The Storyteller

by Adib Khan

  I had to wait for Ram Lal’s next move. I didn’t have many choices, did I? Homeless. Without much money. Sick… Sick? Now what could he have meant by that? An interesting observation. Illness as a permanent condition. The ailment of life and living. The disease of aloneness and stored desires, of appearance and poverty, of purposelessness, of spite, of wanting…wanting to be touched. The longing for the warmth of human hands, the hunger for affection and words of caring, even if they were lies. The fever of the mind and the carelessness of creation. The necessity of self-deception and the desperation of illusions. The real illness was the sterility of an unchanging reality. Or was it creation itself?

  My struggle was not a planned decision but the workings of a stubborn will that would not surrender to adversity. Ah, there was my weakness. If only I knew how to give in! Or give up.

  I guess the road is impossibly crowded. The van crawls and then jerks to a halt. That’s been the pattern of the entire journey. A sharp turn. There are voices. Hands fiddle with the lock. I breathe deeply when the doors open. The driver tells us to get out. Before any of us can move, the policeman who accompanied us waves his lathi to intimate that we should stay in the van. An argument erupts. We cannot be allowed out of the van unless there are more policemen on the scene. The van has to return to the jail, the driver insists. An air of uncertainty prolongs the quarrel. No one appears to know where we should be taken. A clerk from the court was supposed to meet the van. Papers were to be signed and then the driver could have left. No one knows anything about the extra policemen assigned to escort us into court. The doors are slammed shut before we can complain about the lack of air inside the vehicle.

  Next time the doors open, the driver is furious. He screams at a mild-mannered man and taps his watch to emphasise his grievance. The entire justice system is savaged for its lack of organisation and efficiency. Two other policemen drift towards us. The uniformed men are calmly indifferent to the chaos around them. They ignore the ranting of the driver and enjoy a smoke.

  We file out of the van and receive an unexpected cheer from a crowd of onlookers. The yard is noisy, milling with anxious families in conversation with serious-looking lawyers who write notes on thick pads of paper and glance frequently at their watches. They listen intently to informers who sidle up to them and whisper words that are rewarded with folded envelopes slipped into side pockets.

  Business is brisk for the vendors who stand behind their brightly coloured trolleys. The sight of freshly cut cucumbers, sprinkled with salt and chilli powder, makes me hungry. The aroma of freshly grilled kebabs wafts from the stalls outside the main gate.

  ‘We haven’t been fed today,’ I inform the policeman standing next to me.

  He looks down at me as if I have said something outrageous. He is a tall, formidable-looking fellow with a thick moustache and a fierce expression. ‘Hunger is part of the punishment for criminals.’

  There is a lengthy delay before the prisoners are grouped together in clusters of three. I make a move to join two other handcuffed men whose names haven’t been called out. The tall policeman bends down and grabs my neck with his left hand. I notice that he holds his right hand behind his back.

  ‘Where are you going, midget?’ He laughs maliciously.

  ‘To court. With the others.’ I point to the prisoners who are tied together with ropes around their waists.

  He lets me go and plucks a list from the front pocket of his shirt. ‘Name?’

  ‘Vamana.’

  ‘Vamana…Vamana…Nahey. Your name is not on the list. You are going back with me to prison.’

  ‘Then why was I brought here?’

  ‘Because you are a part of the everyday confusion that is the life of this place. Lost files, absent lawyers, wrong timings, stressed clerks, elderly judges who hate the world, tired policemen and unfortunate prisoners who do not know when they will be tried.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Here, one should have no expectations, only doubts and fears.’

  I sense a huge conspiracy against me. ‘But my trial! Why have I been left out?’

  ‘Inside!’ Moustachio instructs the other two prisoners. He turns and prods me in the back. ‘Your turn may come some day, if you are lucky!’

  For the first time I see his right hand. The middle fingers are missing. I am clipped on the forehead for staring at his hand and grinning.

  15

  Matters without substance

  Manu was sitting glumly in his shop, drinking tea from a chipped mug, when I sneaked in.

