by Benyamin
I hereby grant you the rights to it through this email. I certify that my family, friends or any other person will not have any ownership of it. If someone asks for evidence, tell them that my act of sending the first part to you is proof by itself. I really hope to meet you in person someday.
With love,
—The one who wanted to be a novelist
When I received the second mail, I was in the middle of spinning the yarn for my upcoming novel, Nedumbassery. It had so completely occupied my imagination that I had time for nothing else. So, once again I ignored the mail. Two more arrived and went past me. I managed to complete ten chapters of Nedumbassery, and then I was hit by the cursed writer’s block. Despite my best efforts, the story would not move forward.
The characters were fighting over who would narrate the rest of the story. In all probability, it was a symptom of the distress that I was going through. Neither the characters nor I could escape from the struggle. The novel was stalled. The writing came to a halt. I was frustrated. For days, I could do nothing. I randomly picked up books to read, but I was unable to focus on them.
One evening, while browsing through blogs, I suddenly remembered that old mail. Curious to know about the mysterious sender’s life story, I searched my inbox and finally dug up the mail and downloaded the attachment. They were scanned images of handwritten text. I started reading it.
The Beginning
I HURRIED HOME through the narrow streets of Seleucia. I was shivering, as if caught in a polar vortex, my hands glued to my body. Just a while ago, I had been wandering in an alley when a story idea dawned on me. The visuals were still buzzing in my head. Some snatches of dialogue were crystal clear, more beautiful than I could ever think of. If even a word moved left or right, the whole beauty of the sentence would be lost. These words were oozing out of some unknown corners of my heart.
I walked as if I was on a mission, unwilling to be distracted. I didn’t bother to pause over anything or pay notice to the sights of the street. A couple of acquaintances walked past. I did see them from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t acknowledge them. If I’d stopped to talk to them, they would have dragged me into the usual chit-chat. The words that I’d been guarding carefully in my mind would have leaked out. Some strangers looked at me in amazement. They were probably wondering whether it was as cold as I was making it out to be. Or they might have thought that I was sick. I didn’t worry even a bit about what they were thinking.
A friend did stop me in my tracks. He shook my hand and asked me how I had been. How was my job? How was my family? I stammered and answered in monosyllables. And because my answers were not satisfactory, he probably said to himself, ‘Oh lord, what happened to him!’ Somehow, I escaped.
When I reached the Krishnaswami temple, another friend waved at me from the other side of the road. I didn’t pay any heed. Then he made a teasing remark: ‘Da, don’t think so much. Our lives are not worth such lofty thoughts. Even Derrida wouldn’t have thought so much while walking . . .’ The mere mention of Derrida had me on the verge of laughter. Well, how the hell does he know about Derrida? Is he a voracious reader or did he catch it from the speech of some intellectual? Or did he overhear one of his smarter friends talking about the famous philosopher?
Then I promptly went back to my beautiful words. I repeated them in my head. No, nothing has been lost. My mind remembered every single thing. It knew every situation. My god! Some of the dialogue . . . the scenes . . . what were they? I had stumbled upon a metaphor that no one had used before. What was it? Like a ghost house . . . No, not that. Like a ghost form. No. It was something else. Something that fit the sentence perfectly like a glove. Oh god! I’d forgotten it. It was lost forever!
I cursed myself for not carrying a pencil or a piece of paper. I wanted to knock on some door, any door, and beg for a pen and some paper, and scribble the lines from my memory then and there. But how would people react to this madness? If I had been a famous writer, I could have got away with anything. If I had walked into a stranger’s house with such an odd request, they would have welcomed me and made me use their writing table to note down whatever was on my mind.
They would have served me strong cardamom tea, maybe even some banana fries, and left me in silence. After some time, when I’d finished jotting everything down, a shy girl would have come up to me blushing, to ask if she could read it. My handwriting would have made me hesitate for a moment, but I’d have offered it to her with pride. As she received it with trembling hands and started reading, her family would have gathered around her quietly. The magic of my words would have given them goosebumps and made their body hair rise like that of a fighter cock’s. Then, for a long time, they would have proudly narrated the story to their neighbours and friends.
