The Storyteller

by Adib Khan

  I am the daughter of the sun. Yama is my brother and Ganga my sister.

  What sights are these?

  Of what has been. I stand on the ruins of the past and see everything. Man has not changed much. The hideous splotches of darkness remain in his heart.

  What can you tell me about what I see? These buildings being erected and those others being pulled down. Who are these strangely dressed people wandering among the dancing peacocks? The women giving birth near the water; others finishing their lives and being immersed in the river. What can you tell me about this place?

  After the creation of the world, Brahma forgot the Vedas and the scriptures. He dipped into my soul, enabling me to throw up the holy texts near the foothills of the Aravallis. That place is Nigambodh Ghat, the site of Sacred Knowledge. That is where the Pandavas built Indraprastha. The ancient city is barely remembered. Since then foreigners have come, conquered and then departed. I remain, having seen everything. The city has given birth to many stories. They are the voices of life. Words once spoken are never lost. They live through the minds of successive generations, changing and multiplying. There are truths and lies in every one of them. Mankind cannot live in absolute purity. I am the repository of all that has been said and written. I am the only one who knows all.

  And I? Where do I belong?

  You are of this river, destined to suffer so that others may know.

  Will I know happiness?

  You are a storyteller. You see too much to be contented.

  With that she heaved me over into the water.

  I did not wish to be awake. There was gloom and sadness in the night. I thought about the sadhus and the rishis on the riverbanks. What did they know? What were they learning? I resolved to go back and discover.

  The night was calm. The city lights twinkled with false promises. The workers must have departed after completing the demolition, leaving behind a graveyard in which memory could grow. The mango tree stood like a solitary guard, faithful and vigilant, as if it were waiting for my return. The wall had been smashed. A few bricks were strewn near the tree. Sections of the railway track glinted in the moonlight like bars of silver. I wandered around in the open expanse of the field. A huge area, where the godown had stood, had been dug up. Concrete slabs and pylons were stacked on the edge of the rectangular pit. Where had the ghost fled?

  I went back to the tree. The rope was still there. I grabbed it and pulled myself up to a branch. The barrenness of the dusty field was bathed in the lunar light. Another beginning. Would the Creator make a new world if we destroyed the one we had? I wished that the field would remain untouched. But how long did a graveyard last in the depth of time?

  I couldn’t bear to think about the future. Labourers and an endless flow of supply trucks. Supervisors, tractors, bulldozers and scaffolding. Concrete and bricks rising towards the sky in search of the god of prosperity. The realisation of Jhunjhun Wallah’s dream of a modern Delhi—shops, cinemas, offices and restaurants. Another sliver of the city’s history banished from memory. Whatever is remembered about the past is merely a speck in the vastness of all that is forgotten. A blip in the silence of what has been. Delhi belongs to the future. Jhunjhun Wallah could only see what lay ahead. His vision filtered the past and threw away all that he deemed to be unimportant.

  And my place in all this? Was I destined to slip into anonymity? Linger for a time as a vague remembrance in the fading minds of the elderly and then be cremated and buried? Would tomorrow’s children turn me into fiction? Would anyone dare to repeat my stories in an air-conditioned plaza—a glittering, sanitised monument of progress? Could my voice compete with the mind-numbing serenity of piped music and the controlled gurgling of water fountains?

  My voice belonged to the chaos of dust-choked bazaars permeated with pungent odours, noisy with the expressions of human survival and vibrant with unharnessed energy and unpredictable behaviour. Sights and sounds to jolt the imagination. I lived in a culture of turmoil where it was easy to seek affirmation of what it meant to be alive. But this was Vamana’s world, obsolete and dying.

  If I couldn’t prevent the future from being shaped by Jhunjhun Wallah’s greedy vision, at least I could attempt to slow down its progress. My new knife was sharp. I stabbed and slashed the tyres of the two parked tractors and a bulldozer. I hammered them with bricks. My supply of matches failed to light a meaningful fire that could destroy. I pushed and heaved. The vehicles did not budge. Weariness and defeat drained my strength, but I wasn’t finished. I headed back to Manu’s shop, stopping wherever I could to climb on roofs that harboured the monster’s eyes. I cut wires and did as much damage as my hands allowed me. My fingers were bruised and swollen.

