Migration is tough, littered with blank memories and a bleak future. It’s not something you ever hope to do.
Yet, you find yourself standing in a long queue, with a tiny bundle in hand, despairing to do or not to do? Fleeing a country that you naively thought yours. Stepping on a country that you know nothing about. That would never accept you as her own. Non-belonging is not a breezy concept, a topical topic in a critical theory. It’s an unnerving parable of human condition that no human ever yearns for.
You shudder, clasping the tiny bundle, containing your entire household, your sixteen years of life. Behind you, in a burnt house of a burnt village, your parents, your old grandmother and your two young siblings buried under the ideological beliefs of the state. Too complicated to grasp. Too easy to elude. “They don’t want you”— a clear and loud message the government sent to your people through army, arson, and atrocity.
Where is God? Your silly query swirls in the smoky air of a plundered village where dead people shrouded beneath dead humanity.
Tears fall on the tiny bundle, too small to carry so much misery. How can you leave your home where every dusty road is filled with memories, stories and songs? Where once a young man presented you a handwritten poem and a lotus flower. Where is he now? Dead or alive? Will he search for you?
The long queue gets smaller, some move forward, a few cries looking back at the village while boarding the boat.
Your turn.
They ask for money.
A gold chain, a few coins, a nose pin?
You have none.
Yet, the duo, one boatman and a middleman let you in. They have other means to usurp the debt.
You are crammed between a family with five children, an old woman with acne and a little boy with a broken toy. There are others, men, women, children—your people—hunched and twisted in a small, shabby boat in silence.
Hours after hours, you travel in an opaque night under a livid moon. The endless sea stretches endlessly. What is the name of the sea? No one knows. Your people are poor farmers, illiterate housewives. None of you have ever read history, geography or geology. Ever stood in front of the Taj Mahal or saw any of the seven wonders. You have no idea of its existence. How would you know the glow of the sea is called sea sparkle? How would you grasp that it’s not magic but the phosphorescent waves lighting up the night?
Soon, you and your people would reach a new place. A new country with fresh troubles. Maybe, a new hell. Yet, each of you pray earnestly to reach there safely and soundly. You have no desire to be part of the global headlines. To be found lying face-down on some unknown beach.
All you want is a new home. To build new dreams.
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Marzia Rahman is a Bangladeshi writer. Her writings have appeared in several print and online journals. She is currently working on a novella. She is also a painter.This story was first featured in the Writing Places Anthology.
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Harshavardhini sat on the swing, like a still, motionless figure. The birds were still around, for it was not too late in the evening. After the revelry and the din of an entire day spent in the Disney Land, Harshavardhini needed the quiet space of this community park at Irvine, California. Her friends pulled her into one last trip to Disney Land before she would leave for Delhi. She spent the day taking thrilling rides, watching shows, shaking hands with a friendly Mickey Mouse, eating endlessly, winning games and losing, all the time looking at things through the eyes of her children. She longed for their company. They would’ve doubled her joy.
Perched on the swing, she looked at the children playing around in the park under the watchful eyes of their parents. On the lanes around the edge of the park, people were walking briskly, some were jogging on a steady pace. Harshi, as she was called by most of her family and friends, counted the remaining days she had in Irvine, before she would take her flight back to home in Delhi in four days from now. I should come to this park again before I leave, she told herself, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts about tidying up the apartment before handing it over, packing clothes, books, and things from the final shopping trip.
She would miss Susan Green, who had not only enrolled for the same course, but also shared Harshi’s nice apartment on the campus. Susan offered to share the rent and both of them could put the money saved to good use. They each had a room of their own and met only in the living room, the kitchen and dining room in that comfortable, sunny and spacious two-bedroom apartment. Sure enough, Susan spelt her name as Hershey, after the famous chocolate in the US and justified it by saying it sounds much the same as ‘Harshi’. She became Hershey to everybody else in her course, including the professors. It was a happy surprise to find that Susan was equally earnest in giving her full focus to this rare course on Hermeneutics for which the university had hand-picked a galaxy of faculty from the rest of the US – some of the best minds from Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Yale and Chicago and a culturally diverse bunch of participants both overseas and American, whose paper publications were the main criteria for selection.
Before the program started, Susan, Harshi and the others were in awe of the professors and their fame. All of them were star academics whose books they had read and admired in print, and who had influenced their methods of teaching and thinking. Now they were going to see them in flesh and hear them. What would they look like? And their voice, would it touch them?
The professors arrived like a proverbial breath of fresh air and put them through a breathless pace of course work. Susan, Harshi and most of the others loved it, every moment of it.
Harshi bought some of the books written by these academics, got them inscribed by the authors and sent them home by surface mail, as most of the books were heavy, hard back editions. It was unlikely that she would find them in the book shops in Delhi. Now she was left with only a few light paperbacks to pack along with her clothes and the shopping she had done for Siddharth, her husband, and their children. She was anxious to return home and relieve him of all the additional work he had taken on. It was so brave of him to take care of their kids and home in her absence.
If only her mother had been around, she would’ve been the first one to reach their home to take complete charge of running the house and managing the kids who got along with her very well. But Amma left this world and for the first time in their lives, Siddharth and Harshi had to manage their travels out of the country and other professional contingencies without her. It was tough. As they struggled hard to cope with their work, their home and kids, they realized how much Amma had taken upon herself selflessly, to let the two of them function smoothly and peacefully. Harshi couldn’t have got her Ph.D., made some career moves, pursued creative writing and taken Indian writing to other parts of the world without her. Thanks to Amma, both Siddharth and Harshi could be away from home with a sense of security that their children were looked after by their doting grandmother.
Now, there was the reality of the next few days. The apartment had to be thoroughly cleaned before she handed it over, and there was the packing.
Let me not think of that, let me just listen to the restful sounds of this evening, thought Harshi, closing her eyes. She continued to sit still on the swing when she heard a faint buzz near her face. Oh God, that was probably a honeybee! It would surely sting! Slowly, she opened her eyes to avert the bee. It was a hummingbird fluttering its delicate wings that had caused the sustained drone. It now hovered very close to her face, almost making eye contact with her. It can’tharm me, I’m wearing my specs, so that’ll protect my eyes.Rather, I shouldn’t harm this darling little bird by my hard stare. Let me just pretend that it’s not there, even though it’s hovering near my nose now. Let me not scare it away by my jerky movements. I’ll sit absolutely still and just listen.
Harshi froze like a statue. This dainty little bird with tiny feet, it doesn’t seem to sit anywhere to rest, but just hovers around so joyfully. It’s blowing gusts of happiness on my face with its small wings. It’s telling me something.
She closed her eyes to absorb the beauty of the moment. It was only in California that she got to see the famed humming birds. It was also interesting to read about them. She recalled a legend that was wrapped around this bird. The lines came across as sheer poetry!
Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.
Slowly, Harshi opened her eyes. The bird flew away from her, made a large arc to hover over the flowering plants nearby, and then returned to circle around her face. It moved close to her ears and was saying something with its flapping wings. Harshi nodded.
I know, little bird. I know you’re my Amma who has come back from the otherworld to talk to me for a while,’ whispered Harshi, her eyes going moist. Amma, I know this is you, flapping within the tender little body of this humming bird.Yes, I hear you clearly. You’re my fragile, underweight Amma with innumerable health issues that were unmatched with your immense reserves of strength.
“A hummingbird being small, it’s logical that its egg is also small, it’s just the size of a pea,” said an article in National Geographic. But Amma, to everybody’s shock, you gave birth to me, an overweight baby, 4 kg. 536 gms (10 lbs.) at birth, instead of the usual 3 kg. 175 gms (which is 7 lbs.)! The doctors and the family found it miraculous that a thin, emaciated, undernourished, underweight young woman like you, who never kept well for long, would deliver a baby like me. You told me that the newborn baby dresses that were made for me wouldn’t fit, that new dresses were ordered and that there was a permanent mark of black kohl on my left cheek close to my ear that my grandma had applied, to remove kann drishti.