And when my novel got published, one of the first copies would have been bought by the family. When I pass that house on some later day, the same girl would have run to me for an autograph on the book. When I returned it with words of love, she would have kissed it as a holy book. Thereafter, she would have kept the novel in their prayer room. Before she took it in her hands again, she would have purified herself with a bath. She wouldn’t have let anyone touch it without cleaning their hands.
Swaying and staggering, I reached home somehow. Loud noises could be heard. Chettathi was watching TV with a friend and speaking louder over the noise. ‘Please reduce the volume of both the TV and your chat, I have to write,’ I begged her.
‘Oh, a writer . . .’ she laughed at my plea with contempt.
Well, she didn’t know that I was writing a novel and some lines from it were playing hide and seek in my mind, like a nervous cat. ‘Please . . . switch it off . . . for a little while. Let the world be peaceful. Just for a little while.’ I begged her, clutching her feet. They must have been shocked and scared by my behaviour. They hastily turned off the TV.
They must have suspected that I’d gone mad. But they didn’t know about the beautiful lines hidden in my mind like a playful cat.
In that wonderful moment when the world fell silent, I entered my room and wrote the first lines of my novel.
I hurried home through the narrow streets of Seleucia. I was shivering, as if caught in a polar vortex, my hands glued to my body . . .
Dread of Death
ONE FINE MORNING, I got a phone call.
‘This is Das!’
I didn’t recognize the voice.
‘Mohandas Purameri,’ he elaborated.
The name sounded familiar, but I was still not sure.
‘I don’t know if you remember me. We were together at the Parana literary group. And also at my photo exhibition . . .’
Oh, Mohandas! He’s a fairly well-known photographer in Pentasia. I remember once attending an exhibition of his work, and commenting that it was among the best that could be found in such a place. But it’s better not to recall the Parana literary group. It was a union of twenty-five of us to protest against the five-star culture of senior writers . . . It had budding talent from all the languages spoken in Diego Garcia. For Malayalam, there was Mohan, Jayendran and me. It was a big craze then. We used to refer to it as a postmodern literary co-operative, etc. But one by one, each of the members started hiding behind the flanks of various writers’ forums. They were the smart ones. They got good reviews in magazines, and won endowments and awards.
‘I called suddenly because a story of mine was published in the Diego Daily on Valentine’s Day. Have you seen it? If you haven’t, please try to get it and read it . . .’
I hadn’t seen it. If I’ve to read all the stories published everywhere, I’ll need to be on 24x7 like the banks’ ATM ad. So I just skim through the titles. Sometimes, at the most, I read a paragraph, that’s all. Jayendran used to say that for every novel that I got down to reading, I allowed a margin of fifty pages. From that point onwards, it was the duty of the writer to take me forward. But those days are gone. Now, if you can’t buy a reader in the first five pages, t
hen it’s impossible to get him.
‘Diego Daily gave a full page for my story, which opposes Valentine’s Day celebrations. Our Rajanbabu sir liked the story very much.’
Diego Daily is the most prominent newspaper in Diego Garcia, and the only morning paper. The rest are eveningers—lousy ones that print TV news from the mainland. The Daily devotes one page each for every major language in Diego. It’s a unique language daily. A whole page for a story—that too in Malayalam—is not a small thing.
‘A doctor from City Hospital is going to translate it into English because he likes the story . . .’ Mohandas kept on talking without waiting for replies. I felt disappointed. How many stories have I written! They had romance, history, sex, politics, criticism, but none of the editors sent me letters, no reader praised my stories. No one translated them into any other language. Here, a story, which I would have passed on, is getting translated into English. What had I got wrong?
‘I called you to say something important. I’m writing a novel! You must have heard that Pentasia This Month is conducting a contest for the best novel. It can be written in any language. I’m going to submit my manuscript. Without winning awards, today’s novels can’t gain popularity.’
‘What’s the title of the novel?’ I asked just for form’s sake.
‘Archipelago.’
