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| Anand Bahadur |
Anand BahadurThey were
innumerable, and they were everywhere…
Crowding the streets,
lanes, roads, alleys, byways, crossings: a myriad of insects of every
conceivable colour possible— red, green, grey, black, copper, crimson, magenta—
and sizes or shapes as might be imagined. Flying about the entire city-space,
spreading their dreadful shadow over everything.
And the groan….
Made of hissings and
buzzings and whinings and creakings and snoozings and croonings and purrings
and slurrings— emanating from the friction of their legs, wings, diaphragms and
proboscises…
Which mingled with
human-sounds…
Shouts and shrieks
and whispers and grunts and grumbles and laughter and wails and yells and
yowls…
Together with the din
of traffic…
Horns and bells and
whistles and clangs and bangs and beeps and tweets and screeches and thuds…
As if some phantom orchestras
were playing a sinister tune. A roar both present and unpresent— for though
they heard it, they were so accustomed as to be unable to hear it— hearing and
yet not listening.
The city itself, to
the Satan’s satellite spying from space, must have looked a terrible monster,
with those insects and humans casting their dreadful spells over each other,
those spiteful Saddams ready to pilfer and despoil, ever to be watched and
targeted, annihilated with pesticides or missiles at the slightest provocation
or whim of a mad finger on a nuke-button.
But before that
inevitability, everything so far was normal. It was one of those nondescript
days when, just after the afternoon rain, a darkish evening was spreading its
tentacles over streets, lanes, parks, playgrounds, and spaces of every nature.
In the corners of the slowly darkening time, a twinkle-twinkle-game was in
progress— with thousands of lamps and bulbs of all sorts, from puny ones to
huge neon, sodium and LED chandeliers lightening up one by one in houses,
shops, workshops, offices, tea-stalls, coffee-houses, coaching-centres,
studios, red-light-areas and on the uncountable hoardings and lamp-posts.
And expectedly, after
a drizzly afternoon, trillions of insects had appeared, as if from nowhere,
reducing the city to the status of a Ramallah in seize, they flew about
displaying their random aesthetics of infinite precision, engaged in collective
dances of complex, intricate natures. Especially under the huge sodium-neon
street lights were they so dense, that from far they looked like giant gyrating
pillars stretching from ground to the sky.
This town or
metropolis— better call it metropolis— for all the essentials of the
metropolitan life are to be found here: millions of insect-like buzzing lives,
tens of thousands of pigeon-holes or match-boxes housing people packed like
fishes in canisters, a blatant and belligerent police force, a corrupt
executive and a pervert judiciary contaminated with political interference,
hundreds of thousands of super-fast vehicles always on the run, hundreds of
hundreds of fatigued streets and lanes with uncontrolled round-the-clock
traffic, innumerable chimneys emitting mega tonnes of smoke, giga-decibels of
ear-splitting noise and vulgar music, uncountable
massage-parlours-cum-whore-houses, intolerable pollution, Ganesh-pujas and Karwachauths
and sex and murder and torching and lynching and suffocations and heart attacks
and scams and chicaneries— such large scales of everything which makes the
individual life resemble that of an insect— yes, it’d be very appropriate to
call it a metropolis.
It’s a great city no
doubt… and a great city’s a great war… war between right and right, and between
wrong and wrong, between good and good and evil and evil, between time and time
and place and place. The humans, beasts, birds, insects, trees and plants of
the great city are soldiers of a great war. Who fights whom? Forget it, ask who
doesn’t fight whom? Take the mega humans of the great city— industrialists,
contractors, brokers, businessmen, scamsters, leaders, statesmen, officers,
ministers, doctors, commissioners, editors, advisers, auditors— playing games
of infinite subtleties and infinite variations at the expense of insect-like
things whom, for lack of proper nomenclature we conveniently call ‘the common
people’.
On this current
instance too, in midst of the hustle-bustle of the puny teeming millions, these
mega humans were busy with their thousands of meetings, settings, adjustments,
conferences, seminars, discussions, presentations, dinners, fairs, affairs and so
on. So critical was the scenario that no one had the time or opportunity to
stop even for a split-second to ponder that sooner or later, if it were to go
on like this interminably, somebody or other was destined to confront the
insects.
