In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 4)

The village kids were extremely talented in certain things the city kids wouldn’t even know that they exist. For example; climbing huge trees, riding on a buffalo, swimming in the river, curse words, good knowledge of sex, catching fish and crabs, stealing mangos, and also they run damn fast. Some kids who were a few years olders to me, were able to even drive a tractor and plough the field. They lived in huge old buildings, living in combined families. So, they were well versed in family politics and were pretty street smart. I learnt a lot from them, and in return, they asked me teach them cricket, which I gladly did.

The thing about villages was that, everybody knew everybody. Nothing was a secret. Even the rickshaw puller used to call me by my name. The pujari in the temple too, knew about me, including my gothras and what not. Problems were solved by ‘big shot’ meetings and my grandfather was a ‘huge shot’ in the whole mandal of villages. The lack of privacy was compensated by empathy. Lack of anonymity was compensated by innocence. Innocence, when compared to the tricks and trades of the cities,because, nobody was that innocent.

Its very easy to idealize the village, but, it has its own problems. The little bit of innocence they show is actually, part ignorance. For example, caste system was so intact in that village. I noticed it very clearly, when I saw the huts of the people belonging to the caste, ‘rat catchers’. Whether they ate rats or snakes, I didn’t know, but, their huts were at the outskirts of the village. They were treated badly, beaten sometimes, and were treated as if they were some kind of animals. Curiously, they seemed to accept that as part and parcel of their lives. When things happen to people since they were born, they accept them, because, they couldn’t imagine an alternative possibility, unless they get out of that dump and see the world.

Not only that, after the initial euphoria, the village turned out to be a bore for me in the subsequent visits. No cricket grounds, few hours of electricity, few movies, no books, no fights. Not only that, I used to take 3 red buses and one van, and then finally a rickshaw, ending up in 3 vomits and nausea. The red bus was a ride in hell.

The village was peaceful, but the ‘lack of dopamine’ in my brain, used to hate that kind of peace. I needed action and excitement.

Nothing happened.Nada.Nothing. Except one day…

The village idiot, a beggar, who belonged to the ‘rat catcher’ caste, and who was also mentally disturbed; approached me, while I was playing at the temple with some kids.

He asked for my name and I replied.

Then he said, “A mother always loves her kids”, and left.

That must be my first lesson in the behavior of the mentally disturbed people.

Then he came the next day at the same time, different place.

He said, ‘A mother always loves her son’.

I expected him to leave, but he didn’t.

Then, he came near, and said again, ‘A mother always loves her son. You understand?’.

I nodded yes.

He then replied, “Say it”.

Now, that was too much for me. Even at that time, I was not the kind of kid who took orders from any one.

I replied, “Fuck off’. Thanks to the village kids who taught me the entire Sanskrit in telugu.

He caught hold of my shirt near the neck collar, and demanded, “ Say it”.

He smelled horrible and his hands were all dirty, as if he didn’t know about the concept of bath.

I cried, “Fuck off. You son of a bitch”

I didn’t know what happened, but, he kind of cooled down, and bribed me, saying, “ I will give 50 paise if you say it”.

That was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I said it without any feeling.

He was satisfied with it, gave me the 50 paise and left.

One the day I was leaving, which was my last visit to that village, he gave me a shock of my 8 yr old life. In the mêlée of boarding the red bus from hell, which stops for exactly 30 seconds, I noticed someone putting something in my knicker pocket. When I took my seat in the red bus, the begger  came to the window as if he was begging, and said, “ Be a good boy.Be a good man. God will look after you”.

I might have noticed some mist in his eyes. The bus started, and he feigned a smile.

This all happened oblivious to the ‘bonded labour’ servant who was always given the responsibility to accompany me in all my travelling from the village to my home.

After sometime, I took out whatever he put in my pocket and looked at it with a shock in my face. It was a crumpled 100 rupee note. It was a shock, because, 100 rupee had lot of value in those days, especially for a kid.

And, more importantly, for a ‘rat catcher’ mentally retarded beggar, it was very very valuable.

In those days, begging profits might be at 2 to 3 rupees a day, or some days, just some old spoiled food.That was his two months’ salary!