My disinterest in listening to him till then gave way to shock. I was really shocked. ‘When I said I’m writing, I meant I’ve completed three-fourths of it. Shall I read you a part of the first chapter?’ he asked.
‘No, perhaps another time.’
I disconnected the phone in fear.
Archipelago! You won’t believe me, but really, really, that’s the title I’d decided for my own novel. I had dreamt of it for a long time. How can a novel based on these islands have a name better than that! Pity, he had stolen that title. Oh god, was he also writing on the same subject and along the same lines? I have always dreaded that. After I get an idea for a story, I fear that someone in some other corner of the world has got the same idea and that he is competing with me in writing the story. So, I hurry up to finish the story and publish it before my faceless enemy does. Those were just fears, but the case of Mohandas was not like that. He had come very close to my subject. Now when I start writing my novel, it’ll not be my enemy who will be writing the same story hiding in some unknown corner of the world, it’ll be you, Mohandas Purameri! Only you. I’ll be competing neck and neck with you. I’ll finish writing the novel before you. I’ll find a title better than your Archipelago. I’ll win the contest. I ran to my study and doggedly began to write.
Customs Officer
ON A DAY when I got bored of writing, I took a boat to Port Louis. It is a small harbour town in Diego Garcia. It takes hardly fifteen minutes by boat from Seleucia to get there. Beyond the narrow alleys to the jetty and the bustling shops and St. Martins lay the main road to the port. Along the two-kilometre stretch are shady trees and open-air coffee shops, adding to the beauty of Port Louis. Tables and chairs spill onto the brick-laid road. Food is cooked fresh right in front of you. The aroma of coffee and ghee! It is my favourite hangout. I can sit in a corner, sip coffee and contemplate in peace. I can observe the arrivals and departures of the port workers, the hustle and the bustle. I can overhear the traders’ and exporters’ mathematics and mutterings. From these, I can find something for my novel. It is not being solitary in a room but being in a crowd that makes for better thinking. In each person’s rush and panic and pain, there is a story. If I sit alone in a room, what story will I get; all I will be doing is staring at an empty mind. In any case, Momma wouldn’t let me stay idle at home. ‘What? Has Valyapapan’s disease caught you too?’
I had hardly sat down after ordering a butter coffee when I heard someone call out. About four tables away, a young woman was waving at me. I didn’t recognize her at first. She got up and walked up to me—Jesintha! I stood up in surprise. She was with me till Class VII at St. Joseph’s. A Tamil. She had changed completely. Jeans, T-shirt, shades. There was only a distant resemblance to the dark, petite girl of my memory.
‘How many years has it been! I’m amazed. We live in such a small place and still it took so much time for us to meet again!’ She pulled up a chair and sat close.
‘Really! It’s not those who’re far, but who’re near who are difficult to meet. You’re still in Peruntheruvu, aren’t you?
‘No, we moved to Cornish two years ago. I was in Sri Lanka before that. I completed my higher studies there.’
Cornish! I was surprised. It’s the area of Diego’s newly rich. A man-made island filled with the villas of ministers, movie stars and businessmen. Jesintha there? I remember her family.
She must have perceived my astonishment. ‘I’m currently with the port. A smart customs officer can now live at Cornish.’ She smiled and got up. ‘It’s time to get to work. We’ll meet again.’ She strode past.
I was incredulous. Does a customs officer in Garcia earn enough to settle in Cornish? The bribes wouldn’t be much—Diego is not a country with many restrictions or taxes. The Diego government allows free import of all products. The customs is just for name’s sake, that’s all. How was she earning so much? There must be something. I was unaware of the changing times. Was it the ‘lag’ from my education in Thiruvananthapuram, as everyone says?
Division A
MOMMA WAS SWEEPING the house in the morning. Things were scattered outside. She was cursing the men in the family for letting the house get dusty and dirty. Once it was a family where women did not even look at the men. It’s only during the heyday of a family that the men are held in esteem. Otherwise, they are destined to be abused by the women.