The megacity under
advertisement had come into existence comparatively recently, that is, just
three to four decades back— as if out of nowhere like a Troy at the call of
Jupiter’s horn or like Sage Vishwamitra creating a heaven at Trishanku’s
obduracy. So fresh in memory, as if it were only yesterday, when a
multinational corporation discovered some crucial ores in a dense forest area
and, striking a deal with the government, cleared the entire forest laying the
foundation of this great industrial city or empire.
The execution of this
great work— the founding of the Grand City was an excellent example of human
will and capacity to take on extremes of situations. Somewhat similar to that
accomplishment in the Mahabharata where the Khandavavana forest
was torched and billions of beasts, birds and insects reduced to cinders, to
build the heavenly Indraprastha, the capital-city of the Pandavas.
No one knows what role the progenies of the murdered insects, birds and beasts
of that unfortunate forest played in the city-life of Indraprastha, but
here, in this modern Indraprastha, the unending conflict with insects is
a decisive and tragic aspect of the city-life.
Before that tragic
eventuality, the insects must have occupied every atom of earth, water and sky.
The entire Jungle was theirs, and following a sublime reciprocal
symbiosis they, their body and soul, of the Jungle. They must have had a
very busy existence, wandering everywhere creating thousands of musical
symphonies through their wings, limbs and proboscises. Once dead, their decayed
bodies would become manure and transforming into the Jungle’s life-sap,
provide priceless sustenance to the trees. In return the trees would give those
flowers, fruits, grains, seeds, pollen, and nectar and made available millions
of minute juice-leaden spaces for the dizzy raptures of cohabitation. Thus, the
insects were the nourishers of the trees and the trees that of the insects, the
forest earth was filled with quadrillions of spores, sperms, pupa and larvae of
these insects.
That’s why, despite
thousands of human attempts to annihilate them once and forever, the insects
just kept coming back. Their trillions of larvae, cysts and spores hidden deep
under the ground— under roads, factories, squares, shops, malls and houses— ensured
that man suffered for having the temerity to challenge them. Like millions of
sleeping volcanoes, these cysts-larvae-spores suddenly erupted from time to
time, especially on humid evenings following afternoon-rains. Hissing, buzzing,
creaking, scratching, snatching, biting and stinging the inhabitants, embalming
their skins with venomous saps and causing intolerable boils, sores and itches,
flying about everywhere— they made life terrible, if not impossible.
And so even on this
day, a pathetic confrontation was already on between the omnipotent rulers of
today the homo-sapiens and the monarchs of yore the insects. It had rained in
the afternoon, not much of a rain but drizzle rather, and the evening was hot,
humid and slimy. By the time the sun rolled down to the setting line the
insects were back— where they’d always been, doing what they always did, like
innumerable necromancers weaving black-magic. People, who were quite
accustomed, knew how to avoid them. As a result, there were people and people
and people mingled with insects and insects and insects, making unique
atmospheric rubble till one knew not who was who. In this all-important sphere
of the earth, it was difficult to say if insects were surrounded by people or
the people by insects. Harder even to tell who was troubling whom.
This is a true story
of the happenings of one evening in the life of one of the denizens of this new
sphere of the earth, the humanoinsectosphere, which is almost like the other
spheres, the troposphere, the exosphere, the ionosphere, for example, differing
only in terms of its constituent particles, if you’d condescend to calling
humans and insects, particles. In this city thriving on an explosion of
individualism, where everyone is a protagonist in his own meta-narrative, our dude
too is a hero, a central character. Like others of the city, this evening he’s
going somewhere too in his brand-new car of the newest model.