  I didn’t expect Manu to be awake when I returned to the shop. I took care not to make any unnecessary noise as I crept up the ladder.

  ‘Where were you?’

  I couldn’t understand the exasperation in his voice. I explained that I had been to Nigambodh Ghat and later spent time at the site of the bustee. ‘A sort of goodbye to my life there,’ I said limply. I did not mention my visit to the church. ‘I fell asleep under the mango tree,’ I lied.

  He grunted his displeasure. ‘I bought some food for us and waited. I had to eat your share as well.’ The planks under his mattress squeaked alarmingly as he turned his face towards the buckled wall. Almost immediately he began to snore. I was sore and tired. But sleep evaded me. My hands ached. I stayed awake to hear the cocks ushering in the dawn.

  Manu was about to eat breakfast when I came down to the shop. He appeared to be oddly disturbed by my presence. The boy who delivered the roti and halwa was rudely told to be on his way.

  ‘Remember to do exactly as I said!’ Manu instructed. ‘It is extremely urgent. You will be rewarded. Ah, Vamana! I didn’t think you would be up this early. Some breakfast?’ He pushed a paper plate towards me.

  Trust can be a sign of mental fatigue, a debilitating weariness, a lack of alertness or an abandonment of concern for one’s wellbeing. Taken to an extreme measure, it could suggest a death wish lurking within the self. I never gave much thought to the kindness Manu lavished on me. Even though we were friends, I didn’t expect such generosity. The life of the underprivileged was often marked by hostility and meanness towards the rest of the world as essential aids for survival. But not for an instant did I question Manu’s motives—whether he expected something from me or whether there was some benefit he could derive in a way that I could not foresee. Weary with life, I allowed myself to be pampered. My instinct for survival was dulled by what I perceived to be a safe environment.

  After we had eaten, Manu went up to the loft to get a packet of cigarettes. I took the plates to the alley at the back of the shop and dumped them on a garbage pile. A dead dog lay partly buried in a heap of rice and meat curry. The body was twisted, as if it had died in agony. I couldn’t quite figure out why food should be so carelessly thrown away when perpetual hunger nibbled the bellies of the city’s poverty-stricken population. The unbearable stench from the rubbish deterred me from salvaging some of the food. I came back inside and told Manu what I had seen.

  ‘You…you shouldn’t have,’ he stuttered. ‘I mean, there was no hurry to throw the plates. Such…wastage.’ His hands were unsteady as he offered me a cigarette. ‘Today we should go and see partridges fighting! It’s an unforgettable sight!’

  He launched into a description of colourful excitement—fighting birds, hordes of men goading their favourites to ferocious attacks, mutilation and killing, hefty bets, traditional rivalries and big winners.

  ‘The fights between the Hindu birds and the Muslim birds are the best!’

  ‘How can birds be Hindus or Muslims?’ I suspected that his enthusiasm for the spectacle had made him inventive.

  ‘Aarey yar, that depends on the khalifas. If the headman is a Muslim, then his bird is of the same religion. It is the same for a Hindu khalifa.’

  We took a bus to old Delhi and th
en walked to a Muslim graveyard behind the Idgah. Making allowance for Manu’s exaggerations, I had expected a small gathering of men grimly dedicated to an unfashionable sport. But Manu was right. The crowd was sizable. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims chatted amiably as though they knew no religious boundaries. Money was their common God. They slurped tea and discussed strategies, form and ways of breeding the strongest birds.

  There was no need for the vendors and the chai wallahs to be vocally aggressive about their food and beverage. They had to contend with long queues of impatient customers. The smell of frying samosas and pakoras, and the pungent aroma of grilling kebabs, added to the festive atmosphere.

  Manu waited near a food cart until an old man, with a white beard and a black fez perched precariously on top of his head, approached him. They hugged each other affectionately. Manu listened seriously to what the old man had to say.

  ‘Hamid, I feel this will be my lucky day!’ Manu turned and winked at me. ‘A hundred rupees on Kashmiri.’ He handed the money to the old man. ‘The bird, I am told, is in unbeatable condition. Well done!’

