by Sudipta Das
On this day, as usual, the galleries were full with important Hoos from all over Hunthad. A trumpet was blown. The dignitaries present in the hall started chanting in unison, “Hunet, Hunet; Hunet, Hunet.”
Amongst the cheers a finely crafted yellow metal throne gently ascended upon the podium from a hidden chamber below it. When the throne became completely visible, its occupant stood up and raised his rope like yellow tail. The chants gave way to complete silence. Hunet wore an intricately embellished yellow costume. He was of medium height, lean build and in his fifties. His slim and long face was crowned by porcupine-like straight hair. His beaky nose was flanked by his concave cheeks. He quickly looked around with his inquisitive and restless fox-like yellowish eyes.
After the ritualistic formalities, some day to day affairs of Hunthad were discussed and Hunet impressed his decisions on each and every one of those. Then, two over-sized Hunthadian soldiers dragged a prisoner into the circular hall through one of its many entrances and brought him before the throne. The prisoner could hardly stand on his feet. Still bleeding marks of slashes peeped out of his torn out brown apparel. One of the soldiers hailed, “Long live Hunet. We have administered the severe on this sober Sobret, just as you ordered.”
“Hunet is pleased,” said Hunet and ridiculed the prisoner. “Hope you liked the hospitality, you deplorable sober.”
Insult added to his injury, the prisoner raised his anguished oval face and cried out, “Remember Hunet, my sober forefathers helped in building this palace, even the throne in which you are sitting. You can kill me but Lord Huntha will surely judge you one day.”
Hunet continued to humiliate relentlessly, “I know what your forefathers did and that was all they could do, work. How dare the sobers misinterpret the books? They did not understand that words have meanings and there it all ends. They worked and they deserved to be ruled because none of them had the acumen to rule. Look at me. I am sitting in this throne because I am the one and only Hunet, the knowledgeable.”
Before the prisoner could say anything else, the audience started chanting, “Hunet, Hunet; Hunet, Hunet.”
Hunet gestured to the soldiers and the soldiers took the prisoner away. “I have an important appointment to keep,” he said and abruptly stood up from his throne and raised his ropy tail. The trumpet blew again. The chanting continued. Hunet held his posture. Along with Hunet, the throne slowly descended and disappeared from the podium.
* * *
The mobile throne reached a lower chamber hidden below the level of the podium. Hunet stepped forward from the throne to meet his unwilling guest and said, “Welcome to Hunthad, Kit. Hope you enjoyed witnessing my rulings from here, on these live video display-screens.”
Without responding to his suggestion Kit asked, “How did you bring me here?”
Hunet replied with a cunning smile, “My spies did a good job, just as I had asked them to. One of them, your trusted bodyguard, rendered you unconscious with an anesthetic Hunthadian herb and brought you out of your security zone. There, you were put into a high-altitude stealth flying car. Once the car rose to a height of ten kilometres above the Violet Land and resumed communication with the satellites, there was no problem in navigating back to Gumba. They nicely completed the operation in the cover of the night before anyone in Kithad noticed that you were missing.
“You focused a lot on your knowledge and economy. Wish you had taken more care for your security. I have this great talent of finding other’s weaknesses, you see.”
Kit defiantly asked, “Why have you brought me here?”
“Have patience, my friend. I have a lot of information about you; your achievements, your happy sweet family and your fame. How can you have all the good things that this world has to offer? What qualities do you possess that Hunet, the great, doesn’t have?” remarked Hunet.
“Is that why you have abducted me; out of your utter envy at my well-being and happiness? If only you knew how much struggle and agony I had to go through to reach the present, all your envies would be extinguished,” said Kit.
“O, I know how difficult this world is. I know very well that there is no free meal here. But you don’t seem to know much about me. You have no idea how miserable life could be,” said Hunet.
