The Storyteller (4 page)

The old man paused and eyed me sternly. Whatever he saw revived his enthusiasm for purgation. There was a renewed vigour in his voice. Fires and knives would expunge and purify. Guns, tanks and aircrafts were in readiness to silence the dreaded enemies of the country. There was also a new weapon. Terrible and wonderful. In the name of Indra, it was a moral imperative for Bharat to rediscover itself and seek the purity of its origin. But first the cancerous afflictions of Hindustan had to be destroyed. Surgeons had to apply knives. It was necessary for patients to bleed. Regrettable but essential. A wellestablished principle—first chaos, and then the emergence of order. Peace. Harmony.

‘Crap and damnation!’ The words burst through my lips. ‘Liars and crooks sit in judgement of the poor. Spot the honest people on the roads! What? No one? The government must employ them all. The nation has a great future with so many skilled surgeons.’ An uneasy titter rippled across the room. Several guards rushed towards me. I remained defiant. ‘Fear, hatred and threatening promises! They are weapons more potent than the arsenal at the army’s command!’

‘History is evolving us into a powerful entity. Our decisions will be upheld by posterity as the necessary steps in the rebirth of this great nation.’ The judge’s eyes were venomous
with contempt. ‘But what would you know? You are a lying, slimy, little vermin! A freak! A piece of deformity! An apostate and a blot on the land! You have no sense of this country’s great destiny.’ His eyes radiated the hatred he felt for me. ‘Why must I deal with this piece of hopelessness just before I retire?’

An attendant slipped behind the chair and placed a steadying hand on the precariously perched wig that was beginning to slide off the judge’s head.

‘Get a bigger head!’ I piped. ‘One that has more room for shit!’

The silence in the courtroom exploded into a crescendo of noises. Boos and applause. A guard belted me across the face. Hands grabbed me.

‘Order! I will not permit unruly behaviour in the court!’ The judge glared at members of the public. Gradually everyone quietened down. He turned to me again. ‘There is no place for you in this country…on this earth! You are no more than an odious parasite. A cursed creature without faith! Certainly not a Hindu! Nor a Jew nor a Christian. Not even a Musulmaan. What are you, I ask? Hah? No, let him answer!’

The grips slackened. Air rushed back into my lungs. Now that was a silly question, even for him. What was I? Didn’t the man have eyes? A mind? A heart? Was there a drop of blood in his veins, or were they filled with the toxin of prejudice? What was I?

The guards stood on either side of me, watching intently for my reaction.

‘I am Delhi’s hottest and shortest virgin, sir! A small package. But!’ My vanity surfaced and contributed to my carelessness. ‘Not a small mind. Huge desires. Monstrous appetites. Greedy senses. The spirit of an indestructible adventurer. I roam the entire universe. I have the awesome power to create people and
invent places. Structure events, fill the gaps and give the past a shape. I am rich! Words are my wealth. What am I? A juggler. A sorcerer. Yes, a liar to make my life more bearable. What am I? Everything that is foul and enchanting. I live in poverty and among filth and decay. I dream of the beautiful and I also defecate in the streets. I am a composite of blood, sweat and semen. Flesh and hair. I hurt and can be happy. I can hate intensely and yearn for love. I am human! Do you understand that, you carcass of a goat? What am I? Human! Deformed and hideous? Yes. But human and alive!’

‘Take him away.’ The judge sounded weary. ‘There is no hope for him.’

An evolving history, the old man had said. History without compassion or imagination, at the mercy of an ugly idealism. A synthesised pattern of bigotry, hatred and revenge. We…Oops! I forgot that I was to be excluded from this shimmering future. This was to become a moral country, a spiritual repository for the rest of the world to admire and envy. A land draped in sombre grey, where the sky was to be an empty field without the sounds of winged creatures. By decree the sea would remain silent. Here the human mind was not permitted to create other worlds and savour the pleasures of imagined lives. A place where the body was to be hosed down with discipline and the soul fed with prayers and chants. Restrictions and deprivation were to be paths to salvation. People had to see what lay straight ahead. Not backwards, sideways or beyond. The imagination was to become the common enemy. An evil force. It had to be captured and sentenced to languish in the shadows of a perceived perfection and…facts. FACTS. FACTS!

But I could not utter my serious thoughts. It was assumed that I was illiterate, and such people were deemed to be incapable of uttering meaningful words. I had to preserve my
precious secret. There was nothing I could have done to influence the judge’s decision.

