Category: Stories

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Flash Fiction: The Guava Tree

By Sushant Thapa

The guava tree always stood in seclusion. The lemon tree also grew beside it. The potential of the lemon tree was curbed by the sharpness of its thorns. Jubilant children did not care about thorns on the lemon tree and swung beside it on the guava tree where their swing was attached. The potential of children was one thing and that of a tree with respect to its thorn was another. Ah! The sharpening of the senses and the sharpening of thorns, two things related in Nature, but created differently by Nature for two different subjects. Still, children cherished the playful act of swinging from a tree.

The tree that stood in seclusion was not at all alone because children visited it regularly. Had the children not cared to visit the tree, it would have remained alone. The thorny tree was also not lonely because it stood beside the guava tree and children visited the guava tree as their swing was attached to it. Every day they visited the guava tree after school. It was their place of recreation. They embraced the joy present in the air around the tree. The tree welcomed them with its spaciousness. The lemon tree was the only thing that occupied space and interfered with the space for children to play. The children were not able to climb or swing on it because of its thorns.

The children visited the guava tree every day after four in the afternoon. Manu was among those youngsters. He was a shy lad. He didn’t talk much in school. He occupied small space in the library while he visited, and sat with his books. Ideas and words went above his head. He sat with his vacant mind in the vastness of the library. His mind dwelt around the guava tree and its spaciousness which was very lively for him in comparison to the sedate, quiet library. He liked the vastness and liveliness around the guava tree.

Manu dwelt happily on the secluded space of the orchard where those trees stood. Sometimes, he used to swing alone at the fall of dusk. He found himself even in the aloofness. The tree caught and captured his scattered self and he always felt himself to be slightly amassed when he was near it. Loneliness did not occupy any space near those trees, especially near the guava tree. Manu did not feel vacant at all; such was the ambience and the feeling, the feeling of personal space, in the vastness of nature. His heart and mind were occupied in that playful act of swinging on a tree. The freshness of the air and invigorating atmosphere made him feel lively. He did not feel alone. He was present in the wholeness of the space. He kept swinging on the guava tree beside the lemon tree, without caring about thorns of the lemon tree.

Eventually, he was able to make few friends. His shyness gave way while he played. After all, life in the orchard was not bad at all. Even beside the thorny lemon tree, goodness prevailed. Yes, the guava tree always stood there in its seclusion like in the beginning of the story.    

Sushant Thapa is a recent post-graduate in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His short story “The Glass Slate” has been published in Kitaab.org from Singapore. His poems and essays have been published in Republica daily from Kathmandu. His short stories and poems have also been published by The Writers’ Club, New Jersey, United States. He revels in rock music, poetry, books and movies from his home in Biratnagar, Nepal. 

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The Mask

By Nishi Pulugurtha

Green all around, shades of green actually, that seemed to smile at her as she looked out. The tall moringa tree that seemed to reach up high, its small leaves dazzling in the play of sun and rain. That tree that met her eyes each morning as she looked out of that large window always made her feel nice. The rusted iron grills, the wooden window shutters broken here and there, did not shut tight, the latch rusted too, some bit of concrete laid bare a little of the masonry – her eye moved along.

***

Bimala arrived in this house after her marriage. It was an arranged one. Baba and Ma looked for a suitable groom for their youngest born and the marriage was solemnised in the traditional way. Dida (grandmother) wanted it to be done just that way. Dada (elder brother) was working by then and just a few years before this they had moved into an apartment on the eastern fringes of the city.

It was a modest one and Bimala took great pains to do it up — from choosing the colours of the wall, the upholstery, the curtains, the fittings in the bathroom, almost everything. Bimala had a keen taste for the aesthetic and visitors to their home always made it a point to refer to it.

Baba had worked with the state government and retired a year after her marriage. They were a middle class family, and a very happy one at that. Bimala was never pampered, Ma and Baba were strict disciplinarians who made sure their children had the best in life.

Anupam, Bimala’s husband, lived with his mother in a neighbourhood in the southern part of the city. Anupam had his education from some of the best institutions in India, he obviously had been a very good student. He had been working with a multinational company for some years now and everyone knew he would soon rise to the top. Kumar Kaku (uncle) knew the family well and vouched for Anupam. He and Kakima (aunty) always said, Anupam was a wonderful person, soft spoken and reticent.

“A reserved lover, it is said, always makes a suspicious husband,” Kate Hardcastle’s line from the play she read in college had come to her mind. She spoke about it to Ma and Baba. Baba said, “You can surely talk to him. If you don’t approve, we will not go ahead.”

She remembered Ma’s reply, “Kumar is distantly related to the family. We have known him for years, he is our family friend, we can trust him completely. When he says the boy is good, we could go along. I see no reason why we need to have doubts.”

She did talk to him a few times before the wedding and Anupam came across as a decent guy. They met up too a few times. She did not want to rush into it, she wanted to take some more time, but Kumar Kaku was insistent. “I know the family well. They are decent people.”

“That is alright,” Baba said. “It is a question of Bimu’s life, let her take some more time before she decides.”

Kakima too waxed praises galore, “Anupam was such a nice person.” She spoke highly of him and his family and called up Ma regularly. For some days, this was what went on in the household. Dada also agreed with Baba.

“Bimala could be given time to decide,” she heard Baba tell Ma. That was all the kind of conversation that went on at home, these days, she thought. As days went by, Kumar Kaku’s visits to their house increased. Bimala said yes after some thought. Kakima and Kumar Kaku were jubilant.

“I know both families and this is what is best for our Bimala,” she could hear his words as he spoke to Ma.

Baba did not say much. “Are you sure, Bimu, you want to go ahead with it? If you have even a little bit of doubt, any questions, anything, let me know. I am sure I can talk with your Ma about it.”

Bimala just smiled, “Na, Baba, it is alright.”

So in about less than twelve months, the marriage was finalised. A flurry of activity – arrangements were done, invitations sent out, so much taken care of. Kaku and Kakima took an ever more eager interest in everything. Things moved real fast after she had agreed. A modest wedding and soon her new “life” in the new house began.

The ‘mask’ came off in less than six months. “Don’t touch that.” “Don’t do this.” “This is my house.” “Do not try to show off your learning.” “All your ideas are worthless” – they just kept coming at all times.

“Why do you need appliances? My mother did all these by herself. “

“But Khokha, things have changed now. Certain things are needed these days. Had they been available earlier on, my home would have been so very different.” Anupam’s mother had been the voice of good sense, not that she had much say in the house.

He would just stare at her. Bimala felt nice talking to her. A year after the marriage, a massive heart attack ended that life. They had been talking when the end came and Bimala was in a state of shock for weeks after that incident.

In summer months the house was unbearable. Bimala had not been used to this heat. Anupam had said that he would make provisions so that life could be nice. That was before the wedding. Kumar Kaku and Kakima too had said that he would do all that was needed to live life well. Nothing happened. Bimala tried to reason with him, he ignored her. That day, about a year and half after they had been married, the television was blaring and Anupam was watching the news. She tried speaking to him about getting an air conditioner, he turned away. She again tried speaking.

This time she switched off the television. He shouted at her. She tried keeping her cool, he refused to listen to anything. Suddenly he caught her with his two hands, he held her neck. He held her that way and pushed her from the living room to the bedroom, she tried to break free, but the grip was too strong. Bimala was so taken aback by the whole think that she could not utter a single word. He pushed her on the bed, holding her neck in his hands, shaking her. She struggled and struggled. After a while, he eased the grip, went into the living room, switched on the television.

She lay on the bed, crying in pain, in hurt, in humiliation, insulted. All for some cold air, to live life well. After some time, she got up, there were marks on her neck. Who should she turn to, she felt so lost. She called up Kakima and told her what had happened.

“Such things happen in marriages. Don’t pay much attention to them,” she said.

Bimala could not believe what she said, “Things will be alright now, you see.”

After the conversation was over, she took out her suitcase and started packing her things. The next morning she left.

Anupam did not say a word.

Baba told her, “You did just the right thing.” Ma was upset with the turn of events but they were both happy with the decision.

Bimala never went back.

***

It has been five years since then. Restricted by the lockdown, amid reports of an increase in domestic violence cases, she got talking about it that evening. I knew that was a traumatic period in her life. She had tried picking up her life little by little. I have known her for years and have seen her as she tried to begin things afresh.

“As I look at the masks that we are to wear these days as precautionary measures, I am so reminded of the masks that people always wore.” We were chatting online, and Bimala said, “Kumar Kaku and Kakima’s masks fell off after I walked out of that marriage. All those years of friendship with my parents ebbed so quickly. They never ever got in touch with us, never again.”

Dr. Nishi Pulugurtha is an Associate Professor in the department of English, Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College and has taught postgraduate courses at West Bengal State University, Rabindra Bharati University and the University of Calcutta. She is the Secretary of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata (IPPL). She writes on travel, film, short stories, poetry and on Alzheimer’s Disease. Her work has been published in The Statesman, Kolkata, in Prosopisia, in the anthology Tranquil Muse and online – Kitaab, Café Dissensus, Coldnoon, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The World Literature Blog and Setu. She guest edited the June 2018 Issue of Café Dissensus on Travel. She has a monograph on Derozio (2010) and a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open (2019). She is now working on her first volume of poems and is editing a collection of essays on travel.