The car, hardly
recognizable as a car in common parlance, but almost a space-shuttle, goes
speeding through the avenues of the city, without emitting an ounce of smoke or
a decibel of sound. It goes through the dense clouds of insects at random,
splitting them helter-skelter. The lone driver, our protagonist of the hour
(for in this mega-existence, there’s no permanent protagonist, there’re only
protagonists of day, or even of hour, minute or second)— by his dress, airs and
manners, something of the higher design— of great aristocracy, or
big business or huge entrepreneurship or high officialdom— which implies a mega
persona from among the ranks of mega humans. That dazzling car of his, with
glasses all rolled up, giving appearance of some armoured submarine,
impenetrable and insurmountable, is seen floating with lightening swiftness
over the concrete and silica of the roads and passing under the lamp-posts and
hoardings, surrounded by dense fogs of insects. The hoardings and lamp-posts
are in continuous, interminable stretch and the dense clouds surrounding them
look like a huge supernova buzzing and floating over them. Each time the car
moves under some lamp-post or hoarding, the dense fog chunk gets churned up,
scattering the insects painfully, for the insects completely lose their rhythm
and dissipate and squander here and there for quite some time, before resuming
their pattern. The dancing columns once again materialize, to be broken and
disturbed again and again and yet again by another and another and yet another
speeding vehicle.
As it is, this
supra-shuttle was speeding through the maha-city, soaring over the numerous
avenues, crossings, lanes, by lanes, squares, triangles, serpentines, outers,
dividers— and in the process disbanding the swarms of insects everywhere and
driving them off to different directions. Inside the car, the new-maha-human of
the maha-city, was skilfully manipulating different parts of the vehicle— the
power-accelerator, the power-breaks, the power steering, the automatic
controls, etc. in pursuit of some personal goal— some unknowable idiosyncrasy
of colossal dimensions. He and his car, belonging to two so different genres,
the one a machine and the other a living being, yet so eminently suited to each
other to appear extensions of the same being, one complete entity, destined to
come together to achieve massive multi-targets— a possibility that was so
vividly located within the precincts of that vehicle.
Right now nothing
seemed capable of challenging this potent partnership, this finely filtered
balance, this matchless equilibrium, when suddenly— passing under a huge
hoarding, where billions of insects were involved in their mesmerizing
existential ritualistic dance, one of the window panes accidently, but one
knows not with what expediency, slipped down— slipped-down-open— and
rolled-up-close— for the very split of a second. It was a very very
infinitesimal atom of time this, but in that decisive blink or chink of
space-time, a large number of hustling-hassling-wriggling tiny fiends made
their way into the car.
It’s difficult to say
how many they were actually there— a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, or hundred
thousand, or more— but their collective buzzing echoed so alarmingly within the
closed confines of the car that it seemed as if a huge monster had entered the
human world from some distant planet in the space. Their heart-rending shriek
made the driver almost jump out of his cockpit. His firm hands, gripping and
driving with quiet assurance, were shaken as if somebody had wrenched the
steering-wheel away. The car, totally thrown off track, barely escaped hitting
a number of vehicles speeding all around. Swearing loudly, he applied the
power-breaks and the car hitched to halt by the side of the road. He switched
the interior light on. The scene inside, was blood-curdling.
It was as if an
insect-empire had been established inside the car, or was it really a car or an
antediluvian jungle full of insects? The steering looked like a green bough
covered with twerps. The dashboard, back screen, gear-handle, seats and other
parts were bushes, shrubs and vines of different shapes and sizes full of
crawling flibbertigibbets. Dozens of deadly zilch were circling in the air
menacingly, making fearful noises. His own torso was almost entirely covered
with lumbering and trudging demons. Some had even squeezed inside his shirt and
trousers, poking about smearing slimy fluids and producing curious sensations.
A large poisonous whippersnapper was sitting right on his left arm, looking
like some annoying George Floyd. Our Chauvin shook it down with
lightening-speed and crushed it under his toe.
This was but a very
crowded part of the street. Even as he was parking, the pressure of traffic had
become intolerable, and vehicles all around were hooting angrily. To an
observer from some outer world, these shrieking, trumpeting and neighing
vehicles themselves may have looked like huge ghouls roaring spitefully.
Because of this odious din, he had to restart the car and proceed immediately,
carrying that stormy brotherhood ahead for more detailed confrontation. With
great difficulty he managed somehow to take the car to a lonely side-ally. Now
he was ready to deal with the stubborn ghouls.
He jumped out.
Fortunately, this was a very secluded place which allowed him to take his
infected shirt and trousers off without bother and shake them vigorously, then
start hunting the cacodemons sticking to various parts of his torso and
squashing them one by one, even combing his hair thoroughly to expel the
obdurate ones sticking to his scalp, some of them so tiny that, unable to trap
them between the teeth of his comb, he had to scratch them out one by one by
biting the scalp with his nails. This felt terrible, but he cared the least,
for victory meant everything, here as elsewhere in life.
