The Storyteller

by Adib Khan

  ‘Nothing else,’ I lied.

  ‘She spurned me,’ Baji murmured. ‘I offered her everything that was precious. Love in its purest form.’

  ‘I must go now.’

  ‘Jah! Jah!’ The contempt returned in her voice and she waved me away. ‘Gulbadan! I must have a bath in perfumed water. Lay out my blue banarsi sari. Has Mohammad Shafiq responded to our offer?’

  I escaped into the lane where Chaman scolded me for being late.

  ‘I had to finish eating the allu puris. All of them,’ I responded provocatively, assured that such a confession of gluttony would infuriate her.

  ‘And you didn’t bring any for us?’

  I admitted that I hadn’t thought about them.

  ‘Always yourself!’ Chaman roared, her hands clasping her waist. ‘You can think of nothing else!’ She looked at my unrepentant face before she flounced off with the others. I skipped along behind them, humming a tune I made up as I went. The absence of the dull pain that lived in my stomach made me chirpy.

  The bazaar buzzed with the morning’s energy. Shopkeepers sipped chai and unlocked battered doors. Shutters clanged open. Trestles were dragged outside and piled with saris, shalwars, kameezes and duppatas. Trinkets and jewellery. Shoes, prayer caps and mats. The butchers were already busy—sharpening knives, sharing lewd jokes, shouting their bargains and haggling with customers. The aroma of frying parathas wafted from the dhabas. Small boys scrubbed and washed large copper pots that would later be used for cooking biryani. Sweet-sellers, ice-cream vendors, barbers, shoe-shine boys, cobblers, snake charmers, fortune-tellers, puppeteers—all vied for positions on dusty strips of earth. Quarrels ignited. The owners of established shops intervened to settle territorial disputes. The absence of calmness was fascinating. This was a part of the city unable to exert any control over itself. The spirit of Chandni Chowk diffused into my system and found a welcoming home.

  Chaman bullied a young vegetable seller into moving further towards Jama Masjid so that we were able to occupy a vantage point. Lightning Fingers and Nimble Feet appeared with two sturdy boxes and a straw mat. Behind them, Farishta carried a dholak. They helped me to the top of a box. Slowly Farishta began to beat the drum. Curious passers-by. Amused looks. Steps slowed and a few came back. What a spectacle! The sight of a strikingly dressed dwarf dancing must have been immensely attractive. Slowly they gathered. Half a dozen, fifteen, or were there more? Quite a crowd. My eyes followed Chaman and Lightning Fingers as they slipped behind a couple of onlookers.

  ‘Brothers and sisters…’ There was a hint of a tremble in Farishta’s voice. ‘Today we revive a great tradition in the activities of this bazaar…ah…this city.’ Nervously he glanced at me. I tensed, fearing a lapse in his memory. The words had been rehearsed for several days. I had simplified the introduction against my inclination. ‘Ah…Delhi, as you know, is not one city. Some say there were seven cities before the present one that we know. Others are of the opinion that there were more. Where is our beginning? Did Delhi have its origin in Indraprastha of the Mahabharata, or was there a city even before that? Qila Rai Pithora, Siri, Tughlakabad, Jahanpanah, Ferozabad, Dinpanah, Sher Shahabad and Purana Qila…Shahjahanabad and Lal Qila. City after city. Who can tell? Listen to the wind at night and you might hear the noises of ancient battles! Conquerors riding their horses to victory and the cries of the vanquished. This city once belonged to emperors and noblemen. It dazzled the eyes with its riches. Love, hatred, treachery, nobility—the city has known everything that is human!’

  Farishta timed the pause perfectly and intensified the pounding on the drum. Simultaneously we stopped the sound and movement. The visions fled. Silence fenced out the noises of history. People crept forward. It was my turn to speak.

  ‘The richest stories about Delhi lie under our feet, buried under the weight of its ancient soil, waiting to be unearthed some day. But in the meantime we must enrich ourselves with the kissas that have survived. Historical, mythical, legendary. Today, it is our intention to entertain you and inform you with a tale that is drawn from one of our greatest stories. Gather around…’

  More faces. I could not see Chaman or Lightning Fingers.