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Flash Fiction: A Curse

by San Lin Tun

It was shadowy in the forest. No sounds at all. Only some living creatures were crawling in the undergrowth, producing inaudible sounds. An inquisitive young man entered the forest with a smile on his face. He fancied that there might be some hidden treasures in the forest after browsing through a recent book on treasure hunting.

That evening he went to the edge of the forest out of curiosity. He did not know what dangers would confront him. He went in unprepared with bare-hands and curiosity. He also liked to gaze at trees, big and small. He wondered if the forest housed exotic and colourful birds as shown in the documentaries on television.

He was free of ancient fears and dogmas because he believed in science. He thought that a forest was only of trees and animals and there could not be any harmful or playful spirits lurking in the deepest, darkest corners.

He needed to tread carefully in the forest, he discovered, otherwise, he could stumble and fall on the protrusions made by the obtrusive roots of the big banyan trees. He suddenly started humming the lyrics of the Guns and Roses’ song called ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ in his mind.

After walking about thirty minutes in the forest, he thought that his throat was dry. He was thirsty. He looked for a stream to drink cold and clean water. He listened carefully to the gurgling sounds of a stream somewhere. Suddenly, he saw a butterfly flapping its wings gently in front of him. It aroused his sense of curiosity and wonder. The butterfly led him to the stream.

He was very happy when he found the stream. When he looked for the butterfly, it had disappeared. He thanked the butterfly in his mind from the bottom of his heart. He squatted at the edge of the stream and bent down to long mouthfuls of water. It completely quenched his thirst.

After drinking the water, he washed his sweaty face to refresh himself. Then, he felt a bit hungry and remembered he had not had enough lunch that afternoon. He thought that he would look for some fruits. Then, he found some wild, peachy fruits growing on a big tree near the stream.

He pondered whether to climb the tree to pluck them or hurl stones to bring them down? He found some pebbles in the stream and gathered them. He hurled those pebbles at the fruits. Some stones hit the fruits and they fell off the tree.

Happily, he picked up one big fruit and bit into it. It was tasty and so he bit it again and again. After having three or four fruits, he found his belly was full. He lay down on his back and instantly he fell asleep.

His sleep was punctuated by a strange dream. He found a gnarled and crooked-nosed, red, bulgy-eyed woman trying to talk to him. She had a long and curly nail which she tried to insert into him. It seemed that she was the guardian spirit of the tree.

Petrified, he yelled out aloud. But no one heard him. He was completely alone in the forest. He could not move his body a single inch. Gradually, the guardian spirit came nearer to him and tried to say something to him. He apologized to her for not asking for permission to eat fruits of the tree. But, she took another step towards him.

‘‘Arrrrrrr’’ – the sound was so loud, even the owls resting on the trees were startled and flew away. He knew that it was the end of his life. He tightly closed his eyes. He saw his feet start to turn into a flap of a bat. Soon, he was going to be a bat and sleep upside down. The guardian spirit would rear him as her pet.

He did not want that. But he did not have strength to fight back. Instead he had to yield to her because he felt that he was paralyzed. He noticed that his hands were changed into wings which had started to flap slowly. He could not resist the strength of the spell. Within a minute, he completely changed into a bat. It was a metamorphosis.

The forest seemed to have spelled its curse on him.

He tried to speak out. Comprehensible human language was replaced by the sounds of a bat. He understood that his life was gone, completely gone. He did not know how he would regain his human form. He blamed his own foolish fate because no one warned him against going into the cursed forest.

He knew that he should not have indulge his whim.

***

Daytime brought the young man back to his village in his own form as a human. He related the story to his fellow villagers who did not believe him and assumed that he was an exhibitionist buffoon trying to draw attention to himself. He insisted that he had really turned into a bat the night before because of the spell cast by the guardian of the tree. People laughed at his story and they thought that he had made it all up to gain importance and sympathy.

As darkness gathered the village into its folds, the villagers started to go back to their homes. Suddenly, someone noticed that the young man was missing, they could not see him. They called out to him. But there was no response.

 Only, a bat persisted in flying towards them, hovering up and down over their heads. It almost flapped on the scurrying villagers’ heads. There was chaos.

San Lin Tun is a freelance writer of essays, poetry, short stories and novels from Myanmar and English. Sometimes, he draws cartoons for fun. His writings has appeared in Asia Literary Review, Kitaab, Mad in Asia Pacific, Mekong Review, NAW, PIX, Ponder Savant, South East of Now, Strukturriss and several others. He has authored ten books including ‘‘An English Writer’’. He lives in Yangon, Myanmar.

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A Balochi Story: The Lost Coin

by Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

It was a summer day. The sun was up in the sky. Early in the morning he left for the sea and sat on the shore. There was still a touch of coldness of the last night left in the sands. He cast a look at the tides generated by the wind that blew over the othernight.

The water was shallow and under the mud flat sea insects had dug their burrows. And if someone unmindfully stepped on the mud flat, he would sink knee-deep beneath the ground. Some sixty yards from the sea there stood a few trees, some date palms and a big neem tree. In the morning sun it would cast its shadow as far as to the sea-brink. But as the day began to unfold the friendship between its shadow and the sea would start to fade.

He came and sat by the very shadow. Later when he looked around he found the shadow had long left him. Beyond the neem tree there was a pyramid of sands. From one angle its top looked like the peak of a volcano. Like a dyke, it enclosed some date palms in its depth. Once a beautiful garden, now it lay in utter ruins. There was even no trace of the fence left there. It had become a sort of hideout from the surrounding world.

On the left, a narrow trail passed through the sand. As people continuously treaded on the sand, some of the grains attained cohesiveness and the others flew drifted in the wind. Thus it took the shape of a trail which appeared like the parting of a woman’s golden hair. On the left side of that trail there was a well where people would come to fill their empty pitchers and pots.

All of a sudden a whisper seized his attention. He lifted his eyes up and caught sight of a blind man emerging from the right side of the pyramid. He was led by a girl who held one end of his walking stick. He shifted his concentration to the blind man rather than to the girl. The girl led the blind man to the sea and an hour later they were back on their way home.

He too got up and made his way home behind them. Midway through he exchanged greetings with the duo. At last he was out of the sands. He found it quite difficult to move forward because the trail was littered with grains of sands.

When he walked past the well, his heart skipped a beat. It was the second old stone-walled well located at the farthest end or you can say at the beginning of the sands. He recalled something but soon jerked his head to cast that old memory off his mind but it refused to budge. He felt burning sensation in his head and eyes. He touched his body to determine if he had fever. He was not sick at all. He quickened his steps so that he could reach his destination at the earliest. Suddenly, he whispered to himself:

“It is nice that you go home but nobody lives there. You will be all alone there as well.”

He was right. Nobody lived at his house save himself. He had a good friend but he spent the whole day working outside. At night he would come and they talked together but he too couldn’t give him company for a longer time because he had to look after his family. Again he said to himself: “Loneliness is beautiful but only when one needs it. Likewise it is nice to have someone’s company when one grows sick of loneliness. Today I feel as if I’ve grown sick of my loneliness. I think I should feel such weariness only after the sunset but today it has happened otherwise. My mind has been stormed in the morning.”

He kept moving ahead, wondering. Midway through, an acquaintance ran into him and greeted him. He couldn’t recognise him. He moved fast as if someone had been waiting him for quite some time and any sort of delay would lead to a huge loss.

He slowed his pace and even halted for a while but soon resumed to move forward with quick steps. He was some hundred steps away from his house when his eyes caught someone standing at the corner of the boundary wall that enclosed his house. He bowed his head and began to move with rather slow steps. As he drew nearer, he raised his head and found a woman was looking for something by the wall. He recognised her. Every day she would walk past that way to fetch water. He thought she might have lost her nose pin or ring. He asked her:

“What are you looking for?”
“A rupee.”
“A note?”
“No, a coin.”
“So what?”
“I’ve lost it.”

He also began to look for it. A moment later he raised his head up and found instead of searching for her lost coin she was gazing at him. He ran his hand into his pocket but couldn’t found any coin there. He turned to her: “I’ve no coin on me. Wait I’ll get you one from my house.”
He opened the gate and she followed her in. He searched his coat pocket. She said: “Is there any water at your house?”
“What do you mean by water?”
“I mean drinking water.”
“Yes, there is.”
He picked up the glass to fetch her water, but she took it from his hand and said: “I’ll get it myself.”
She filled the glass, came back, stood right before him and said: “Please drink.”
“I haven’t taken any fatty food in the morning. So, I do not have the urge to drink water.”
“It is summer. And in summer days it feels refreshing to drink water. By the way what did you take in the morning?”
“A cup of tea.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Alright. I’ll bring you some eggs.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
He was about to drink water when she said: “Don’t stand and drink.”
He sat on the edge of the cot and said, “But you are standing yourself.”
“I’ll sit down.”
“May I know your name?”
“Mahal.”
“Mahal?”
“Actually my name is Mahatoon but out of affection my mother used to call me Mahal.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Any children?”
“I’ve three children but it has been the fifth year since my husband went on a journey.”
“Is he angry with you?”
“No he is not. But once left he never turned back. Occasionally he sends us money but…”
“But what?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t ask me my name.”

