Storyteller

I was murdered even before my birth. A subtle kind of murder, where you die, yet you live. And all your life, you do nothing, but stimulating death.

Janaka Bhavan- a dingy orphan house often filled with exhaust from the nearby brick factories. My home of childhood.

The plot it stood on was confined, and I would regularly feel being choked down with its unperceived hostility. The walls of its little compartments were bare of any strokes of paint, and the toys weren’t many, and often broken. I did find an unbroken toy there, a roly poly turtle. I used to stash it under my bed sheets, so that the other devils were not aware of my only possession.

When those group home workers, who had an air of vindictiveness around them, asked us all to assemble in a line for our daily lessons, which was a humble way of referring to some back breaking chores, I would sometimes sneak out from the monotonous suffering. And then, running back towards my room, I would close down all the windows, draw the curtains, and stand there in the shadows, to play with my turtle, and sometimes write down poetry, all alone.

On one of such date, when I was drawing the familiar, speckled window screen, I sensed someone disturb my solitude. I turned around, and found a girl of my age sitting on my bed, with her legs folded and hidden under the bed sheets. My turtle, I saw, was lying beside her with no cover.

Though her face looked radiant, I looked at her with my face struggling to enunciate an emotional backdrop. She glanced at my unkempt appearance, and said nothing. I knew her – Her name was Barsha, but we didn’t talk at all.  A part of me wanted to, but we didn’t.

‘What are you doing here on my bed?’ I asked her. Straight to the point. She blinked a few times before answering.

‘Your bed sheet seems to be a lot cleaner than the ones in the other bunk. My ones are being taken for a wash. It was stinking.’ She tossed her head, and screwed up her nose.

‘You could have chosen any other room.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘Aren’t you supposed to go for your lessons?’ She asked after some time, and an immediate grief took over her face.

‘I felt like writing poetry today. I began doing this thing a month ago, you know, like creeping out from the lessons, and then writing and playing here all alone. It makes me feel like a king.’  I tried to smile. ‘And guess what? You are the first one to know about this thing.’

‘You are lucky.’ She mumbled. How?

‘Why didn’t you go? I mean, for your lessons?’ I asked her.

‘I can’t.’ She said. ‘God wasn’t too kind when he made me, or maybe he did a mistake… He missed one of my legs.’ She sobbed, and struggled to say more. I tried to look at them, but recalled that they were covered with my bed sheets.

‘Everyone makes mistakes.’ I said, and inched closer towards my bed.

‘He makes too many, more than a man.’ She said, looking up above towards the ceiling of the room. Tear beads rolled down her cheeks. ‘Look at all of us. We are all his mistakes. Yet, people point at us, not him.’

I had this weird conviction that what she said was the truth, but felt it perilous to assure her.I feared that God might hear it.

‘Hey, have you seen my turtle? We can play with it, if you don’t mind.’ I said. I didn’t want to upset god by further debating about the flaws of his golden thrones in heaven.

She sighed. ‘If you don’t mind, I will play.’

‘I won’t.’ I grinned and sat on my bed. She didn’t move, making it easier for me to maintain a specified distance in between us. ‘Don’t you like it? It is remarkably new.’

She nodded. ‘Can’t you open the windows a little? It’s suffocating.’

‘Let it be. Besides, I like this darkness.’ I said.

‘I know. I have seen you drawing those curtains over time.’ She said. ‘Now open the windows for me.’

‘Let it be.’

‘Open it!’

‘No.’

‘Please!’

‘No.’

‘Listen, what’s your name?’

‘Shyam.’

‘Do you know mine?’

‘Barsha.’ I said.

‘Do you know what it means?’

‘No. What?’

‘For that, open those damn windows!’ She scowled.

I was nine then, I am ninety today. I didn’t open the windows then, but I open them now. And as soon as I open them, it seems as if not one, but a thousand suns make way into my tiny little cottage, where the darkness awaits nonchalantly for its end each day; it knows it can never be eliminated. I know it.

Still, I let the light pour in through the windows. I even open the doors, and see the children playing in the shades of my Banyan tree outside. The plants in my garden seem to be growing with a rapid outburst every summer, asking all the children to wrap themselves around their mother. I look at every one of them from my room, sitting in front of the open door, and smile.

Now I have a notebook on my lap, and as I try to figure out a poem, I think of myself as a storyteller. I write, I pause to admire the differences in the verse, and then I write again. I hear the laughter of children playing outside, and amidst them, a faint voice asks, ‘Are you a storyteller or a poet?’

I do not answer it; instead I let my memories answer. I think about it myself, and every time I think, I think about it differently. Differences, I feel, is what sets the past apart from the present; the light apart from the darkness; the thoughts apart from the memories.