  ‘It’s his diet,’ Hamid said solemnly, removing his fez and placing the note on top of his head—immediately the fez was back in place like a lid covering a simmering pot. ‘I feed him thickened milk mixed with nuts and sugar. Plenty of exercise. For a month he hasn’t been allowed to go near a female partridge. He is strong and aggressive. The spur on his leg has been sharpened and…’ He grinned and ran an index finger across his throat.

  Manu patted him on the back. ‘Shahbash! You are a good man, Hamid!’

  A bell sounded and the crowd gathered to form a ring around an open space. Two cages were brought in by the owners of the first contestants. A buzz of excitement rippled through the tense spectators. I slipped behind the onlookers who had managed to find a squatting space at the front. Everyone leaned forward. Eyes were riveted on the spectacle before them. This didn’t excite me. I had formulated another plan. Slowly I stepped back among the rows of standing men.

  There were roars of approval and groans of disappointment. One of the birds startled me. It jumped high into the air, blood spurting from its throat. I didn’t relish the sight. Excited men, with their hands raised in the air, spurred the winner on to a bloody victory.

  ‘Tih-loh! Tih-loh! Tih-loh!’ the crowd cried in unison, imitating the noise of the triumphant partridge.

  Every pocket I invaded yielded a bounty of cash. Since I had no desire to be accused of an unmanly squeamishness, I thought it prudent to remove myself from the scene until everything was over. I slipped away to the food carts to celebrate my success. I bought an assortment of edibles and hid behind a grave at some distance from the bird fight. I did not share Manu’s enthusiasm for the sport, and I saw little point in shouting myself hoarse in support of the savage killing of birds. But placing a bet without watching could have been enjoyable. To gamble on the unknown was an affirmation of my belief that there can be few convincing explanations of life’s occurrences.

  Farishta and I had regular bets in the bustee. Sitting on the wall, we would locate a couple of mangoes high on a branch and not easily detectable to the naked eye, give them names and then bet on which one would fall off first. We gambled on Barey Bhai’s moods, or who would be the next person to die in the bustee. There was a bidi or a cigarette to be won or lost on the weather, the colour of Baji’s lipstick for the day, the professions of the men entertained by Chaman, and the winners of the fights near the water tap.

  I had nearly finished eating when I became aware of a commotion in the crowd. At first I assumed that a close contest was the cause of such high-pitched noises. I peeked over the gravestone. People were scattering in different directions. The shrill sound of whistles alerted me to the source of panic. Policemen chased the spectators without making any serious efforts to catch them. It was odd that the law enforcers were shouting with their lathis raised in an attempt to intimidate the spectators, but no one was being targeted for an arrest or a beating as a chastising example to others.

  I crawled through an opening in the lichen-covered wall that fenced the farthest section of the graveyard. From the outside it was safe to look again at the antics of the policemen. They had grouped together, as if there were an urgent need to review the situation. Whatever their raid had intended to achieve, their agitated gestures suggested that they had not succeeded.

  Then someone threw a rock at them. And another. The response was predictable. Several of the daring men, who had hung around were grabbed and thrashed. Their screams for mercy and pleas of innocence had no effect. Frustration with their seeming failure goaded the policemen into being particularly brutal in administering beatings. In the frenzied attack, nothing was spared. Headstones were smashed, several cages, with the prized partridges trapped inside, were battered with hefty blows, and food carts overturned, but not before the savouries had been voraciously consumed. The police behaviour was desperate.

  A constable blew a whistle. They assembled again with drooping shoulders and worried looks. More talking. Slowly they trooped off without even glancing at those who were injured. Their departure revealed the hiding places. Men sprang up from behind the walls and graves, jumped down from trees and emerged from the surrounding areas covered with wild grass. The injured were consoled, and their cuts bandaged with bits of rag and pieces of clothing. One man managed to stand up without any assistance. Others were helped to their feet and carried on the shoulders of those who had escaped.

  I found Manu. His demeanour indicated neither fear nor outrage. He was leaning over a man, who had been bashed on the head and was struggling to sit up, when I called him.

