by Rakesh Sethi
Same morning colonel Keski got off the bed in south Mumbai a city of fifteen million people. This Indian city was the hotbed of haves and have-nots. Every few second’s ten babies were born. Most of them would be likely to beat odds and end up either a techie or goonda. Goonda’s are the new class of have-nots who got to have every thing albeit by force if necessary.
There was yet a few babies that would grow up to become a hybrid that is a techie-goonda or a goonda-techie. Both these types were equally likely depending on the level of frustration that would foam up as these kids grew mixed with pent up expectations that were being continuously raised by the twenty four by media pumping up the ego of folks who had no right to have one in the first place.
Ego has been the curse of the rich and it was the media and the rich that continued to grow and keep it alive by continuously feeding it the manure of capitalistic banking system. So thought Colonel Keski and he had determined to undo the sanctity of this evil manure filled lake.
Colonel Keski was fifty-nine years of age and was military veteran. Much of the twenty nine years after the seventy one war had passed and Keski had grown older slowly day by day. But the wounds of the war were fresh in his mind.
He was bitter, as the war had ended abruptly. He blamed the govt for this opportunity to finally settle the issue. Keski maintained that the war did not end and even though armies had surrendered and a nation was born across border. Keski would carry on this war in his head every day and night of his life.
Keski did not believe in sanctity of life.
The militarization of his mind and soul was complete. He had undone in one life the goodness of million years.
Keski was an agent of war and was on sale to the grandest merchant of war. Be it in his own country on far away. A war he wanted to wage, without any ideology or purpose but just out of habit.
Keski was a introvert with no close association of any kind. He kept himself busy by working closely with a small gambler, Matka dealer. “Matka”, was a illegal lottery operations, that provided hope of millions of destitute people who saw no way out of the vicious spiral of poverty.
The operation, was run out of a prison cell controlled by one inmate known as RK. RK was the inspiration and hope for millions of people.
RK was inspired by J.S Mills and his words etched in his prison walls: “ Poverty is a parent of thousands of mental and moral evil”. RK had taken an alternate path to resolve this terrible fiscal disease. He was put behind bars for taking an enterprenal approach. He was roughly 30 years ahead in time and at a right place with the right mind.
His mission was helping people. People who had lost all hope of earning a fair wage. People who were tormented by the poverty at home. Folks who had learnt to ignore their own children. People who had accepted that survival were more important than malnourishment. People who anchored hope on the belief that the lottery would pay off and blast them off into the comfort of a middle class haven.
Middle classes the creation of the industrial revolution. What an accommodation of human deftness. The royals and the lords and the queens and duchesses relented on the human condition to let the ninety nine percent of humanity evolve into the ninety percent of have -nots. The acid spewed by the authors over the last two hundred years concocted venom that woke up the gentry and Jews to accept a new class.
The middle class. Middle of what? Well Middle or was it Muddle class? The idea was born in the Victorian society was it or was it even more ancient? Was Jesus the father of the middle class? Or was it Budhha? Maybe Buddha was the ultimate royal, who took upon himself to create the potion to deliver it in a way where ninety percent would denounce the material world and opt for the terror of the jungle or rejoice in pain.
What agent of capitalism was he, that pre dated Milton and Adams and Reagan and Jefferson, Akbar and Genghis. Buddha was inspired by his 3rd grade teacher who was bent on delivering a lasting wound in human psyche.
How else but to use a royal and launch a curse of millennium. Buddha swallowed it and kept it within him and launched avalanche of men and women to adopt and consummate this new way of life thus creating the backdrop, for the birth of ultimate evil that of capitalism. Jesus, after hearing of such a message through a wondering monk took seriously the idea to develop this further.
He was not convinced that it was enough for you to renounce this material world but to fabricated a heavnistic and Hellenistic realm to promise the treats that one did not get in this world, thus completing the total destruction of the delicate psyche that nature.
RK kept on with this monologue and was satisfied and happy in this delirium. He thought he was the first one in the world who was doing something to reduce the pain of this muddle class.
RK came up with a lucky draw of a number from a thirty three-matrix square drawn like a bingo sheet. Every morning a random number were released through a chain of mob obedient policemen, who in turn passed on to hundreds on hunch men who controlled this multi million dollar business. This operation became a megalithic tree on which fed the machinery of crooks and cops.
RK was in for life and had no particular reason for being happy. He had no real reason for this madness. But every man has to do be king of something. Or so he thought. RK was brought in the prison as a life guest because he had rejected offers of working and sharing the split with the minister’s son.
RK had no formal education and had no desire to study either. But he had a keen sense of imagination and he had the power of holding his thought for hours.
He challenged himself to keep silent for days and months. He loved the silence. For thirteen years he had been practicing this act of silence. Initially it was hard when he was a brand new inmate.
