My Failed Comrade

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He said he had not been treated well and instead of standing up to it, what had been imposed on him, he took it to his head and stored up the events for future use. The events had turned venom and his whole body shook every night when he returned to his mud-walled rented room, every night he became a possessed person, his nights were convulsive. He said nothing and asked nothing, and because of this aloofness people began to assume something was seriously wrong with the man.

Dull teachers didn’t know his existence; cynical teachers thought he was a “spook”; his classmates never got to know him since he had classed them in his prejudged mind and the notion of interacting with people, who he had already classed as “red-necked buggers” was simply appalling. To him they were another breed and he belonged to the oppressed kind and to stand up to them intellectually was not a fitting payback, perhaps he had no faculty. His was to wait and wait, till his whole body was consumed by the venom and when he had accumulated enough he would bite them and suck on them and that way they would be suffocated and while they were struggling he would crush them like a reptile would do to its prey.

In his withdrawn world he allowed his venom to grow, one could be withdrawn but not absolutely withdrawn, even a wild animal seeks companions. His feet took him to the place where his classmates usually hung around one evening, they were there talking and blowing jets of smokes below swarms of mosquitoes, the swarm scattering for a while and then returning, laughing in the language, which he understood very well, but had always despised since theirs was a lot literary than his dialect. They noticed him standing behind them and below the thick swarm mosquitoes buzzing, which now had gathered above his head. One among them asked him if he was alright, but the rest were so shocked that they only examined the standing character and were unable to come up with words to address the man who they had never addressed. The only man who had addressed him asked him to sit down and join them, while others, still awed, stared at him.

One among them asked if he could tell them something about his far away village on top of the mountain. He didn’t like the man’s description “far away village on top of the mountain” of his place but he was compelled to say something back as courtesy call, “the chief of the place was the first man to shake hands with British officers and the second man in the entire state to have tea with the prime minister of independent India.

It’s quite modern in several aspects, we now have many Mumbai-educated men, they have been riding Royal Enfield motorbikes all around the town. The place is already quite ahead in several fields from others.” With his content face sucking the just-spoken pride he examined the expressions in the faces of his listeners through the mosquitoes-swarm. He expected one among them to say something back or enquire more , instead of verbal comments one among them thrust a burning cigarette before his face. He had never tried smoking but he couldn’t fail in front of these people, he must prove he was ahead of them in almost everything.

He took it between his thumb and forefinger and planted it between his lips. Like an experienced person he puffed at it and he imported an exceeding amount of smoke, it could have made him choke but he suppressed it and forced it down, he was able to blow it out through his nostrils and mouth surprising the onlookers, as though he wasn’t really satisfied with the approved surprise he had got he puffed again harder and this time he did better.

Soon the whole trails of smoke had gone through his nose and mouth his face was completely flushed, but the mosquito-swarm veiled poorly concealed it, he felt a shiver all over his body and he felt he could not hold it up, without a word he rose and hurried back to his place leaving the onlookers say “That tribal man is a crazy man. They all begin drinking and smoking at an early age, don’t they?” One among them wanted to ask why he had all the way to study here if they had everything out there. It was too late.

On the cold damp earthen floor he rolled between his puke and moaned. When his elder brother kicked open the door he was disgusted by the sight, instead of helping the moaning brother he yelled and asked what he had been up to. In his wasted state he feared his brother and he knew he had to say something to him through his moan, in his small voice, “Those valley boys fed me something. They are bad people, really bad, be careful when you are with them.” The brother looked for the chipped red plastic bucket and went out to fetch some water from the pond.

He helped the pitied little brother and cleaned up the mess while malice flowing out “those bastards, they think we are like animals, they always treat us like this.” He hadn’t had his brother’s ill-luck but the brotherly affection made him quickly resort to cheap antagonism, when his cheap antagonism had dried up his sense would compel him to dwell in the queer personality of his brother, who had been quite aloof and he knew because of it he had never got along well with anybody.

When the exams were over his big brother had decided to spend the winter with the family of a friend in the valley while he packed up and stood at the bus terminal with deep nostalgia, but his excitement came to an end when he recalled how the last winter had gone, starting with an argument over why he should go with his father to the terraced rice fields and he standing his ground saying an educated man like him shouldn’t get mud on his feet and hands.

