Upmanyu

Chaos
A Tale Of Two Headlines
Morning Of The Bird

Chaos

Uparicara was trying to fight a lost battle. His body screamed for a surcease. His hands, his shoulders, his spine, his thighs were all waiting for a moment to betray him. He tried to hang on with his sword lashing violently in the air. Uparicara, in Sanskrit, meant one who could walk in air. He could. But he was facing an enemy who was equally capable.

A few moments before, a brace of heads had faced him. However, as soon as he had sliced through one of the troodon's reptilian necks, two more heads had come into being. He knew that he could not risk another decapitation stroke, and so he was now just waving the blade so as to keep the vicious, snapping, fang-filled maws at arm's length. He knew that the bite of a troodon was pure poison, and he needed to avoid the snapping mouths at all costs. His back was against the rough stone wall now, and he knew that he was fighting for his life.

Where the hell are Anidra and the others, he wondered. Don't they know I'm in trouble?

A head darted at his face, and he barely blocked it with the flat of the blade; the teeth clacked against the shiny steel and acrid steam arose from the creature's nostrils.

Sssurrender, man! hissed another head. It isss over!

Uparicara was startled. He had not known that the magical beings could talk!

Give it up! chorused the heads in a mesmeric drone, and Uparicara did his best to avoid another strike, darting to his right. However, he slipped on the slick, slimy floor of the chamber, and sprawled backwards onto the stone. As quick as thought, each of his arms was seized in an unbreakable hold by a sinuous neck. He struggled and kicked, but to no avail as the third head approached. He shut his eyes and felt the cold sting as the fangs pierced the skin of his upper arm. He was falling, falling.

Are you feeling better now, Mr Upmanyu?, asked a strangely seductive female voice, and Uparicara opened his eyes to a scene of wonder.

Instead of the monstrous form of the troodon, he beheld a young, attractive woman and two burly men, one of whom sported a black eye. Panicking, he struggled to get to his feet, but found himself restrained by black leather straps on his arms, legs and torso. His own familiar warrior's garb had been replaced by loose, white coveralls of some sort.

After struggling in vain for a few moments, he looked around him at the strange surroundings in which he now found himself. Instead of the dripping cave in which he had been fighting for his life, he was in a brightly lit, white chamber, tied to some kind of couch. Strange, glowing boxes of metal and glass were arrayed around the room, and the unearthly spectacle unnerved him even more than had the monstrous troodon.

The woman was dressed in a strange white coat. Her breathing was heavy but she looked calm. From one hand dangled a small glass cylinder with a long, fine needle at one end. Her two muscular acolytes wore loose, green suits of trousers and jacket, but unlike any he had ever seen. The men looked as if they had been in a fight, and they flanked the bed to which Uparicara was tied, looking wary and ready for trouble.

I am Dr Trisha, and these two gentlemen are Mr. Pandu and Mr. Sunil, said the white-garbed woman. You've given us quite a tussle, Mr. Upmanyu. I believe you're feeling a little better now.

Where am I? What the hell is this place?, screamed Uparicara, tugging at the unyielding straps to no avail.

You're safe here, Mr. Upmanyu. This is the Humanyun Institute for Mental Well-Being in Agra. I've given you some medicine to calm you down, so don't be too surprised if you feel a little groggy. You were quite agitated for a while.

The name of Agra was familiar enough to Uparicara; it was his clan's holy city where they held a yearly secret meeting and planned strikes against demons. However, this glittering, white, bleached place was a far cry from the simple wood-and-stone dwellings of the small hamlet.

This isn't Agra, yelled the swordsman. And my name is Uparicara; Uparicara the Hunter. You won't get anywhere by trying to convince me otherwise, so you may stop this pretence at once. Let me loose! He bounced on the bed, his face flushed with fury, but he was unable to break the obdurate leather bonds.

Do stop struggling, Mr Upmanyu, you'll do yourself an injury, said Dr Trisha in a voice of infinite reason and patience.

My name is Uparicara!

The woman sighed. Very well, Mr. Uparicara; if it makes you feel better, I'm willing to proceed on that basis for the time being. I would just like you to tell me where you thought you were before you were sedated

I didn't 'think' anything, woman. I was seeking underground treasure with Anidra, Grido and Oberon. I got separated from the others, and found myself facing a bloody troodon. It pinned me in the corner, and then, then it turned into you.

Dr Trisha's voice dripped with compassion. And who are Anidra, Grido and Oberon?