‘This…this thing is a grave danger to the community. He is to be held in custody and brought to a full trial at a future date.’

Night has fully awakened. It is deep and resonates with many voices. They gather around, old acquaintances who have never failed me, defying time and swirling in the depth of space. Their echoes filter through the darkness of the layered chambers, seeping into consciousness. They assume human forms.

I am not alone.

I see myself in the revolving mirrors of history, emerging from the dynastic ruins of an ancient city. I will not die. Imagine a
simurgh
rising from the ashes, its memory carrying the burden of other lives it has known, compelled to speak about heinous deeds and unimaginable suffering. Ah, Mother India is a powerful sorceress. She squeezes the imagination to throw up sights and sounds too strange for belief, slashing her womb and spilling the unwanted misfits she has bred to unleash their mischief in the streets.

I surface here. Suddenly I appear elsewhere. Ha! Ha! Ha! They think that I will soon be broken. Bah! Why should I bother with explanations? The fools…

Where shall I go today? Such choices confront me. So many beginnings. I have one favourite. Fly my imagination. Ride on
the freedom of precious darkness. Live again. Experience those rare strokes of kindness. See and listen to your own story…

‘One, two, three…’ The voice was restrained. Patient and gentle. ‘A, B, C, D…B-A-D…bad. G-O-O-D…good.’ Her hands ruffled my hair. ‘Did you hear that, Vijay? He has such a talent for language!’

In the evenings, the kitchen was a warm sanctuary in the harshness of Delhi’s winter. The burning charcoals spoke to me. A red mouth hissed and spat out messages from unknown worlds. On the walls, the shadows penetrated the recesses of my mind and germinated there. Maji sat on a low stool and rolled out the dough for
puris,
cajoling me to repeat the lessons.

‘The numbers now, Vamana. You know the letters of the alphabet. You are very good with words. Let us try some numbers. Vamana!’

Vamana, the dwarf in mythology, traverses the sky and bounds across the earth in three strides, armed with the power to send demons to hell. Possessor of the entire universe. Such vision and energy! Vamana…Vamana. Why did he need numbers?

‘A, B, C, D, E…B-A-D…’

‘No, the numbers, the numbers—one, two, three…’ She never lost her temper in those futile attempts to teach me the basics of arithmetic.

The
chula
sizzled and spurted in support of my silent resistance.

‘Stories!’ I clapped my hands gleefully. ‘Stories! In the beginning, the universe was
atman
in the shape of man…’ What did not satisfy me, I created and inserted. ‘His name was Vamana.’

‘No…’

‘Yes! Yes…Yes!’ My tantrum never failed to overcome Maji. Her smile was a resigned recognition of the abnormality she had brought into her life.

Words tumbled, cartwheeled, jumped, danced and lurched like drunks after a lavish feast. La la la…La lala la la…Yes sir, it was all so easy!

Those early years slithered away, but not without pain or confusion. My body began to hurt. Flesh and skin grew around a twisted skeleton. Relationships became increasingly strained. Vijay was prim and rigid. Without frivolity or laughter. The retired Police Commissioner was obsessed with order and discipline. Frequently he berated Maji for allowing me to blight their lives. Sometimes I tiptoed to the door of their bedroom and listened. It was not uncommon for my name to crop up in their arguments. Vamana—human or beast?

‘He’s only a child!’

‘Ugly enough to be fathered by a
deo!
Can a normal child look like him?’

‘He was an unexpected gift to us.’

‘More like a curse. An insult. Without caste or religion. Unholy freak!’

I enjoyed the anguish in Vijay’s anger.

Soon there were visits to doctors, homeopaths and herbalists.
Saddhus
,
fakirs,
faith healers, astrologers. Stars collided, leaving trails of celestial debris. Planets failed to align themselves in my favour. Palmistry did not reveal my destiny. No one was willing to enter my future. Fate had chosen to lacerate the palms of my hands with an abundant confusion of broken lines that confounded the experts. We heard words of astonishment and refusals to accept any form of remuneration. Ill luck and I were twins. Untouchables. Outcasts.

