Postcard

The sea breeze kisses the walls of old familiar buildings – you could tell by the flakes of hanging paint, the breeze doesn’t stay to exchange pleasantries, it carries on – for it seems to be across the street as well, teaching drying clothes how to fly. It is getting to rain lightly; there is that thing in the air that seems to foretell beginnings. The candy store is closed for the day, the little boy looks at the buttons on his shirt as he is walking away holding his father’s finger. There are two new dogs licking the pavement, one is brown, the other rabid, the local dogs have surrounded them and a cacophony of barking is in progress. Old men by the tea shop are looking up from their newspapers and shaking their heads. One fair lady under an umbrella, trying hard to hold onto her heavy grocery bag, was holding a mobile phone in the other hand - about to answer a call, or not. One sleek car – speeding into the wind, leaves a blur of man and machine on the far corner of one’s memory. The young man in his pajamas – standing on a balcony, looking into a hand held mirror was picking his teeth with his bare hands. A puddle on the road below that had been left filled by the rains of yesterday looked disturbed again as drops of rain shattered the peace on its surface. Up in the sky there are few things of note – the gathering clouds over the ocean in a huddled conspiracy of some sort, the barely visible airplane making its way into turbulent free skies, a little lower the amicable birds flying in formation, there were a bunch of balloons rising into the air – flanked on both sides by skyscrapers. The setting sun makes it possible to see the lights far out into the sea; the ships are standing still, making up their minds, waiting for their time to come. One monolith juts up into the skyline; an old red and white lighthouse, its eye had just begun to sweep the neighborhood. A little boy was selling boiled groundnuts to a couple under an umbrella; their bike stands on the pavement in style waiting for the rain to clean it up. You could faintly make out that someone had lit a match near the shore – just about to light a cigarette, his next breath would be a cocktail of life and death. On the other side it said "If you look closely, maybe you will see me"

ITEM NUMBER

In a wallpapered hotel room the scent of whiskey was beginning to knock on the windows. The air conditioner was humming a positively rickety tune, there were chicken bones drying on a plate and the stench of the four self-important egos inhabiting the space along with him was beginning to suffocate Mujeeb – the old fart who knew nobody awfully famous.

Zaareen yaadon ke boondon ko tanka - Kameez ke aastien mein sapno se joda –

 Din mein chamke...Raat ko chube...Girte sambhalte bigadte gaye –

Maile kapde dhulte gaye – Umr badti gayi…Kisse bhulte gaye..

Jamaal was fiddling with his tabla, seated next to him, Kamaal was staring blank into empty space hoping that some flash of genius would strike and he could strum up another ‘Bihar ke Tamatar…’ that had shot the Jamaal-Kamaal brand name into the orbit five years ago. 

“let us start, let us start” said Murli Shankar clapping his hands; understandably as it was his money that was paying for the room, the chicken and everything else and it was his son who would be making a debut with this magnum opus and it was his younger brother - the bearded pseudo-something sitting on the floor next to him - who had directed the movie.

‘Dono Jahan Tere Kadmon Mein’ or DJTKM as it was being branded would be hitting the screens in a month’s time and all its songs were already making waves on FM. The romantic melody - ‘Majboor kadam kheenche chale aaye’ and the foot-tapping ‘Zubaan se khele kabbadi…’ had already created a curiosity in the industry circles. The promos cut out at jaw dropping prices were clogging up the airwaves. The marketing campaign was in full swing, the buzz was in the air, and somebody happened to whisper into Murli Shankar’s ear that an item song for the last leg of promotion would not be a bad idea. Simple enough, one day to write and compose, recording the next day and shoot for a couple of days. Rakhi’s dates were blocked, and a southern choreographer claimed to already have the routines on paper – for the right money of course.

“What is the situation?” asked Mujeeb Khan, eager to be on and done with the blasphemy.

The magnitude of the question brought the room back into current time. Suddenly divergent thoughts zeroed in on the issue at hand and faces looked at faces. “After the first fight sequence?” suggested Murli after a bit of silence, looking around for approval. Mani Shankar – the floor dweller - shook his head, “We should have it after the interval, in the middle of the sentimental scenes we have, first the heroine gets married to someone else, then the hero’s father disappears, both are sad scenes, I think we should put this item song just before the father disappears during the terrorist attack confusion – So there is this mazedaar song that is going on – although the hero is heart-broken – but suddenly when the song ends the terrorists attack the city” Everybody seemed to agree, and nod their heads, words and tunes were floating into the room already. “We can have the hero getting drunk somewhere, his girlfriend has married someone else, it will look natural – so after this song when he is faced with his father gone missing – we already have a super scene of him angry running through the police security and trying to get inside a burning building which the terrorists have occupied – The song will increase the effect of that scene” 

“Yes, but it should suit Rakhi’s image, it can’t be a hero centric song” Murli was clear on what he wanted. He was not one to forget promises made for favors already received. Honorable man.