In the trash heaped outside, I spotted a photograph. One taken during my upper-primary schooldays at St. Joseph’s during Class V. I picked it up and dusted it. I grieved that it had aged in such a short time. Some of the faces were lost, but none were unrecognizable. Partly through the photo and partly through memory, they were knowable. There was Sseri sir. In faded attire. He was our Malayalam teacher for a long time. A hard-core fan of Cherusseri’s poems. His name was Surendran. We called him Sseri sir. He had come from Kerala to Diego to teach Malayalam. He was a native of Payyannur.
The first language in our school was English. French, Malagasy, Tamil, Divehi, Malayalam or Sinhala could be chosen as one’s second language. Most would opt for their ancestral tongue as their second language. I chose Malayalam. That’s how I ended up in Sseri sir’s class.
Next in the photo was our class teacher, Monica D’Souza. She was a Goan, if I remember right. She was in the school only for a short time. Then the headmaster, William Hodges. He’d enter the classroom with the customary line: ‘When I was in Ethiopia . . .’
There was Jesintha in her earlier form, in a wrinkle-free dress, deadly serious. There were eighteen of my classmates. I went through the faces and tried recalling the names of each one of them. To the left of Sseri sir were Anita and Supriya. To the right of William Hodges were Alexy and Jyoti. Behind them, standing in a row: Vinod, Babu, Senthil, Jesintha, another girl whose name I couldn’t recollect, and Rahim.
Behind them, on the bench: I couldn’t remember the first girl, then Leena, me, the boy next was an African, couldn’t remember his name, Bilal, Seyfu, couldn’t remember the next boy either, little Anita, and at last Daniel D’Silva.
Gopal P.V. was the only one missing in the photo. And from the world. A month before this photo had been taken, he died in a major boat accident, with sixty-three others.
I’d met Jesintha the day before. Here I was, with ambitions to become the first novelist of the Malayalam Diaspora. And where was the rest of the class? Almost everyone of us had been together from Class I to X. We were in Division A, known to have the smartest boys and girls in the school. I’d already forgotten four names out of the nineteen. Would I be able to recognize them if I met them? Anita, Leena and Jyoti were the best not just in the class, but in
the school. After them came Senthil, Vinod and Supriya. Seyfu and Babu were the brats of the class, and the best of the worst. Supriya was a good dancer. Anita used to sing and speak well. Vinod was talented in painting, and Rahim in acting. Where were they now? Where had they gone, what had they become, within these short years? We had predicted and dreamt that Anita would become a doctor, Leena a lawyer, Supriya an actress, Daniel D’Silva with his deep voice a radio anchor, and Rahim a stage actor. Had our predictions and dreams come true? If not, who had become what?
The curiosity of the first days turned into a strong desire later on. I had to find out. I had to know where each of them were and what levels they had reached in this short period. It may have been the amazing growth and change in Jesintha that stimulated my search. The rest of my days were spent thinking of a way to find them.
Orkut
ONE WEEK OR a maximum of ten days—I thought I’d find all of them within that time. Such a small place. Walk twice through some four alleys and all of them will be found. That’s how lightly I’d taken it. But I failed to find even one. Finally, I did a search on the social network, Orkut—the most advanced, convenient and simple means available. After an elaborate search, I managed to find just one person: Alexy. He was running an Ayurveda physiotherapy centre at Seychelles. I contacted him. He had no updates on anyone. It was like his life had been wholly transplanted from Garcia to Seychelles. He was that distanced from Garcia.
Even though I knew that only one per cent or so of our friends could be present on such social networks, I started a community there by the name of my school: St. Joseph’s, Seleucia. I waited for days hoping that some of my classmates from some corner of the earth would become its members and thus I could get in touch with them. Many of my juniors in school joined the community, but not a single member from my class. And this was supposed to be the age of such school–college social gatherings. Especially after a movie on it came out in the mainland! Using new technologies, people were finding their oldest friends and arranging gettogethers. I felt deeply disheartened. Why was it that only my classmates were averse to such gatherings? Weren’t they aware of these technological utilities? Didn’t they use them? Had we all become so outdated that we could not figure out the virtual world?