  ‘The police…’ He looked accusingly at me. ‘They came.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Did you know who Jhunjhun Wallah was before you decided to be so stupid? I had no idea that you were planning to be so reckless with the firecrackers. It cost me four hundred rupees to get rid of the police. I had to borrow a part of the money.’ He grinned slyly. ‘I didn’t have to, but here you must pretend that you are hard up.’

  I apologised, but added that there was no hope that I would be able to raise that sum of money to pay him back. ‘They watch the bazaars and there are spies on street corners. Informers, eager to earn a few rupees. Detectives and plain-clothed policemen. I am unable to tell stories or pick pockets.’

  Manu waved away my concerns as though the money were of no significance. ‘In this bazaar I have loaned money to people who haven’t paid it back. I don’t remind them about it. I just go and borrow money from someone else to even things up. That’s the way it works here. A sum of money is in constant circulation. Who does it really belong to? Probably to a greedy industrialist or a crooked politician.’

  As if to prove that his indifference to money was justified, he pulled out a bundle of notes from his pocket and kissed it.

  ‘Business must be good,’ I said enviously.

  He winked and dropped the level of his voice. ‘It all happens at night. There are many dissatisfied groups all over the country. People who think that blowing up government buildings or damaging police stations will bring changes. The fools! May they continue to dream.’

  He scowled as I scanned the shelves. Kites, decorative swords and knives made of cardboard, colourful face masks, candles and incense sticks. Harmless items.

  ‘What the eyes cannot see…What is most potent…’ He tapped the floor with his foot.

  ‘Lies under the ground.’

  ‘You are not stupid.’ He watched me closely. His demeanour changed and quite suddenly he became concerned about me. ‘Something else bothers you.’

  I told him about Chaman. He listened without interrupting.

  ‘I feel a distance growing between us. I have failed her.’

  ‘The hakim?’ he asked disdainfully. ‘The medicine did not help?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fake! He is a fake!’ Manu snapped, spitting his contempt on the dirt floor. ‘Most of them are. I went to one many years ago with a…er…a delicate condition. He gave me herbal medicine and told me to see him after two weeks. Even after six months I was ill. The pain is impossible to describe.’

  ‘Were you cured?’

  ‘Not by him. A neighbouring shopkeeper suggested that I go to a hospital. Finally I took his advice. This doctor, a mere boy in a white coat, hardly spoke to me. His lips curled in disgust when I explained my condition to him. He took a big needle and stuck it in my bum. Aaah! It hurt! But whatever it was that he put inside me was magic. It worked!’

  ‘Perhaps the needle can cure Chaman,’ I suggested eagerly.

  ‘It may work.’ He scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘I have heard that now there are diseases of a private nature for which there are no cures.’ I must have looked crestfallen. ‘Personally I would seek the help of a genuine fakir,’ he said brightly. ‘Sometimes I go to a khanqah. You can get advice, amulets, prayers, and even medicine. I am at peace in the presence of Pagla Jan. I feel calm when I leave, as though I have been cleansed of the sins of this world. But,’ he confessed sadly, ‘that doesn’t last long. All I hav
e to do is see a chokri with a tight bum and heavy breasts, and I am fully human again.’

  ‘The needle…’ I tried to steer him back to the details about the treatment. I knew about the big buildings for treating the ill in different parts of the city. I remembered the man in the white coat, the one who had asked me all those silly questions. But there had been no needle. Of course, I hadn’t been ill.

  ‘A fakir,’ Manu repeated. ‘Take her to a fakir. They can do amazing things. Read your thoughts, make a dead tree blossom, tame wild beasts, converse with djinns and exorcise demons. Pagla Jan’s powers are awesome.’

  ‘Will he be able to cure Chaman?’ I wasn’t interested in the fakir’s other feats of wonderment.

  We decided to seek the fakir’s help that very day. Manu organised himself with the utmost care—a change of clothes, walking stick, fez and special shoes. His left foot was significantly larger than the right. He splashed himself with perfume and chose a set of prayer beads from among the many he kept in a tin trunk. He limped noticeably and had to lean heavily on the stick which he managed to hold with three fingers in his left hand.