“Yes, but lets us weave the broken heart idea also in” suggested Mujeeb Khan, trying his best to find meat on the back of a run-down mule. Having won many noteworthy yet unknown awards for his collection of poems and having graced many prestigious Durbaars with his Ilahabadi topi and soul stirring Shayari – Mujeeb had finally been elevated to as a dime-a-rhyme lyricist through his infamous words of drunken stupor – ‘Burkhe mein chupaani, Meri naazuk jawaani..’  - That had created such a stir that parliament sessions stood cancelled one whole winter.

Will they not serve him his supper today for the ‘Apko Niyyat mein rakhoon, tazbi mein ginoo…’ that used to elicit a chorus of ‘Wah! Wah!’ ? 

“We need a name that will resound with the masses” said Kamaal, “Something like Shiela or Jalebe bai… or Munni …something catchy…remember Billo Rani?...legendary stuff man…legendary…”

“How about ‘Ruby’?” The producer added, again looking around, hoping that his nincompoop of a brother wouldn’t shoot him down again. “I mean, it is a catchy name, and rhymes with baby, maybe you can make something of it” – pretty pleased with his creative input, he leaned back in his chair.

The man on the floor shook his head again, “It sounds like a Christian name, minority sentiments will be hurt, the name should be neutral….Shiela, Billo, Munni, - all neutral names, and everybody eats jalebi..all India name socho, something nobody can have a problem with”

“Sir but, thoda controversy will not hurt no?” implored Jamaal “I mean DKBOSE DKBOSE karte karte they broke even in the first week itself, we need something like that, till now it has been normal and quiet, we need some kind of dhamaka,”

“Lets us call her something that everybody uses, like an object, something that is easily available, you know what I mean” Kamaal was clearly headed his own direction, “like a mobile phone, we could write a whole song using mobile related words”

“Mobile Baby!” Murli exclaimed, “Perfect!”

The man on the floor remained silent, signaling his approval.

“Listen to this …te te tadane tadne tadane… te te tadane tadne tadane…”  Kamaal began his  misuse of the tabla. “Write something Mujeeb bhai” … “te te tadane tadne tadane… te te tadane tadne tadane”…

To Mujeeb it came easy these days, and it scared him more so.

“First Male voice, the hero is sad and drunk…” 

There was no wrong! No wrong at all, sorrow, grief, joy, these are colored by the ones who feel it – colored in their own inimitable shades. He too had fallen hopelessly in love once, he had looked into those eyes that peered out from a silver veil and he had lost his bearings for whole years to come. Amidst mistaken glances and half smiles, those days had lingered in time unbound. Now he can’t remember which those days were, did he meet her before she became a movie star? Or did that time even exist?

Behti nadi ke tan pe - udte parindon ki parchaiyan jaise –

Aise pal guzaare the humne - Yun the bhi aur nahi bhi jaise...

There were then those bitter moments in the grip of anger and acrimony when she would return his letters unread – he would crumple it throw it out the window, and then go chasing after the letter in the streets like a mad man.

“Uska Signal …Mila Na…Number …Mila Na…Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

“Magic Mujeeb bhai…absolute magic…!” - Kamaal

“Connects beautifully to the girlfriend who has left him” – Mani

He spent three weeks in a cinema hall watching all shows of her latest musical, weeping through the parts in which she smiled, and screaming bitterly into the empty hall of the night show when she held the hero’s hands. 

“Connection tod-diya …Zalim Haseena… Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

“Wah Wah…brilliant!” the tabla men were  getting into full rhythm, connecting the dots and recommending proper ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ to smooth out the edges….

These had become the laments of lost love, these oohs and aahs of vulgur tones, these uncouth, uncivilized spiced up servings of broken hearts garnished with oomph. Mujeeb broke a little inside, prayed a little and labored on. There is nothing wrong!

“After this, Rakhi  must enter” – the money man was losing patience.

And how shall a lady enter? And how shall she be described? And how shall one even begin to fathom the rays of light she is and the shades of night she is? Is the balm of her presence also not the pain of his being? There is no measure to the hurt he had felt, no measure to the melody she was, and yet he had survived. In spite of the depths to which he had stooped, in spite of living the lie he was living. 

“Uska Signal …Mila Na…Number …Mila Na…Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

“Connection tod-diya …Zalim Haseena… Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

Rakhi Entry -

“Bhool purana ringtone…Choole  mera touch phone…ich phone…uch phone…”

Whiplashes! Those memories of finger-nails grazing skin, a foreplay made up of words, words that had descended from heaven to preside over a glorious night, words that he summoned from the lost passages of Rumi, words whom he now keeps buried inside his other self.

Jamaal suddenly came to stop. “Mujeeb Bhai…lets add some sufi element also no? … we will take this song to the next level…”

“but janaab this is item number….its happenening in a bar…”  protested Mujeeb.

“Jamaal is right” announced the director, “it’s a sure hit these days, but then whats the difference?.. Bar? drunk?..In a trance..Sufi element fits perfectly”

Mujeeb had sung with them too, those pot smoking sufi saints who grew beards and chanted till his kingdom come and his will be done in this Allah forsaken world. Amidst those dry leaves of the Dargah lawn he had spent many an evening ruminating on that shakespearanly futile question of being and not being. There had been heartbreaks on either side of those days and yet those days, in retrospect, had been the most memorable. For once he had been the gardener, nurturing the ganja and then he had been the lover, inhaling its essence, and as the smoke rose up from his lips - Sulaimaan Dastagir’s deep voice would rise up too. It still lingers there somewhere amidst the stars –

Ek ghoont noor ka... Ek nawala zindagi..