“I know you since the day you came to live in our neighbourhood. I also noticed your friend who visited you and you kept talking to each other till the midnight. After midnight, you would go out. I wondered where you went at those late hours of the night and when you would return home.”

“But I think you don’t have to do anything with my routines.”

“One night I kept waiting for you and saw you come back at dawn.”

“So, you have been keeping a watch over me!”

“Do you enjoy being alone?”
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
“What do you think?”
After a brief silent she said: “You are not alone anymore.”
“Yes not at least at this very moment.”
One and half hour later she got up to leave. He said: “You didn’t even drink water.”
“You drank and I got my thirst slaked.”
She was about to strolled out of the door when he turned to her:
“But you didn’t take your coin.”
“Which coin?”
“The one I said to give you in recompense.”
“Oh you mean that lost coin?”
“Yes.”
“I got it.”
She scurried forward and at the door she turned back and said: “I’ll bring you some eggs at sunset.”
After she left he was amazed. He began to ponder and whispered to himself: “She found the coin? When? Where? In this house?”
A while later something struck to his mind and he smiled and spoke loudly: “Hmm! The lost coin!”

Syad Zahoor Shah Hashmi (1926-78) is known as the pioneer of modern Balochi literature. He was simultaneously a poet, fiction writer, critic, linguist and a lexicographer par excellence. Though he left undeniable marks on various genres of Balochi literature, poetry remained his mainstay. With his enormous imagination and profound insight he laid the foundation of a new school of Balochi poetry especially Balochi ghazal which mainly emphasises on the purity of language and simplicity of poetic thoughts. This school of poetry subsequently attracted a wide range of poets to its fold. He also authored the first ever Balochi novel ‘Nazuk’ and compiled the first comprehensive Balochi-to-Balochi dictionary containing over twenty thousand words and hundreds of pictorial illustrations.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated several Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2017 and Silence Between the Notes — the first ever anthology of Partition Poetry published by Dhauli Books India in 2018. His upcoming works of translation include Why Does the Moon Look So Beautiful? (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Naguman) and God and the Blind Man (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Minir Ahmed Badini).

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Too Much Light, Too Much Trouble

A Balochi Short story by Ghani Parwaz

( Translated by Fazal Baloch)

The moment he stepped into the office he was astonished to see the distorted features of his colleagues. Someone’s eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Someone’s ears were stretched out. Someone’s tongue was sticking out. Someone’s lips had swollen. He stared at them with bewilderment.

Aftab, the clerk, raised his head and bulged out his eyes a bit further and said: “You are looking at us in such a way as if we are creatures from some other planets.”

Imdad, the assistant, raised his ears a little more and asked him: “Why are you looking at us with such wonder”?

Zaheer, the cashier, stuck out his tongue and remarked: “I think he is not feeling well today.”

Muzzamil, the clerk, puffed his already swollen lips and said: “We need to bring him back on the track.”

He strolled ahead, stood right in their midst and said: “But why do you all look so strange today?”

First they looked at each other and then directed their gaze at him and asked him: “What is wrong with us, by the way?”

He smiled acerbically and retorted: “Someone’s eyes are bulging out. Someone’s ears are unusually raised. Someone’s tongue is sticking out. Someone’s lips are swollen.” 

Aftab, the clerk, instantly pulled out a small mirror from his pocket and looked into it.

“You damn liar,” he mumbled.

One by one they all looked their features in the mirror.

Someone lashed out at him, “Why do you fashion such big lie?”

“Is this the way to make fun of your colleagues?” Someone else expressed his displeasure.

Muzamil was not satisfied yet. He strolled over to the bathroom and thoroughly scanned his face in front of a giant mirror.

“Lies wouldn’t last long.”

Azhar sat on his chair and looked around and said: “Truth and lies apart, but your faces do not look as usual.”

Ms. Farhat, the secretary to the Chairman, stepped in.

“What happened? Why are you looking so flummoxed?” she asked them.

“Azhar says our features look distorted.” Muzzamal said while looking at Ms. Farhat.

She looked at their faces and said: “No. Everything seems to be as usual.”

“Look at yourself, madam,” Azhar said.

“What has happened to me?” Farhat was puzzled a bit.

“Your cheeks are swollen.”

“O my God!” She covered her face with her hands and scurried to the bathroom. She returned in a moment and blasted at Azhar: “You are a duffer. You don’t even deserve the slot of a watchman.”

“He thrashed at us and even didn’t spare you.”

Someone suggested, “We must take up the matter with the boss.”

“Don’t worry. Let the boss come. I will do the rest,” Farhat assured them.

A while later the door turned open and Zahir Ali, the Chairman, stepped in. He cast a cursory look at the staff and made it to his office. Farhat followed him.

“What is the problem, today you all look anxious?” The Chairman placed his sunglasses on the table.

“Today Azhar has lost his mind,” Farhat replied.

“How?”

“He is talking nonsense.”

“Just relax yourself I will see him.”

The Chairman pressed the bell and asked the peon to call Azhar in.

“Sir! Have you called me?” Azhar looked at him anxiously.

“Yes. Why are you misbehaving with your colleagues?”

“No, Sir, I haven’t done anything wrong. I just told them whatever I saw with my eyes.”

“By the way what did you see?”

“They all have distorted faces.”

“How? Any example.”

“Bulging eyes. Elongated ears. Puffed lips. Swollen cheeks.”

The Chairman asked him, “And you are also staring at me with amazement. Do you see any change in my features?”

“Sorry Sir! I wouldn’t be that rude. After all you are my boss.”

“Go ahead and tell me if you see something unusual in me.”

“As you wish Sir — you have a protruding paunch today,” he revealed in a somewhat trembling tone.

The Chairman walked over to the bathroom. He returned in a while and blasted at Azhar: “You rascal!”

Azhar trembled with fear and pleaded: “I am sorry Sir.”

“You don’t deserve any relaxation.” He looked at him with anger and pressed the bell.

The peon rushed in: “Yes Sir!”

“Call the staff in,” he commanded.

All the staff gathered in the Chairman’s office.

“Do you see any change in your own features?” The Chairman asked them with great concern.”

“No Sir,” was their answer.

“And something unusual in mine?”

“Not at all.” They replied.

“Then why on earth, is this knucklehead insisting that we have distorted features?” He was furious.

“Sir something must be wrong with his eyes.” Muzammil pointed towards Azhar’s eyes.

“Muzzamil is right; you must have an eye problem.” The Chairman looked at Azhar.

“Yes, indeed I had an eye-problem, but I have had them treated recently.”

“The treatment has further ruined your eyes,” the Chairman looked deep into his eyes.

“Anyway, what was the problem with your eyes?”

“My eyes used to twinkle,” he replied.

“What? Do eyes ever twinkle?” The Chairman was amazed.

“Yes, they used to twinkle and I felt new and brighter eyes were growing inside my eyes.”

“What was the nature of the treatment?” The Chairman asked him.

“I had an eye surgery.”

“I feel the surgery went terribly wrong.”

“It went wrong?” Azhar was confused a bit.

“Yes, it did,” the Chairman affirmed his statement.

“But now I have a much better and brighter vision than ever, Sir. Now even I can see the invisible things.”

“What do you mean by the invisible things,” the Chairman shot back.

“I mean that I can see what the bulging eyes are looking for. I can hear what the elongated ears desire to hear. I know what the swollen lips want to say. I know what the puffed out cheeks seek. And what the protruding paunch…”

“Shut your nonsense!” The Chairman cut into the middle of his speech. “Had you not been an old employee, I would have kicked you out of the office.”

“Have mercy on me Sir,” Azhar pleaded.

“I accept your apology but only on one condition.” The Chairman dragged his chair a bit forward and pointed his index finger towards Azhar.

“I accept whatever condition you set.” Azhar bowed his head in respect.

“I will get your eyes operated again and its expense will be deducted from your salary in nominal installments,” the Chairman gave the verdict.

“What do you think now?” Muzammil quipped with a sardonic smile.

“What can I say,” Azhar replied in a state of utter helplessness.

A few days after the operation Azhar resumed his routine in the office. Now everybody looked normal to him. He didn’t notice anything unusual in their features. He was standing by the door when the Chairman burst in.

The Chairman asked him sarcastically, “How are your eyes now?”

“As usual, Sir,” Azhar replied.

“Remember, too much brightness of vision is always disastrous. It can land you in deep trouble.”

“I will never forget your advice Sir.” A meaningful smile appeared on Azhar’s lips, “because I cannot endure too much suffering.”

Ghani Parwaz is one of the most celebrated Balochi writers. He has been writing Balochi fiction for the past five decades. So far he has published seven anthologies of short stories and five novels.  Apart from fiction, he also writes poetry and literary criticism. He received several awards for his literary contributions including “the Presidential Award for the Pride of Performance”. He lives in Turbat Balochistan.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated several Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2017 and Silence Between the Notes — the first ever anthology of Partition Poetry published by Dhauli Books India in 2018. His upcoming works of translation include Why Does the Moon Look So Beautiful? (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Naguman) and God and the Blind Man (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Minir Ahmed Badini).

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Stories

Flash Fiction: The One Rupee Taker

By Sushant Thapa

                                                                                                           

Every day he visits my home and takes only a one-rupee coin. Not more and not less. If I try to give him a two-rupee coin, he asks, “Do you want me to take this coin?” and he won’t take it. He is in the habit of taking a one-rupee coin from my home and perhaps many other homes. I can only see him coming to my home to take a coin. I do not care if he visits other homes and collects coins, for I care about his visit to my home because of his regular habits.

