local police had been following me since the Istanbul affair. How and why they began doing so I cannot say. During my trial neither the judge nor the prosecuting attorney afforded any information as how the F.B.I. learnt of my scheme, nor why they had decided, at one point in time, to cooperate with Plut. What was I convicted of ? What was my indictment ? As to my appointed lawyer, a young short-sighted clerk more than a seasoned lawyer, who could be easily cajoled by the ‘evidence’ against me, pliantly manipulated by the prosecutor, after he had taken the floor and had made an absolute fool of himself. He let out a sigh of relief when the judge pronounced a sentence of fifteen years instead of twenty-five! The wigged judge, a grotesque figure studded with huge warts, yawned throughout my lawyer’s deplorable speech for the defense, as well as during my feeble plea. There was no jury either to lament or to applaud his verdict. It was a trial held at ‘huis clos’[4], military style. I buried my face in my hands. As expected, my lawyer made no effort to appeal.

Had Plut sensed my innermost aversion towards him ? Or seen through my many disguises ? He was a clever man, and probably had hired detectives to learn why I was following him. The hotel room murder was staged. Plut lay recumbent on the floor, waiting for me to steal his papers so that I would be indicted for premeditated murder (although there was no murder!), of paying off hoodlums to commit this murder (although they were F.B.I. agents!) and the theft, which indeed it was (but fifteen years for that?) of his household papers, keys, and other official documents concerning his inheritance … and that vile short story of his.

So here I sit in my rancid smelling cell in Madrid, having been arrested at the aeroport on my arrival some five years ago, writing out this confession. I do not to repent mind you, I have no intention of atoning for my doings, nor avowing my sins. These words wrenched from my pen seek to vent the animosity and hatred I harbour towards that fat impostor who had the cheek to write me a letter from the Seychelles revealing how he had got on to me since Uzbekistan, and how our little cat and mouse game had amused him greatly : “You thought me a fool, deary, but I saw through your pusillanimous scheme in Samarkand ; that was some outfit, but you forgot the galoshes ! Not to mention your pilgrim weeds at Phuktal which truly charmed me, and your blazing orange tie in New York. Come, come, what French professor would ever sport an orange tie with a badly tailored, cheap white suit ?” The vicious irony underlining these sentences, along with a soupçon of cynicism caused me to gag. The blighter added in a post-script that he had sold all his books for a fabulous sum of money, and had retired from the world’s wearisome fair. In the envelope I found a photo of him sipping coconut juice, lying on the golden sands of a crescent-shaped beach under groves of swaying palm trees and an indigo blue sky. I laughed bitterly, and yet, in spite of my nettled nerves, pinned up the blasted photo in my lonely cell, a sort of souvenir of our enshrouded relationship …

One day at the prison library, browsing idly through a dull, detective story, I thought of Plut’s or Hilarius Eremita’s story The Enchanted Garden, which I had taken and read to amuse myself on the aeroplane to Buenos Aires. Had anyone ever published such ridiculous trash? To my horror, the answer came three days later whilst I rummaged through a new batch of literary magazines, some of which contained short stories in English, French and German. And there it was — The Enchanted Garden, by Hilarius Eremita, Plut’s pen name. I couldn’t believe my eyes — someone had published that rubbish ! Plut indeed had the last laugh, adding insult to injury, salt to my festering wounds.

I savagely tore out the pages of his story from the magazine, went to the toilet, ripped them into tiny pieces and flushed the filth down the bowl. So much for hiss ‘first of the twelve’ ! I shan’t be punished for it, no inmate in this prison reads any language besides Spanish, and that with a dictionary … I’m sure it was Plut who sent me that magazine to drive the knife deeper into my wounded pride. The miserable rat !

So here I sit at my iron table, staring at Plut’s photo as he sips his coconut drink under the blue skies and swaying palm trees whilst I sip my wretched thin noodle soup with strips of hard, nervy beef under a cracked, peeling, dirty grey prison ceiling …

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[1]          Monastery in Tibet

[2]          The Tibetan word for stûpa, a Buddist shrine which initially housed the relics of the Buddha.

[3]          Books used for Buddhist ceremonies written in Tibetan.

[4]          Behind closed door without any public participation or observers. It is a French legal term.

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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   The Kabbadi Player by Nadir Ali

Translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali

Painting by Amna Ali

Since I struggled with poor health most of my life, I imagined those who enjoyed good health must be happier too. As the saying goes, “Be fit and healthy and the world is yours!” The strong ones can till and plow the land, but that doesn’t win them the world, as far as I can tell. When I was younger, I naively believed that only the athletes at our college were truly vibrant and alive. The entire college and district worshiped Ahsanullah. Kabbadi[1] was a popular sport back then, and Ahsanullah a peacock strutting in the kabbadi arena. He would tag the opponent and remain standing. “Dare to tackle me big guy!” he seemed to say, before slipping away. Clapping his hands, he would be off and running and onlookers would marvel – “There he goes!”

We witnessed a new race of men when the team from Jullundhar’s Khalsa College arrived. The players — tall, big and heavy– were built like wrestlers. Unlike us, they didn’t tackle opponents with moves like the scissor or the squeeze or run with lightning speed. They would simply grab a man by the arm and immobilise him with sheer force. When they were the ones caught, a few vigorous shoves were enough to help them escape. But they failed against Ahsanullah. They couldn’t even touch him. He slapped the opponent, grabbed him in a tight embrace as if a vine had wrapped itself around the Sardar. Then he spun him to make him lose his balance. A carefully applied tug followed, enough to send him crashing to the ground. The Sardars realised that Ahsanullah’s slight frame was misleading. He was strong as iron. In the end, his opponents always lay defeated at his feet. Thanks to Ahsan and Shareefa, Zamindara College came first in all of Punjab. Khalsa College Jullundhar came in second. But gone are the days of college and kabbadi. Zamindara College was never the same and hockey and kabbadi met their demise. What a strange race everyone joined once the sports grounds disappeared.