Victorious on that
one front, he now approached the car, carefully, for a large number of Tom
Thumbs were still inside, and he hadn’t forgotten them. There they were, all of
them— flying around, crawling on various inner parts, secreting slimy fluids,
emitting pungent odours, making a deafening buzz, spreading chaos in the empty
space. He grabbed a big towel and started throwing it about, driving them out
of the open doors. He kept doing this for some considerable length of time,
till he was sweating profusely and had to alt to wipe the sweat draining down
his brows and forehead. While attending to himself in this way, he took a
cursory look around, expecting the interior to have cleared considerably, but
was taken aback to notice that there were even more ogres inside than in the
beginning! At-first he couldn’t fathom, but after some brain-teasing he became
aware that it was the light of the inner lamp, that was attracting more and
more of the salamanders from outside. He slammed shut three of the doors at once,
switched off the lamp, and started expelling the leprechauns from the remaining
door. It was only after quite a long time that the matter seemed to be coming
under control.
Finally, when no
insects were to be seen any more, he closed that half-open door as well. But
just then it downed that some hobgoblin might still be under the folds of
seats, the dashboard and other places. Shit! He began the crusade anew.
To search and carve out the hated gremlin, crush them and throw them out
through a slight rent in the window. To be honest, it gave a him a rare
delight, a brand-new titillation never experienced or recorded earlier, a mixed
feeling of vengeance and adventure which is so satisfying— and now he
was ready, eager to return to his homo-sapiens world, where
everything always remained under his control.
Starting the car
again he threw a disdainful thought towards the puny puck who had dared to
challenge him. For a moment he looked like a little Hitler in his own little Wolfs
Schanze— determined to annihilate the zilch of the world forever and ever, a
stick-to-itiveness to force the accursed municipal corporation to create an
insect-free world, a firm resolve to show the dudes who stood where. Ministers,
high officials, corporatists, policemen— who was there who didn’t know him
personally, who’d be so impudent as to disregard his dictate? To be squashed
down like these same crawling dullards! Yes, but more of that later, for dozens
of vital personal agenda awaited, some adjustments had to be attended to, and
some settings in the system here and there by coning the bureaucracy— he threw
the insects out of his mind. Now he looked assured and relaxed.
The car was again in
its normal swimming mode. Moving on the wide boulevards of the city with the
pride of a Genghis Khan or Attila— unbridled, unhurried, unperturbed— tearing
asunder hordes of creatures hovering everywhere… cigarette— suddenly
this sharp pang in the solar plexus, but that would necessitate opening the
window, ever so slightly— he gave up the idea. Out came the costly gutkha
used by the fastest and the most furious, advertised by the octogenarian
superhero of the century, the Great Bachchan!
Everything was okay
now. His cell phone yelped out loud, like some mantra suggesting that things
were back to normal. Taking a glorious turn and changing the car’s direction
with one hand, he pressed the knob of the Blue Tooth attached to the steering
with the other. He knew what it took to talk on the cell-phone while driving an
ultramodern car, to leave a lasting impression on the listener’s mind, to
manipulate its reverberations to clinch half of deal on the phone itself. This
is it, this! This is the trick. Your car is on the road,
perhaps a thousand miles away, but it floats in the valleys of the listener’s
mind. Not everyone has this knack, a very rare gift.
Just then, shit—
Was there something
on the thigh?
Some pernicious one
that escaped his vengeance?
For one tiny,
solitary moment a cruel sheen, like that crusading zealot Abu-Bakr-al-
Baghdadi’s quivered in his eyes. He groped over his thigh area—nothing! He
swept his palm over the whole lower torso— blank! Has the nocuous bastard crept
under the seat-cover or somewhere? Nervous hands fumbled here and there. The
irritating sensation was unbearable; hanging still to his talk, he rubbed and
scratched the thigh all over.