We see him in gatherings and ceremonies at other places. He sits flat on the ground. They serve him well in many social functions. Unconcerned, he sits politely and leaves in a well-mannered way. Yet, his daily habit of taking a one-rupee coin from my home worries me.

“How very forgetful of him!” says my dad if he is late.

His tension is unlike that of a housemaid who lights a single cigarette in the afternoon after finishing her morning chores. A single cigarette puts the maid to relief. But a single coin puts the man to unrest every day.

People say he is loosely wired. Decades have passed. But he has not changed his habit. Everybody in the town has ceased to talk about him now. They are not worried about his activities. He is dressed untidily in dirty clothes often.  He is well built, stout and tall. He seems to come from a healthy family. The only thing that concerns him is the daily collection a one-rupee coin from every home. He might have hoarded a vast amount by now.

He used to talk to my grandfather in those days when I was young. He would see my grandfather having lunch at the dinner table through the window, and he’d say, “Well, you are having your lunch, should I not be having my coin?” I used to be young but now I can write his story. I’m a grown-up man now, and I can write things about the one-rupee man.

Many times, I have placed a coin in front of the man myself. I would place it on the windowsill, he would murmur something, and I would say — “It’s there.” Silently, he would feel the coin with his hand and take it. He would say nothing to me.

Once, my little niece gave him a two-rupee coin. The man asked my dad, “Why do you create such confusion? Why do you give me two rupees instead of one?”

Once a day, we see him standing in front of the window of my house, but he is very careful not to visit more than once a day. Perhaps it bothers him, and that’s why he is particular about it.

Some say he was a rich businessman, and that his business partners deceived him and he lost every penny he invested. He got detached from the business world, but he does collect a one-rupee coin from everyone. He continued to have a relationship with the monetary world in as much that he would have his daily dole of a one rupee coin. He makes sure that he comes to collect a one rupee coin from us, and we get bothered about handing him his single one-rupee coin. The give and take process dilutes the tension. Yet, it seems to be a never-ending process that holds the burden for both parties.

Sushant Thapa is a recent post-graduate in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His short story “The Glass Slate” has been published in Kitaab.org from Singapore. His poems and essays have been published in Republica daily from Kathmandu. His short stories and poems have also been published by The Writers’ Club, New Jersey, United States. He revels in rock music, poetry, books and movies from his home in Biratnagar, Nepal. 

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Stories

Metropolis

        A short story by Avishek Parui

The day when his second novel was rejected in the same cold cursory manner the earlier one had been, Pavish Reuk decided to take a stroll across the city. He didn’t have much in his mind then, except a half-bitter tingling that always grew out of his failures.  As he stood at the crossing with a crowd of scared masked men waiting for the green that summons pedestrians to march across the throbbing cars, Pavish Reuk realized that his whole life had been a string of failures.

He had been a failure at the crucial points in his student-life, excelling in the unimportant exams. He had been a failure in romance, having lost the only woman he had loved, as he didn’t have enough courage to tell her. He had been a failure professionally, failing in all the career-oreinted competitive exams and ending up as a lowly clerk in a semi-nationalized bank about to go bankrupt. Most importantly to him, he had been a failure as a writer, something he had always wanted to become.

Now, at the age of thirty-nine, with his greasy glasses, shrinking legs, and balding head, Pavish Reuk was in a loveless marriage with a disappointed wife and two children, none particularly fond of him. And yet, Pavish thought, despite having failed in almost all aspects of life, failure still saddened him, it still gave him the feeling of being denied, still, after all these years. This thought surprised him; it touched him with something that felt like happiness. Perhaps it meant, Pavish thought, that he still bore some dream, some debris of optimism that was hurt each time it was not fulfilled. Sensitivity to failures is somewhat a success. Pushed by a restless young man who muffled beneath his mask, Pavish began to cross the street. It had turned green while the last thought crossed his mind.

It had begun to drizzle, and the March Kolkata evening glistened with lights of various shades, strangely silhouetted by the many masked faces that marched slowly down the boulevards on either side of the main street. As the rain swished across the twilight shadows with the gusts of wind, and the cars’ lights mixed with the shafts from the streetlamps on either side, Pavish Reuk began to walk, breathing in the mixed smell of rain, dust, and sweat that spread along the pavement. He was not carrying an umbrella and though his thin hair looked thinner and his small frame smaller in the rain swept crowd, Pavish felt something resembling reverie beginning to fill him in. Suddenly a big black police van with a dirty diesel smell screeched to a halt by the road. Two policemen got off and walked briskly into the by-lanes that flanked the corner of the pavement. The sight of the van made Pavish afraid, though he did not understand why. It seemed to have a sinister message stuck to its dented sides. That, and the sound of a lame dog wailing at a corner of the pavement, took Pavish Reuk to where he did not want to go this evening: the memory of his last, rudely rejected novel.

His last novel was about a shepherd boy who loses his way in a blizzard and discovers a magic stone in the cave he took shelter during the storm. The stone enables him to see the truths out of other people’s lives and create stories out of those. As the boy starts using the stone, he becomes a brilliant storyteller, famous in the taverns, enthralling the people in his valley and even beyond it, till the people realize he makes up his stories from the incidents in their lives, from the carefully hidden secrets that were somehow prized open by the boy’s imagination. In the end, the people gather together and kill the boy through a public execution, but not before he had swallowed the magic stone. The next morning, as they wake up, the people in his valley cannot remember anything that had happened to any of them. The novel ends with the oldest man in the valley breaking down in tears for a reason he did not understand, while the others gathered around him, looking at him wail with a blank expression in their faces. A blizzard with a deadly epidemic was about to set in.

Pavish had drawn the novel with many characters and had named his central protagonist Pratham. There was also a series of subplots that had carried the novel to three hundred pages. But the only publisher Pavish knew and could approach hated the idea of the novel. The editor had clearly stated that his theme was more like an old-fashioned fairy tale and would have no takers in the modern world. Pavish loved the novel as it grew out of the flesh of his imagination. He could particularly relate Pratham to himself and had taken care to give him the attributes of his own younger days. But both he and Pratham had failed and as Pavish entered the staircase that led down on to the metro station, he decided not to write any novel anymore. The raindrops had become fatter by then.

Not knowing exactly where to go, not sure why he entered the metro station either, Pavish Reuk stood in the long snaky queue before the ticket counter. When he reached the counter after what seemed an eternity, Pavish mumbled the name of the next station as he put forth the exact fare through the narrow slit. There was a growing commotion in the metro station. The ticket-punching turnstile had broken down and an increasingly angry crowd swore at the nervous crew that tried to fix it. There was something numbing and scary about the way the people looked now, as if all of them were dreading a disease to break out, a massive infection about to spread like a contagion. Most of them were wearing masks which made them faceless in Pavish’s eyes. The broken turnstile seemed to have triggered some collective claustrophobia of being trapped in a tunnel full of worms. Pavish looked at the group of masked men and women around him.

There was this big burly man in blue shirt with a wart on his forehead who swore the loudest at the incompetence of the crew. There was this very attractive woman dressed in a red top that reminded Pavish of an accident he had seen from close three years back, in which a young girl lay in a pool of blood after being run over by a speeding truck. If the girl had lived, thought Pavish, she would have been as old as this woman. Trying to figure out if the girl looked like this woman as well, Pavish saw the woman staring back at him with a knowing half-smile that scared him. She wasn’t wearing a mask.

There was this absent-minded young man of about twenty-six, already balding, with a brooding look of a jilted lover or a confused philosopher, or both. A group of teenaged schoolgirls chatted away about something funny that had happened in school. Pavish tried to eavesdrop but he was too far away. He had always been too far away, he realised, from the real centers of interest.

Trying to recall with difficulty the content of a long letter he had been asked to type in office the previous day, Pavish fixed his gaze at the wart on the forehead of the big man that seemed to grow in size with his focus. It grew till it was an orange-red haze and would’ve grown bigger had it not been for the sound that rose above the noise of the human voices within the station.