A tragedy of one person would certainly affect most of the village. It was as if they lost their own kid and like, “ She grew up right her in this village, right before my eyes, and then she got married and was murdered”. I heard that many times from the old women, Eveready to cry. It was as if, they took this opportunity of tragedy to cry whole heartedly, and get temporary relief from their own sorrow of spending their lives before the gas-less stoves with blackened faces.

That beggar was an altogether a different case. In a village, kids grow up and become adults in the same place.He must have seen my mother grow up into a woman, or even admired her, or even loved her, even though he must be like 10 yrs or more older to her. After all, as they said, my mother was the beauty of the village. Beautiful face and beautiful eyes. Repeated ad nausea.

I bought 400 big fun bubble gums, later, with that money, and along with my friends, threw away the bubble gums and kept the cricket score cards. The cricket score cards, which were a priced possession of any kid at that time. What a waste of begging energy!

As the bus crossed the district, I kind of rationalized that,

“Everybody knows everybody in the village”, and promised myself not to go there any more. Boredom was hell and cricket was awesome. I kept that promise for 22 years.

My grandparents died when I was America, and I said good bye to them without any feeling, without seeing their dead bodies and without going to that village.

Crazy, how a mind works! Death from old age is not shocking for others, but must be shocking for the people who die, most probably because it would be their first time.

                                                      9. The 7pm bore train

It was 6pm again, and I was getting a little depressed and fidgety. Whatever goes up must come down, and the same with pleasure. On top of that, I was thinking too much about a lost cause – my mother.Whoever talked about free-will must have drunk some cool aid when they said that. You cannot control your thoughts. No? Ya right, don’t think about the pink elephant. Please!

Three years after mother left us, I guess she also left our memories, or might be, we put her in the grave of some neurons in the cemetery of our brain. But, the ‘forced to death’ memories are the most dangerous memories, because they influence certain decisions or even emotions, without knowing the source of those actions.

Whenever I watch national geographic, and see the mother buffalo desperately fighting with the male lion to protect its calf, I somehow subconsciously wanted the buffalo to lose the fight. People always want the buffalo to win some how, even though the laws of the jungle dictate something different. People, for some reason always cheer for the underdog, because they want to feel the triumph against impossibility, and they see part of themselves in that situation. They want a nobody to be somebody, and it gives them a sense of confidence. In order to understand the impossibility of a buffalo winning over a male lion, you have to understand the power of the king of the jungle. A male lion is truly the king of the jungle. From its mane to its jaws, from its strength to its sharp claws, it is a perfect killing machine. It can even kill an elephant with help from other female lions. You must see the video of the male lion shown in slow motion, running to kill the hyena matriarch. The lion runs after the hyena and trips it with its paws and then nonchalantly slides, as if it had perfected that slide all its life, just like ice skating athletes, and then kills  it with just one bite to its neck. The same hyena, which is also a ferocious animal, harassed the female lions for days. Now, a mother buffalo fighting with the male lion to protect its calf, risking injury, is a treat to watch. I too wanted the buffalo to win, but, there was always something inside me which wanted the buffalo to lose. The buffalo won in that particular video in spite of the male lion clawing  through its spinal cord. That video left me depressed for unknown reasons, and I watched that video many times for many days, and each time experiencing masochistic emotions.

Memories influence emotions and actions, especially the repressed ones. Jealousy is one kind of negative emotion, which arises from seeing people who has stuff which you don't have; either it is money,fame, love or happiness. Even in an economically just society, jealousy would remain. In my case, I lacked mother, and to which ever society I go, even to the animal kingdom, or even an imaginative zombie land, I would feel jealous.Mother is like air, she is assumed.Jealousy is a horrible feeling, it makes you hate yourself.

Repressions provide temporary relief, and so we stopped talking about mother, three years after her death or elopement, whatever the society decided. Even, the whole topic became an anathema for us. When two parties agree on a certain word being an anathema, the word would never see the light between them. Its like the impossibility of saying 'fuck' by a devout Christian before the reverend. To till this moment, the moment I was thinking all this, I never discussed the topic with my father, and my father obliged it  in the same way.Even if we wanted to talk, what could we talk?