Kit maintained his calm and listened. Hunet continued, “We lived in a ghetto, a damp shanty in the northern part of Hunthad. My father was a labourer in the nearby dine stone mine. As you may know, the open-crust dine mines of Hunthad are scant in dines. Here the mining process is labour intensive and painstaking. My father toiled overtime in the heat of the Let to meet the two ends. Often he did miserably as the wages were very low. Sometimes, we even had to go hungry. At times my father took the frustration off his tired body and fatigued mind by finding faults with my mother and me on the most trivial of matters.
“My mother often wept silently; not because of how my father treated her but because she could not feed me enough. I understood my parents’ helplessness and never complained. Even though lean and malnourished, since my childhood I had great memorising and cognitive powers. I could remember things simply by one read. But my parents could not afford to send me to school. I did not want to spend my life languishing like my father. I wanted to study and change my fate. I often visited the nearby town in search of books thrown away by the over-stuffed stupid children of my age who lived there. They went to schools and enjoyed their lives like hell simply because their parents had loads of money and elevated social status.
“I learnt, early in my life, that money and power are the two things people worship. Their tears of compassion have long dried up. True knowledge and piety have become things of the very distant past.
“Sometimes, my budding mind became furious at the yawning gap between their wastefulness and my utter poverty. I badly wanted to beat these scoundrels at their own game. I desperately looked for a glimmer of opportunity to change my fate and those of my poor parents. Luckily for me, that opportunity came by; sooner than I had expected.
“A charitable group visited our ghetto. They readily noticed my extraordinary gift. They picked me up and put me on a scholarship. For the first time in my life, I went to school. I added toil to my talents and broke one record after another. With the accolades, came respect. Now those fat scoundrels wanted to rub their shoulders against mine.
“But, before I could graduate, tragedy struck, not once but twice. One hot summer noon, my father succumbed to his prolonged hard labour. A few months later, incessant poverty took my mother away and brought an end to her ever degraded life. Even today, my heart anguishes like grave when I remember that I could not appease my parents.
“I kept my spirits up and focused on my studies. I learnt all the books of the Hunthadian tradition by heart. By the time I graduated with unprecedented honours,
I realised that no one in Hunthad was as knowledgeable as me. All I had to do since then was to use this knowledge to further my goal of raising the social echelons. It has not been a cake walk. I had to struggle hard to fend off steep competition posed by my competitors. But, in the end, no one could stand the power of my knowledge when I debated and spoke with the authority of the books.
“With power came money, unimaginable riches. Look at me. Today I am the number one Hoo in Hunthad, second only to Almighty, Huntha. I could not do anything for my parents while they were alive. But now, their souls must be happy that I have become the most powerful in Hunthad. But even this is not enough. Still there is more power to get. I want to rule all. I shall reach the top. Then all the Hoos will respect me and Hoola will be at my feet. I have to annex Kithad and take control of those dine-rich mines.
“But before that I shall have to come to terms with your international popularity. How can anyone else be more famous than me! I am the one and only, knowledgeable Hunet. Bad for you that you stand in my way. You have to go. When you are gone, so will be your fame. That is why you have been brought here. Don’t be afraid. I shall be kind with you. You
will be put to a deep, sound and peaceful sleep never to awake again,” Hunet coldly said.
Kit kept his composure and, without blinking his eyes, said, “I have ever been submitted to the Supreme. The Supreme alone is the all-powerful ruler of this universe. All riches, all power and all knowledge belong to Him alone. We get to possess some of these only for a while. Then these are again reverted back to the Supreme.
“You can put an end to this body which I presently possess but my real existence is in my Soul, Divine. No sword can pierce It; fire cannot burn It; water cannot dissolve It. The Soul is finer than the fine and subtler than the subtle. If it is the Supreme’s will that my Soul must leave my body here, then even you cannot prevent it. But, my Spirit will live on. The death of one Kit will surely give birth to thousands of Kits everywhere. How will you deal with them?”
“Go on. I am your patient listener,” Hunet said cunningly.