  Wheezing and coughing, Manu led the way to the main road where he flagged a taxi. The driver looked at me, shook his head and sped off. After much hand-waving and shouting, a Sikh taxi driver stopped and agreed to take us. Manu whispered an address to the driver and then sprawled in the back seat in a state of sweaty exhaustion. Before the taxi entered the mainstream traffic, Manu was snoring.

  I sat next to the driver and ignored his frequent glances in my direction. I wasn’t entirely comfortable about the ride. I slipped my hand inside the satchel and then realised that I needed another knife. The Sikh could be an informer. He tapped the steering wheel and sang a Punjabi song, interrupting the rhythm with fluent abuses in Hindi whenever the traffic forced him to slam on the brakes. When he stopped, the car squealed like a startled animal and shook violently before the motor died. As vehicles behind us honked and tinkled, the Sikh calmly started the car again, stuck a fist out of the window and let out a deafening yell of defiance before he allowed the taxi to crawl forward.

  I had to turn around, squeeze between the seats and shake Manu awake when we reached the khanqah. In his state of drowsiness he paid the Sikh twice the fare that registered on the meter. He scowled when I pointed out his carelessness.

  ‘The djinns favour those who are generous,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I didn’t know Sardarji was a djinn.’

  He grunted and led the way.

  Manu’s influence with Pagla Jan was immediately apparent. A corridor teeming with anxious adults and restless children should have been a disheartening sight. A discontented, suffering crowd was seeking relief with the aid of forces beyond mortal control. I anticipated a tiresome wait. And for what? To be led into a chamber to listen to a charlatan’s ramblings about supernatural powers and the curative measures at his command. But then how often had I told people that it was the way we chose to see and treat life beyond the obvious—to create fantasies of desires and to frequent worlds where there was an acceptance of the inexplicable—that determined meaning and thwarted despair? For those, like me, who were scornful of the reality perceived by the senses, the manipulation of belief was essential. Otherwise, darkness was all. Self-deception became an indispensable virtue when the circumstances of life were unbearable to begin with.

  There he was, waving and calling me. Manu had spoken to a man standing in front of the closed door. Preferential treatment. I was impressed. I wondered how much money (or was it explosives?) Pagla Jan received from Manu. I suspected there was a great deal of secrecy involved in an arrangement of convenience between the two.

  We stepped out into a side lane and entered the fakir’s chamber through a small door at the rear of the khanqah. Pagla Jan (Manu insisted on calling him Pir Jan) was a wiry, ageless man with waist-length hair and an imperial disposition. He was in the habit of interrupting people when he wanted to speak, ordering his clients around and was never hesitant about praising himself.

  As soon as we entered the room, with its walls lined with copies of the Koran and other sacred texts, he went into a trance and spoke, what I guessed was Arabic, in a deep voice.

  ‘He is communicating with a djinn,’ an assistant explained. ‘He must not be disturbed.’

  Pagla Jan sat on a carpet, leaning on a bolster, with his eyes closed. The djinn appeared to have conducted its business in great haste and departed, presumably for another meeting.

  The air in the room was stifling with the smell of burning incense. Daylight filtered through a small, dirty window. There were shadowy corners—perfect places for reposing spirits which Pagla Jan reputedly controlled. He opened his eyes and looked at me without any expression of surprise or revulsion. ‘I know about you,’ he said without the slightest hint of friendliness.

  I refrained from asking whether the djinn had given him a quick summary of my life. Manu butted in and explained that I was seeking a cure for someone suffering from a serious ailment.

  ‘The entire world wants to be cured!’ Pagla Jan snapped. ‘It doesn’t mean that I can oblige everyone.’

  ‘Huzoor…’ Manu began diffidently, head bowed and his hands clasped in front of his chest.

  Pagla Jan held up a hand and silenced him. He turned to me. ‘What is wrong with this person? Why haven’t you brought him here?’

  ‘A female, Huzoor,’ Manu explained. ‘She is too ill to travel any distance.’