The turnstile handle had given way to the machinations of the metro-crew and people were about to gush in like a flood of insects set free to infect each other. Between the moment when the turnstile broke with a loud crash and the one that saw the long-waiting crowd rush in, something happened inside Pavish Reuk. A loud cacophony of conflicting voices sent Pavish’s mind in a wild disarray even as he tried to figure out where those came from. The breaking of the turnstile, with its loud noise of collapse, had ushered in strange voices that spoke very fast, like a group of jugglers performing simultaneously with colored balls and knives. The many marks from the many wet shoes and slippers spread like a maze across the platform floor, a testimony to the drizzle above, as Pavish closed his eyes to listen…

“That bugger Bobby, he was sleeping with the boss’s wife or else the old hag wouldn’t have favored him so much…kicked the bucket…road-accident…didn’t his sister die in a similar way…three years ago wasn’t it…what the heck…let’s see if I can make some inroads now…” “The new English teacher is cute, and I think he likes me… kept glancing back at me through the entire class… should be fun… I’ll wear my new ear-rings tomorrow…”  “How did she come to know where I was last evening? I had told her I was at an office meeting… like I do every time I go out… is she spying on me now?” “The film was crap…had to come along with him and waste so much money and time…as if this is a good time to come to a cinema hall in the first place, with all the scare going around… I should’ve stayed at home and completed the new problems of integral calculus…he’s so stupid sometimes… laughed like a fool at all the corny jokes during the film…don’t think we can stay together for much longer.” “She’s gone insane…bringing her mother over to stay with us…driven out of her son’s house…and bang she arrives in her son-in-law’s house like a pest…” “How am I going to pay back the loan? 50,000 a month…how…how…why did I let them talk me into it? I can’t…can’t…can’t anymore.” “A paper on The Waste Land…we are doomed…it’s so long…and so boring…can’t get anything out of it…Eliot’s personal grouse… why must we suffer…the other group got to do just The Dead…just a short story…it’s so unfair…” “I asked her specifically to take the pill every night…she’s so silly… can’t remember a damn thing…and now…who should I see now to get it done quietly…just before my promotion…the dumb bimbo…and she’s got such a rotting reek in her breath now…” “I think the complete work of Kafka would be a good gift…he’s 17 now…he should love it…it’s on the 16th…can I get a hard cover so fast…paperback would look cheap…” “Ma’s been having the cough for two weeks now…I must take her to the doctor tomorrow…she will never come unless I force her…with the scare now for old people particularly.. I will take a half-day tomorrow and pick her up from home…” “The shares of Safe-Life are crashing down…must sell out and get out of it fast…” “Everything will be shut down soon” … “Bobby is dead…alas…”        

It took Pavish Reuk a few seconds to realise that he had, by some long pent-up power that had chosen him now, gained access into the thoughts of the people around him. It was like being struck with a strange virus. He was hearing people speak inside their minds. The voices were criss-crossing the space between his ears like a buzz of busy bugs infecting someplace furiously. The words screamed out of the brains of the dwellers of the metro station, a group of strangers whose lives were now connected by this space-time, by the fear of a common contamination, by the wait for the next train. Pavish Reuk looked around to see if anybody could suspect what he was doing, but nobody in particular was staring at him. Relieved, Pavish walked to the centre of the platform and seated himself on a chair that was surprisingly empty considering the large crowd that had gathered around it. As he sank further deep into the monstrous melting pot of secret thoughts, Pavish remembered the one who could do the same, one he himself had created, and killed: Pratham.

Leaning forward in his chair so as to catch the thoughts better, Pavish looked like a slanted antenna as more and more stories buzzed inside him. Pratham had had a magic stone. For Pavish the sound of a turnstile breaking catapulted him into the belly of a super-sensory universe.

The stories grew out from fear, from secrets, from thoughts never put into words and Pavish Reuk knew right away he was inside the triumph that all artists crave for. He felt like an old typewriter suddenly brought back to life by an incessant clanking away of keys, in this crowded contaminated metro station as a drizzle fell on the floors above. Meanwhile, the two policemen near the signal crossing were walking back to their van. They had been informed of an infected man. One who could spread the disease. And hence had to be captured before it’s too late. Below them Pavish Reuk stood up as he heard the train coming in from a distance. He was full of stories now. He had stolen it all. Triumph, of the purest kind, had finally touched him and he knew he must win this time. Maybe that would redeem Pratham, his death, his failure.

As Pavish Reuk stood up he looked around and saw what he knew he would see. The people around were all looking at him. With sad, infected eyes. Gloomy, masked faces, waiting to slowly die. He was the chosen one now. Despite his unpublished novels, despite his balding head, despite his shrinking frame. The touch of that gaze made him surer of his purpose. He could not go back to failure now. To his loveless home of lack and disappointment. He must win from here. Genius, he had read somewhere a long time ago, lay in the ability to take an infinity of pain. With the smile of a sure man, Pavish Reuk walked to the edge of the platform. The yellow light sped along the rails and became a train. Pavish Reuk jumped into his triumph and disappeared. Outside, it continued to rain.

                                   

Avishek Parui (PhD, Durham) is Assistant Professor in English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He researches on storytelling, embodiment, and memory studies and is the author of Postmodern Literatures (Orient Blackswan).

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Stories

The Savage

By Sunil Sharma

The Common Tiger butterfly (D genutia) lured him into the deep of the scrub jungle. The orange wings with black veins; double row of white spots of a Danaus genus can be as alluring for a camera-n-backpack-laden young birdie from Mumbai, as a call of the sea for a sailor!

Marvellous!

He began clicking the cluster of the butterflies perched on dry twigs as the afternoon advanced rapidly. Like a protective dark drape over a blue canvas, a cloud had partially covered the sky; the shadows had further deepened in the heart of the wilderness.

Hours ceased afterwards!

A time-sensitive honcho from urban Mumbai, Sandeep had deliberately not worn his wristwatch. He wanted a total disconnect with time and civilisation on that ordinary Saturday that was to prove extraordinary.

Life-changing events start with ordinary beginnings and contexts.

His bearded Guru Ananda Swami once told him.

Mighty oak in a tiny seed!

As he quietly clicked the colourful spectacle of the butterflies clinging to twigs in that green patch, Sandeep — Sandy for friends due to dull hair that looked like sand — recalled, in another part of his over-active brain, the last conversation with the Guru, in his expensive ashram.

I have reached the breaking point! I am burnt-out!

The Guru, surrounded by a bevy of the female white devotees, had smiled benignly.

I want to quit the rat race! Sandy had almost screamed in the morning session.

The Guru had turned his hypnotic eyes and fastened them on Sandy’s bulging face.

Calm down! He commanded in a sonorous voice.

Sandy did.

Go and find your inner self—in the jungle.

“In the jungle?” Sandy was incredulous.

“Yes,” the Guru said. In the jungle!

“But how?” Sandy persisted.

“Follow them,” came the order.

“Whom?” Sandy was lost before starting this Paulo Coelho-type quest across the unfamiliar terrain for selfhood and meaning.

“The butterflies!” The Guru said smiling, while the white babes smiled.

Butterflies? In the Jungle? 

Sandy thought an execution warrant was being read out to him in that small audience of the troubled super-rich of the world, in that cool and aesthetically designed mud-room of the ashram.

Yes. Somebody is waiting there for you. Predicted the Guru and then moved on to another disturbed soul in a Savile Row suit.

Although the young and handsome Guru was, few months later, arrested as a suspect in the murder of a sanyasin from Colorado, USA, his words had continued to ring as the guru-mantra.

Then one rainy Sunday, he enrolled for a five-Sunday- afternoon crash course from a freelance naturalist and butterfly-aficionado for a huge sum of money. Subsequently, equipped with a camera and backpack, he started on a solo journey to discover the Other.

That Sunday, indeed, proved to be a life-altering experience for a man who had plotted revenge and mergers on the board-rooms of many corporate houses in his rapid but short career as an e-entrepreneur and head honcho of another successful start-up for a hungry Indian market.

Somewhere, as destiny would have it — his Other was waiting.

The Jungle!

It was a wrong concept!

Rohit Mistry, the naturalist, told him in his studio in south of Mumbai.

“How?” asked Sandy over coffee and sandwich.

“We think of the jungle as a kind of space that is dangerous due to the predators and lack of human laws.” Mistry had taken on the colour and sanguinity of an oriental sage, while meditating on his common topic with his favourite student.

“The truth is,” Mistry continued softly, looking at the Arabian Sea in the background, “the jungle is an independent eco-system, much better than human society and civilization.”

Their denizens do not kill, pillage, destroy, for profit.

Mistry had chuckled. “They do not drop bombs; do not create wars for selling arms or for oil. No innocent gets killed for being the Other.”

“A frightening jungle is our conception, our collective invention. We call it wilderness. It is NOT. We call it dreadful place where we can, urbanites, get lost. No, we can NOT.”

Sandy was speechless by this reversal. This was pure revelation to the MBA from Harvard.

“We have created this strange myth, this urban legend — the Jungle as a killing field full of reptiles and other predators. Fact is — we are the mercenaries marauding that sacred place created by nature!”

Mistry’s tone was low, reverential, eyes far off. A priest speaking to a disciple!

“Jungle is much better than the society!” Mistry had passed his verdict. And left Sandy bewitched.

He wanted to explore that exotic place on his own— just to validate the sanctity of this credo of a post-modern pagan.

An opportunity came his way sooner than expected.

Sandy, after a huge fight with his wife over a trifle, decided to leave home stealthily. Next morning, he slipped out early and took a rickety public bus to this remote jungle and got down at the last stop and then trekked miles inside — on a relentless search for the kind of the Mistry-Jungle.

In fact, he wanted to escape from a screaming wife and kids and colleagues, all tucked inside his brain.

The Jungle! The pathway to Truth.

It is an expedition for inner transformation!

That was the text message to Mistry sent by Sandy; composed, while perched on a boulder.

Do not go with hyper expectations! came the warning from Mistry. In fact, do not go with any expectation. Let the jungle take over.

Follow the butterfly trail— to Truth — Mistry.

That was the last. Then, Sandy had lost the signal to all civilisation.

Butterflies took him to another land; another reality of this overcrowded planet.

And to Truth as well.

In the timeless zone, with a cloudy sky, butterflies hanging together as a happy large family, he lost his way—and found the real one.

Here is the how of it:

By late afternoon, Sandy got startled by an apparition—a semi-naked ghost. A ghost that walked and talked. No, not the masked phantom of Lee Falk but a real one.