Sunlight poured through the open windows. Barsha’s face was bathed in the sunlight as she faced the windows. I, though the windows were open, hid myself behind the partly drawn curtains.  The room appeared like the evening sky, where neither the light wanted to leave its reign, nor the darkness desired to wait any longer.

Our beds felt like a burning coal, so we decided to sit on the floor that day. It had been four years since we first met, and since then, on every off day, we would sit like this, alone in my room, and she would listen to me, or I would listen to her. We usually sat on my bed, but that day being too hot for comfort, we sat on the floor, deciding to gaze through the window towards the other children, who used to play cricket during that time. I helped her sit, opened the windows, and then sat a few feet away from her, to hide myself behind the curtains.

I wished she hadn’t noticed, but she did, and gave me a look enunciating disgust.

‘Come here, Shyam.’ She said, patting the floor.

‘It seems to be cooler here.’ I grinned.

‘Liar.’ She said.

‘Sorry?’

‘You know very well what I am talking about.’ She narrowed her eyes to me. ‘Well, do you know why I like the light?’ I shook my head. She entirely faced me, and said, ‘Let us assume the darkness to be a hole. When you open those windows, it seems as if someone has poured down water through that hole. The water of light.‘  She halted to make sure I was listening to her. When I said nothing, she continued. ‘You see, darkness is a void, which can only be filled by the light poured in by somebody. And I would prefer that somebody, rather than nobody.‘

‘I never had somebody. Not even my parents were there for me.’ I sighed.

‘Say, do you miss them?’

‘To miss, you have to know. I never knew them. You miss them?’

‘Never.’ She said.

All this vagueness of her answer made me realize where this small afternoon was bending into. I felt a sudden presence of the past in my room, where I saw myself crying on the footsteps of a Hanuman temple. I was not more than six months, and was wrapped up with only a shawl around me. I cried, I turned, I strived for something, but there was nothing. All I saw was black, and the only light came from the temple, where the earthen lamp still glowed, that showed me how small and vulnerable I was. That is why I never liked the light.The truth.

Barsha dragged herself towards me, and shook my arm. I looked at her, beads of tears willing to roll down. She buried her face against my chest, saying, ‘You are thirteen. You are a big man. And big men do not cry.’

‘I do not miss them Barsha. But I want to know them.’ I said.

‘You have a new story?’ She asked, her head rising back again. I knew what she meant, and why she asked it.

‘I did write one yesterday.’ I said, sniffing back my tears.

‘Let’s hear it out then.’ She said.

‘But for god’s sake, stop calling it a story.’

‘But isn’t it a story?’

‘It is a poem.’

‘Some would call it lyric, others would call it insanity. You call it a poem. I call it a story. And you, Shyam, are its teller.’

Sixteen years has gone by since that talk, and it seems as if the years had been blown by the wind of pain and despair.
After the catastrophic day’s work, I collapsed on my bed, never minding to switch on the lights. The rented room felt like bliss, as I longed for a good night’s sleep. The reflected rays of the streetlight fell on the walls of the room, where seven of my poems were glued. A glimpse of them was enough to remind me of our boisterous days. Our days.
I had not seen her for fourteen years. Still she keeps haunting me like a ghost.

I remember myself begging the home workers to stop her. She was sleeping tranquilly, and I swear, she would have cried if she knew what was happening with her. To me.

My shouts were not enough. She didn’t even say a good bye. She just slept, without a stir in her eyes. Her body was covered with a white sheet, and after she was sent away on that bed with wheels, I ran to my room, opened up all the windows, and sobbed all night. I knew, all she had left me with were memories, which will sting and irk me till eternity.

Today, as I try to sleep, the faint light inside asks me to try harder. When I try harder, the obscured print of her inside me urges me to try even more. That is when I sit up on my bed and realize that I cannot sleep.

I could be painted black from head to toe in a light less room, and still the ghost of her would go on haunting me. She knows where I am. She is inside me.

The pondering of her took me back when we were fifteen, and were sitting beside each other, my arms around her shoulder. We sat on the veranda, overlooking the arid and lifeless play field. Dusk was setting in, and I sensed the perplexity in the stillness of our presence. I looked at her face, and her cheeks being almost luminous, I kissed her there. She turned towards me, her eyes watery, and breathe not at all rhythmic. There were numerous bruises on her arm, fresh and clear.

I remembered, she was walking towards the dorm with the support of a rod, and I was beside her. There was a bend in our way, a dim bend, and as we turned, two impulsive guys pushed us back. I caught hold of the wall and steadied myself, but Barsha being too fragile and weak, dropped down on the floor filled with sharp gravels, and cut her left arm. I ran towards her and picked her up, and when I glanced at the two bulky guys, I recalled that they were The Ali Brothers.

I got a tickling sense that what they did was not an accident, but was deliberate. And to the horror of my life, I was right.