Tere Dar pe ...Ghutno pe...Yeh dua hai maangi...

Ek takiya khwabon ka…..Ek chaadar neend ki..

 “Bhool purana ringtone…Choole mera touch phone…ich phone…uch phone…”

Sufi enter – male voice

“Kaise ab bhoola kare…unko jo……bhool gaye….

Jo Akela ho gaya….kho gaya…uska ab kaun hai…

Sufi enter – Mobile baby –

“Dar pe mere aaye ho…hass bhi lo…khush raho…

Jo Akela ho gaya…who yaha…hummein se-hi ek hai…”

Sufi close.

“Bhool purana ringtone…Choole mera touch phone…ich phone…uch phone…”

“Let me call up my contacts in mobile industry, I am sure I can get someone to partner for this song” Murli’s money mind had suddenly woken up. In a jiffy he was out in the corridor making calls “Sure Shot next zandu balm type song boss, I am sure India wide campaign you can do”

Inside the circus carried on – “We need to announce her name, remember? Mobile Baby?”

“Slim phone sa jism mera… Style baby….kehte hain mujhko…Mobile baby…”

“All set” the director looked happy – “Now we might need to shoot the last part of the song near the Marine drive, will be perfect link to the terrorist attach that will happen after the song – in between the song we can show shots of some terrorist boats sneaking into the harbor area “– mostly the man kept talking to himself unmindful of the sycophantic nods of approval.

“What do you say Mujeeb bhai? Will look realistic no? You have seen the scene – waise one important thing I wanted to ask you, we need some lines to put into background in the climax scene, as we show all the city coming back to normal, will be powerful scene….just like the ZNMD ending….likh lenege na aap…bas one two lines…we will get that radio guy to say it…that RJ who is popular these days…whats his name?”

The days when he used to move in important circles were over, these days he had to pay rent –

“Dekhta hoon -

Tezaab se jala chehra ...fir se muskurane ki koshish mein laga hai...

Baahein khol mera sheher ...fir se mehmaan-nawaazi mein laga hai...

Dhoke, Pochke, saaf kardiya hai farsh - ab chehre dikhne lage hain usmein

Marammat ho chuki hai cheezon ki...fir se log lag gaye hain rozi mein

Phirse waheen roti todne lage...waheen jaam chalkaane lage...hasee mazaak waheen...waheen namaaz-pooja karne lage...

Dekhta hoon -

kahien koone mein ek tinka khoon ka abhi bhi sook raha hai...

Goliyon ki nishaan dikhake deewarein kuch pooch rahi hai...

Dekhta hoon -

Gehri raat ka samundar ... khaufnaak karvaton se lipta...bechain hai bada...”

As the evening wore off, the song was polished and made ready for recording. It was past midnight as the group dispersed.  There was a smile of content on everybody’s face, a hard day’s labor had borne fruit, with the grace of the gods the song will be a hit. Tomorrow the kids in the road will sing it too… “Slim phone sa jism mera… Style baby….kehte hain mujhko…Mobile baby…”

“Marhoom lafzon ke roohon se maafi chahta hoon, Ae Allah! Is zillat ke karnaame se roti kamata hoon..

Mujhpe ehsaan-farma Ae Allah! Maine tehzeeb gavai hai….Mujhse meri Urdu cheen le…”

Quintessence of Dust

We were all shocked when the aliens showed up in their huge flying machine. It put an end to a million speculations all at once. Imagine the disappointment, they had actually chosen our small little town for their spectacle, not some capital city or populated megacity of some developed world, no, they were hovering over our lazy backyard, peering down into out boring lawns, our simple lives. They had brought out their giant screen, we had erected our own, and for months we had flashed images at each other, the experts had formed and reformed opinions, there were side debates on street corners and closed boardroom discussions inside the school auditorium. I was at home, yes, the schools had been closed for summer when they arrived, and we have decided not to reopen them as of now, what if there was no point to it? 

Being an English teacher is not a glamorous profession, but it is a life I have chosen for myself, a dull life that I have tried to find meaning in. Hoping that the poetry of these lovely woods might inspire a child to go miles; maybe golden daffodils in our gardens would teach a generation that all is not gloomy, and maybe, just maybe, they might think twice before choosing to kill the albatross.

In those days, when we ran these dusty roads as kids, for some strange reason, little boys were being slaughtered in the woods. We were told not to speak to strangers, to report any strangers who approached us, and to scream and run away if someone tried to hurt us. We were to be in groups of three or more at all times, and to be within earshot of adults. The misery of homes struck by evil floated like a pungent smog over the town. Men wearing animal skin masks were preying upon small children. Three bodies had been found in the last six months, three bodies in sixteen pieces. 