“I am more worried about you, Hunet,” Kit continued with serene sincerity. “Look, what you have done to yourself? Let’s say, the entire Hoola comes under your feet. Will you be happy then? All your parents ever wanted was to see you smiling and happy. I see no smile on your face. I do not find any happiness in you.”
Hunet’s jaws toughened. Kit continued, “I am agonised to learn about the miseries of your childhood and the misfortune of your parents. But, you do not seem to realise that the strong impressions of these miserable experiences have kept your Soul ever tangled in the reactionary forces of causes and effects. Only your external realities have changed. Even now, are you not as miserable as you were at your childhood, my friend?”
Hunet remained silent. Kit paused and resumed, “In spite of learning all the Hunthadian books of wisdom by heart, your Soul is far from being liberated. This has happened because you have not been able to come to terms with your reactionary energies. Forgive, my friend; forgive your past, forgive your poverty, forgive your sufferings, forgive your misery and forgive your sorrow. Only then, peace shall be yours. Liberation of the Soul can come only with the realisation that you are in all and all are in you; being happy at other’s happiness and being sorry at other’s misery. Have you done anything for the millions of Hunthadians who still live under the same conditions as those of your childhood? Even a fractional decrease in your offence and defence initiatives can alleviate their poverty.”
“I was picked up for my extraordinary talents,” interrupted Hunet. “How many are there who are as talented as me? None.”
Kit replied, “Talented or not, every Hunthadian has a right to lead at least a decent life.”
Now, Hunet’s patience snapped. Agitatedly he said, “Who are you to preach me like that? You are not even a Hunthadian. I must rule because I am the best. Soldiers, take him back to the tower.”
17
Thought Transference
In the meantime, an anxious week passed since Kit went missing from Kithad. Then, one afternoon, Ket boarded the vertical car and went to the attic of the building of her apartment. This building raises two hundred storeys high into the sky. I, along with the kids, followed her. Let was halfway between the zenith and the horizon. She lit a sparkling star-like self-levitating blue light at a distance from us. As we watched, she took a fierce posture standing only on her right leg and aligned herself and her shivering tail towards the blue light. After a few minutes, the light started to move slowly. Ket turned to maintain her alignment towards the light. After turning a quarter of a circle, the light came to a standstill. Now, Ket faced south. The fierceness in her body language and the shivering of her tail gradually calmed down. Her eyes closed. She became immobile. My psychologist’s eyes could read on her face that she had slipped into deep thought. She must be lost in the thoughts of her beloved Kit, I presumed.
* * *
Meanwhile, Hunet’s spies brought him the news that the Kithadians had discovered that he had abducted Kit and put him at the top of the tower. His perfect abduction had been leaked. The spies also informed him that Kithadians leveraged on their good relations with most of the other colour countries to garner international pressure upon Hunthad to release Kit. Hunet’s surreptitious ploy was to take on the other colour countries one by one and forcibly transform them into yellow. He knew, better than anyone else, that Hunthad would stand no chance against the rest of Hoola united. Overtly, he continued to deny the abduction.
On top of it, Hunet lost his patience with Kit. He could not stand the fact that even in captivity, Kit remained fearless and assertive. Most unbearably to him, all his bookish knowledge seemed miniscule before Kit’s sheer wisdom and Kit made no effort to hide that. He saw the existence of Kit’s personality as a mountainous obstacle between himself and his ambition to rule all of Hoola. He decided that Kit was better disposed of today than tomorrow. Enraged, Hunet changed his mind regarding putting Kit to a permanent sleep. Instead he directed his soldiers to throw him into the ancient well of death located about fifty kilometres south of the Hunthadian capital, Gumba.