You raised me without a nanny, although I gave you a tough time. I was naughty, adventurous, but you saw me through all that and more, and those were my foraysinto sports and athletics. You never once forgot to alert me that I shouldn’t slacken in my studies. Your frequent spells of illness, your inability to eat, or retain anything you eat, cast a shadow on our lives. You continued to lose weight, yet your unconditional love for me and for your family throbbed on your little feathered bird breast.
You gave me a baby brother at great cost to your life and health. The doctors were amazed to note your high pain threshold. My grandparents were furious that you should have risked your life with another pregnancy, but you pacified them by saying your husband and in-laws craved for a male child.
When the doctors diagnosed a serious malfunction in your small intestine, you had to go through a surgery. I was in primary school then. I would rush to the hospital as soon as I returned from school and you sat up on bed to butter those long, crisp golden hued imported biscuits for me to eat. Eyes shining, you would ask me about my day and if I had played games after school. As if on cue, you would apply butter on one more crisp biscuit and put it on my plate…and one more… until I couldn’t eat any more.
Post- surgery, the doctors put you on a liquid diet that was to continue for the next fifteen years! Naturally, you lost more weight and became this frail packet of indefatigable energy, love and selflessness that astonished all of us. Still, there were some cruel people in our extended family who took you for granted. I seethed with anger, one of the many other spells of anger I was to experience as a growing girl child. Later, I had to learn a lot about anger management, as did my friends. Some of my anger was directed against you as well. “You’ve internalised patriarchy and that’s regressive!” I would argue hotly, while you looked bewildered by my feminist pedagogy, a new burden I carry now, along with my peers. We fought over issues, like mothers and daughters do, until I realised that you too were quietly evolving as a clever feminist-in-the-making, unbeknownst to the family. Wisely, you didn’t squander any feminist vocabulary on the resistant family. Instead, you used strategies to grow your wings independently, right under their nose!
What blossomed through all these travails was your stunning talent for painting. You were a natural! Noting this, my grandfather enrolled you in a professional course on painting in a Fine Arts College. He ordered for the branded imported paints, Windsor & Newton, specially flown all the way from England. Their superior quality glows till date in the rich tints behind the glass of your framed paintings. While your diet was liquid, your output was solid. In a prolific abundance, you did landscapes, still-life, thematic triptych and portraits that won accolade from your teachers and art critics for their intuitive depth. The water colours, charcoal sketches and oil on canvas drew the attention of visitors in art galleries. Your high point was portrait. You were counted as one of the best artists for your haunting portraits of well- known personalities such as Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahans, his consort Sarada Devi and the lovely Shobhana Samarth. As for Mahatma Gandhi, commissions rained on you for painting his portraits. Art critics were quick to observe that you excelled especially in portraits of elderly people, and made the wrinkles on their face speak eloquently of all they had endured in life. Portraits became your unique selling proposition. To everybody’s utter surprise, you chose to paint me. Why me, a mere frisky ten-year old, an odd misfit in this gallery of ‘the famous’? I sat for you, thrilled beyond belief, while you chided me for fidgeting on my chair. When an artist, a scion of the Tagore family visited our home to buy two of your paintings, you sat demurely in a far corner with a shy smile on your face, and let my father completely monopolise the conversation with the distinguished gentleman.
Amma, you were here, there, everywhere, flying around, looking after us and the large extended family selflessly. You were like seven women put together. And when you left, all seven of you went out of our lives on a single day. The world around me shrank to a miserable little size. Something vital went out of my life. And now Amma, you’re back in the body of this small hummingbird that just doesn’t let me go out of its orbit. Like this bird with its tiny legs, you with your small fragile frame, were a strong woman. Ephemeral, yet eternal. You float on time, so I will always wait for you. You’ll come when I need you, I know. You’re untrammeled by body mass or messy emotions that weigh us down. You lived life the simple way – with love, joy, service and acceptance.
The bird hummed on near Harshi’s ears.
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Glossary kann dhrishti An Indian belief that one can remove ‘the malevolent eye’ of people by applying a black spot with kohl on the face of a healthy child.
kohl: Dark substance that people apply around their eyes to make them look attractive.
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Lakshmi Kannan,also known by her Tamil pen-name “Kaaveri”, has published twenty-five books till date that include poems, novels, short stories and translations. Wooden Cow (Translation, 2021) Sipping the Jasmine Moon: Poems (2019) and The Glass BeadCurtain, Novel (2020, c 2016) are her recent publications. For more details, please visit www.lakshmikannan.in
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“Go, go, go, go, go! What are you waiting for?” yelled the man sitting in the passenger’s seat. I was at the wheel wondering if it was my turn, or if I should allow the car coming from my left to go forward. At his urging, I plunged forward and turned left. Murad shook his head in frustration and spoke with his thick Russian accent, “You are thoo afraid. Why are you so afraid? What dho you think will happen, huh? If you dhrive like that, you will never go anywhere.”
Murad was my driving instructor. He was a great fellow, full of fun and humour. He was quite motivating and without a doubt, an excellent driver too. Unfortunately, I am an awful learner and possibly also the worst pupil he had ever had to teach driving. I busted one of the front tires of my best friend’s car the very first day I dared to be out in the streets. I sat behind the wheel for the first time in my life in August 2015. I was as nervous and frisky as a kitten and the instructor from the Driving School in Newton made me drive around a parking lot. He suggested that I practice at the parking lot with a friend, and preferably in some streets with less traffic before signing up for my next session.
I did as he had suggested, but only in the parking lot. My best friend and housemate, Nausheen, was terrified of my driving skills, and naturally, did not dare to accompany me in the streets!
My second session was with Murad. He was a little late, and came cursing under his breath. Apparently, he got the wrong address from the driving school, and realised the mistake only after calling me. I still remember him not only as a great instructor, but a great entertainer as well. He was in his mid-fifties, good looking and in very good shape. He also talked incessantly. Every time I made some blunder, he yelled in a good-natured way.
“Next time, I will bring my shoth gun,” he told me once, after I made a frantic turn ignoring all other drivers on the road amidst a jumble of hooting and honking. “I can shoot all those people down, and you won’t have to worry about running them down, you know,” he said grinning.
“You have a shot gun!” I gasped. “What do you do with a shot gun?”
He was nonchalant. “I’m a licensed fire arms instructor.”
“Fire arms instructor?” I blanched and stepped on the gas paddle instead of the brake. Murad quickly pressed on his safety brake and tsked, “Don’t do that. Take it easy. You have to learn to converse while driving.”
He guided me to a rather quiet area in West Newton. I was driving very slowly, and cautiously. Murad suddenly coughed and asked, “What’s the speed limit?”
“Er…thirty-five.”
“What’s your speed?”
“Twenty,” I replied sheepishly.
“It’s like riding a donkey, you know,” he held out both his hands in front of him as if he held the reins of a donkey. Something told me that he had ridden on donkeys too.
*
After two successive sessions with Murad, I found myself with Arthur, a veteran from the Vietnam War. Retired and in his early sixties, he had the airs of a consummate playboy. He was not bad, I suppose. I would probably have fallen for him if I was a teenager. Arthur would flirt and praise how pretty I was. So, at one point I said a little too sweetly, “But I’m an awful driver, don’t you think?”
Poor Arthur looked flabbergasted. He belched, and then admitted that I was not the best driver in the world. Satisfied, I switched the topic to Murad, saying that I really liked his techniques. As you can probably guess, Arthur immediately turned around in his seat. “Yeah?” he peered over his sunglasses and asked, “And why is that? What’s so great about Murad? He’s shell shocked; I hope you knew that?”