RK was searching for some answers. He looked at the past and shadows and found nothing. He looked in present and found nothing. Even though he was captive he still dreamt of his future and found solace in it.
Keski was a small cog in this wheel and his job was to control the operation in the chawl’s of lower Parel. Keski and many folks like him felt empowered by this operation as it allowed them to hope. Hope that psychological artifact powered by delusionary dream promisers.
Keski derived his power through dreams. He was an avid and self taught reader and had by his bedside the works of Marx, Whitman, Durant and Ann Ryand. His readings were such that he read the books in a sequence and circular fashion starting the next book as if it was a fresh look at the material. Each time he would read, pause and continue on.
Within the confines of these three authors works he did not find it necessary to deal with anything else.
He was amused by Marx’s angst and wanted to understand the root cause of his anger. He read Whitman and wanted to judge how was the human condition to be judged properly.
Keski was continuously thinking of ways to control individuals and harnessing the power to create a force greater than any one had ever seen. He was mostly working with lowest level crooks but he learnt organizational skills from them.
He read papers about how some sheik was able to command and control a large group of men and could make them do almost anything including hirakiri. He studied the ancient history of the Sikhs and the Rajputs and compared them with the Samurai legends. This fascination of the global theater and the music of the war merchants and politician rhetoric kept his dream alive. He wanted to complete the war that was abruptly ended.
He was nobody, and yet he thought nobody could stop him.
Keski on other occasions loved to dabble with paint and canvas. Just as his life he followed no particular theme and painted till the blobs of paint and random strokes began to tell a story.
No particular story but he let his hand do what his brain dictated and as if in slow motion the angst of Marx and the passion of Whitman began to flow through his paint brush. The colors were hues of red, green and yellow. Lot of black strokes began to dominate the canvas. He chose to finish the work in one sitting of few hours as if the mind had no more to say.
Keski hung the piece on his bedroom wall and called it the “Bouquet”. It was his attempt to summarize the futility of life as seen by the eyes of Marx and Whitman. Keski had very few friends visit him and his works did not amuse others as much as it amused him. This saddened him a bit but he chose to leave the work at his bedside.
Keski was early to bed and early to rise kind of guy. He worked at the local matka shop inside the Jale-Rosh hotel. This hotel was a front and Keski served as a waiter even though his purpose was offereing security to the hush hush money.
He was often exhausted by the repetitious and laborious work and the act of serving did not serve his ego at all. He would return home to erase the chatter and noises of the street and the whispers of customers at the “Jal-e-Rosh”.
Evening’s were concluded by a light supper of lentil soup and a dark rye bread called Bhakri. Many a times, he raced after dinner to the bed, as if a show was about to start and he must not miss a scene. It was not clear to Keski if his mind ran his body or the body ran the mind and he found both of them at odds with each other.
Keski’s bedroom was a small room scattered with books on the floor and pile of covers on the bed that had not been cleaned for ages. The smell was a medium odor of musk and old walls similar to that of a 18th century moth eaten wood. Keski fell into deep sleep every day as soon as he hit the bed. Nothing seemed to bother him. No events in the day, No words that were said meant much except what he had read in those three books.
He had chosen to keep to his limited world and found the experience vastly satisfying. One night he woke up in the middle of night and lay awake staring at the Bouquet. Depending on the level of light he began to visualize the bouquet differently.
During the day he saw vibrant colors at harmony and the two angelic figures in deep embrace. In dark the picture spoke differently and he was astonished as the work itself started to communicate back to him.
First he ignored that we he drew was a bunch of flowers but what he saw was the valley of despair and abandoned coast lines and waters that ran blood red rivers. At other times the valley turned into gardens under oceans with beautiful fishes and dolphin like creatures in harmony.
He would usually go through bunch of analysis of what he saw and eventually would fall asleep.
Later in the night his dreams would try to carry on what the Bouquet was trying to tell him and he grew restless and would wake up sweating not knowing what was going on.
He was so disturbed as to what all this meant and kept looking at the Boquet night after night. Than it all came together. He started eliminating the noise from the signal and began to see a dominant character that was unchanged and kept its shape but only at night under weak light conditions.
Now Keski’s was convinced that he was getting visions of something through the painting and he wanted to know what that oriental character meant. Keski had no knowledge of any oriental characters, nor did have any dealings with any oriental people. Keski searched for love, passion, community and all other themes and checked if the character matched any word.
Ultimately Keski, Googled, and found that the character closely resembled the symbol of Death. This freaked Keski so much that he removed the painting and put it in a closet so he could forget of seeing any such thing. Even though the painting was removed the images stay put in his psyche and he could not erase any color or shade of the message.
Chapter Four
Trish’s Java