A savage!

In his short and unhappy life of 32 years, Sandy never understood folks that survived on low wages and few clothes in a mega-city that constantly thrived on hunger for more. Born into a moderately successful merchant’s family in small-town in India, Sandy had followed the same career trajectory of middle class everywhere: a passion for higher education and hard work. Academic labour gifted him with failing eyesight and a bifocal. But, undeterred, he worked consistently and proved his brightness in chosen fields. Like rest of the working India, he, too, revered money. The very sight and sound of money turned him on. He aspired for obscene salaries and managed to get them. He bought apartments in Delhi and Mumbai. A fleet of cars and army of drivers waited. Naturally, the other India of slums and low-income households was beyond him and often invited derision.

“Their Karma!” Somebody once remarked over drinks.

“Phew!” Sandy spat out. “Their sloth and wanton ways.”

So, anybody with meager salary and a tiny room as a house in a bustling shanty town somewhere up on a degraded hill in Mumbai or Delhi would qualify them as the sub-species for Sandy.

And a semi-clad thin-as-reed-man would not qualify for even that.

Savages! He had observed, while watching a National Geographic documentary on the Aborigines of Australia. The underlying contempt was withering.

A representative of the same hated species was staring at him.

“You are lost!” The man said simply. “You cannot find your way back.”

Now that was too much!

Being led by a savage.

Impossible!

Sandy looked at the creature and did not like what he saw—sunken cheeks, bushy eye brows, matted hair, flat chest and belly, and, rippling arms. He wore old shorts and sandals—the only gesture towards modernity. And carried a catapult in hands. A striking contrast to his counterpart from the city — every inch customized or branded. Perhaps, thought Sandy, the savage does not know what a Ray-Ban Aviator is!

Sandy shrugged off and went on clicking against the light that began fading quickly due to the increased cloud cover. After five minutes, he looked up and saw the ghost. The man was still there — stock still.

“Yes,” he demanded, very much a CEO. His staff resented this particular tone. It was reserved for lower species of the corporate world.

“You are lost!”

“So?”

“You are lost.”

Sandy went through a series of emotions—anger, irritation, helplessness and finally, resignation.

“What to do with this forest sub-species?” he thought.

“Come on,” said the savage. “After evening, it becomes an unsafe place for the city folks.”

Then, as if to reinforce that grim warning, thunder rolled, and clouds raced across the sky.

Sandy, never-led, understood his precarious position: “The savage is right! I am not a jungle-man or the Mowgli-boy!”

Thus, planned by the gods, began an epic journey in a darkening forest for a butterfly-seeking, western-educated corporate tzar, in a most unfamiliar territory full of brooding trees and a gurgling river nearby, while cool shadows hugged him and a chill was experienced by the city slicker, despite the expensive jungle gear worn by him.

The jungle has its own mysteries! Mistry had revealed. It is a great leveler for humans.

As Sandy quietly followed the Other, he felt strangely calm. It was a state that had evaded him for last two decades of his waking existence. Now, being led, he felt free — of his responsibilities and roles and other allied urban burdens.

“I am feeling free!” Sandy exulted.

Then, he experienced a growing rapport with the savage.

As they entered deeper, the jungle revealed its mysteries that, alone, might have frightened him but, in the company of the savage, he felt no panic.

“I am in safe hands!” Sandy thought gleefully. For the first time, I am not guiding but being guided.

The jungle pathways were twisted and dusty; some places were strewn with carpet of leaves and twigs. As the two walked on those ancient trails, one after another, in silence, the citified member of the odd pair heard clearly and distinctly, what he had heard on the plasma TV so far–chatter of monkeys; breath of wind whispering among tree-tops; the bird song mingling with the dulcet notes of a river running nearby, in deep gloom, and the voice of the old jungle in that solitude!

“It is a magical world out here!” Sandy thought.

Birds of various hues were coming to roost. Then the savage shot a fowl with his catapult. After offering a silent prayer, kept it in an old bag strapped to his thin waist — a waist that shot a pang of envy in Sandy right from the beginning of the relationship.

“Why prayers?” He asked.

The man smiled. “Our way. We offer prayers to the departed soul. We never kill for the sake of killing. Just to meet our basic needs.”

Sandy was shaken to the core.

A fresh draft of wind shook the trees and made the leaves fly off, and, kissed their faces with cold hands. Its purity was oxygenating. Sandy felt a strange surge — kind of electrifying energy.

It was, in fact, another world.

“You live here?” Sandy asked and then realized his foolishness.

The savage smiled. “Yes. My home.”

“How many generations?” Sandy asked, as if interviewing him for an entry-level job.

“Many.”

“You do not remember?”

The savage smiled. “Can you give me the name of your great-great grandpa?”

Sandy, of course, could not. He could not even recall the name of his dad and grand dad during stressful situations!

“We are the children of the forest!” The savage declared. “We are the inheritors of the spirit of the jungle.”

“Spirit?” Sandy, the skeptic, asked.

“Yes. The spirit.”

“Can you show me that?” Sandy was the playful civilized man again, teasing the tribal.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Come on.”

And they both entered the mysterious!

In the heart of the wilderness, stood a cluster of seven huts made of straws and mud. They were bare except for a few baskets, pitchers and a bare minimum of utensils. The savage was greeted with smiles by the rest of the “village” as he called it. The big fowl was handed over to the elders. Two more men had brought fowls and birds for the collective feast.
“We share all things,” said the savage. “It is like a big family.”

 Sandy nodded. Co-operation for him was, so far, a biz buzz only. Here, real-time, it was happening as a daily practice. The women started skinning the birds and some began open-air fires for cooking the meat. The naked kids gamboled in the clearing, while the male elders of the village sat in a circle and chatted.

“Open-air party!” thought Sandy.

“Come!” said the savage as gloom gathered around the huts overlooked by a wooded hill and surrounded by trees of varied sizes.

“Where?” asked the city slicker undergoing a culture shock of different kind.

“To our sacred grove,” said the savage, in the role of a teacher.

“Okay,” agreed the disciple.

The sacred grove!

It was nothing spectacular or Hollywoodian in scale or visual effect. A tiny shrine—crude and humble with a stone tablet smeared with daubs of orange and red—under a tall banyan tree. All around were trees and shrubs. A few meters away sang the river, now sparkling under a full moon.

That was all.

The savage bowed down to the ancient tablet –“our goddess”– in an act of deep reverence and chanted some incantation in a dialect beyond Sandy. As the shadows thickened, and the moon climbed further in a sky now bereft of clouds, a hush fell over that patch, Sandy started feeling sudden but subtle changes inside. Cut off from civilization, in the midst of nowhere, he lost bearings of place and time. The brooding jungle and the solitude never experienced earlier caused a hypotonic spell on his citified imagination. He started retreating to a different dimension. The savage finished his mumbo-jumbo and then waved a hand before sandy’s brown eyes fitted with blue lenses.

And everything altered.

Looking at the surroundings, Sandy felt a change happening within at a breakneck speed. Suddenly, he was hurtling down a tunnel of time — only to emerge a most fantastic scene before his reverential eyes:

In the moon-lit night, he saw, along with an ancient tribe of worshippers, spirits of the trees –dryads, a part of his subconscious rooted in anglicised education recalled, dancing merrily on the grass, while a nymph-like goddess came out of the sparkling river and joined them in this divine play. Trees bent down to kiss her feet and spirits squealed at the sight of the goddess willing to be their companion on earth. Every blade and bough emitted a strange fragrance that overwhelmed Sandy’s senses completely and left him intoxicated.

He was a mute witness to the tribals — mostly elders led by a stern priest — offering flowers and leaves to the goddess and singing hymns in her praise. They then went into frenzy and began swaying wildly, as if possessed. They were whirling around in that scented area, eyes crazed, hair swirling, hands raised in supplication. Sandy clearly saw them communing with the goddess. Everywhere he felt the presence of the sacred. That piece of the jungle had become a vast stage, an arena, for the gods and goddess to make their appearance and intermingle with the adepts and the chosen. The intensity of the spectacle was so intense that he, Sandy of the New Millennium, rational and goal-driven, felt his veins would burst.

Then the vision changed.

He saw, in that heightened state, a river dying a slow death due to poison and trees being cut down by the brute machines. The entire pantheon slowly disappeared, and the goddess died gasping for breath. Afterwards, rains, mudslides and famine followed.

Then, darkness returned.

Badly shaken, Sandy, much chastised and sober, guided by the savage, returned to the tiny village. There they all drank the rice wine and ate the meat roasted on the open fire. The savages then sang a song and danced in a group — for their city guest. The camaraderie was great. He enjoyed their openness, trusting nature and hospitality.

In that closeness, despite a sharp contrast in backgrounds, Sandy found a family.

Family!

Decades ago, it meant growing up in a joint family for Sandeep, in a small north Indian town, off Delhi-Amritsar highway. Three floors of a big house, at least 100 years old. Grandpa, grandma, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, guests. A crowded place with joint kitchen. His ma and other aunts took turns to cook meals for a large family. They were always busy. A big shop in the main market kept the family together, despite differences and fights. But it stayed on, like other families.