We were ten years old, the six of us, we called ourselves ‘the heroes’, Achy, Hercy, Thesy, Ody, Atlanta and I - Uly. We hung out on Achy’s terrace, he lived on the only residential apartment building in the town and the view from the terrace was princely. We made our own games and got lost into them for hours on end. When the night drew darker we ended up on the terrace, climbed on top of the water tank and sat there looking at the stars in the sky. Ody would whistle tunes out of his mouth organ, beautiful searching tunes and with our eyes among the stars we would all listen to Ody weave a web. His father had become a sad man ever since his mother ran away, and so he drank and sometimes beat Ody, although Ody claimed it was accidental, and that his father loved him and he loved his father. Maybe that was the reason for the sadness in Ody’s tunes, like he was searching for something he had lost. That summer night, some thirty five years ago, he suddenly stopped his tune midway and pointed at the sky in the horizon “Look!” he said excitedly. We all stood up and sure enough we saw what he was pointing at. Far ahead, where the town lines disappeared, there was a faint new star on the horizon; and it was moving. 

After months, there was finally a breakthrough. I was sitting in my living room and it seemed as good a time as any to revise my Shakespeare. I was deep into Hamlet when the stream of news on TV caught my attention. The visitors had a proposition; they would answer all our questions if in turn we would grant them something. 

The smartest people from across the planet were dragged in front of the computer, and the united military began the largest conference in the history of mankind. These faceless people from god knows where were setting up a test for mankind, and it was thrilling, scaring, tantalizing us to bits. Out of nowhere the phone began to ring, I put down the book I had been reading, muted the TV and lifted the receiver. 

We all had bicycles, mine was brand new, Achy loved his old one, he had two new ones but he favored the old one, he called it ‘the climber’, it was a tough bike. I had my dad buy me one just like that, but I liked his better, it was dirty and beautiful. Atlanta had a girl’s bike, it did not have a lot of gears, but Atlanta was the best rider, she had strong legs, she ran for the school athletics team, she even had muscles on her legs. Thesy and Hercy’s father had gotten them identical bikes, they had a lot of things matching, except Hercy was stronger, and although we did not know it then Thesy was the smarter one, way smarter than all of us, he went on to become a physicist. Ody used his father’s old bike, he never raced, he always came in last, and sometimes he’d just stop just like that to look around. It was pretty dark, and Achy’s parents thought we were camping on the terrace for the night. We had snuck out quietly, Ody had pointed out the new star that was slowly moving, and it seemed to disappear over the hill on the eastern side of the town. We had never gone there before, there was an old junkyard there; it was a place where cars went to die. We cycled fast through it, even Ody kept up with us; we were pumped up with excitement. Achy had believed that it might be a plane crash and he felt we should go out to help. Atlanta  liked Achy, she had a glitter in her eyes every time he spoke, like a purring kitten, but I liked her when she got all angry -- filled with conviction, she would speak with such speed and fury that everybody would just shut up. She got us all to agree that we should go and help the crash victims, but we should not wake our parents just in case it was not an airplane. It was Thesy’s idea to carry cricket bats and stumps, he said it might not be an airplane from earth, and that it might be an UFO, Hercy did not even know what an UFO was, I explained it to him. I remember that night like it was yesterday, each turn we took, the density of fog in the air, the rush of chill as we peddled hard, Atlanta’s skirt ballooning as she rode in front of me, her strong legs, the supple moon in the sky and the falling stars.

“Hey it is me” she said. It had been years but I instantly knew it was Jannat. Last I heard she had married some computer engineer in the city and they had moved to the States.

“Hi, must be morning there, is it snowing?”

 “How are you? I am sorry about what happened, we heard” there was true sadness in her voice, and I could not have asked her why she never called, not even when I lost my mom and dad, I know she did it for me. “I wanted to call you, I really did, I am not mad or anything you know, but calling would have been …you know… “

“I know” I said, I did. “But you called now”

“Yes, I had to, I just couldn’t sit back anymore, I have been thinking lately…”

 “Since the spaceship came?”

“Yes… since the spaceship came, I mean at first it seemed so unreal… like it was some movie…but then” The conversation was fast becoming a bad idea. “I can’t believe you still…”

“Have you forgotten? Have you? We know what we saw, we know what he meant. It isn’t just me you know, Krish called a week back, he sent me some articles and books to read, and that is what I have been doing, reading those papers, and you know what, you wouldn’t believe” fact of the matter is that it was hard these days to say things like ‘I don’t believe this’ – “I wouldn’t understand them anyways, it was you and Krish who did science remember? I am a Doctor of Literature, Shakespeare, as far from science as it gets”

“These writings are not scientific; they are closer to literature than you might imagine - more like history actually. I am emailing them to you, promise me you will read them tonight, and call me tomorrow, take down my number, I will be waiting for you call, and for god sakes don’t quiz me again about snow, I live in the freaking desert” Now she was speaking fast again, sending my senses racing back into the past and it brought a smile to my face, it had been quite a while. “I am sure you are smiling now, but hey, what are friends for?”