Anidra is a powerful magic-user, Grido is a dwarven thief, and Oberon is an elven archer. Uparicara had given up trying to fight his way free, but his voice was still defiant and belligerent.

Have you any idea just how improbable that sounds? The truth of the matter is that you are a finance analyst with the firm of Anders, Gordon and Oberoi, and your name is Upmanyu. Can you not see how you have twisted elements of the real world into a fantasy? The truth is that the stress of your job has driven you into a make-believe land of magic and mystery. A part of your mind has surrendered the grinding, humdrum reality of everyday life in favor of an exciting, heroic existence.

I don't believe you. The voice seemed to come from far away, as if someone else has spoken.

Look at this picture, and tell me what you see. Dr Trisha held out a framed picture, and Uparicara had to force his eyes to focus on it. It was a magical thing, a picture without the least trace of a brushstroke or pencil; it looked just like real life. It showed Uparicara in a strange, grey outfit with a short jerkin, straight breeches and a white blouse. A brightly colored strip of cloth hung down the front of the blouson, and it was knotted at his throat. He was shaking hands with a tall, similarly attired man. On closer inspection, the tall man appeared very similar to his friend, Anidra, except that the white hair and beard of the man in the picture were neatly trimmed instead of hanging to his waist.

This is John Anders presenting you with an award for fifteen years' service with the company, Mr Upmanyu. Don't you remember?

I never studied as a magic-user, mumbled Uparicara. The pictures are fake. Uparicara's head was spinning. A confused swirl of blurred images swam before his eyes, clashing, colliding and coalescing.

Another picture. Who do you see here, Mr Upmanyu?

Jana the Healer, and her imp attendants Shusha, Atya and Rhool.

Your wife, Jahanvi, and your three children; Sushmita, Aditya and Rahul. The woman's voice was relentless, and Uparicara could no longer argue.

You're right, he replied in a listless voice.

Dr Trisha waved her finger in an admonitory manner. You don't really believe that, do you, Mr Upmanyu? You're just saying that because you think that's what I want. What I really want is to help you to see the difference between the real and the imaginary and acknowledge it.

What is this? The truth, please, Mr Upmanyu.

A magic oracle.

It's a television, Dr Trisha corrected him. And this?

A dragon.

A jet airliner; a means of conveying people through the air. Do please try to remember, Mr Upmanyu. Fight me, and you'll only remain confused and frightened. Uparicara shook his head, speechless. To his shame and horror, he felt warm tears trickling down his cheeks. He wanted to remember; he wanted to be free and whole; he wanted to be sane. But nothing came to his mind. He began beating his head against the soft pillow.

His vision began to darken as the medications took hold. I must stay conscious!, Uparicara told himself, but to no avail. The compassionate face of Dr Trisha was the last thing he saw before he surrendered.

The sound of slapping, and distant voices: Uparicara, Uparicara, come back to us! Uparicara grunted as awareness began to seep into him. Now conscious that his face was being struck, he jerked his head away from the abusive hand. He opened his eyes to a different world; a dimly-lit cavern that was somehow familiar.

Uparicara, that was a damned close-run thing! That troodon was about to consume you when I drove it off with a banespell. I don't think it'll trouble us any more.

The voice was familiar, and the swordfighter fixed his blurred gaze on the man's face. Anidra? he said, in a tremulous voice, but something burned at the back of his mind. No! You're not real! Get away from me!? He tried to scrabble away from the vision, but his limbs were numb. He began to scream as his nightmare was made flesh.

Let's get him to Jana as soon as possible, advised the dwarf. The bite of a troodon is said to drive men mad.

Don't worry, old friend. We'll soon have you back in the nice, sane, real world of demons, dragons, witches and warlocks. I don't know where your mind's been, but you need to come back. Jana will know what to do, Uparicara.

My name's Upmanyu!

I understand, old friend. Just try to relax.

My name's Upmanyu!

You don't really believe that, do you? said Dr Trisha, shaking her head in pity. Just try to relax.

I am Upmanyu; please believe me! His voice sounded thick, slurred and alien to him.

I know that, Mr Upmanyu, but do you? You've been a very sick man, I'm afraid.

I'm an analyst with the firm of Anders, Gordon and Oberoi. I'm perfectly sane!

Dr Trisha sighed. And what do you remember before you found yourself here, Mr Upmanyu?

I was in some cavern, and then this troodon bit me, but I know it's not real! This is where I belong, here, in the real world.

Orderly Pandu turned to the doctor. Despite the purpling bruise around his eye, there was nothing but benign compassion on his face. It's a sad case, isn't it, Doctor? Some people will say anything to get out of here.