“Is that so?” I glanced sideways, as I was driving through an intricate intersection. The drivers of Massachusetts are awful; little wonder that the people of the neighboring states were terrified of them. Perhaps, just because of that reason I would get my driving license in the long run, I tried to convince myself.
“Murad had worked with the Talibans at one point of his career,” said Arthur.
I gulped and exclaimed, “Talibans! You are not serious, are you?”
“I wouldn’t joke about something like that,” replied Arthur very casually. “He used to work as a spy for the American Government. He is originally from Turkmenistan, you know. And he is fluent in six languages. So, yes, he was the perfect man to be recruited.” He paused dramatically and added, “I guess at some point they suspected his secret and hence tried to cut his throat and left him for dead.”
I gulped again.
*
When I told Nausheen and the rest of our housemates about Murad, they were all shaking uncontrollably. Nausheen was noncommittal, “No! This is unheard of! He was really with the Taliban? I have to see this guy!”
So, there she was standing with me the next day as I waited for Murad to show up. He looked at Nausheen carefully and he asked, “Have you seen her drive? Do you trust her with your life?”
Nausheen laughed, “I don’t trust her. But I trust you! Surely you won’t let her do anything so drastic?”
Nausheen can be absolutely adorable, and Murad melted. “Hop in,” he yelled. “It will be fun.”
After passing through the busy traffic of Newton I asked him, “Hey, I heard that you worked with the Taliban. Is it true?”
He turned his bright eyes on me and lifted his left hand drawing my attention to his middle finger.
“You see this moonstone?” he asked, displaying a ring with a yellowish stone. “The Taliban gave it to me. I stayed and prayed with them for three entire years. Crazy fanatics. I almost died.”
“It’s true then, that they tried to slit your throat?” I asked horrified.
Murad shrugged. “Nah, I was not referring to that. I almost died because there was no woman.” And then he shouted, “Look where you’re going. Eeks, you’re something out of this world! But yes, if I have you driving with me, I won’t need to go for parachute jumping any more. I have already given up my morning coffee!”
“You go for parachute jumping?” I asked wide-eyed. What an interesting fellow indeed! Nausheen exclaimed “Wow!” And we both asked at once, “Why do you go for parachute jumping?”
He nodded. “Life has become so boring! I need adrenaline rush. But yes, with you, it almost seems like I am in the middle of a battle field. God knows when and where you’ll turn next. . . Look where you’re going! That’s a grandmamma! She will kill you if you scratch her car.”
I blushed. And at the back seat I could hear Nausheen laughing her head off. He was so blunt, and yet he was great company. He kept on shaking his head, “Please don’t make that kind of a turn. I’m not so young any more. I might break my neck. My wife is 25 years younger than me. Do you know what will happen, if I break my neck?”
I just stared at him. Why in the world would he have a wife who is 25 years younger than him?
“I will have to divorce her,” Murad confided. I wondered why. Then I hit the brakes again. Hell, this man was outrageous!
*
In the evening, Elizabeth, our favorite housemate asked, “So, this Murad—is he as amazing as Sohana made him sound?”
We were all in the kitchen and I had tilapia and asparagus baking in the oven. Nausheen said gleefully, “One hundred percent and more. I think I will go with them on the next session too. I have never met anyone like him. My driving instructor was great, but this guy is just CRAZY! All Sohana’s karma,” she winked at me. “I don’t know how she comes to meet all the crazy and entertaining people.”
Elizabeth shook her head and smiled, “So what did Murad do today?”
I listened half-smiling as Nausheen went on regaling our friends with Murad and his outrageous comments.
“You know, now I know why Gary never listens to us,” she said laughing. Gary was another housemate, loud and raucous. During our house meetings his behavior was irritating and sometimes disruptive.
“And why is that?” Asked Lizzy.
“Because he is an arborist. He works with those noisy instruments, and has lost his hearing. His ear-pipes are jammed and he can’t hear anybody else.”
By now my tilapia fillets were ready. I pulled the baked fish and veggies out and announced, “Dinner is ready. And yes, that’s what Murad said: ‘keep away from those guys with big machines in hand. They never listen to your honking because they are making too much noise themselves.’” I paused and added with a mischievous wink, “He also advised to keep away from grandmamas. Apparently, they are the worst drivers.”
Donna, another sweet lady who lived on the second floor, was chopping her root vegetables on a table at one corner of the kitchen. Both Elizabeth and Donna were in their mid to late sixties. Both replied hastily, “well, we are not grandmas yet.”
Nausheen and I grinned. It seemed everybody wanted to be in Murad’s good books.
*
The day of the road-test was approaching. I was nervous. To make things worse, Murad was gone. He had left for home in Turkmenistan to visit his elderly mother and children from a previous marriage. I was working with another instructor. To be honest, he was not bad at all; did the usual drilling and practices. But as I got down from the car one day, I felt sad and down. I realized that I missed Murad. Being away from home and country was taking its toll. He was supposed to be back two days before the test. But he wasn’t.
On the morning of the driving test, I suddenly realised that even if I failed the test, it did not matter. Murad had taught me something vital, much more important than driving a car. He has actually shown me how to go on with life, to enjoy it to the fullest, regardless of all that is negative. Driving an automobile is only one little particle in this vast line called life.
I looked at the mirror, at the surprised face staring back at me. I smiled. Finally, I was ready.
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Sohana Manzoor teaches English in the Department of English, ULAB. She is also the literary editor at The Daily Star. This is a revised version of another publication in the Dhaka Tribune in 2017.
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Nilufar was overjoyed. Finally, sitting in front of the piano she was able to play the sonata of her favourite composer without a score and without making a mistake anywhere. She was excited as she had not been able to master it for weeks, and no matter how hard she tried, her efforts were in vain. In the end, her relentless and hard work paid off, lo and behold.
Now she could easily perform Rakhmaninov’s famous “re-minor” sonata in a long-waited first concert program without a score. She felt very happy. Sometimes she would go to her red piano, sometimes she would stare at the picture of composers hanging on the walls of the room and she would walk back and forth. She even wanted to dance on tiptoe like a ballerina. But she was ashamed and changed her mind. If her twins had been there, no doubt she would have embraced them, kissed their faces, and shared her joy with them. Unfortunately, they were in a boarding school. They would come during the weekend.
She wanted to share her joy with someone while she was preparing dinner. She could not contain it. That’s probably why she often glanced at the black telephone set on the shelf in the hallway. After a while she went to the phone. She picked it up and dialed the required numbers. Then the connection was restored, and a familiar voice was heard from the receiver.
“I’m in a meeting.”
“Are you coming home early today?” she said, not caring that her husband was at the meeting.
“What’s up?” her husband asked in surprise.
“Everything is good,” she continued. “If you come, I will tell you. I have a wonderful surprise.”
“Okay, I will come.”
Her husband’s voice stopped. She assumed the connection was lost. Although she was a little upset that the connection was lost, she dwelt on her success again and was in a good mood. She smiled contentedly as she looked in the hanging mirror in the hallway.
Nothing and no one could hurt her at the moment. Because she felt she had achieved a huge success for herself. To that day, she could only perform Beethoven’s sonata dedicated to Eliza, Brahms’ waltzes, and two or three of Chopin’s small nocturnes without score. But they were short musical compositions that any amateur pianist could perform. They did not require extra training or talent. Rakhmaninov’s sonata, on the other hand, was longer and more complex structurally. If these two elements was neglected, it would confuse the performer and force her to make a mistake, even when performed with a score.
“What’s the matter?” her husband said.
He had fulfilled his promise and returned early from work. Nilufar saw him and applauded with joy.
She was imagining that on the day of the concert she would be beautifully dressed and with a bouquet in her hands. This dream would soon come true too, she thought. She gently took her husband’s hand and walked towards the room where the piano was waiting. She entered the room and pushed the brown chair close to the piano. She asked her husband to sit on it. Her husband, who didn’t understand anything, sat helplessly in the chair. She stopped in front of the piano.