  ‘Room for everyone!’ Nimble Feet spread the mat on the ground and prevented the audience from stepping on it.

  A roll of the drum. Farishta sounded more confident. ‘We have a very special storyteller. Valmiki is born again! We are blessed with the spirit of Kamban! Hear about demons, giants and fairies…The triumph of the Pandavas, about Nala and Damayanti! And afterwards…’

  Nimble Feet pointed to the mat. ‘Whatever your hearts please. The kindness of your generosity will be our reward.’

  I stretched the silence and teased their patience until hostility sparkled in curious eyes. Feet shuffled. Then…The Battle of Kurukshetra. The return of the five Pandavas brothers to Indraprastha. The ten horses sacrifice. I set adrift an ancient world suspended in the mist of an inner darkness. The sky crackled and the gods entered in gold chariots drawn by winged horses. Heroic deeds and nefarious acts of villainy. I roared, paused and whispered. Arrows darkened the sky. Thunderous hooves pounded the dusty plains. Spears…clashing swords…fire. Piercing cries of humans, eagles and vultures. I built on what I knew. The battle extended itself at my whim. Warriors fell and animals died. The powers of the universe surged through me. Oh, the joy of entering and controlling minds! I was a projector, flashing pictures on screens. Close-ups…long shots. The words gushed like an unchecked river.

  The applause was deafening. Coins and notes rained down on the mat. Imperial waves of my hands acknowledged the adulation. I decided against a curtsy. Such a gesture would be an affront to my triumph. Emperors were not obliged to bow. And I was the king of words. I ignored Chaman who was making frantic signs for me to get off the box. I deliberately ignored her.

  An elderly foreigner offered me five rupees. I shook my head and pointed to his cap.

  ‘That’s a baseball cap.’ His Hindi was surprisingly fluent. He laughed and gave it to me. It was dark blue with a white emblem just above the peak. Farishta tugged my wig and then made off in great haste with the mat rolled under his arm. The white man’s satchel appealed to me.

  ‘You want that as well?’ This time he didn’t laugh. He took out a towel and a water bottle before handing it to me.

  ‘Baksheesh?’ I thought I might as well try for everything.

  ‘No—no more. You’ve had enough.’

  It was only then that I became aware of the dullness of the khaki half-pants and the thin, hairy legs. I looked up to see a pair of steady eyes gazing at me. ‘No permit!’ The policeman sneered. ‘Blocking the path and creating a nuisance.’ That was my introduction to Ram Lal. We were to know each other for a long time.

  A very long time.

  5

  Unable to walk on firm surfaces

  ‘And you? Why do you look sad?’

  He is startled by my observation. ‘Personal misfortune,’ he murmurs. ‘One of my best friends was killed in an accident yesterday.’

  ‘How can you be certain he was your friend? Did he never lie to you?’

  He looks even more aggrieved. A shake of the head and a bland smile.

  It’s past midday. The sun has feasted on the cluster of morning hours. The guard, Ramesh, is young and impressionable. I have taken advantage of his kindness.

  ‘You were about to tell me about your father.’ He rattles the containers of his tiffin-carrier. ‘Was he also a dwarf?’

  I pretend not to hear. The last morsel of chappatti almost melts in my mouth. An adequate payment for satisfying his curiosity.

  Lies. Snatches of imagined happenings. Perceived fragments. Never the complete picture. A dwarf…a vagabond…a dark stranger, driven by an uncontrollable appetite to inject his seeds into an unknown female…I shall never know the certainty of my conception. I am curious about my faceless mother. I tend to think of her as a beggar girl, wrapping a baby in rags, leaving a bu
ndle in the sand. There must have been a moment of guilt as she responded to the compulsion for survival. Abandonment was probably her only effective reply to Fate.

  The bald sky burns with a vengeful intensity. I turn to a prisoner’s meagre ration of food. Half a roti. Like a piece of buckled cardboard. It will layer my stomach and prevent it from growling. Casually I stretch out my legs a little further. Quite a satisfactory arrangement, considering that I ought to be working. I have preyed on Ramesh’s inexperience and found shelter under a tamarind tree.