A kid's mind is always an imaginative playground, most probably because of lack of certain information, more importantly the information that certain things are impossible. Being a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and even, Watson, for that matter; I  used to apply the methodology of Sherlock Holmes to know the truth of particular situation. For example, I used to watch people's dresses, shoes, hair, what not and try to deduce some conclusions, and of course, I was accused of staring at people many times. I failed to recognize, that Holmes had not only huge imagination but also lot of interest in research and passion for information. But, mundane information always bored me and so, my experiments to become Sherlock Holmes were crashed. But,Holmes remained to be my super hero, when other kids were after superman and spider-man. These kind of super heroes never interested me. They were just some male bimbos, as far as I am concerned. Sherlock Holmes is not only a genius, but also a human, who had his downtimes, and had periods of solitude, all by himself, shutting away from the world, experimenting with drugs and playing music. His passion for mundane informations comes from the passion for the mystery, other than that, mundane situations bore him to death. He is a very mysterious and interesting character. In retrospect, I believe, we all gets attracted to a personality because of some deeper connection even-though it is not obvious on the outset. I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, but was never able to become one, because, most probably, I didn't find any interesting mysterious situation which needs to be solved and which needs intense scrutiny and research.On top of that, when a child becomes a man, he loses all this imagination, as he would be told that reality is real and day dreaming belongs to the nether world. What adults refuse to teach kids is the fact that life itself is a big mystery which needs imagination to enjoy it. I become into that kind of man, who lost his imagination and passion for mystery, as I was more focussed to provide my body with all the cushy comforts. But, I forgot to provide cushy comfort to my mind, which wants to fly through the clouds of imaginative land. But things change from time to time, and make people realize, that indeed, life is a mystery. An unimaginative man would get confused and resort to some ridiculous actions, if provided with such kind of mystery in his own life.Whether I would become imaginative or not, or that life would turn out to be a mystery or not, time would tell.

Time was 7 pm, and as usual, the first hint of boredom hit me, as the TV channels turned out to be pimps for the products, through advertisements. Very few ads interested me. In that boredom, I picked up my mother's pooja hymn book and went to the front porch.

It was dark outside and the street lights unsuccessfully tried to take the place of sun . The humanity must be before  the TV' s praying to the TV god, who was selling whatever he could sell, mostly overacted  and overrated melodramas. Humans curiosity about other people's life is mind boggling. The crickets started their seduction games, and the nature started watching me, and wondering, “ Who the hell is this guy, going against me by becoming non-competitive and unfit for survival” I replied to nature, “ Nature, you are a freak.You live in a glass house. Thats ironic!”.

The book looked very crumpled, and the ink on it was about to become small rivers. My mother's name was printed on it, and the handwriting, I have to say, was beautiful. There was 'OM' symbol on the first page , not with ink, but with 'pasupu'. The second page started with the hymn of the god ganesha. The whole book was in telugu as my mother was only well versed in that language. She failed her intermediate, I heard once. The next page contained another hymn about another god, and when I read the third page, expecting it to be a boring hymn of some kind, it surprised me a bit and brought a smile to my face..

It went like this in translation:

              

                    Baahar se koi andar na aa sake
                    Andar se koi baahar na jaa sake
                    Socho kabhi aisa ho to kya ho   
                    Hum tum ek kamre mein band ho,

                    aur chaabi kho jaaye 

              

I immediately recognized from the fourth line, that it was the song from the famous movie, “Bobby”. A romantic and erotic movie about teenage lovers. My mother sneaked in a song from such kind of movie in to a pooja hymn book.What a blasphemy! 


It was written in such a way, that it would be impossible for people to recoginize it as a song  from a  movie, unless they particulary read it.I quickly flipped through the book to find other songs, but found none.

On the fifth page, as I was reading, I noticed a date on the upper left hand side corner of the page. It was the same ganesh pooja song, but a bit longer. I started reading it. 

07/07/1977

                                       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

                                       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

                                       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

                                       I want to get out of this place

                                       I want to marry a handsome prince

                                       I want him to take me away from this jail

                                       I am waiting for you

                                       I am waiting for you

                                      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

                                      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Now, I didnt know much about pooja hymns, but I was pretty sure those words were not part of it.

I quickly went through the book looking for particular words, and they were everywhere..in every alternate page of the book.

Friends, I have to tell you,  when I realized what this book was all about, that brought a chill to my spine. Everything came to a stand still including the air and the sound of crickets. I looked left and right, as If I had a treasure in my hands. It was as if she was talking to me from her grave. It was her diary. 


--- continued here