The much dreaded well of death was constructed about four millennia ago a few centuries after the death of Hun, the Originator of the yellow colour. It was around this time that the fate of the yellow colour was at the crossroads. The Hunthadians were divided into two ideological factions. One side wanted to live the principle of Hun’s universal brotherhood and bring an end to the war tactic. They professed that Hun had resorted to the war tactic as a temporary measure to unite the mutually fighting unruly tribes who lived on the equatorial lands during his time. The other side asserted that even though the yellow colour country, Hunthad, had come into existence, force was still necessary to discipline and transform all the Hoos into yellow. They were guided mainly by their submerged ancient warring ethos, which could not be appeased even by the great wisdoms of Hun, the great. In the ensuing struggle and civil war between the two factions, which lasted almost for half a century, eventually, the sober approach of the former faction gave way to the physical aggression of the latter.
The leaders of the former sober faction were captured by the leaders of the latter extreme faction who then became the colour rulers of Hunthad. These rulers wanted to serve the captives with exemplary punishment and raise a fear psychosis in the minds of the other Hunthadians with such sober tendencies. Thus they ordered the construction of the one kilometre deep well. After days of beastly torment and torture, the sober leaders were plunged into the well. Legends have it that, the shrill cries of their pain and agony were heard near the well for weeks. Then they died and their carcasses rotted in the murky water of the well. The whole atmosphere around the well became filthy and gloomy.
Four millennia had passed since then. Even now, Hoos of that area reported hearing the bone chilling cry of the unquenched souls of the condemned sobers.
Hunet would like to bring back the brutalities of the past but the international pressure on Hunthad to free Kit made him too impatient for the customary torture. He chose to immediately destroy the very evidence of the abduction, Kit himself. Kit was unceremoniously carried and plunged into the notorious well of death. As he hit the murky waters at the bottom of the well, the water splashed and something struck against the stone walls of the well. Were those the skeletal remains of the legendary condemned sober leaders? Kit could not figure out in the gloom. The air smelt damp and a bit pungent. He reckoned that the obnoxious microbes present in the place would decompose his body in a few days. Over his head, the mouth of the well seemed like a distant star, light-year away. On top of it, the creepiness of the haunted place soon started affecting his sensitive psyche. Then he heard the earnest call of the condemned sobers, as loud as his own voice, “Why have you come here? Have you forgotten that you have works to do for the race? Go away from here, Kit.”
Faced with imminent death, Kit desperately prayed, “O Lord, if it is your will that my soul should leave my body like this, then so be it. But, O, the kindest One, for one more time, let me hold the tranquility of my son, Sook, and the delight of
my daughter, Soor, in my arms. For one more time, let me behold the radiant blue eyes of my beloved Ket and let me caress her face.”
Then, out of the darkness in his psyche, arose a beautiful voice, the voice that he wanted to hear the most, saying, “Why dost thou despair, my love? Despair not. Thou art not alone even for a moment. Me is always with thee.”
“O dearest Ket!” exclaimed Kit. “My heart remains ever with thee and shall unceasingly be thine.”
Then he heard her singing the soulful song,
“Thou art in me
And me is in Thee.
Because of Thee,
I be.”
All of Kit’s agonies vanished immediately. Ket solemnly affirmed, “This cannot be the end. We cannot lose each other yet again. I shall not let that happen. Remember, we have the blessings of the Lord’s love. Our love must triumph over the hatred and hostilities of this world. Neither you nor I fear the separatist hatred.”
“But, how will I be able to come out of this well?” asked Kit.
“Why not?” promptly assured Ket. “Have you forgotten that at one stage during your enlightenment through alignment, you attained the power to levitate? You had forgone that power then, in search of yet higher enlightenment. That power is still within you. Recall that power now and multiply it. You will surely raise yourself out of this well.”
“O dear, you have just raised my hopes of seeing Sook and Soor again. Where would I be without you!” said Kit. He sang,
“Because of Thee-
I be.
At every single moment,
Thou makest me.”
After the emotions settled down, Kit informed Ket, “Dear Ket, there is another serious issue at hand. Hunet is planning to conquer the other colour countries, one at a time, and transform all into yellow. He wants to rule all of Hoola. Kithad is his first target. His spies are everywhere. His heartless cruelty never stops hurting others. If he succeeds, it will only mean misery, plunder and massacre.