  ‘This heat can kill.’ He looks nervously at the other prisoners scattered around us. ‘Certain death under this sun.’ I respond slowly, allowing the words to dribble over him and seep into his conscience.

  He shifts uneasily. ‘Maybe…maybe, you should…’

  ‘No one will come out to check on you,’ I assure him. ‘They are sitting under electric fans, sipping iced drinks. A little rest will refresh me. I can work better.’

  He mops his brows and unscrews the top of a plastic water bottle. ‘I suppose half an hour won’t matter. But I want you back there, breaking stones again. Don’t try any tricks with the hammer!’

  ‘I left it on the pile.’ I return his stare. ‘A drink? In return I might tell you all I know about the demise of good friends.’

  He pours some water into my cupped hands. I drink noisily. A second helping.

  ‘Did you suffer the same misfortune?’

  ‘Different, but just as painful.’

  Manu…once my friend. Almost as ugly as I was. Fat and short, with a small head and most of his front teeth missing. A mouth blackened by paan chewing. The skin on his face was splotchy, and the tip of a large nose was curved like a hook. A black patch covered his left eye. He lived on the edge of the bustee and did not mix with the other dwellers.

  We met by chance at the cinema. He was standing behind me in a long queue that had formed for matinee tickets. I didn’t know what the movie was about. A huge poster of a largebosomed girl, kissing a string of pearls, with a man standing over her holding a whip, had determined my afternoon’s entertainment. I stood impatiently, trying to figure out a way to jump ahead in the queue.

  ‘Yar, there won’t be a problem if you discreetly weave your way to the front. Can you buy me a ticket as well? My name is Manu. I have seen you in the bustee.’

  Indignantly I turned around. It was rare that people could anticipate my thoughts. Manu’s appearance placated me. It was a source of immense comfort to realise that there was someone else who had the potential to experience rejection the way I did. We discovered that we shared a love for the cinema, even though this particular movie did little to enthuse me.

  ‘I would like to make a film one day,’ I declared pompously, as we sipped chai at a roadside stall.

  Manu laughed raucously. ‘You could use me as the hero. The love scenes would be authentic. Both the rehearsals and the real thing.’

  ‘I suppose I could use you. I would like to make a movie about ugly people. There would be lengthy love scenes. Nothing left to the imagination. Sex between two elderly people. He would be bald and wrinkled. A disproportionate body. She would have rolls of fat around her waist. Saggy tits. Yet they would make love with great tenderness.’

  That offended Manu. ‘No one would watch such a film. The girl has to be beautiful. Even after a fuck she must appear as if she has not been touched.’

  ‘Think of all the unattractive people in the world. Wouldn’t they like to be comforted by the tenderness of sex instead of being led to believe that only those who are beautiful can enjoy it?’

  Manu didn’t have an answer. He changed the topic and asked me about myself. Manu himself had been to prison several times. ‘In and out, yar. Like another home. Just as nasty and uncomfortable. I could swear that the rats in jail are from the same family that breeds in the bustee.’

  He said he was planning to move out of the bustee and go into business.

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Whatever can bring maximum profit to both the police and me. Anything that keeps me out of prison.’

  We became friends. With brotherly affection he called me Chotah. Even when he finally left the bustee, I continued to see him sporadically.

  I tell Ramesh about the rest of my association with Manu. He is unsettled by my story. He begins to fidget. Guilt and fear have overtaken him. I must be careful. A wrong word, or a sudden move, and he will behave the way he is trained to.

  Calm down, boy! You may remember this as you lie dying. A flicker of redemption in the darkness of the sewer.

  Noiseless shutters swing into place and close out the world. In the darkness I can swim in the depths of memory.

  He coughs nervously. The familiar sound pricks me like poisonous thorns as I remember her face…

  ‘A sari! A sari!’ Chaman twirled and jumped with the excitement of a child anticipating a new toy. She paused, panting like an exhausted animal. A dry, rasping cough. ‘A banarsi! Green or blue…no, red! Any colour! Just to feel its softness against my skin. Its newness would make me feel so clean!’

  It was impossible to envisage her dressed in anything but tattered and unwashed clothes during the day. Only in the evenings she changed. For her nocturnal occupation she wore a plain black sari. A sombre uniform for a dark profession.