“I will play Rakhmaninov’s “re-minor” sonata without a score,” she said, sitting in a chair. “Listen carefully!”
She pointed her index finger at her husband like a child, her cheeks flushed with excitement. Then she put her finger in front of her nose and jokingly said “tss” to her husband. Then she began to play the sonata without a score. The mystery of music, which for centuries had shaken the human heart, comforted her and made her happy, embodied her pure love and painful hatred. The notes spread quietly through the room. This time the melody embodied the memories of the past in the human heart. The sonata always reminded her of her childhood. When she was a student at the conservatory, she was included in her personal program in various competitions. She remembered her all those performances during her childhood. It was the same a while ago and yesterday. It is the same now.
She would move her long and slender fingers over the black and white keys and play it flat. And sweet memories of a distant carefree and happy childhood wafted into her mind. Wrapping a white handkerchief around her mother’s forehead and baking hot bread in the oven, her heart sank for a moment as a prelude to memories. As a child, her mother always baked bread in the oven on Sundays. She was carrying a basket that was bigger than she was, and she couldn’t move anywhere near it. After the loaves were toasted and swollen, her mother would cut them up and throw them in the basket. And she would spread them out to make the bread cool faster. In the meantime, Nilufar would put cake bits in the pocket of her jacket. After that, she would enjoy eating these leaning on the apricot tree.
When the sonata reached halfway, the memories became more vivid. Lo and behold, she was tapping on the rotten wire in the street. She was small, like a squirrel. Her hair was blonde. Even then, everyone called her “blonde”. She was counting numbers non-stop, and her friends were hiding. After a while, she was looking for them everywhere. “Berkinmachoq,”* she sighed, her hands, which were constantly moving on the keys, suddenly weakened.
On summer days, she would not come from the street, ignoring the cherries hung by her father on her ears, and waving her hair, which was braided like willow twigs by her mother. She was much more playful.
If it snowed in the winter, it would be a holiday for her. She would make a Father Christmas with the kids in the middle of the street or play snowballs with endless fun. She would be on the sledge her father had brought her until the evening.
Not long after, she went to her uncle’s shop. He sold nisholda*. As a child, during the months of Ramadan, that uncle would always fill her bowl with nisholda . By the time she got home, she was licking the top of the nisholda with her finger. She would have a dirty doll in her arms and shoes with water on her feet.
“It would have been so sweet the nisholda,” she said casually. Then she recalled the days when she would go into every house with the children on the streets on the evenings of the holy month and sing the song of Ramadan.
We have come to your home saying Ramadan,
May God give you a son in your cradle...
They would sing that song. The song was long. Unfortunately, she only remembered the beginning. That’s how it would start. They would say it together with the children. Boys and girls sang Ramadan songs in unison, holding a long tablecloth from the corners, spreading it to collect money, sometimes sweets, fruits given by neighbours. The tablecloth was soon filled with what they had given. Then, sitting on a rock at the corner of the street, the children would evenly share the gifts. She often got apple and chocolate chip cookies. The coins were taken by boys.
Tears welled up in her eyes as the sonata was ending. The tears were for her childhood had that been left behind the parents who had died. Her bereavement was recent.
The sonata made her nostalgic and that is why she felt the need to master it. She had been performing this sonata a lot lately and with passion because she missed her childhood. This was also the reason why she decided to give a concert as a freelance artist. Probably, Sergei Rakhmaninov also missed his childhood in the United States during his years in exile. This is why he performed this sonata many times on tours in American cities and received applause. He deserved recognition. She looked at her husband questioningly after playing the sonata. There was a question in her eyes. The question was not “Did I perform well?” But, “Did you remember your childhood, too?” She also wanted to tell him about her forthcoming concert at the city’s House of Culture. Her husband was ignoring her. There was no interest in his eyes. Maybe, he was anxious or thinking of his own past.
“I play the sonata without a score,” she said with an open face because her husband didn’t speak. “I wanted to tell you that. I also wanted to say that next week will be my first concert in the House of Culture.”
Hearing her words, her husband stood up like a man in despair. He came to her, scratching his forehead and loosening his tie.
“I hate that habit,” he said, pressing the piano keys once or twice as if for amusement. “You always bother me for trivial things. For instance, I will not be able to attend the presentation of our new product tonight. I’m missing such an important event just to satisfy your whim!”
Nilufar sighed and bit her lips hard. She whispered as “I wish they were bleeding”, she didn’t want to let go of her lips between her teeth. Then she laughed sarcastically in her head and closed the piano indifferently. Her hands and red lips trembled. Her husband shook his head when he saw that she was silent and walked towards the door.
“By the way,” he said as he walked out of the door. “I have to go in the morning tomorrow. There will be a wedding at our general manager’s house. So, iron my gray suit. It has been on the shelf for a long time without being worn. It may be wrinkled.”
Involuntarily, Nilufar looked at her husband sadly. There was no trace of the joy that had filled her heart. She did not want to get up, she could not move at all, She felt as if a stone were tied to her legs.
“I’ll iron it until you’re done eating,” she said in a broken voice.
She tried not to hear the sounds ringing in her ears. But it was useless. The happy, spotless, and carefree voices of herself and the children, which had remained under her ear as a child, did not go away.
We have come to your home saying Ramadan,
May God give you a son in your cradle...
Glossary:
*Berkinmachoq: the game of hide & seek
*Nisholda: a sweet made in the month of Ramadan
Sherzod Artikov is from Marghilan of Uzbekistan. He was one of the winners of the national literary contest in 2019. In 2020, he published The Autumn’s Symphony in Uzbekistan. His book was translated to Spanish and English and republished in Cuba. His writing has been translated and published in anthologies from Bangladesh, Egypt, India and Canada.
Nigora Muhammad is from Namangan city of Uzbekistan. She studies at Namangan State University.
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The gears shifted and the spacecraft rose, then hovered. It was well-known that the most dangerous parts of space travel were the take-offs and landings. Eva adjusted her seat belt and stared at the window opposite, ignoring the rest of the crew strapped in all around her. She could still see the green of the secondary forests and the long winding brown of the Sarawak River. The settlements were tiny but linked by the roads and the zig zag of the aerial highways, human activity stretched out for as far as she could see. This was the reason after all, for the journey.
When she woke in the morning, Eva’s eyes were crusty with tears that had seeped down her cheeks. She didn’t have to look in the mirror to know that her eyes were puffy; her head was pounding as if she were suffering from space travel sickness. Her nose was blocked, and she breathed in deeply through her mouth. She felt like she had just emerged from a swim in the sludge of the Sarawak River with a crocodile on her heels.
The news screen by her bed was still on and she saw that the newscasters in their speech bubbles were continuing to wax eloquently over the return of the latest Space Shuttle to the landing station near Mount Santubong.
“Good morning, Sarawak! And how is everyone this fine day in the Land of the Hornbills?” called out the one-time state athlete turned newscaster.
“Wishing you fresh air and a healthy morning, this wonderful Malaysia Day!” chimed in his partner with her long black tresses and chirpy, lilting voice and endless smile.
Eva closed her eyes. She could see the crew, feel the wobble as the spacecraft hovered. But that was in the simulation. The training had gone well, until just before they were to board and take off for the future, for the New World. Every one of the crew had been given the antigen test. The tickle in her throat that morning and not being able to taste her breakfast – the warning signs had been clear, but she had tried to ignore them. But now, she could not ignore the two lines that had formed on her test kit.
“Sorry, Eva,” the team’s doctor had told her as he signed the form that grounded her to the Earth. The dimpled Ai-Lyn with her buffed up physique and genius IQ had taken her place.