The woman nodded. A sad case indeed, Pandu. A patient cannot be cured until he acknowledges his delusion. I regret that our poor, confused Mr. Upmanyu does not really think he needs to be helped. Until that time, we'll take good care of him.

I'm Upmanyu! Let me out of here!

In good time, Mr Upmanyu. The prick of a needle sent the patient back to sleep.

A Tale Of Two Headlines

Two headlines caught my eye during the last week. Both of them were related to each other in a strange coincidental manner, and had their guns trained towards the same human element.

The first was a damning fatwa issued by Muslim clerics in response to some Muslims participating in the rendition of Vande Mataram, India's national song (which has embroiled itself in a few controversies so far). The second was a typical knee jerk political reflex action to some detrimental remarks about shivaji, the great Maratha king, by pandit Nehru in his book 'glimpses of world history'. Will write about the former here.

I know little about religion, be it Hinduism, which I was born into, or Islam, one of our nation's other major religions. However, the beautiful axioms of life that are an integral part of any religion keep falling on one's ears. For me, the experience is similar to witnessing the pictures of the universe through the eyes of a telescope. You do not need to know the physics of the star formation and the behavior of matter to know that you are a spectator to something inherently beautiful and powerful, when you see those pictures. This is my defense for commenting on religion even though I am a professed illiterate on its technicalities; that it is a human experience which every human has a right to comment about.

For better or worse, this is an age where we have the institution of nationalism gaining ascendancy. There's no doubting the fact that a Hindu anywhere around the world is first a citizen of a country; and then a Hindu. He keeps his cultural and religious heritage alive through his actions, but at the same time gets absorbed into the larger culture of the country which he has chosen to call home. Every country has a way of life that is unique to it and its people, and which is shaped by factors such as economy, polity, and history. Thus we have a Pakistani and an Iranian way of life, each of these being a Muslim state, yet having quantifiable differences which have grown from their nationhood, and not their religious leanings.

With this statement of fact, the action of the Muslim clerics becomes rather puzzling to my uneducated mind. Each of us is woven into the national fabric, though not for ever if we so wish; the family unit, the legal framework, and the system we are critical of, yet bound to, is a common denominator. Our architectural monuments, the climate, the landscape and the livelihoods of people are diverse factors yet part of a whole we call our country. Is it not possible to love your country, and its heritage and beauty so much as to feel like bowing to it? This is precisely what Bankim Chandra's composition says:

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving mother of might,
Mother free.

We can call our country our motherland. We can bow to our mother or the elderly as a gesture of respect. Yet we cannot voice this sentiment in a song which precisely implies we wish to do that. How does religion get undermined by this action? I think the ideal situation is for our religious leaders to be silent spectators to technicalities which are irrelevant in the reality of today's world, and guide followers when violations become flagrant and against the very spirit of the religion they have chosen to protect and propagate. For every act of pedagogic orthodoxy will only make the picture from the telescope a little more blurred than before; and the heat from the furnaces in space might scald the naked eye.

Morning Of The Bird

The old man's eyes lifted skyward. He was practically devoid of vision, yet his eyes could sense the changing brightness of the day. His hands then spread out in a graceful arc, stopped and sailed through the breeze, his wrists riding it with their undulating motion. It was a custom for him to greet each morning in this fashion. In his youth, he would follow this up with a stroll around his garden, tending to his beloved plants, sharing with them the radiance of the blossoming of a new bud. He would then return to his cottage, carelessly discard the footwear, and sit at the steps, watching the rest of the world wake to the new day. It had either been his father's foresight or immensely good fortune that his cottage had been built at the place it was. The village had grown since its last brick had been laid and the family moved in; yet the panoramic view it offered had been left untouched by the proliferation.

Both the cottage and its owner shared one characteristic apart from the many years of life together; which was the sense of distance from the village and its people. No one really knew the name of its owner, he had been Dayalbabu to them as long as anyone cared to remember. None but the very oldest had seen his father or spoken with him, and folklore was that he was one of those relics of the empire, with a sense of dress and manners which seemed outrageous against the rustic backdrop. The son, who was to later become Dayalbabu had made a sudden appearance ten years after the rest of the family occupied the house. He was no more than twenty then, but perhaps his father's aristocratic reputation earned him that epithet no sooner than he had set foot.