In the 1990s liberal India, Sandeep Gupta found a new direction and mantra. He earned degrees and combined education with ancestral knowledge to begin ventures in the virtual world for a hungry middle class that had, like Sandeep, changed as well. Feeling restricted in that old township and starved of space in the joint family — they owned only two rooms in the property and four siblings adjusted with mother and father for years — the brilliant Sandeep left the town — and the tearful family — forever, never to look back.

As he rose up the ladder, the contact with family shrunk down to few e-mails, SMSes and occasional calls to ailing parents. His siblings were not that successful, and Sandeep thought they were resentful of his hard-earned success and money and status.

“Jealousy!” His wife would say. For the siblings and parents and the rest of the joint family—it was betrayal, pure and simple!

“I have every right to be happy! To lead my own life! To take my own decisions!” Sandeep would argue, fortified with this new Me-only philosophy, a new cardinal principle of faith for entrepreneurs like him, in a globalised India. Naturally, the two — Sandeep and his family –drifted apart.

“I am on my own,” he declared. “Family means feuds!”

So, he junked them.

While watching the savages dance in harmony, each timing their steps with the other in perfect sync, bodies bending forward and then resuming an erect position, Sandeep, deep down, remembered his aged father and a very frail and ill mother. They had suffered huge losses due to the competition posed by the e-retail and were surviving somehow in that old place and because of the joint kitchen. But Sandeep had hardly bothered about them.

I will call up Ma first thing in the morning! He resolved.

After a long dance, the savage came back to the spot where Sandy was sitting.

“How do you feel?” The forest dweller asked, eyes shining.

Sandy looked into those eyes and found himself reflected as the Other.

“You are my brother!” Sandy blurted.

The savage smiled and held his guest’s hands in warm clasp. “We all are connected.”

“What is your name?” Sandy asked, hands linked.

“Ananta.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Eternal One!”

“Oh!” Sandy said.

“One of its meanings,” Ananta replied.

“You went to school?” Sandy blurted out but regretted instantly.

“The jungle is my only school. Besides, there are no schools for the poor!”

Sandy felt the sadness of the tone.

“You are comfortable?”

“Yes.” Sandy said, “Very relaxed.”

“Does the jungle look dangerous?”

“Not at all now. The one I left behind…well, compared with that, this looks very comfortable.”

Sandy was telling the truth.

“You can sleep here under the stars?” Ananta asked softly.

“Will there be any snakes?”

“No.”

Who was the savage? His mind was debating. Then the wind stirred in the valley and rose.

He felt lulled by the cool wind fanning his face — the man from the mega city and slipped into soundless sleep, after years, without taking any drugs or alcohol…

When he woke up, next morning, there was no camp, no village, no hamlet to be seen around. He was sleeping on the sand, a few feet from the river that was gurgling lazily, as a baby sun peeped out from a bank of clouds.

Sunil Sharma, an academic administrator and author-critic-poet–freelance journalist, is from suburban Mumbai, India. He has published 22 books so far, some solo and some joint, on prose, poetry and criticism. He edits the monthly, bilingual Setu: http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html
For more details of publications, please visit the link below:
http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/

Categories
Stories

Flash Fiction: Strangers

By Tina Morganella

The African man selling trinkets looks less out of place than me. In jeans and slippers he lopes over the sand, going between beachgoers calling out, “Signora, buon prezzo”, promising a “good price” in an accent that will never sound Italian. His smile is docile but nervous as he approaches three elderly Italians, plump and soft, golden and wrinkled, walking along the sand in their bikinis. He calls one of them by name. Regulars. They pluck at the jewels on offer – great hoops of gold-coloured earrings, chunks of necklaces with matching bracelets. They slip them on and turn their wrists this way and that. They gently prod each other and admire or admonish. The trinket seller senses a sale. He nods and offers other similar items. He’s gently insistent, but there are also unnerving silences that sound to me like desperate appeals for help. 

One of the ladies starts to haggle over the price of a bracelet. She halves the number and he looks betrayed and disappointed. He offers her another number in return and she shakes her head. She’s starting to move away now, waving her hands dismissively. He tilts his head to one side, holding out the bracelet, willing her to take it. She hesitates and takes it in her hands again. But then she makes a decision and brusquely hands it back to him. She says once more, sternly “No”, and walks away. One of her friends lingers for a moment, still listening to his appeal, trying to be kinder and smiling at him apologetically. But then she too turns and joins the others.

He looks angrily after them, “What do you want lady? You talk and talk and talk….” He rearranges his wares, shrugging them on his shoulder, over his forearm, around his neck, and lopes on. “Signora, buon prezzo, buon prezzo.” The call is woeful. The sun forces him to squint as he forges on.  

When he approaches me next my sympathy melts in the sun. I barely glance up from my book, my mouth a line, my eyes unsmiling, avoiding contact. When he, in English, offers me matching sets, I say no, no, several times, loudly, clearly. Annoyed. And as he walks on I’m immediately ashamed. Forgetting that in front of me was a man earning a living.  A man who felt the sting of “no” like anyone else would, and who perhaps heard it ring in his ears long into the night, disturbing his sleep. I watched him move slowly down the beach, hovering gently between groups, being waved away, sent on.

Under a hat and glasses, shaded by an umbrella and mostly clothed, the trinket seller had immediately recognised me as a fellow foreigner. I am overdressed, over cautious. On my own. Pale and cloudy, not sharp and strongly outlined like the Italians. They are minimally dressed, drowsy and lolling in the direct sun – professional couples on holidays feed morsels to small dogs; couples stroll hand in hand, slick with love and affection; and teenagers scoff and jab at each other, all bluster and swagger. The murmur of the ocean is a gentle and lulling hum, still discernible over the laughter and chatter. But behind me violent cliffs loom skyward, the blue sky presses down, heavy and suffocating. I’m half way between the wide expanse of blue, both sky and sea, and the menace of the earth.

Someone asked me earlier whether my beach at home looked out to the ocean or the sea. I had no idea what he was talking about. Confused I kept asking him to repeat himself. Voices were raised. When I finally understood what he meant, I faltered – I didn’t know the answer. What does it matter? He smiled patronisingly at me: “Never mind.” But what does it matter? I want to know. He wouldn’t say.

A shadow falls over my book. Before I can even look up an elderly woman is saying, in Italian, “Scusa signorina, can you look and tell me if my ear is completely covered by the bathing cap?” She assumes I will understand, and I do understand enough. But I still stare at her for a moment, processing. That she assumes I will recognise her words, her request, pleases and puzzles me. She has a sweet face and a patient smile. She is very plump, and is very pale for an Italian. Despite her obvious age, her eyes are lit with youth. She is standing quite still, waiting for me to get up and check her bathing cap.

“No, it’s not….,” I tell her, “wait”.

“Oh thank you. I’ve had an ear infection and my doctor said not to get water in it. But I have to go for my swim, of course.” She is serene.

The nape of her neck looks damp, threads of silver hair escape the cap. I try to tug the plastic over her ear. Her skin is soft and hot. I realise I have to tug reasonably hard and she braces herself and nods encouragingly. I touch her earlobe, brush her cheek. Then I gently nudge her to turn, so I can check the other ear. She obliges; it’s ok. She seems unmoved by the intimacy but I shiver at touching a stranger. Not in revulsion, but breathless and moved by her trust. 

I tell her, “You’re ok now,” in English. She pats her covered ears, satisfied.

“Come ti  chiama signorina?” she asks.

“Mi chiamo Serena.”

She nods once and smiles, “Grazie Serena.” Then turns towards the sea. I sit down again and watch as she shuffles slowly towards the water, wades in up to her thighs and then pushes herself under. I see her arms move rhythmically, her cap peaking above the gentle waves. I watch her until she becomes a pinpoint and I can no longer recognise the stranger.

Tina Morganella is a freelance writer and copy editor with an MPhil in creative writing from the University of Adelaide, Australia. Tina is most interested in short fiction, memoir and travel literature and has most recently been published in Rush (US), STORGY Magazine (UK), Tulpa Magazine (Australia), Sky Island Journal (US), Entropy (US) and Sudo (Australia). She also has nonfiction articles published in the Australian press (The Big Issue, The Australian, The Adelaide Advertiser).

Categories
Stories

The Wooden Horse

Short Story by Naguman

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

It was his first flight. The first flight in twenty crawling years. He sat at the Departure Lounge of the Quetta airport waiting for the final boarding announcement. He was delighted but at the same time a bit nervous too. He feared that the plane would crash. He sat impatiently on the sofa.

Afflicted by extreme poverty, where he could hardly bear the expenses of his studies, air travel had seemed a distant dream to him. He always traveled by bus. On the Quetta-Turbat dirt road, he covered a distance of eight hundred miles in forty hours. Amidst the dust from the road, smoke of cigarettes, earsplitting music, cacophonies rattling the old bus, coughing, sneezing and vomiting passengers, the tedious journey was no less than a nightmare. His head would almost explode from a headache, his feet would be swollen, and his bottom would ache from sitting too long in the bus but his destination would remain distant.

Whenever he was on the bus, he felt like a worm crawling ahead. At times when he happened to see plane tags on the bags of his friends, his heart quivered like a caged bird. He wanted to ask them how it felt to fly in the air. But he never mustered up the courage to ask. “Such senseless questions! Everybody would mock me. Poverty does not mean you get yourself ridiculed.”