Who would have known that fate was to deal her – simple, hard-working Eva – such a hand?
That wobble, that slight hesitation, the look on the faces of the crew. All these were etched in her mind. Eva had trained with the crew, been on multiple simulations preparing for the real take-off and for the real life on the Spacecraft Endeavour and for the real life that awaited on the newly discovered Planet with Two Moons.
In her dreams, she replayed the scenes, but always, always she woke before the moment when the spacecraft disappeared from the plotted flight path and when there was just silence instead of cheerful voices on the communication channels.
Like the mysterious MH370, the Spacecraft Endeavour had disappeared like a brilliant comet flaring and then blanking out in the night sky.
Eva got out of bed.
She wasn’t sure, but in her dreams, she had known that something had changed.
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Christina Yin is a lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus. Her fiction and nonfiction writing have appeared in Anak Sastra, e-Tropic, New Writing and TEXT Journal, among others.
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These weren’t the first rains. When did it rain first on Earth? The simple lines that the black-eyed girl could speak to herself was “it drizzles in August and rains in September”. It was less intricate to hide that big mole on her left arm, bulging out and eyeing the clouds, just like the notorious seven-year-old herself, prodding Mumma’s palms, for the ‘last’ mud roll!
She knew that mud roll wasn’t the last one. Childlike pleasures were more pleasurable when forbidden. And she knew that wasn’t a mole but a birthmark. Her parents never taught her how to make boats, how to jump on a puddle and splash mud water on the handsome red sports car. The sports car owner complained but he saved his paan (betel leaf) spitting stories inside the car itself. Years after the same car would be emitting flashes and sparks in a car repairing stores.
She visited the car repair store while it was raining heavily outside. The poorly shackled asbestos had non-stop tip-tip drips of rain water. Her nicely blow-dried hair had rolled into a big round bun, with humid drops of sweat all around her face. As she waited, she remembered …girls are meant to mend into difficulties — reiterated by the puckered smiles of her granny.
True, she thought for a while. The repair store had flashes erupting when a man with blue uniform welded a jagged piece of metal. For a while, she stepped on a dirty plastic cover, with rain water out of fear. The lightning streaked into the shop perhaps. Suddenly the sky turned violet and thunder swept through the black clouds. She saw a few girls, with knotted frocks and skirts, playing in a rainwater puddle. Running boats, moulding the clay, patting a frog.
“My parents never taught me what are rains…” she spoke to herself with audacity. All they taught was how to search for candles for that ‘Great Indian power cut’ or wear rain coats when your bus stop is still far away. What do parents teach children, to be a child lock in this big world?
Those two hours inside the store was a medley of sweat, flashes and the never-ending rain. The girls had watches with them, they looked at it and walked straight like a flock of birds assembled in an ant’s kingdom. Their line was like the one in her school assembly. They walked off and were suddenly lost to view.
She took out her scooter keys, as if she was heading out for a mission. She got some hair clips on the way. She found a big hostel, gated in front of a boarding school. She had run away as one escapes from an exploding crater of a volcano. She ran away from boarding school this way, ten years before.
She wove stories of her Granny’s ageing.
She had known by instinct when it rained. Rains were a product of water cycles; a learning from environmental science textbooks but she never knew that rains were deeply nuanced.
She touched her birthmark, now doubly bold in her diary and blogs as moles were also a product of staying at home and gazing at rains as if it were an intruder.
The next time it rained, she went out, wearing a pink kurta. The one she purchased during the Diwali Mela, a big maroon bindi from her mother’s dressing table and piece of paper from her sister’s classwork copy. She made boats, but ran inside when it started dashing on the green creepers. Her boat was floating.
Garima Mishra is a student pursuing her bachelors in microbial sciences in University of Delhi. She writes in English and Odia.
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The bus was rattling. The passengers in the bus were crying as they were frightened. Some of the passengers were making a last bid to make it to the entrance and jump out of the bus hurriedly. The seats and the extra bamboo stools of the bus that had been full were vacant. Perhaps, a few audacious passengers had already jumped off the bus. I could see only either weak and old people or the mothers with their babies on the seats. The bus was shaking like the earth during an earthquake and was running on the street like a drunkard.
I looked at the seat of the bus driver. It was vacant. I could easily guess that the driver must have jumped out of the window just as he realised that he could not avoid an accident. At that time, I had been fast asleep.
“I must do something. If one stays sans any measures even after one predicts the accident, it is nothing more than accepting death quietly,” said a voice within me. I got up quickly and trying to keep my balance. After accomplishing this initial feat, I had the illusion that I had pushed death a bit farther away. Then, I saw my wife’s face till now darkened with terror look towards me with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. She was trying to say something lying on one of the seats in the corner holding her hands around our only son’s head. But her words were entangled in her throat. Sometimes it is quite easy to understand the language of extreme crisis. I had already understood her language.
I had been awake till the time the bus crossed the Narayani River. And in my half sleep, I heard the bus conductor shouting ‘Arunkhola, Chormara’ and knocking at the door. When I woke up, I did not immediately realise where I was. That was not an urgent need either. The most important thing was to survive.
The old people in the bus were chanting the name of God. It felt as if the blood from their heads were making macabre, abstract images on the white piece of cloth that covered the front seat. The predicament of my wife was not an exception. The blood from the cut on her head was falling on the face of the eight-month-old son. Sensing the dreadful noise and the tragic condition of his mother, the baby was crying. He was crying in such a way that he was choked for quite a long time in between.
I took the baby from my wife with lightning speed. I patted him on his back. In a while, our son started to breath normally. This was a relief. But the bus was bouncing on the road like a frantic bull. It was like bull riding in sports channel where matadors try their level best to sit on the bull and continue seated if possible. It was not the time to think of a sport. But I did. Perhaps, I was meant to lie under the bull’s deadly hooves and see the last of the sun. I did not want that.
I held the baby tightly with one hand and walked to the door, supporting myself with the other seats or the rod over the gangway with the other hand. There were no obstacles to moving ahead as the capable ones had already jumped out of the bus, making it almost empty. Compromising with the potential risk, they landed safely.
The bus was moving forward downhill with the glass on the windows clinking. I bent down and had a flickering look at the road but there were no bends nearby. It was a hopeful sign in the time of disaster. A bus without a driver knows not how to turn with the bends.
Trying to maintain balance as much as possible, I reached close to the door and started to plan how I could jump off the bus safely. Through the door, I noticed a canal beside the road and on a little height, I could see a paddy field filled with crops. I thought of flinging the baby as far as the field.
The collage of unpleasant sounds made my mind go blank again. I postponed the task, but the bus that should have stopped was moving ahead downhill humming the song of death.
Managing to move one step closer to the door, I gazed at my son’s countenance. I could not figure out what would be more ruthless – to fling him out or to keep him with me. To my surprise, he was smiling looking at me. Probably he was telling me, “Dad I am not worrying about death because I am on the lap of the most reliable person in this world. Death cannot even touch me on this lap.”
My eyes were full of tears. I lost my self-confidence for the first time in my life and prayed to the Almighty, “Oh god! Please save my child. I cannot see anything around except darkness.” My instincts could sense the start of tragedy, the end, death. But I was struggling to prove that instinct was a lie. I completely abominated the pointlessness of the kiss of the death. The rising smile of my son like the full moon in pitch darkness filled my being with the light of energy. I wanted both of us to be safe.
Coincidently, the vehicles were not visible on both sides of the road. The arrival of any vehicles from any sides of the road in such a terrifying moment could only be break the thread of life from the passenger. The bus was speeding faster singing the monotonous song of the death.
Little further, a bridge and the bank of river could be seen. The overflowing water of the canal that flooded the road was a characteristic of the mid-rainy season. I stepped down on the last step at the door of the bus and prayed for a safe landing.