They intimidated us for the next ten minutes. I dodged and screamed, but the bend being too hostile and deserted, it took a whole lot of effort for someone to hear us. I saw Barsha, her eyes filled with reticent tears. The reason of their bullying was obvious. Barsha complained about them a week ago about their immature behavior towards the smaller children of the orphanage.

I tried kicking them, but their aim was Barsha. Only after fifteen ponderous minutes, there came help. Until then, Barsha was scratched and punched by them, and that left marks on her arms and shoulder. Marks soon to be turned into scars.

‘You remember when I said I do not miss my parents?’ She asked. Her voice startled me. I nodded.

‘I lied. I do miss my mother. She loved me a lot.’ She said with a melancholy nod.

‘She loved you? She left you here, and you still think she loved you?’

‘She died when I was four. My father remarried. He never considered me to be his child. I never considered him to be my father. His new wife was sick as hell. I never liked her. She never liked me. We didn’t make it. But when they informed about their plans, to leave me alone here, I was not afraid. I was stupefied with fear. I cried then like I did today.’ She sighed.

I said nothing.

‘They hated me for my legs. But my mother never said anything about my legs. That was one whole reason why I liked her. She loved to take me beside the window, and sing lullaby to free myself from all evils. The light would reflect on me, and I would feel free. She loved the light. And when you say you like the darkness; that is when I begin to hate you.’

The voices inside me clamored, but I couldn’t fathom out what it was all about. So I said nothing. She didn’t stop there.

‘I like the light, because my mother liked it. And sometimes, I would ask this light to be a messenger to my mother. But being with you, I cannot every time talk with the light, because you are different. But I want to be with you too. And I wonder aloud, how come a stranger meet another stranger in a place devoid of any history and comfort, both without a similarity and from two disparate worlds, and still become companions?’

‘Stop being a Shakespeare. You do not have to be with me every hour.’ I said. She giggled.

‘In this short span of time I have in my hand, I want to be with someone, and that is you.’ Her tears had dried up.

‘Best friends are always with you.’ I smiled.

‘We are not best friends.’ She said.

‘Let me hear the reason out.’ I snapped.

‘You are a boy.’

‘I know.’

‘And I am a girl.’

‘So?’

‘We can’t be best friends.’

‘Why?’

‘We might fall in love with each other.’

Then and there, I felt my life to be a conspiracy. And once again, I was right.

I spent every moment of my life trying to read and interpret the invisible thread of time. And in all those misinterpretations, I forgot to study it. The instant when she said that thing; I must have studied her, and not read.

Today, in this forlorn room, I pray here stimulating tranquility and peace, but instead, God gifts me a story. A story long snubbed like the dust in the wind. The enchantment of it keeps repeating in front of me like a pattern, and keeps whispering to me, ‘She died the very next week after you first kissed her.’

***

After the poem, I close my notebook and keep it on the study table. I stand in front of the door. I provoke the sunlight to keep falling on me to communicate with her. The children continues to play under the shade of the tree, and looking at them bathed in the light, I feel myself to be someone free, someone who has freed himself from the labyrinth. Someone who has nothing more to hide, and nothing more to achieve in his life.

The publishers of my poems had offered me a flat, but I decline. Why do I need a flat when I own an orphanage? Who, but a mad person would choose creeping inside an incarcerated building, all alone, rather than living like free as we all are, taking pleasure of a theatre every day, with the actors and actresses merely the orphan children? And above all the reasons, this orphanage is where I smell her breath, even after ninety years of imperfection. This universe is nothing but an ironical story. Where there was a time when I craved for a father, but today I am a father of a hundred children. And she is their mother, as I tell them always.

I felt someone tap the open door of my room. I turned and saw Tushar looking at me with those familiar, charming eyes, with a toy in his hand. I asked him to come in, but when he shook his head, I walked towards him.

‘You wanted something Tushar?’ I asked, bending a little to reach out for his hair.

‘Father, you forgot? How can you forget? You are turning ninety one today.’ He said in disbelief.

‘Oh, I am sorry. I forgot. So where is my gift?’

‘Here’ He said and raised his hands. I saw a maroon toy car with all those marks and stains.

‘Where did you get it?’ I asked.

‘I stole it.’ He gave a mischievous smile.

‘From where?’ I gasped.

‘Secret.’ He whispered.

‘Now now, you must never steal something. Keep it back in the place from where you stole it.’ I pronounced sternly.

‘What will you do then?’ He asked with incredulity in his voice.

I laughed. Here I was, a ninety one year old man, stimulating death lest I should join the gilded paradise with Barsha, and he asked me what I would do.

I would wait. It isn’t a choice.

Looking at his eyes, I smiled and said, ‘I think I can do a lot many things without it. I can still write, sleep, gather dreams, and sometimes, only sometimes, I can tell you a story.’

__END__

__Saurav Nath (16)