We reached the base of the small hill and immediately realized that our cycles would not be able to take us to the top. In retrospect the hill was not too steep; it was just that we hadn’t acquired the skills yet. The light from the other side of the hill could be seen clearly now, it rose up into the sky in the form of a beam. For a minute we all stood there in silence and just stared at the column of light. Achy said that we would have to leave the bikes behind and climb up the slope. Thesy was hesitant at first but Hercy convinced him by threatening to call him a girl. This angered Atlanta who challenged anyone to race her to the top. Achy took up the challenge and they both began running up immediately. Thesy and Hercy were next to follow. I looked at Ody who did not seem like he wanted to climb up. “I’ll stay back and watch the cycles he said”. I began climbing the hill slowly, Ody began playing the mouth organ; I turned back and told him to cut it out. That was the last we saw of Ody. By the time I reached the top the other had reached the bottom of the other side and were sitting around the source of the light. It was man –made, and other men were erecting more such lights. There was a crash site a couple of hundred meters ahead. Debris, smoke and pockets of fire were to be seen. One man was speaking into a mike and others were rushing helter-skelter to meet his demand. ‘What is this?’ I asked as I reached the others. ‘Movie Shooting’ said Achy with a little disappointment in his tone. A famous actress wearing tattered clothes came out of a vanity van, she had make up on her to make her look part of the crash scene, but it hardly fooled us – for those were the eyes and lips that we had seen light up the silver screen. Someone was trying to put out a fire. The star sat down on a chair while the scene was being set. She looked like she did not care much for the people around her. Slowly a people from the towns nearby began arriving to lay eyes upon a miracle. A star had indeed come down from the skies.

It was a far reaching tale of fantasy and conspiracy. The documents pointed in many directions, they spoke of aliens who had visited us in the past, long before we knew of the stars. There had apparently been a recent discovery of some drawing in an Egyptian crypt, something about a flying vessel carrying gods. Atlanta had also sent some pictures of these drawings, there was no way to corroborate the authenticity of the drawings; experts were still studying them. There was some mention of cats, fierce cats, cats that stood on two legs and spoke aloud like men. 

People assumed he had run away because he missed his mother and his father beat him up, others feared worse, the masked men were still at large, but Ody’s body never turned up. He was found five days later, in a town not far from ours, the good schoolmaster had been to visit a friend and recognized him sitting all by himself near the public toilets. He seemed to remember nothing of the night he went missing. He looked at us like we were strangers, like he remembered our faces but could not understand why he remembered them. His father was the hardest hit, it was like he had seen some light, the fear of losing the only family he had sobered him up, and with the help of the good townsfolk steadied his life. The son’s return made him a firm believer and he set about to redeem himself by taking his son back and loving him like he ought to have from the beginning. Ody spent more and more time alone, he drew things, wrote some kind of garbled poetry that only he understood. Sometimes in the dead of the night he would wake up and start crying – I once heard his father crying about it to our teacher. We had grown tired of asking him what had happened that day. The doctors had failed in trying to get him to talk but they had found cuts and bruises all over his body, he had internal bleeding and what the doctors then told his father made the huge bulky man fall to his knees and weep like a child. The cops had tried their best, but all he gave them was a drawing of two tall men wearing a tiger’s mask. If the masked men had taken him, and if he had somehow escaped, that explained why there was no more killing after that. Perhaps the killers had been frightened and had fled the state. 

One evening as the fog came into the town as the sun was going down, I saw Ody standing at the edge of the woods with a knife in his hand. I walked upto him and stood beside him, people had grown a little scared of him lately, but not me, this was Ody; Ody with the music in his soul. He was shivering, I took hold of his hand and he looked at me like he was relieved. There were tears in his eyes and he fell down to his knees sobbing, I took the knife away from him and he let me. “What happened” I asked, he was still sobbing “They did bad things to me, they hurt me for days, they tied me naked to a wooden pole” “Who were they?” I asked, He did not answer, he just continued to cry. Next morning his father was the first to find him; he had slit his wrists, and bled himself to death.

 Atlanta called me the next day, “So, did you read? Don’t you think its all falling into place?”

“No Jannat, this is something about the cats and dogs that the Egyptians prayed to, this has nothing to do with the Aliens”

“But don’t you remember? Dint Sashi tell you before he killed himself? The men with tiger masks, it all figures, that night there was a spaceship we saw in the sky, I know we got all carried away by the movie shooting, but we did see something in the sky, and it is perfect, these aliens have been here before, they have been studying us for a long time, they took children to run tests on them, and threw their bodies in the woods.”

“So how come Sashi escaped?”

“Well he found a way, somehow”

“Escaped from a spaceship? Really Jannat?”

“That is the only explanation, ‘the masked killers’ is just a sham, it’s a cover-up, the government knew of this all along, how come the killers dint strike again? I’ll tell you why, because they got onto a spaceship and flew away, thats why”

“You are getting carried away again Jannat”

“Don’t you see it? My God! You don’t see it ! Krish and I agree on this, I don’t think these aliens are here with peaceful intentions, the sooner we get this out the better”

“We are all carrying the guilt Jannat, we were told to stick in groups of three, but we left him behind, we should not have, but we did, it’s been thirty five years, and I haven’t once been able to forgive myself.”

She grew softer, like she had been hurt “These aliens hurt him, I know we should not have left him behind, but it is they who hurt him”

“Ok, you can do what you want to, but I don’t want to get involved”

We then exchanged pleasantries and ended conversation. 