  The delight of the godown’s inmates was evident. They played with coins. Improvised games. Enacting how the rich carelessly spent their rupees. Things that could be bought if they were wealthy. Their ambitions were released in a gush of words, allowing their dreams to expand and breathe. Even Barey Bhai smiled at their childish exuberance, his eyes hawkishly guarding the money he permitted them to use as a stimulant for their fantasies. Soon the coins would be gathered, counted and returned to him.

  Extra candles, even a second hurricane, were lit. The strength of the light merely served to accentuate the gloominess of the surroundings. Larger, more ominous, shadows loomed over us as we ate limp jelabis to celebrate our success. In the giddiness of the communal triumph, my lack of enthusiasm escaped scrutiny. My late arrival attracted fleeting attention from Chaman. ‘Where were you?’ she asked casually, without looking at me, and then turned back to the make-believe card game with impossibly high stakes. They pretended to be business people, politicians and film stars.

  I was the only disgruntled person in the godown. The hurt of an injured pride drained any sense of elation I might have felt that evening. I found it difficult to move my arms, and my back was stiff. My neck ached and my cheeks were bruised. Had I cried and begged forgiveness by grovelling at Ram Lal’s feet, I might have been let off with a severe reprimand and a few whacks on my back and face. Had I carried any money on me, it might have been different. But I was without a paisa, stubborn and proud. They had laughed and played with my wig, bundling it into the shape of a ball and kicking it about. They were convinced that I was a deranged eunuch. With rough hands they stripped me and surprised themselves.

  I steeled myself to concentrate on what Chaman was saying. She couldn’t stop babbling about the ease with which she had picked pockets. Lightning Fingers and Nimble Feet concurred, but with more restraint. Farishta pounded the dholak as if he were intent on re-living our morning’s performance.

  I kept thinking of the money that had been thrown on the mat. The collection must have amounted to a significant sum. That was part of the reason for the police’s interest in me. Now I wanted to know. Questions bubbled and surfaced like mysterious life forms.

  Never challenge Barey’s authority. Don’t ever ask what he does not want you to know.

  The warning clamoured in my ears. But the thrill of defiance was impossible to subdue. We had earned the money. A payment for the storyteller and his helpers…

  We are given food and a place to sleep. Nightly shelter from the monsoonal rain and the bite of winter. We cannot expect any more.

  Na ji, na ji, na ji…That did not satisfy me. Not after what I had suffered.
>
  The police asked me about the cap, wig and satchel.

  ‘A white man gave them to me.’

  Then there was the money.

  ‘What money?’

  A backhander across the face sent me crashing to the floor. A booted foot slammed into my back. Three of them. They lit cigarettes. The money?

  ‘That was a part of the story. A good storyteller can make his audience believe in what is not there.’

  I was asked about my helper. The one with the drum.

  ‘A policeman in disguise.’ I made the mistake of grinning.

  A short flight and a heavy landing. My forehead and nose collided with a wall. A heavy foot rested on my neck. There wasn’t any point in resisting. The thick bamboo sticks descended on my back, legs, arms. After the pain, there was the warmth of floating in the night. If this was death, I would have exchanged it with life. Ram Lal kept flicking ashes from his cigarette on my face. Then they spoilt it by splashing me with a bucket of water.

  ‘We know you can hear us.’ More water. I thought I heard the voice of a mermaid. But how had I reached the sea?

  ‘Let this be a warning.’ Ram Lal’s voice. ‘No one fools with us. Next time…’ A foot glided over my body.

  A monstrous silence. Next time…Message incomplete. The threat was conveyed in the darkness of the tone. A sinister promise. Even the hint of an invitation. It was up to me to fill the gap. My move. I wasn’t worthy of being arrested. It was merely a touch-up to remind me of my place in the world. They threw me out of the van at the corner of Lothian Road. My wig, cap and satchel were scattered around me. The van roared away. Next time…There would be a next time, but it would not be in a dingy cell. The sun tortured the long afternoon. Faces danced in the shimmering air. Men I yearned to hurt. The heat from the melting tar soothed the ache in my back.