And now, the talk was
over. He switched the Blue Tooth off and the cell phone quietly went back to
sleep— in the leather bag attached to the belt, a beast secure in its den. Yes,
a cell phone is but a horse, a beast that takes you to odysseys of unknown lands,
jumping unfathomable chasms of sound— but a terribly short-tempered beast meant
to create as well as destroy. He had learnt to fear and make others fear the
Frankenstein.
But right now, he was
in a pleasant mood; to prove which he switched on the powerful music-system
embedded in the vassal, turning it almost immediately into a moving theatre of
sorts. Our Kim must have felt something like this after another finely chiselled
nook-work; he started using the steering as a Tabla— Tick-tuck-tuck-tick,
tuck-tuck-tick-ta-ta-tuck! Ta-ta-tuck! Ta-ta-tuck! Really good! Humoured, he
started humming— dub- duba-ke-dub-dubba-dubba-dubba! That was even better! If
the baleful Belial was still there, then it must have dissolve into ether by
now, erased itself from the map of existence.
His thought process
resembled that of the elated Honourable Governor of the World Bank after
destroying the cotton-farming of Brazil. But just then—
Of a sudden—
As if ‘something’ was
there!
Where?
On the thigh again?
No, no, noooo— not on
the thigh. There on the throat— right where an attractive lump forms on a
well-fed man’s Adam’s Apple, facilitating the attention of the most fashionable
male-huntresses of his high world— just before the real pouncing. The filthy
tickle that had started on the thigh had now climbed up and was afflicting just
that traction-point on the Adam’s apple. Oh— this is too too much! What is
this? Some phantom from hell—
Slam!!
He waved his palm
ferociously with lightning speed.
If any of the
accursed brotherhood was there— big or small or of whatever type, some Pehlu
Khan or Rohit Wemula or Gouri Lankesh— it must have been crushed by this
awesome blast. Dropped lifelessly on the carpet beneath— to be crushed further
with his toes. Yet a mystery was involved too— if there really was something,
then why did his fingers not feel it? Certainly, even for the thousandth part
of a nanosecond! He started thinking like some Condoleezza Rice in Tehran or a
Donald Rumsfeld in Lebanon.
No, he must check his
celebration for a while— suppose it was just a very very tiny, itty-bitty micro
miniature of a pygmy— a really really puny thing?
Of course! That must
have been it! There can’t be any other explanation!
Yet, just for
precaution’s sake once again— he’d never taken an adversary lightly all his
life. In work as in game as in gambling. That’s why he was so successful, a
‘rising star’ even at such raw age. So, may be just a game, yet as a matter of
paradigm—
He started scratching
and wringing his entire neck-portion furiously. His shirt collar—presented by
his wife only the other day as a wedding-day gift— he threw to wolves any
tender thought and mercilessly reduced it to pulp in no time so that it now
looked like a piece of wrinkled newspaper hanging about his neck. True, he
experienced considerable pain himself, but the very thought that he had to hurt
himself in order to destroy an enemy, was pleasing to extreme. Enthused and
inspired like a partizan, he started scratching, rubbing and scrubbing the
entire thoracic-region, very soon turning his shoulders, back and belly
bloody-red: like an Afghanistan pounded by missiles.
And thus, the insect,
wherever it was, wherever it had tried to hide itself— that tragic attempt had
been negated. He was happy once again. It was almost night now, night that
descends upon the metropolis like a brighter than day charisma, in all
its magnificence and glory. But he had to accomplish a number of missions
still, and was a trifle late too, so he let his car tear through the wide
boulevards. He switched the cell-phone Blue Tooth on again.
Yes Dayal… certainly…
just reaching… just manage him… Ooo some twenty minutes… arrange anything …
entertain him… call Rosy if you like… in every way, sure… he dialled another
number. The roar of the engine rose to terrible decibels.
Suddenly!
There was a blooming
clang as he applied the brakes in a reflex action. Before he knew the car
stopped in gear with a spine-chilling screech. But he didn’t even dare touch
the place this time round, just turned the back glass to inspect the thoracic
region. Holding his breath, like a cow-vigilant waiting in the dark. Suddenly a
horrendous squall came from behind—a truck, bastard— he drove the car
farther and parked it by the roadside, switched on the lamp and looked about—he
could see nothing. But now he was aware of the game. Shit!! His lips pursed firmly, face hard like stone.