“I should jump off the bus before we reach to the bridge. There is no other alternative.” The voice echoed into my being and got lost somewhere. I wanted to evade death, jumping off the bus but it would be quite impossible to save the baby as the bus was speeding on the wide and blacktopped road. I again delayed. In no time, the bus reached near the bridge. The roaring flooded river below the bridge was flowing, whirling madly.
Clutching the baby to my chest where potential death reigned, I once again looked at the seat of the bus where my wife was crying and looking at me — as if with solicitation — along with the few remaining passengers. I could hardly read her face as the blood from her forehead blurred her expressions.
She would probably have said, “Go my dear husband. Please jump off the bus with our son and save him. For me, I can accept death in lieu of his life. Please don’t waste even a second to help me. Save our son.”
Or she could also have said, “Please try to save me as well my love. I long to see my son grow up.”
Reading these two possible emotions on the countenance of my wife, I comprehended that I was a selfish husband. I was perplexed with the thought. How had I dared to reach the door with the thought of jumping off the bus leaving her alone. Were our marriage vows about eternal togetherness an illusion? Perhaps, I thought of abandonment to save our son’s life. This thought gave me some solace. I felt pleased about being a selfless husband and a father even just before the last breath.
It was the third year of our marriage. Life had offered us some moments to celebrations. Most of the time, I had been busy teaching and managing our home. She was busy struggling with her married life, establishing a loving identity in her new world and becoming a mother –the best word in the world.
This had had an adverse effect on her studies. Last year she was pregnant, but she took the examination of her bachelor’s degree in Chennai in South India. Unfortunately, she failed one of the subjects. This is the common predicament of all the Nepali women.
This time, I was going to Chennai with her as she had to retake her exam. We were supposed to catch the train next morning. Her parents had been living long in Chennai where she went to university. Our families were originally from the same village in Nepal. We met in the village during their visit, became friends and we got married. I was planning to meet her relatives, enjoy the sea beach, leave mother and child there for few months and get back home. But the accident interrupted our plans on the first day of our long journey.
The bus slowed down as it crossed the bridge. I looked through the windscreen. The bus seemed to be moving uphill. I went back to my seat. I mumbled to myself, “Nothing can separate us.”
“Dying together is better than living alone.” I had a strong sense of determination. The bus started to go downhill again — slowly at first and then faster and faster. As the bus was losing balance, I remembered a sentence from an article on mountaineering — in mountaineering, descending is more dangerous than ascending. My heart said that I was very close to death along with the passengers. I almost died in my heart. But I was still alive in my mind. The mind functions till the last breath.
I was touching my son who was sitting quietly on my lap. I touched my wife and hugged her tightly. And I was ready to face potential death. Finding myself very close to the end of life, I wanted to wail.
There was a loud noise. The rest of the windows of the bus were totally smashed but the bus had stopped finally with a strong quake. For a couple of moments, time froze. We all went back to our seat. The bus had bumped on a big tree beside the road and halted. I kissed my son and wife on their foreheads.
That was not the last kiss of my life.
Bhupeen
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Bhupeen is an award-winning writer with three collections of poetry, an anthology of essays and a novel. His creations are widely published and known for witty turn of phrases. Bhupeen is one of the founders of the ‘Conservation Poetry Movement’.
Ishwor Kadel is a poet, teacher’s trainer and educator. His published works include Baya, a collection of poems, and Echoes, a novel. He is also a reputed translator.
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On a recent visit to London I was surprised to hear that there was going to be an international conference on “conflict continuation”. I would think that the goal would be “conflict resolution”. An acquaintance of mine from the university in Bloomsbury said he could arrange an interview with the largely incognito organiser of the conference if I were interested. I was, if for no other reason than out of morbid curiosity.
The organiser, for security purposes, goes by the name of Joe K*. Though not widely known, Joe is the chairman of the CCC, the Committee for Conflict Continuation. This was to be their first really large gathering.
We met at the frumpy but friendly old Moriarty Pub near Piccadilly Circus. Joe showed up right on time. A bulky man, about five-foot nine inches, he looked like a rugby player, with thick, blondish hair carelessly falling across his forehead, quick-moving eyes, and an easy grin. He wore heavy work boots, baggy Levi’s, a faded gray t-shirt, a misshapen, black tweed sport coat, and a well-worn, dark blue wool newsboy cap. Grabbing his pint at the bar, Joe correctly guessed my identity, made a beeline for my table, and with a quick “Aye” and a sharp nod of his head sat down and introduced himself. Over pints I asked questions, and he shared the reasoning behind the movement to increase international conflict and, perhaps more interestingly, he shared the economics behind it.
I: Thanks for meeting with me. As you probably heard, I’m just curious. I have neither money nor assistance to lend to your activities.
J: That’s alright. In organising a conference, especially an international one, publicity can be useful.
I: Where will you be meeting?
J: Well, there are numerous hotspots around the world which would be fitting—Kosovo, Jerusalem, the border between the two Irelands, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, the Falklands. But we couldn’t agree on any one place. So, over four days we’ll be meeting on an old cruise ship that will just go round and round in the North Atlantic.
I: Is financing a problem?
J: No, no, not at all. “Divide and conquer” as they say. Social chaos works to the advantage of what I call the “Gilt Edge”, the really wealthy folks who create world-wide political and economic illusions, and who have guards standing at their doors. They provide us with all the cash we need. In fact, I’m a direct employee of those people.
I: You don’t give the impression they pay you all that well, if I may mention that.
J: Oh, this is just my “street outfit”. I have to look like a simple, trustworthy street organiser, a populist mate, to allay suspicions. My wife barely lets me out the door like this, but she knows it’s business. I have a nice house here, and a home and a yacht in Monaco. Of course, I don’t tell anybody at the office in London that I live in a minimum tax principality. They’d kill me, maybe.
I: It sounds like you comfortably work both sides of the street!
J: You’re right, right there. Whatever will bring in the cash, that’s what we say and do.
I: But aren’t you worried that the media will call you out, reveal your deceptions?
J: Oh, no. The media are in the hands of the Gilt Edge. They pretend to be on the side of the public, but they are with us all the way. Why wouldn’t they be? Who’s going to shoot themselves in the foot?
I: But the media routinely identify huge problems with the super-wealthy.
J: That’s just to give the impression of sympathy for the public—pseudo-fiduciary, as the saying goes. If you notice, there’s never any follow-up of those shockers they pass along.
I: Who is in this Gilt Edge, as you put it?
J: Very smart people. Clever, clever. And hard-working. They go to the best schools and shoot for the top of any group they join. Once they get there, they turn the whole thing around to their own advantage and secretly milk it. That’s where I get my paycheck.
I: Would I be rude to ask—whatever happened to character?
J: That’s something we completely avoid. Character is like scientific findings and government regulations—constrictions that get in the way of making money. You don’t want to “do the right thing”, and then find that it’s cost you ten thousand quid, and all you get for your trouble at the end of the day is somebody’s “Thank you”.
I: Some of the things you say are a little obvious. Aren’t you worried that the public will get wise to all this and rise up in rebellion?
J: Some worries, I guess, but slight, slight. The Gilt Edge has got a whole system of control worked out that’s blinking clever, thank you very much.
First, take control of the schools. Kick out the logic, the science, and the facts. Except for the schools attended by the Gilt Edge, or course. Get everyone else to be ignorant, emotional, and disorganized—so they’ll be easier to manipulate.
Same with the news. Kick out the real information in the popular press, and put in scary, splashy, foolish stuff, so the public is uneasy, but doesn’t quite know what’s going on, and after a while, don’t even care. Burned out. The truth seems irrelevant to colourful excitement. The real story becomes boring and stays hidden.
Trash the people on the right, on the left, and in the middle. Set everybody attacking everybody else so no opposition to the Gilt Edge can ever get organized or funded.