Humakind was ready with all its questions. The smartest scientists and the most well learned religious experts sat in a room facing a camera. They had too many questions to ask, but first they wanted to know what it was that the visitors needed.

The Aliens for the first time appeared on the screen, they were tall, and stood on two legs; they wore what looked like a flowing robe. On first observation theirs seemed like a noble race as opposed to a military one. It was their cat like faces that seemed to startle people. 

Immediately the phone rang, it was sure to be Jannat, but I let it ring.

The visitors had a simple enough request, “We would like to stay in your planet for a while”

“Why?” we asked

“Because we have discovered that for some reason, on your planet, it was possible to stop living ….. naturally”

The cat people had figured out the most important question of all; the only one that an intelligent species with all its flaws must deign itself to ask. Ody too had figured the question and had wandered away in search of an answer.  

I let the TV run on mute, ignored the ringing telephone and reached out for my Hamlet.

Roots and Ropes

“Hold on!” he cried, himself hanging by the root of a tree, dangling there, as if waiting for gravity to pluck him – but concerned only about Mij – Mij the sure footed, Mij who had no need for another’s worry, Mij who could save himself. Mij looked down and his eyes did not see the depth to which the cliff fell, no, a bird is what he saw, sitting on top of a tree a little way downhill, wings spread over a nest, and if Re were to lose his grip and plunge he’d wreck the nest for sure. Mij was one beat away from being safe, he stretched out and caught hold of the rope that Leh had put out for them, first one hand, then after a few labored breaths the other. Leh began to pull, her fragile body bending to the immense task, bending but not breaking. “Climb, Mij, get up there!”  - Re was never the one to give up on Mij, Mij could die and he’d bring him back to life, he could murder for him, anything.

A rock crumbled under Mij’s feet and sent apple sized boulders flying into Re’s face who was caught off-guard. Otherwise sharp on reflexes, Re was in poor form this moment, he caught one on his left eye and another dropped like a hammer on his right shoulder. Blood immediately gushed out of his eye, and his right hand let go of the root, momentarily the world spun around him, his balance shifted and his body crashed - back first into the hill’s torso. A sharp piece of rock stung into the back of his head causing him to screak in pain. Amidst all this his left foot swiveled on the protruding slab it had rested on but never slipped, and miraculously his left hand still held onto the stubborn root. Re’s scream of agony brought both Leh and Mij’s hearts to a halt, Mij slipped back a notch to where he had been moments ago, Leh’s palms felt the burning heat of the slipping rope, and a falling stone landed square on the wings of the bird below – the thin branch shook as the bird gathered all the pain – the boulders continued falling down heading for the comfort of the river bed below.

“Are you alright dad?” shouted Mij, he could no longer see Re in his line of vision, he knew his dad had been hit bad, but he was still holding on for sure, he could see the root hanging on his left go taut, there was hope in the strength of an old tree. “Come on Mij, climb!” cried Leh, the rope was secure around the trunk of the old tree, but the tree was not going to do the pulling. Mij looked up and the overhead sun had just moved behind his mother, replacing her face with a dark eclipse of the sun. Mustering all the strength of his youth, Mij took his next deliberate step and placed a confident foot on a solid piece of rock, one more pull and he could see his mother’s face. Leh fell back in a stagger as Mij came up on solid ground. He immediately rushed to her side and picked her up. She was weak, spent, and her knees and elbows were red with blood. “Your Father” she said, and her eyes widened in fear, she tried to get up but failed. Mij turned around and threw the rope along the root. “Dad!” he shouted, “Hold the rope!!”

After a few seconds of disorientation, Re gathered himself to sanity, he looked down and the depthless threatened to make him dizzy again, he could hear his son cry out from above, and then he saw a snake of rope come slithering down his side. As soon as he realized what was happening he caught hold of the rope with his right arm, the sudden action sent a sharp pain up his injured shoulder, the rope slipped away from grasp. A moment later he made a second more determined effort to reach out to the rope. Slower this time, more aware of where he was and what he was doing. The rope was in his hands, but he stood there in a very peculiar position, one hand caught onto the root that had held him so far, and another clasping in its palm the rope that could take him closer to his son, to his family. If he let go of the root it could shift his balance, it could cause him to lose his footing - a delicate little maneuver was required.

Leh had dragged herself to the edge, and she was lying face down, peering into the abyss “Let go of the root Re” she said, it was a soft whisper, a calm and composed plea, as if the gentleness in her voice could convince him of the prudence in her suggestion. His one eye - drowned in blood, was turning blind, pain had made his body go numb, he could hear voices from above, but he could not decide what his next step should be. Fear was coming over him now, fear of one’s own life; fear that one wrong slip could be his last. His free right heel scratched against the rocks to find a firm hold, sending more pieces of rubble bouncing towards the tree that the old bird had made home. The bird made no fuss, not even a flutter; the stones just bobbed off its frame and gave up. The heel finally dug into some space and made room for itself on the surface of the hill.