At such times he would often curse his poverty. After all, for how long was he supposed to crawl like a worm? Was he not destined to soar in the air like an eagle? Voiceless poverty had no answer. Rather silence was its answer.

One day destiny favored him. The government announced scholarships for deserving students. He too was awarded a sum of five thousand rupees. He used half of the money to pay his college fee and, with the other half, he bought an air ticket.

He looked at the clock. There was still some time to left for the flight. He picked up the newspaper and began to read. The headlines read:

‘An American plane crashed killing all passengers on board.’

He froze with fear and couldn’t read a word more. If the planes of the world’s superpower could crash, then how would these old Pakistani planes survive?

He put the paper back on the table.

“Thank you, Holy Lord.” He turned around. A white bearded man clad in white, was telling his rosary on a nearby sofa.

“I reckon, like me, he also fears that the plane may crash.” He felt a little relieved and with sympathetic eyes looked at the old man. But there were no ripples of fear or anxiety on his face. He sat relaxed flicking his rosary. He was not afraid. He thanked the Holy Lord by way of habit. Just to while away the time.

The shades of sympathy he felt for the old man evaporated. For a moment, he wanted to tell him to thank God when He stopped taking lives. In a moment, He could take lives of millions in the world. And yet the old man extended his thanks to Him. And to the One who ceases life in the living. Mullah you are supposed to know that submission before a brute isn’t a sort of worship. Rather it is sycophancy; it is fear.

“Thank you, Holy Lord. You’ve blessed me with everything.” The old man reiterated.

“He is showing too much gratitude! As if God has promised him that He would never take his life. And he affirms you have blessed me with everything. The best of all blessings is life. If He snatches it from you then what would you do with the ‘everything’ you have been blessed with.”

Again, he was alone and anxious. In an attempt to divert his attention, he unintentionally picked up the newspaper but the moment his eyes fell on the headlines he dropped it. Then he took out the ticket from his pocket and began to scan it. When he was done with it, he turned around and glanced at his co-passengers. They were so calm and composed as if they were sure that the plane would never crash. For a moment he decided to read aloud the news about the crashed plane; so that everyone would tremble with fear and panic and resolve not to fly again.

A few minutes later the final announcement was made, and the passengers began to proceed towards the plane. He had his eyes fixed on the plane. What the eyes see, the heart at times refuses to believe! The thing that appears like a bird in the sky looked like a mountain on the ground. If this giant took off, wouldn’t it crash? Again, fear overwhelmed him but now he had set his foot on the stairs. As he stepped into the plane, he heard a woman voice:

“Assalam o Alaikum!”

The beautiful air hostess standing by the door was greeting all passengers smilingly. He was reminded of the untidy and messy conductors and crew members of the bus who never showed any sort of respect towards the passengers. On the other hand, the beautiful air hostess greeted the passengers warmly on board. Even though her smile didn’t spring from her heart and it was just lip-deep, but to steal a look at her lips was something enchanting unto itself. Her voice was a melody. The fake respect he got in the plane was much coveted than the genuine disrespect in the bus.

When the plane was picking up speed on the runway, he felt that he was running to prepare himself to soar in the sky. Suddenly, it dawned on him that once the God of heaven also lived on the Earth. And one day running on the Earth, he soared into the sky and never returned.

The plane was moving away from the Earth. Astounded, he looked at the sky as of it was the first time he was seeing it. It was the first time, it occurred to him that the sky was more beautiful than the Earth. He wondered whether it was due to the distance between the Earth and heaven or was it just an illusion of the eyes? He couldn’t make up his mind, but he assumed that it was beautiful because God lived there. It also had an ambience of eternity. The Earth, despite all its colours and shades, was unbearable because it housed graveyards. He realised why God wouldn’t return to the Earth.

When the plane soared above the clouds, he found them more enchanting from the sky than from the Earth. Patches of clouds lay scattered in the sky and appeared like cracked crusts of soil in a dried out plain. In essence, the heaven and the Earth were no different. It was all just an illusion of the eyes. He knew that his eyes were telling lies. But he was amazed to see how the heart often believed in the lies of the eyes.

Now the plane had soared to the required altitude. The thought that he was flying above the clouds sent ripples of fear in his heart. Caught between belief and incredulity, he fancied he was the prince of the old legends and the plane was the magical wooden horse. When you twisted its right ear, it took off and when you twisted its left ear it landed on the ground.

“Excuse me”!

The voice of the airhostess juggled him out of his thoughts. The beautiful lady with the platter of the food stood smiling beside him. The fairy of the Mount Qaf was kind to the prince and the Wooden Horse was soaring high in the air. He looked at the fairy-like airhostess and smiled over his prince-like-thoughts.

When he put the first morsel in his mouth, it occurred to him that if Earthly foods were taken in the sky, they would taste like the forbidden fruit of the paradise for which Adam and Eve transgressed God’s command and became mortal.

After the meal, the air hostess served him cold drinks. He picked a glass of his favourite drink. It reminded him of the elixir of life. A silent prayer sprung out of his heart. He wished he could forever stay in heaven. The gorgeous lady would remain at his service with ambrosial food. But there shouldn’t be the Forbidden Fruit among them and nor the transgression of Adam and Eve.

After having finished the meal, he took out the booklet from the seat pocket and began to read it. It carried guidelines about emergency situations and about how to put on the life jacket. Again, he was reminded of the plane crash.

Before he took the flight, he had been overwhelmed with such fear and thoughts. But now in those moments of delight and fancy when he was flying in the sky, he thought about the plane crash — the heavenly end of the Earthly life. It was more beautiful than all forms of death. Much desired than illness, bullets, road accident, water, fire, poison and hanging. Better than all.

In the meantime, the plane shook. Something ran down his spine. It was a wave of fear. He looked at the other passengers. Everybody’s face was pale with anxiety. At the very moment, it was announced that the plane was flying over a mountain. There was nothing to worry. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

With this single turbulence that shook the plane, his desire for a heavenly death disappeared. He thought that death in any form was frightening — be it in heaven or on Earth. Death was just death. Heavenly end of the Earthly life, these are mere words. Words placed in a beautiful order. Glorification of death wouldn’t make the road easy.

“Thank you, Holy Lord, the Creator.” The voice of the old man jolted him out of his thoughts. He turned back. Seated nearby, the old man was looking for something in his hand bag. He pulled out two strips of pills and took one from each strip with a glass of water. He drew a large breath and wiped out the driblets of water from his beards. Again, he thanked God and began to tell his rosary.

“This old man is afraid of illness.” He felt sympathy towards the old man. Whether it was the fear of illness or plane crash both have the same upshot. Both roads led to the same destination — the destination of death and everybody ran away from it. Everybody sought life. A life that has no end. An eternal life — that is the hallmark of God — but everybody longed for it. They all want to remain eternal like God. They all want to become God.

A sudden thought flashed like lightning on the horizon of his mind. “God is a horse man has carved out of the wood. Yesterday’s wooden horse is today’s plane and today’s God is tomorrow’s man.”

He trembled and quivered. He was so excited as if he had run into a treasure. For a moment he felt like calling out at the top of his voice:

“O, people of the world! I’m very familiar with God. The kind and compassionate God. God is a dream man’s heart has dreamt with its wakeful eyes. One day this dream will come true. How beautiful is this moment of my life. This moment seems eternal. How enchanting it is to understand God! If I cease to exist now, I wouldn’t lament. I’ve discovered my God—my companion.”

He was all excited and delighted. He felt an ocean of delight in his heart where his fear of death had capsized like a shipwreck. Happiness. Absolute heavenly happiness. No fear at all. Only God could experience such happiness because he had no fear of death. He felt the storm of happiness would burst out of his chest and sweep through the entire world.

“Do you know what is God?”

All of a sudden, his voice resonated in the plane. He was standing on his feet. Everybody was looking at him with surprise.

“I’m going to tell you who actually God is,” he touched the zenith of excitement. “God is a horse man has carved out of the wood!”

People were all ears. Wrinkles of their hearts had appeared on their faces. But indifferent to all, he was speaking without a pause.

“Man has made this wooden horse just because he wants to reach out to the Mount Qaf. He desires for the most beautiful fairy of the Qaf. Do you know what does Qaf mean? Qaf means absolute power. Once you reach the Qaf, you would overcome on each and everything in the world. Qaf is the land of miracles. Nothing is impossible there. Whatever you wish for, you can do. Moses’ rod, Solomon’s flying throne, Aladdin’s djin, all are found there. You may not know but this plane is heading for the Mount Qaf.”

The travelling prince was narrating the legend of the Mount Qaf to the bewildered Earthly folks and the wooden horse was flying high in the air.

But it had a big flaw. Its left ear was missing. And neither the excited speaker knew about it nor the bewildered audience.

Naguman is an eminent name in the world of Balochi fiction. So far, he has published one collection of his short stories under the title Dar ay Aps (The Wooden Horse). Most of his short stories are based on human aspirations, their relationship with fellow human beings and various elements of the nature. His lucid and flowing prose stands him out in the realm of Balochi short story.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated several Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2017 and Silence Between the Notes — the first ever anthology of Partition Poetry published by Dhauli Books India in 2018. His upcoming works of translation include Why Does the Moon Look So Beautiful? (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Naguman) and God and the Blind Man (Selected Balochi Short Stories by Minir Ahmed Badini).