The engine started
with a hitch, as expected, the itch returned almost immediately. He shut the
engine. The itch dissolved into thin air! So that was the game! He started the
car and drove like possessed. The itch appeared, spreading its dreaded tentacles.
But he did nothing foolish this time, just kept driving blindly with that
stolid face. Only, he reduced the volume of the music. The insect wriggled once
more— a burning sensation, the steel grip on the steering hardened.
The time of decision
had arrived; he took a U-turn at the next crossing. To home, which wasn’t very
far, or was it?
An odyssey to be
accomplished in a few seconds, a lightening-swift voyage! To home! To home! No
time to lose— fast, fast, fast, fast— the speedometer-needle started jumping
like a mad hen. To home to home to home! The cell phone whined. For eons the
cell-phone kept pouring its wail into the car’s coffin.
But now the insect
was playing with him!
Hide-and-seek,
I-spy-it, cat-and-mouse, duck-and-drake, Tom-and-Jerry. But he drove on, on, on.
Time’s flux diminished— slower slower slower—it was hardly crawling now.
Insect-throat-steering-throat-insect-accelerator-insect…
But now even that
game was a-changing. There were more and more of them now, coming out
from every nook and corner. And now they started crawling all over him— on the
knees, on the calf, over the back of shank, on the arms… Burning sensation all
over the body, but he refused to stop.
Home was nearer—
home, sweet home, dear dear home, Ek Bangla bane nyaraa somewhere near
Where?
Suddenly there
insects everywhere. Insects, insects, insects. Trillions of wriggling and
stinging sonofabitches. All those he’d seen under lamp-posts with unseeing eyes
when his car went through them.
He stopped the car,
jumped out and ran— fast, fast, fast, fast— His house appeared in sight, grand
as the Pandemonium, a pleasure place, and a heaven— a Taj Mahal of
greed, made of tens of thousands of dishonest marble and granite slabs, tonnes
of sinful cement, a blood-smeared entity, a memoir of thousands of innocent
hungers. Ah, here’s the blessed thing, the gate.
He pressed the bell
and went on pressing. First the gatekeeper, and then his wife appeared— as if
from nowhere. A quizzical look on his face, the gatekeeper stepped up to open
the gate. He signalled towards his car, and the watchman proceeded in that direction.
The housewife was stood like a statue.
Is- is-th— there’s
something on my throat?
W-wh-wha-what-whaat… the statue said.
Nh-no, noth-nothing…
What’s happened to
you…? Come and see in the mirror!
Inside the room, he
looked at his image incredulously, as if he was seeing a phantom. His hair was
scattered haphazard and greyed like an old man’s, the face full of scratches,
wrinkles and pimples— it was the face of a very sick old man.
What’s the matter
with you? The statue spoke in
a very soft, almost inaudible voice.
Nh-nothing- nothing
at all— he said, staring
with disbelief.
And then he noticed
it—
It was a small piece
of thread dangling from the collar-button. Curling down and touching the
throat—
Aree!
He yelled, pulling at
the thread dangling from his collar button. The thread held. Damn… he tugged at
it violently—
Finally, the thread
gave way with a small phut.
At once his ear drums
reverberated with roars of a million insects.
His wife, standing
just behind, saw his image in the mirror. Her mouth opened wide for a
heart-rending shriek.
***
Foot Notes
---Karwachauth- A
fasting done by women in some parts of India like Maharashtra for the
well-being of their husbands.
---Sage Vishwamitra-
One of the iconoclast sages of Indian mythology who created a heaven out of
nothing to put Indra, the King of Gods to shame.
---Trishanku-
Vishwamitra’s prot├йg├й
---Khandavavana- A
big forest burnt to cinders by Arjuna and Sri Krishna to found their great
capital Indraprasth.
---Pandavas- The
legendary heroes of the War of Mahabharata.
---Indraprastha- The
great capital of Pandavas which was a matter of envy for the rival Kauravas
leading to the great War.
---Gutkha- A mixture
of scented spices to be used as mouth freshner.
---Ek Bangla bane
nyaraa- A song by the legendary singer K L Sehgal, meaning, we shall have a
nice bungalow.