  He managed a tremulous smile. ‘You found a hiding place.’

  ‘The same as you.’

  ‘It’s most unfortunate, most unfortunate,’ Manu muttered. ‘The police are so inefficient.’ He turned his attention back to the victim.

  The nearest dhaba was crowded with faces I recognised from the graveyard. The cacophony of voices was charged with indignation. The motivation for the raid could not be established with any measure of certainty. Every conceivable reason was offered, but none was unanimously accepted.

  ‘More money! That’s what they were after!’

  ‘Nahey yar! If that was the reason, they would have sent someone in plain clothes to speak to one of the khalifas.’

  ‘On the trail of a criminal!’ an old man claimed. ‘Partridge fighting is no longer the noble sport it once was.’

  We allowed him to relive a refurbished past before impatient voices drowned his remembrance. From drugs to contrabands. Foreign spies. Terrorists. The graveyard was the centre of subversion, a haven for thieves and the place to buy drugs. Outrageous suggestions prompted even more improbable responses.

  ‘That is where kidnapped village girls are brought at night!’ a voice piped from a corner. ‘Pimps and brothel owners pick their stock from a monthly auction!’

  The police were supposedly investigating complaints about supernatural activities. Malicious spirits were rumoured to be roaming the countryside, terrorising villagers. The implications were serious. Could it be that the eternal enemies of India had found a way to harness the assistance of the Devil? The only silent and contented man was the owner of the dhaba. He ensured that there was an uninterrupted supply of tea and snacks to all the tables.

  Gradually the voices faded and people drifted off. Manu and I lingered over more tea.

  ‘A huge loss,’ he moaned. ‘I was certain to win over five hundred rupees.’ He shook his head ruefully.

  I felt obliged to pay the bill. It hadn’t been such a disastrous morning for me.

  18

  Forged by the devil

  Shadows breathe heavily. Whose rude hands are these? An unprovoked attack. I struggle. Blows on my head and shoulders stun me into submission. My hands are yanked behind my back and tied with a rope. A smelly rag presses against my mouth. I manage an ineffectual bite on the fleshy part o
f a palm, just under the thumb. A muted cry of surprise. Anger rather than pain. Immediate retaliation. Knuckles crunch against my cheeks. A deeper darkness presses against my eyes. The shadows disappear. Hands fumble to tie a knot at the back of my head.

  I can smell the night. I have been carried into the open. They dump me on the ground. My ribs hurt as my chest hits a patch of bare earth. I can smell dog shit. A boot rests lightly on the back of my neck. Is it Ram Lal’s foot? It will crush me to the earth if I move. They have not spoken among themselves since they came to fetch me.

  This is not the way to conduct a hanging. I have heard that a condemned man is treated with respect. Perhaps I am being moved to another prison. A different city? A private audience with a judge? I am flattered to think that I could be dangerous enough for a clandestine operation to be initiated under the cover of darkness.

  Slowly I twist my neck slightly to the left. Immediately the pressure of the foot increases. The blindfold has slipped down under my eyes. I can see the glowing tips of cigarettes and bidis. Behind them spreads the dark wig of a large tree pasted to an inert sky. There’s someone with a hurricane coming towards us. A whispered conversation. I am lying close to the prison gate. Twin lights and the low rumble of a car engine. Running feet. The lights are turned off. Hands grab me. I am pulled up to stand on my feet. Someone swears. The blindfold is adjusted and the knot tightens. Intense whispering. More hands, momentary weightlessness. I feel a coarse material rubbing against me. I think I am being placed inside a sack.

  ‘Make sure that the cells are cleaned. Properly! Scrub the walls. The floor must be dry. No smell! We have to impress the minister.’ The voice is suddenly muffled.

  Breathing is difficult. Otherwise it is quite cosy in here. I think of the security that a foetus might enjoy inside the womb. Warmth and calmness in a room of nourishment. I must have been inside a womb once. I was created. I belonged. Did my mother feel love, pride and hope in what was her own? And did she cry when she saw me? Had she contemplated murder rather than the abandonment of an unwanted baby? Was it guilt or maternal instinct that saved me?