I: But some people are going to bravely stand up to the injustices, aren’t they?
J: If anybody looks like they’re a problem, private investigators follow them around to dig up dirt. Sue them, and hire PR people to smear them. And track everything they say with computer technicians who can hack into their privacy. Push them out of their jobs and their schools. Destroy them socially and economically.
I: And the government? Doesn’t it defend the public? Does that get twisted around?
J: The government is easy to control if you have the money. Trash the government with PR across the board because the government interferes with making money, with its regulations and all. Weaken the government every step of the way. Get the “Left” and the “Right” hating and fighting each other until the voters and their government are useless. Then the Gilt Edge can do what it wants in the shadows.
Lobby hard for anything you like, and lobby hard against anything you don’t like. Fund the people you like, and smash everyone else.
I: But individuals do have a right to speak up, don’t they? They can’t really be suppressed forever, can they?
J: Well, you just make sure you have good contacts, personal and digital, with helpful gangs of thugs, true and willing believers, so if problem people don’t get the idea with blackmail and extortion, they can be attacked directly, and taken out.
It’s all in place. And it’s mostly hidden. Mysterious folks, behind the curtains, with one hand on the levers of power, and one hand on a pistol. Great fun.
I: But the public, as a whole, can take back control any time it wants by massing in parks and plazas, can’t it?
J: That’s just a pretense. You don’t see really powerful people out in the streets, in the rain and the dirt, dodging cars, waving handmade signs at the cameras. The real dominators are all behind their desks, calling their lawyers to sue all and sundry, their PR and media people to run smear campaigns, accountants to pass out money, and their investigators and tech people to spy. That’s real financial, political leverage.
I: Why then are the media forever saying the public is empowered by its right to protest in the streets?
J: The media encourage protesters to go out in the streets because that’s a good way to get rid of them. Sooner or later one of them will break a window, the media will be shocked, the police will go clear the violent protestors out, and the public will approve of the return to public order. Have you seen any serious change come out of mass protests? Not much, right? It’s usually a showy drama, which makes people on one side or the other feel better, as if something is happening, and then it fades away.
I: But nations are powerful, sovereign. No self-respecting nation would allow itself to be grossly manipulated and exploited by a tiny self-interested minority the way you describe.
J: Nationality is another appearance, a fiction to calm the public and make it think it’s in charge of what’s going on. The Gilt Edge rides above all nations all around the world. It’s a hidden super-government and answers only to itself. They all know each other. They’re all friends. They meet regularly, privately. Private jets, private parties, private entertainment, and private plans.
Their first and only intent is to get power and keep it, and that means to get rich and stay rich, way richer than everyone else, to keep that leverage. Machiavelli and Genghis Khan can’t be all bad! My kind of people, as long as they pay me.
There’s an old joke that says—the meek shall inherit the earth, but the will shall be a million years in probate.
I: So, this conference you are organising, what’s the purpose?
J: The one thing that really scares the Gilt Edge is that people will calm down, get smart, get real educations, demand solid, informative media, and demand that elected officials respond to the public, not to lobbyists, and then govern on behalf of the public. In other words, the big fear is that the public will get organised in a smart way.
As long as everyone stays ignorant, confused, upset, and at each other’s throats, the Gilt Edge will be in control. So, this conference is bringing together some of the finest minds, globally, to figure out how to keep national publics off-balance, how to keep the world terrifying and chaotic.
I: Wow. Does any of this finally lead anywhere justifiable, in your view?
J: Not necessarily. It’s your basic slave-master situation. It works for the masters, and it works for me. What’s not to like?
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*Joe K. refers to Joseph K., protagonist of the allegorical novel The Trial (1925) by Franz Kafka.
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Steve Davidson is a psychologist from California, the author of the clinical textbook “An Introduction to Human Operations Psychotherapy”.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.
One day Ridima’s husband came home with an injured boy with a bandage on his head. There was a small room just before the main entrance of their house, it was mainly used as a guest room, the boy was laid down there by the people who carried him to the second floor. A scream came out of Ridima’s mouth; her mother-in-law pulled her aside and hushed her and told her to be quiet. She stood at a corner of the family space and watched.
The boy looked very frail, he was around eighteen or nineteen years old. She recognised him now. He was an orphan, who was given shelter by Ridima’s father-in-law. He worked in the shop and had become like their family member. The shops were in a building in Old Dhaka, that housed hundreds of small concerns, the interior was designed in such a way that it had a scaffold with white sheets on it and the stacks of material were arranged on the shelves above the scaffold. Everyone took their shoes off while getting inside. The customers sat on small stools that were arranged all around the scaffold.
The boy stayed in the shop while his food was sent from home in a tiffin carrier. It was a family-owned shop selling materials for clothes. That day one of their regular customers came and took one hundred pieces of material for shirts on credit. He promised he would pay the money as soon as he could. When Ridima’s husband went into the shop and saw that a whole stack of material was gone, he felt very happy. He pulled the cash drawer open. He couldn’t see any money there. He asked the salesman about the cloths. As the boy narrated the incident he lost his temper and he took the jock from his car which was parked nearby and hit the boy with it, at the back of his head.
The boy fell unconscious and bled profusely. The boy could have died. Sensing the danger, her husband quickly called the compounder from across the street to get him bandaged. People from all around the shops rushed and advised that the boy should be taken to hospital. Pretending that it was a mere accident Ridima’s husband asked some other boys to carry him to the car. The compounder also recommended that the boy should be taken to the hospital immediately. However, Ridima’s husband took him home knowing that there could be a police case if were taken to the hospital. A doctor was called home to treat the boy. When the doctor saw the boy’s condition, he refused to treat him saying that he had be taken to the hospital. Ridima’s husband first threatened him verbally. When that didn’t work, he went inside and got his licensed pistol and asked him to treat the boy. The doctor got scared and wrote down a list of things that he needed and waited patiently till the things were brought. Another boy was given the money and sent to the nearby dispensary. The doctor gave twenty-one stitches and heavy doses of medicines. He told them to keep the room clean and he told them he needed to change the bandage and do the dressing every day and perhaps, then, the boy would recover, even though his cut was deep.
Immediately Ridima’s mother-in-law sat down on her prayer mat with her long prayer beads. It stayed coiled on her prayer bed at one corner of the long rectangular room. A prayer mat was always spread on the prayer bed. There were about ten thousand beads on the string, she would have to finish it for about twelve and half times in order to do a Khatme Yunus; La illaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minas Zalimeen, which meant, “There is none worthy of worship besides you, glorified are you, surely I am from among the wrongdoers.” It was a one-line prayer which had to be recited one lac and twenty-five thousand times in order to get results. It is said that one of Islam’s earliest prophets was devoured by a whale, he was inside the body of the whale for two and a half days and he recited this prayer and finally the whale gave out everything in form of vomit and Prophet Yunus was saved. Since then, it was called “Dua e Yunus” and Muslims all over the world used this prayer when faced with a big crisis.
Since the doctor was paid a huge sum of money and requested by the family to keep it a secret, he came back every day for a week and treated the boy. Ridima was very scared the first few nights. She feared the boy might die, as he had high fever and was delirious most of the night. He slept and they locked the door with a padlock. They opened the door only to give him food, clean the room and when the boy needed to use the toilet. He had to be helped to go to the toilet. Ridima’s mother-in-law asked her to make chicken soup for him every day, he was given soft rice with fish curry, the types known to produce blood in the body.
After a month, the boy could walk properly but Rimida wasn’t sure if his head injury had fully healed. She tried talking to her husband about it, he said, “You keep quiet! Do not try to act smart and meddle into affairs you know nothing about!”
Ridima’s heart shrank. Her eyes welled with water, and she tried to keep herself from weeping.
A few later, the boy said he was going to take a stroll downstairs. Ridima was doing some household chores, the boy nodded at her and walked out.