  ‘Let the dwarf speak.’

  ‘I do not know what her illness is,’ I confessed. ‘She coughs and she is very thin. Her face and arms are marked with boils and sores.’

  Pagla Jan sat upright and closed his eyes once more. His lips moved at a furious rate.

  ‘She can hardly—’

  ‘Ssh,’ Manu warned me. ‘He mustn’t be disturbed when he is consulting a djinn.’

  We waited.

  Without any forewarning, the fakir began to shiver and beat his breasts with his fists. Saliva trickled down the sides of his mouth as he hit the floor. Rather gently, I thought. His assistant assured us that this was perfectly normal during the course of the day, since the fakir often had to battle harmful spirits.

  ‘The woman…her time with mortals is finished.’ The voice was terribly distorted, as if Pagla Jan’s mouth was stuffed with food. ‘Fi…nished!’ He sat up abruptly and rolled his eyes. ‘However…’ He paused for a drink of water. ‘With help, her life can be extended.’

  He wasn’t prepared to explain any further until Manu left the room. They disagreed about the necessity for secrecy. I convinced Manu to leave us alone and accompanied him to the door. I whispered a promise to reveal everything that Pagla Jan told me.

  The fakir’s mannerisms changed as soon as the door closed. ‘I want you to work for me,’ he said with a broad smile.

  ‘You said Chaman’s life could be extended. How?’

  He paid no attention to my concerns. ‘It’s an easy job. I want you to appear occasionally among my devotees. Be aloof. Talk to yourself. Twitch and have imaginary conversations. Can you change your voice? With your looks, people will hesitate to approach you. But they will be awed and fascinated from a distance. We will show you a few tricks. Brief appearances only! I want you to create the impression that you are a tormented spirit that has assumed a human shape.’

  Pagla Jan promised to pay me handsomely at the end of each month in addition to a share of the food that flowed in abundant supply from his grateful followers. Had he not been so indifferent to Chaman’s plight, I might have accepted his offer. Working for a charlatan sounded like fun. I could have narrated stories about hell and scared people with impersonations of the devil. Besides, the assistant was a young man with thick lips and slender hips.

  ‘Aren’t you at all bothered that I might open the door and shout to the people that you are a fake, a trickster who steals their money?’

  He motioned gracefully with his hand and invited m
e to carry out the threat. ‘Right now, if that pleases you. Yell it out in the streets and see how long you survive. A dwarf, with your appearance! Don’t you know that honesty is judged by how you look? Do you think anyone will believe you? A few words from me can arm them with extraordinary courage.’ He mocked me with a smile.

  ‘Can you do something for Chaman?’

  ‘What would you like? Amulets? Charms? Herbal medicine? Prayers? They are all helpful, but the real miracle is in the human will. How great is her desire to live? How fresh are her dreams?’

  I made no effort to answer him since I hadn’t previously thought about such questions. I wanted her to live. I was afraid of a life without her presence. The fear of losing whatever love I had was the driving force behind my concern for her. It had not occurred to me to look beyond my need.

  ‘And,’ he looked at me sternly, ‘I am not a fake. Had I been one, I would have immediately sold you a treatment for your friend. My fees are moderate. I help people to believe in what they desire. For that I need to create all sorts of illusions. If you look at it narrowly, then I am a liar. But if lies bring comfort and hope and freshen dreams, then where is the harm?’

  I felt cold and defeated. Utterly miserable. Somehow I couldn’t accept the thought that Chaman had no further desire to live. Her words haunted me. I had caught her throwing away the second lot of medicine I had bought from the hakim. She was strangely composed and indifferent to my anger.

  I have reached a point of feverish curiosity. There are dreams, not about this life, but what may be possible after I have finished here. And I am strangely excited by what I am able to see in my waking moments.

  And if there isn’t anything?

  Then I won’t know or feel.

  To hide my distress, I switched to a matter of perplexing interest. ‘These djinns? Are they real?’

  He sensed my dejection and spoke kindly. ‘There are such things that the eyes cannot see. But the mind learns to grasp them.’