The arrival of the son was of huge interest to the villagers. The worldly wise, in this land waking from colonial rule, immediately stated that the boy was undoubtedly a great scholar from an English university. They weaved their fantasies around this with him in a lead role, making him, at various times, an expert in sciences, an artist, a prodigy who designed trains for free India, and a former classmate of the princes of England. Having once seen him with a huge stack of books, one of the learned reasoned that since such books were last seen with a lawyer who had visited the village a few years back, the boy was either a lawyer or studying law. This was an amicable settlement of the debate for this circle, and Dayalbabu was henceforth proclaimed a law graduate of great pedigree. Of course, nobody dared to ask him about it, probably because it would dismiss hours of speculation and a difficult consensus with a mere statistic.

He had finished surfing the breeze. Having made his way to the armchair, he quickly drew his hand away after the first painful touch of a hot cup of tea. The sound of hasty yet light footsteps on his wooden floor drew his attention. A schoolboy had run a detour from school to find out if he would pass to the higher class. Dayalbabu cackled and told him he was an astrologer, not a headmaster. He told the boy he could tell him what would happen to him after the arduous journey through school was complete. This time, the sound of the footsteps began to ebb, and sounded distinctly heavy.

He wasn't always an astrologer. The state of always belonging to a profession was conspicuously absent from his life. After his parents' death in quick succession, he had suddenly become the Dayalbabu in the village. Five years into his famous arrival, he found himself his first job. He used to set out at the crack of dawn, wearing his father's rusty-looking jacket for a 4km walk to the community school. The road was rugged and threw up generous amounts of dust with each passing cart, but he almost never looked down at the road. His sights were trained on the magnificent trees which lined that road and made a house for a million birds all contributing to an overwhelming cacophony. He loved the birds; they made up for his solitary figure on the road with their constant chatter and occasional music. He whistled their calls, and they responded as if he were one of their own. He regretted that no birds nested on the only tree in his courtyard.

No one ever remembered him ever accepting a ride to school. The most generous deduction was that he was fond of the fresh morning air. That he was, but he loved the birds more than all the fresh air his lungs could contend with. In the late afternoon, school children rushed out of school, and their teachers wearily trudged out of it. It was then that he found the grammar and reading books too heavy, and let the bullock-cart drive him home. He would cordially smile at his fellow travellers, and then stare hard, despite the bumpy ride, at the grammar book as if the parts of speech were the most complex concepts in grammar. He shrunk away from conversation, having expended all his energy in the damp classroom.

It did not take him long to get tired of teaching. He lacked the charm and the enthusiasm that a few of his colleagues possessed. His belief in imparting knowledge and values was not strong enough to overcome this shortcoming. The morning stroll to meet the birds continued, but this time he returned well before the bell ringer was in plain sight announcing the first period.

He furrowed his eyebrows. The delicate moments of dawn were slipping into the vigour of the morning. The familiar whistle his ears were straining to catch was not to be heard. Soon they would come to him with the question.

His fingers ran impatiently around the rim of his tea cup. This activity was being watched with great interest by Shastriji, the middle-aged shopkeeper. The suffix of respect in his name was as hard earned as that of his host's, and in much the same spirit of paternal reputation. Dayalbabu was now aware of the presence of the guest, because the ceaseless monologue had begun. He performed, in vain, the ritual of offering him breakfast. He often wished Shastriji talked less and ate more. He liked people who did that. They gave him more time to formulate his predictions. However, his long stint as the letter-writer for the village had made him a patient listener. So he let the idle chatter escape him and listened intently for the sound he awaited the most.

He would return home after the stroll and set out for Shastri's shop. Villagers would come to him with letters to be read or written. It was then that his idea of this village as a mere cluster of houses began to dissolve into the many different lives that constituted it. He had to grudgingly admit that he found this vocation interesting. Writing did not keep him busy all day long. It did not earn him money; in reality he never seemed to do anything that earned him money. A further admission was that he found people interesting. They came to him, initially, with the sole intention of knowing what their sons in town had to say to them. Then they came to him to let their sons know what they had to say to them. Not much later, they came merely to let Dayalbabu know what they had to say about their sons, daughters, uncles, distant relatives, and the state of the nation in the case of the learned.

Dayalbabu became a household name for no intention of his. He gave respect to the elders and was kind to the children, thus he was a good man to them. He knew about them all and they, in return, knew nothing about him. He was their enigma, the eternal object of curiosity and speculation. He did things which were different from what they did. He wore a jacket, he walked the forest path whistling to birds; he read tomes which only lawyers seemed to read before him; he lived in a large cottage and had a housekeeper to help. That he jelled with them despite the different mode of life they led only made them look up to him even more.