After Magrib Azan, her mother-in-law declared the boy was missing. Everyone asked Ridima if she was the one who let him go outside. She denied the fact in trepidation though her mother-in-law would not buy it. When her husband came home, her mother-in-law tried to tell him that it was Ridima’s fault that the boy escaped.
Her husband was taking his socks off and said, “Let him go! He was cured and cannot file any case anymore! Good riddance!”
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Jackie Kabir is a writer from Bangladesh. Her collection of short stories Silent Noise was published in 2016. The titular story is being taught in BA English course in colleges under Manomanium Sundaram University, Tirunelveli. Tamil Nadu.
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Like most people, I had always been fascinated by the ‘Celebrated Wisdom of the East’. Especially exotic was the ‘Ultra Mysterious Wisdom of Tibet’. So, when a university acquaintance in British Columbia mentioned that, through a personal connection, he could set up a meeting in Kathmandu with one of the most storied of all the lamas, Baba Rinpoche, I rose to the challenge.
As was his wont, in the springtime, Baba Rinpoche would be walking across the Himalayas, from Tibet to Nepal. I, being of a less transcendental bent, would be flying into Darjeeling, then taking a helicopter, Riddington’s Ride, into Kathmandu.
We connected for lunch at the Lama’s Lair, a miniature version of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, sat near the fire, and dined on vindaloo curry over basmati rice, with green tea. Baba Rinpoche is about five foot eight, lean, with a shaved head, and was wearing Ugg boots (“One must keep up with the times”), and a thick maroon robe. He moved with ineffable grace, spoke with excellent diction, seemed to have a permanent facial expression of subtle joy, and altogether radiated the cheerful serenity of perfect self-control. I was struck by the ultimate logic of his communication, then recalled that he had been a philosophy student at a highly regarded English university prior to the unfortunate incursion from Beijing, when he returned home to provide his people moral support.
When we met, he pressed his hands together, bowed, and said, “May peace be with you”. I asked him if that were a standard Buddhist greeting, and he said, “No, but, although I am a good man, I am my own man!” Pious, but a perky personality turned out to be part of his charm.
BR: Now, I understand you would like to investigate the obscure and storied “Wisdom of the East”. From that, I assume, you will essay to deduce lessons for good living in the West. I am not certain I am a repository for any knowledge you do not already possess. Nonetheless, I will be happy to respond to your questions with . . . something.
However, as I am a Tibetan monk, you must be prepared that some of my answers will in fact be . . . nothing. Silence.
Validating, I suppose, your initial premise of impenetrable Oriental mystery! But this is our Way. Take it or leave it!
Now, what may I tell you?
I: I really only have one question.
BR: And what is that?
I: Buddhists world-wide revere life itself. And that includes all the animals. But most
people feel that the only animals that really count are us. How do you explain your reverence for all life?
BR: Scaling.
I: Scaling?
BR: “Let us go then, you and I”, to quote Eliot, that American, who became a Brit, and then became a citizen of the world, a refugee of the wasteland, a wanderer in the rose garden of the mind. Where was I? Oh, yes. “Let us go then, you and I”, onto the plains of the Oriental intellect. Then let us go and make our visit to the room where the women come and go, speaking of the mystical Dao. Let us be prophets in our own land.
I: I think I already may have had too much green tea.
BR: Not possible. Now, one of the reasons Eastern thought seems obscure, not to say irrational, to Westerners is that Western thought is narrow, focused, and concrete, whereas eastern thought is broad. holistic, and abstract. Western thought was born on the Island of Samos, a small place, with many rocks. Eastern thought was born on the Gobi Desert, a large place, with much open sky. That scaling of geography emerges, like Houdini from an iron box, in the scaling of thought.
I: I am completely lost! And here I expected to go to all this trouble and at last nail down Eastern thought. But it’s already completely out of reach!
BR: Not to fret. You see, that is the first thing I told you—be at peace! Does a lotus flower worry if the Royal Orient Train will be on schedule? Does a perfect piece of jade brood as to whether anyone influential is admiring it?
We all have our place, and that place is here. We all have our time, and that time is now. We all have our person, and that person is us. Our most precious possession is our minds, and our minds are always present. Thus, we are secure. So, be of good cheer!
Logic is hard to master, yet terribly basic. But the logic of scaling is not so complicated. You’ll get it.
I: I’m going to have to take your word for it!
BR: You see. We’re already making progress! Consider Genghis Khan.
I: I’m lost again.
BR: Though no one in the West wants to admit it, Genghis Khan conquered the world. Nobody beat the terrible khan.
Think about this. One yurt, perfectly arranged, with military precision. One cavalryman, a masterful rider. Dead shot with bow and arrow. Comfortable in all kinds of weather. Tough as a piece of iron. Dedicated to the leader, and instantly responsive to commands.
Multiply that by two hundred thousand. Now you have a crack force that can level cities from the Yellow Sea to the Danube River.
That’s scaling.
I: I think I have had too much, or not enough, vindaloo curry. Maybe I should have had a hot dog.
BR: Enlightenment ever calls for patience.
Now, consider this. The Great Wisdom, which created the World, wants to create Life. The skies are in place. The mountains are in place. The seas are in place. But it would be nice to have some company. But, to build Life, a design is needed.
I: A blueprint?
BR: Even so.
Of what will Life be comprised? That is, what is the list of Qualities that go into what we think of as Life?
I: And that is?
BR: Perception that sketches out the nature of reality: wet and dry, hard and soft, sweet and bitter. Interpretation of perceptions: opportunity or threat, safety or danger. Identification and classification of pieces of reality: self or other, friend or foe, refuge or exposed field. Causal relations: this does this, and that does that. Social relations: this is my group, and we cooperate; that is their group, and we compete. Planning: I will go here and do this to get that, and to avoid the other thing. Emotions: I got what I wanted, so I feel good; I got injured, so I feel bad.
I: Wow. That’s a lot!
BR: Not so much, really. What in logic we call necessary and sufficient. A minimum set of Qualities necessary and sufficient to comprise what we think of as Life. Some life ranks higher on the complexity scale, naturally, and some life ranks lower on the complexity scale.
I: Ah, I think I may be getting this! Life is essentially the same, up and down the scale of complexity. The lowest level is essentially the same as the highest level.
BR: Even so.
I: The dolphins are a lot like us, the whales and the orangutangs, the parrots and the jaguars, the bears and the beavers. It’s the same basic system up and down! The scale doesn’t change the system. Is that right?
BR: Precisely, exactly so.
I: And that’s why Buddhists all over the world revere life itself, because it’s all essentially the same. “They” are all “Us”. “We” are all “Them”. Is that it?
BR: Spot on!
I: You know, I think I might have a little more vindaloo curry and green tea.
As we stood outside the restaurant, Baba Rinpoche hitched his small blue canvas backpack onto his shoulders and looked south into the sapphire mountain sky at a distant, huge, drifting, snowy cloud, as if trying to decide whether it was going to be friendly or unfriendly. “I am going to visit the Bodhi Tree, where Buddha found Enlightenment. I haven’t been there in years”. He mentioned that as casually as if he had said, “I’m going down to the market to pick up some tea”.
“But it’s hundreds of miles to that place,” I protested. “And you haven’t any money.”
He gave me one of those little serene smiles of his, and that placid look gazing a thousand years into the future, and said, “The world will provide”. And off he strode, zigzagging through afternoon traffic with the grace and ease of an Olympic skater.
And he was right. I paid for our lunch.
Guru Rinpoche (Tibetan “Precious teacher”) lived in the 8th-9th century. He was the founder of the Nyingmapa school of Buddhism in Tibet. Courtesy: Creative Commons
Steve Davidson is a psychologist from California, the author of the clinical textbook “An Introduction to Human Operations Psychotherapy”.
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