Fear of losing his family led to panic, and in panic his left hand let go of the root and grabbed the rope. The sudden shift of weight – transmitted by the rope, rushed up and gave Mij a frightening jolt. Mij dug in and began to pull, Leh was on her feet now, harnessing god knew what will, the two began pulling. For a few seconds Re let himself get pulled like dead weight, but once the angle brought him face towards the hill he began to pull himself up the rope. Soon his feet began finding merciful holds and his numb shoulder began responding to suggestion. It took long seconds, long laborious seconds, heart stopping – spirit depleting seconds, but at the end of it he took his final step onto the blessed  top and collapsed like broken twig into the arms of his loving son.

They hugged and kissed each other, they tended to each others' wounds, they cried and sobbed and thanked god, they each had a lump in their throats – a lump of joy and love.

Down below the bird shook back into life, stretching its wings, revealing an empty nest. The eggs long hatched, the hatchlings long taken to flight, but the pile of straw perhaps still worth protecting.

STAR OF MY LIFE

There was excitement in some quarters and unmistakable was the sense of doom in others. Disaster management task forces were being set up and military response mechanisms were being put into motion, just in case. Finally after months of speculation about the object that was getting closer and closer to us it became amply apparent that in fact it was a space ship. Science fiction had become an eerie reality, it had become non-fiction. There was no booming announcement from the visitors; in fact we had no clue as to what lay inside that huge space ship that had parked itself over our little forgettable town. Scientists and fanatics from all across the world were heading to our town. Military reinforcements were sent, and camp sites grew up across the town overnight.

The first contact was visual – to those who could strain their amateur telescopes in the direction of the spaceship, a huge screen was visible on the outside. A series of images were being flashed on it. The first set of images were - one circle, flash, two circles, flash, three circles, flash, four circles, flash, five circles, flash, six circles, flash, one circle and so on the cycle continued on a loop.

“What are they saying?” I asked my daughter, she had been sitting all evening on the terrace, watching the spaceship through her telescope. I handed her a cup of chocolate as I took a sip from my own.

“I think they are telling us that the language of communication will be mathematics” she said, still peering into the scope. At fourteen she was as smart as they come, she had the focus and beauty of her mother, the more I saw her, the more of her mother I found in her. We had met twenty years ago and now she has been gone for five years. When we get nostalgic, me and my daughter we sit on the terrace and look at the stars. I tell her stories of how I and her mother met; she loved to hear it again and again. The banyan under which I saw her for the first time, she had been reading a text on Plato’s Republic sitting on a bench under the tree and I was smitten all at once, she would sometimes push the strands of hair off her face and tuck them behind the ear without looking up from the book. I had an Asimov opened in front of me, but Asimov’s foundation had no meaning for me, it was my own foundations that were being shaken. I moved from where I had been sitting, over to her bench. She wasn’t even aware of my presence. “Plato was quite a romantic wasn’t he?” I said, she looked up at me as if I was an idiot, and then she got up, gathered her books and walked off.

The images on the screen were changing, now it had one circle and a symbol next to it, the next image did not have any circles but just a symbol. The two images began flashing one after the other. I looked at my daughter and said “Of course, now they are establishing the binary system, the simplest form of communication, these symbols for one and zero aren’t they? So that we know how they say ‘yes’ and ‘no’”

“Mmmhmmm” she said and continued to peer into the telescope, now and then she scribbled on her notepad, taking notes. “You don’t have to break any codes you know, these aliens are treating us like primary kids and keeping things very simple” I teased her. She did not respond. She does this sometimes, acts like I am not there, she gets it from her mother, and it drives me absolutely crazy. There are times when I would be driving her to school and she wouldn’t leak a word during the twenty minute drive, then she would get down near the school, walk up to the gate, turn back and smile at me, a true smile, one that comes straight from the heart. I never managed to fully understand her mother, never learnt to anticipate her moods and the daughter was much the same.

The next day was the first day of the second year in college and I learnt that the girl under the banyan was new in town. She had transferred from the big city and she had those airs about her. She dressed like a movie star and spoke impeccable English. During the break I saw her light a cigarette and smoke it casually as she spoke to a couple of girls, the smoke twirled itself into knots and travelled skywards, I was sitting on a stone bench not far away, and I remember wishing I was the cigarette, I would readily burn to ashes at her behest.

The TV informed us that a huge screen had been set up in the play-ground; it looked like we were going start talking as well. We began by flashing our first message which was a series of dots instead of circles, dot, flash, two dots, flash, and so on. Then we showed them our symbol for zero and one, establishing the fact that thus far we were on even ground. The mathematical exchange went on, they too had place value notation but used a duodecimal counting system. “It makes sense, 12 has more factors than 10 and is more convenient when it comes to calculations and geometry” I said, I wasn’t expecting her to respond to this, and I got none, she was busy making notes – it made me a little nervous to say the least.