It was a small, noisy green bird that he was waiting for. He had a vague memory of green. The colour was most deeply etched in his memory of vision. It had given him the most fulfilling moments from his past. It was also to be the last colour he would recollect having seen. The noisy visitor was the last bird he saw, and it stayed with him like a memory which he could not wish away had he ever wanted to.

What a beautiful bird, he thought to himself, as it perched on the solitary tree in his courtyard. The tree was parched and thirsting for the rains to arrive. Regardless of the state of its host, the creature was busy announcing its arrival to the countryside. It was the avian equivalent of shouting from the rooftop of the most run down construction in the neighbourhood. He discarded his footwear, still amused by the vigour and the carefree _expression in that voice. He would sketch this bird, he had never seen it before. And paint it with the riot of colour that its plumage was. He rushed to get something to draw on, and with.

Those who were at the field next to his cottage remember the terrible sound of distress that came out of it that morning. It was the first and the last fire that would be associated with it. Dayalbabu came to his senses to reassuring voices and relieved expressions and phrases. He did not know what the doctor who tended to him looked like. A week later, he was back home. It rained the very next morning. One of his friends from the village wrapped a shawl around him as he sat in his veranda. The soil had soaked up the first shower of the year, and the air was thick with its fragrance. This was the first time he noticed how different a cloudburst was from a steady torrent. He thought it was soothing medicine for his spirit.

The next year was difficult, as he had expected it to be. He was fighting against self pity, and it was a fight he could not share with the closest of friends. He was acquiring a new appreciation for the invisible, but even that he could not fully share with anyone else. It was a strange situation where his worst fear and greatest discovery were equally distant from public gaze. It sometimes made him prone to outbursts directed at the housekeeper, as he sat on his chair overlooking the village. Those who were chance observers felt this was merely a way of coming to terms with his accidental condition. They genuinely empathised with that conclusion. It was not, however, true; and he could do little to correct that view; and there lay the situation.

Almost exactly a year later, as the summer was waiting for the monsoon to take over, it happened. He was sitting idly on the steps to his cottage, back from his daily walk. The noise was high pitched, in proximity. It was unmistakably the visitor from that fateful day last year. Perhaps it was responsible for enticing him into a sketch, and the seconds of dread and hours of pain that followed. He laughed to himself. The bird was too small and too carefree to accept such a huge responsibility. His tree was shunned by all except one at this time of the year. It greeted the tree, the village, and may have thrown a glance at the man sitting at the steps of the cottage. Then it flew away.

About a week later, it rained. As had happened one monsoon ago. It took another two monsoons for Dayalbabu to realise it. That year, he casually remarked to Shastriji on the morning of the bird, that it would rain a week from then. It did. The shopkeeper waited another such year before making a new announcement to the gathering under his tin roof. Dayalbabu could see the rain coming after he had lost sight. Dayalbabu could foretell what lay in store.

It was a belief so strong it did not even need the reluctant soothsayer's assertion. It built quietly around him as he casually remarked on the rain's arrival on a couple of occasions. He did not like it at first. It always amused him to see the most distant of objects being unwittingly held responsible for the most significant decisions in a human life. At the same time people could not accept him denying it. Every person he turned away would be hurt by the gesture, and return to him another day with an impassioned plea to glance to the future. He ventured to explain the bird and it being a precursor to the rains. This was taken to be an idiosyncrasy, since he loved the birds so much.

He caved in. Every visitor to his house would have to be from the village, he said. He knew the people by this time. The sessions at Shastri's shop reading and writing letters for them had opened their minds to him. He knew what each of them wanted. There were many revelations made to him which would usually be made to the most trusted of friends. He soon became aware of the position he had begun to hold. He was the penultimate step to an action. He was the final approver.

He did not read hands or scan charts. It gave him the mystique that came from being unconventional. He could clearly demarcate what he could sense and what was beyond him. He rather thought of himself as a judge; he would measure each intent and advise for or against the action which was to follow. What he could not judge, he proclaimed not to sense. He reckoned this was a lesser evil to being a charlatan and misguiding the populace. It wasn't a miracle that he was almost never wrong. The fortune seekers almost never realised there was never a right or wrong in their questions; a well reasoned counsel brought positives with it.

Shastriji was not short of words today. He was never short of words. Despite his drone, a clear and excited voice was coming through to Dayalbabu's ears. It was the bird carrying its message. The first rains would arrive in a week.

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