I developed a voracious appetite for food. The meatsafe was raided between meals. Maji encouraged me by stocking up on
sweetmeats and savouries. Slowly I became almost circular in shape. My body—that wretched arrangement of torso and limbs—refused to conform to the standards of physical normality. The hump on my back could no longer be hidden under loose-fitting clothes. I hobbled noticeably, especially when I attempted to run. As for my face…I looked like the victim of an acid attack. The skin was broken and bumpy, resembling a devastated landscape covered with sporadic patches of brown, black and pink. Small, deep-set eyes. Thick, scaly lips and a bulbous nose. Crooked teeth and abnormally sized canines. A square chin touched the upper part of my chest. I forgave people for thinking that I was born without a neck. Floppy ears, as though in the original design I should have been an elephant. An unusually large and hard head matted with wiry, black hair. Not what you might call an endearing appearance. Everything about me resembled the ravaged remnants of a savage storm—torn, broken and decaying.

At night I often lay sleepless in bed, my eyes scanning the mystery of the darkness outside. If only I could. If only…The stars came to the window. I was special. Never mind what people said. The roof lifted and the sky peeled off its eyelids. I drifted. I swam. I ventured beyond the boredom of physical experiences. The world was too small a place for me.

Then came a dreadful morning, some days after Maji discovered a few tendrils of hair on my chin and cheeks. A barber was summoned. He combed and snipped. Brush, razor and talcum powder. The new maidservant and Maji armed themselves with soap, sponge and warm water. The girl looked terrified and ran away after I was stripped. Maji pretended not to look. I was scrubbed and soaked. Specially made clothes and shoes did little to dispel my bewilderment and rage. I was catapulted on my way towards respectability, learning and discipline.

A short car ride. A passing nightmare, I consoled myself as I sat gripping the armrests of a chair. It seemed like a long way down to the floor.

‘But Geeta, we don’t have the facilities for someone like him.’ Mrs Prasad made an effort to look kindly at me. Her smile wilted when I bared my teeth.

‘He is so intelligent. You must hear him read. And the stories he can tell!’ Maji clasped her hands on her bosom in a gesture of disbelief. ‘Amazing for someone like him, isn’t it?’

I noticed the photographs on the walls. The women were similar in demeanour. Granite faces. Stony eyes. Rigid postures. Their entire world was encapsulated in a school building. I wanted to stretch their mouths into welcoming smiles. Soften the eyes and colour the backgrounds. Green and yellow. Blue. A blazing sun. Orange…no, red. Like fresh blood.

I fidgeted and scratched the armrests, determined not to like Mrs Prasad. I thought of ways to upset her.

‘Well, perhaps we might take him in for a trial period.’ She scribbled on a form and stamped my prison sentence. PROVISIONAL ADMISSION.

My imitative sigh was too loud. The stare and the twitch of disapproval didn’t augur well. The moment was right, I felt. I lifted my buttocks slightly. Alas! My perceived moment of triumph was a dismal failure. The thunderous fart I had planned was dismally short of ammunition. The rumbling in my stomach had misled me. The sound, though clearly audible, was ineffectual. It was as if a cork had been fired from a cannon. Maji lapsed into a coughing fit. Mrs Prasad began to write furiously on the form that had already been filled. I had the overwhelming desire to prick the large mole on her right cheek with the sharpened end of a pencil. It reminded me of snot I rolled into tiny balls that turned black when they hardened.

The next morning I experienced my first sensations of love. Sweaty palms and a burning forehead. A palpitating heart. My feet barely touched the ground. Josephine DeSouza. Teacher. Forbidden territory. Irresistible. The perfection of her face was alarming. I longed to run away with her head. Wrap it in cotton and hide it under my bed. I imagined the tips of my fingers caressing the softness of her cheeks.

She caught me staring and smiled warmly. Aargh! The room spun crazily out of control. Fire swept through my veins. I buried my face in my shoulder as she took my limp right hand and led me to a classroom.

The noise died immediately. The silent stares of curiosity.

‘Children, this is Vamana.’

A solitary giggle. Others followed. Dark whispers. Elbows and knees nudged. Audible words, hurtful in their directness and condemnatory in judgement. I was sent hurtling on my way to becoming a stranger to the world. At that stage of my life, rejection was not entirely a familiar word. Its implications, however, began to manifest themselves in acts of petty meanness. There was a low table. It was scratched and streaked with paint. I was seated with two other boys.

‘You look funny!’ The fat one squealed and grabbed the coloured pencils from the centre of the table. ‘No! Mine! I won’t give you any!’