I remained friends with all the kabbadi players. Shareefa became the head of a police-station and even played for the police. Ahsanullah would be invited to the village or the college for informal matches. Once he got married, worries seemed to swallow him up. Glasses appeared on his studious face. Kabbadi proved useless for all the players, except Shareefa who put it to good use, tackling and hustling even at his prison job. Thana, Bala, Qooma, Abdullah Raja, all my companions, simply disappeared from my life. The game of life is all about money and power. Some of them were even so-called leaders, honoured with titles like Chaudhry of the village, but being a Chaudhry is meaningless without also being a crook. Despite my ill health, I managed some thuggishness now and then. But those farmers didn’t manage too well. Some thirty years passed.

I left my job and moved to the US, but college days remained etched in my memory. Gujrat had turned into a graveyard where my youth lay buried. Lahore swallowed up everyone. And from Lahore I made my way to the US. The United States – a place filled with endless worry and anxiety, in which everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. The bright lights and women added some colour, but there was no time to look up.

One day, in the midst of all this, a man caught my eye. A partner in misery, he was staring at the ground. He was wearing glasses and sat slightly hunched, but I recognised that jawline of chiseled iron and the long nose sticking out. “Ahsan Sahab!” I called out. He looked up but his face showed no emotion. “I am Nadir Ali, from Dharekan!” I said.

“What fix have you gotten yourself into?” he asked. No greeting, no salam. What sort of a question was this? He shook my hand without enthusiasm and patted my back. “Managed to find any work?” he asked. I had addressed him as Sahab out of respect for my kabbadi hero. But this man was bent on remaining distant.

“Yes, I did, by the grace of Allah,” I replied mechanically.

“The grace of God does not make it to distant places like New York. It has yet to reach me,” he went on.

“What’s the matter Ahsan Sahab? Is everything alright? Are you well?” I asked.

“The night refuses to end!” he said. “Earlier, I worked a night shift. Now I work at a store at the bottom of a skyscraper. By the time sunlight makes it to the ground, it is evening.” His eyes, full of sadness, seemed to be longing for the sun just then.

“We are in a foreign land, Ahsan Sahab!” I said, acting all mature suddenly.

“Well, it is not like Pakistan is our father’s estate either!” he replied. He got off at the 34th Street station in midtown. I was free and decided to accompany him. He was carrying some stuff for the store, and I gave him a hand. It was not a long walk.

We both stood outside the store. The owner hadn’t yet arrived. Ahsan took out a hash-filled cigarette and lit it. “You didn’t smoke back then!” I commented, trying to put him at ease.

“It’s not like I play kabbadi anymore!” he said and smiled sweetly at last. He didn’t seem to be doing too well. He didn’t ask about Gujrat, and I didn’t bring it up. “I get off at six in the evening. Stop by if you are free,” he said, extending some warmth for the first time.

I returned at a little before six that evening and noticed that he smiled again. It was faint, yet for me that smile was worth a million. “Like the road to my village, like the path that leads me home”– words from one of my poems came to mind. He took me to a bar. “Two whiskeys!” he called out and presented cash at the bar as was New York’s custom. He sat silent. He had always been on the quiet side. But we were both comfortable in our silence.

A few drinks later, I noticed a slight sparkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I felt intoxicated. “Brother, I should stop now,” I said, “I have exceeded my quota.” Once we were outside, I blurted out, “Ahsan Sahab, I write poetry.” What a thing to say! I noticed the moon was visible in the sky. “I have never been able to see the moon in New York before! How did it manage to survive the rough and tumble and make it up there tonight? Good lord, the memories!”

Ahsan Sahab benevolently prodded me — “What are you remembering?”

 “You are the moon, Ahsan Sahab! Somehow, God made you appear tonight.”

“But this is the waning moon, Chaudhry!” he replied, sighing deeply.

Two weeks later, he was dead. Someone at the mosque mentioned that they were raising funds to return the dead body to Pakistan. Words tumbled out of my mouth as I helped lift the coffin for the journey. “He was worth his weight in gold!”

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[1] Traditional contact sport of Punjab. Players “raid” the opponent’s territory and tag or touch opponents and then attempt to make it back. The defending team tries to stop the player from returning.

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This story is a translation of Nadir Ali’s short story, first published in a collection titled Kahani Paraga , published by Suchet Kitab Ghar in 2004 in Lahore.

Nadir Ali (1936-2020) was a Punjabi poet and short story writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Waris Shah Award for his collection Kahani Praga. Coming late to writing, particularly fiction, Nadir Ali is credited with spearheading a unique style, blurring the boundaries between significant and petty, artistic and ordinary, primarily due to his preference for and command over the chaste central dialect understood by the majority of Punjabi speakers. He is also noted for writing and speaking about his experiences as an army officer posted in East Pakistan at the height of the 1971 war.

Amna Ali is Nadir Ali’s daughter.  She translated a selection of Nadir Ali’s short stories into English in collaboration with Moazzam Sheikh. The translations were published by Weavers Press in USA in a book titled Hero and Other Stories in 2022. She is a librarian and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.

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