A month later was her birthday; I had learnt everything about her, as far as one could without talking to her. She was sophisticated, read French poetry, knew how to speak Arabic and often quoted in Latin before she translated them for lesser mortals. She swam for an hour each day, and loved to spend time with her violin. She was a paid guest in the house of a girl I had known since childhood. They were having a party at her place and i got her one of those music boxes with a couple ball-dancing. It was a corny thing to do, but I was a kid with an air-bubble in my heart and I felt it would burst any moment. It was a strange otherworldly feeling. After the cake-cutting she inched away into the balcony and stood there staring at the stars, I could have walked up to her then, but I was not courageous like that. I scribbled a note, folded it and stuck it on the gift-wrapped box and left. The next time we met, she was the one who spoke first.

From the kitchen I could hear the continuous commentary on TV of what was happening. The two races were exchanging mathematical symbols and notations. Simple operations were being flashed on the screen, both were learning quite fast. I put the dinner on the table and called out for my daughter to join me. She wanted to eat on the terrace, so I filled a couple of plates and took them to her. I sat next to her and began digging into the meal, I was halfway through when I noticed that she hadn’t touched her plate yet, “what is wrong?” I asked her. “It looks so easy doesn’t it?” she said, “what does?”

“We are already communicating, you would think that an alien species would take more time to grasp our language and we to understand theirs”

“But it is mathematics they are talking; it is supposed to be universal”

“The possibility of that is not so cardinal, our basic arithmetic is based on the perception of discreteness, it needn’t be the same for others, what are the chances that two intelligent species that exist thousands of light years away have the same mode of perception. Our math is the result of not just what we see around us, but how our mind perceives it. But to assume that even they perceive the universe like us, is pushing it.”

Two years into our marriage I had begun doubting her fidelity, she would vanish sometime in the middle of the night sighting work reasons. She worked for a legal firm, and at first I thought she was overworked. The doubts got the better of me, one night I followed her and saw her get into a house. I found out that the house belonged to her colleague at the firm. I confronted her and she confessed. I expected her to walk out of my life, but instead she surprised me by begging for forgiveness. She had been the prize; I was just an adequate partner. I loved her too much to watch her beg, her tears were real, they were for me, and it melted my anger and my loathing. She sat crying in the bed all night and I lay beside her sleepless with a heart full of love and pain, the next morning we decided to have a family, she quit her job and we started again. When I returned from an official visit one summer morning I found her sitting on the doorstep with a packed bag. “It’s time to go to her hospital” she said, one hand on her enormous belly.

I thought for a moment, and then said “but what makes you think they would have a different mode of perception?”

“I agree it is difficult, for example some people are color blind and hence their perception of the world is different. Now similarly, if I see a fish in the bowl, I’d say ‘there swims one fish’, but what if my cognition is conditioned to consider the fish, the water and the bowl as one, maybe I am seeing blurry, all hazy at once, what if I see no differences between the things and the spaces in between them, now if I can’t see the fish as a separate entity, then to me ‘no fish exists’ – so then since my perception is different I would evolve a non-discrete intelligence”

“So you are saying that you find it fishy that the aliens were clear sighted like us”

“But you see we are all blurry eyed beyond our scale of perception, Only within our scale of perception are we clear sighted and are able to declare discreteness – although it is not an absolute discreteness, but the fact that even they are clear sighted within the same scale of perception is fishy indeed”

“You think they are similar to us?”

“Either that or they have been at this a long time, adapting their thought to the way we perceive reality – learning our way of thinking”

“Why would they take all that pain?”

“So that we wouldn’t think of them as freaks and scare ourselves enough to perceive threat, you must admit, this celebratory exchange of arithmetics has a calming influence; we have seen all this before, in books and in the movies, we feel comfortable, even the way their space ship looks. There is always a danger that threat could lead to confrontation. Each time in history two cultures have met for the first time there has been violence, and I suspect they know our history as well as we do”

When she was diagnosed with cancer we spent a year moving in and out of experimental treatments – different doctors, different hospitals, and different cities. Those were days filled with heart-burn. Our daughter was old enough to realize what was happening, and I had no way of shielding her from reality. The day she died we behaved like everything was normal, we went home from the hospital, showered, had breakfast while we watched the news, took a short nap, and were back at the hospital to do the formalities. She had donated her body to science, it was news to me, but I did not want disrespect her last wish. Some young doctors would study her body to learn what the cancer cells had done to her; there was some good in that. We held a mock funeral and invited everyone we knew. Her colleague from the firm showed up as well, I did not create a scene. Before leaving he leaned close to me and said “She said you taught her how to love”. It did not console me, instead it made me angrier.

“How do you think they managed that? to learn ou way of seeing things?” I asked her

“Who knows” she shrugged, picking up her dinner plate, “Maybe they have walked among us, looking like us, posing like us” she said in a tone that was mock-ominous. After doing the chores I checked on her before heading to my room. She was asleep, calm and quite. I loved her from the bottom of my heart, and I could only hope that she would continue to love me. Books tell me that me that she is about the age in which she would begin rebelling, thinking of me as a freak and hating me for no reason. That would be a tragedy, how long would it take to turn love into hate? How long would it take to blink once?

After we buried an empty coffin, I sat in our bedroom for a long time going through her things, tucked away in the corner of a small drawer I found the musical box I had given her, the gift wrap and the note were there too. The note said –

“Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned; Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes” – Plato, the romantic.

Tonight the stars were shining bright.