The other boy grinned and aimed a low kick at me. He didn’t realise that my legs didn’t reach the floor. His toes smashed against one of the wooden legs of my chair. A prolonged howl. Tears and accusations. Fatty was nervously noisy in supporting his friend. Other eyes turned on me with looks of dread and suspicion. Guilty…guilty…guilty! Miss DeSouza rushed to our table and gushed with words of comfort for the agitated duo. I was mildly rebuked. A stern index finger waved in front of my face. ‘Here we are kind to each other!’

The stabbing cross-currents of feelings. Anger. Hurt. Sadness. Simultaneously I perceived the gigantic cruelties of a flawed system, and the need to protect myself. The fragile shell of childhood fractured. I burst into the harsh reality of the world, armed with aggression.

I was adamant about not apologising. ‘I didn’t hit him.’

‘You will say
sorry.’

‘No.’

‘Vamana, you must say
sorry.
’ There was a sharp edge of anger in her voice.

‘But I didn’t hit him.’

Punishment was swiftly administered. I had to hold each ear lobe between my thumb and index finger. Squat, up…squat, up. My knees creaked. One…two…three…Miss DeSouza had to count the rest of the numbers. Humiliation consumed me. She told me to stop. I was given a table to myself at the back of the room. More glances. Triumphant looks.

During recess I wandered around in the small yard, unable to find a playmate. There were clusters of noisy, excited kids. Hide and seek. Hop, skip and jump. Rescue. Ball games. The sandpit and the swing. I watched and learned. The bitterness of loneliness was an early experience. To be treated as a presence that deserved to be ignored, destroyed any semblance of pride I might have felt about being a person. Darkness shrouded my stunted body and withered all sense of personal worthiness. I surrendered to an immediate impulse and sought shelter in an unpopulated grove.

After the break there was singing and drawing. Later, Miss DeSouza read to us. Stories about wise children and vanquished ogres who had my silent sympathy. Happy endings. Angelic faces and rapturous expressions. I amused myself by colouring the top of the table.

‘Now, who would like to tell us a story?’

‘Me!’ I raised my right hand with immense enthusiasm. ‘I want to!’

Heads turned. A moment’s silence before the whispers began again.

Miss DeSouza’s smile acknowledged me. ‘Anyone else?’

Titters and self-conscious giggles.

‘Me!’ I yelled with delight. I banged the top of the table for her attention.

‘All right, Vamana. Tomorrow perhaps.’ She made a great fuss about looking at her watch. ‘It’s nearly time for the bell.’

‘I’m telling a story tomorrow!’ I announced proudly when Maji arrived to pick me up.

‘What a happy child!’ She beamed. ‘Miss DeSouza! You have worked a miracle in a single day!’

That smile again. I shuddered at the sensations that raced through me.

That evening Maji brought out a stack of storybooks and read to me. I pretended to listen obediently. I stifled yawns and tried not to doze off. I heard about handsome princes and beautiful princesses. Ugly villains and heinous deeds. Evil was destroyed and good triumphed. Shadows dispelled. Sunshine and peace. She shook me awake. ‘Do you want to tell your friends one of these stories?’

‘No.’

‘The marriage of Rama and Sita pleases everyone.’ My frown did not deter her. ‘I could read it to you again.’

I lacked the courage to say that I would share one of my stories with the class. It was about a sightless man who talked to himself to avoid loneliness.
One day a group of travellers found him laughing and talking under a tree. They thought he was crazy.

‘
What makes you so happy?’ one of them asked.

‘
Entertaining my friends,’ the man replied.

They looked all around, unable to see anyone else. ‘Where are they?’

‘
In my house.’

‘
Perhaps we could take you home,’ one of the travellers offered.

‘
I am at home.’

‘
Here, under a tree?’

‘
No, inside myself…’

‘Vamana! You are not listening!’ I repeated what Maji had read. ‘You have such a good memory. The children will love it!’ She clapped her hands and rewarded me with a sweetmeat.

That night I dreamed of Miss DeSouza. She was trapped in a golden cage, imprisoned by a twin-headed demon that refused to free her until she married him. The demon had his back to me, even when I commanded him to turn. Her refusal angered him. He reached into the cage and strangled her before killing himself by sinking his rapier-like fingernails into his neck. That was when I saw his face. I woke up screaming. The bed was wet.

The morning light calmed me. I struggled out of bed and looked into the mirror. There he was with only one face, laughing at me.