The hard-working farming father, whose only desire was to educate his two sons, snickered and he said “so, this is what your modern education has given you, son; holding contempt against that feeds you?” Finally defeated by his father’s cynicism he dragged himself to the rice terraced fields, where he was greeted by his relatives and the village girls whispering below their breath about him “he is the man who’s been studying in the valley. He will soon return as a big man and our village will have a name.”

While those with young children asked if they could entrust their children to him and which place would be better; such inquisition and deference inflated his image and he always talked little since he didn’t know much about the place despite having been there for years, but these villagers mistook it for a wise man’s manner. His pretension and his weirdness had been sensed by his father and one night over fire he began asking questions which the son never thought he would be asked since his father never had gone to university. In a probing manner his father asked “Are we sending you there to be the domestic king who instantly becomes the worse subject in public?”

He deliberately overlooked the recollection of last year and jumped into the rumbling bus headed to his village. The village hadn’t changed, his father hadn’t been to the fields in days because of a bad back, his mother was full of gloom. When he got home his old man expected him to visit the fields with his uncles, who had been doing almost everything for his family, but he had his own plan and he didn’t want to be a part of that muddy world, he felt he belonged to an elevated world, something he could fantasize but yet couldn’t construct a concrete form.

He was hardly around his ailing father, nor was he around his gloomy mother who expected her educated son to say something, instead he was around the small town, where loafers gathered around crumpled days-old English newspapers talking about London, Texas, which they got to know through Hollywood films shown in leaking-corrugated iron-roofed cinemas. In this group a young man like him who had been living in a bigger town with the privilege to read fresh English newspaper was always treated with great respect. His arrival provided them fresh air and yet they had a strong feeling that he was to an extent a tainted man, perhaps because of his superiority air.

A week later after his arrival and his prodigious outpour of city-like tales, which had already bored so many of them, a spectacular person descended and walked as though she had been sent by some supernatural power. A lady wrapped in tribal shawl, wearing faded jeans and white trainers walked in with a man from another town with better command of English to join them. They had nothing to say, they only had to look at her and be awed by her appearance itself. She said she was a follower and her soul had been cleansed by the messiah and now she had been on a journey to help as many people to see the messiah, who had the power to heal all kinds of problems.

But to see the messiah and feel his power they had to meet every week with almost all the people in the village. He was possessed by the sight of that white lady from southern America and in this state he had forgotten the fact that his father had been in bed and his mother still possessed by her gloom. He sat between them and spoke highly of the lady and why the whole family should join the sophisticated faith which required them to cover up their wild past and animistic practice.

Their pagan belief connected them to their land and their reverence for their ancestral past, now all these should be looked with contempt as what had been theirs was born out of a jungle setting and what had been brought by the lady came in the form of three-piece suit and acoustic guitar, and sometimes they could wear torn Levies jeans, and if they dedicated themselves they could leave their place for the land where they can see real people riding fine horses and men drinking lager, unlike their rice beer, in a tavern, but this could be obtained on the condition that they departed from their ancestral rituals.

The ailing father would never think of departing from what had been passed down from generations to generations, only he could feel the significance of it and the relevance it had to the land as he had been practicing it and after having been in the fields in the village he knew why he had to talk to the spirits of his forefathers, he had inherited the land from them, why he had to pray to the trees and the fields since he knew without them he wouldn’t be able to afford his children’s expenses. What was the new faith to him? Nothing, something which demanded so many things of an individual, like those valley people’s archaic imported faith which had severed the ties between people, he didn’t need it nor would it make him any better, but he knew he couldn’t moderate the zeal in his son.

He was taken in by the white angel since she was impressed with his passion and through him the white angel could see a heaven in this corner of the world and beyond. He had taken her to the most remote parts of the land where people looked at her as some alien. When people looked at her he was also looked at and they wanted to be just like him. She said he was a diligent man and she would find him a way out and in her words he could imagine his future; speaking in her language, entering a well-structured holy place against a green setting in his fine suit. He had all drawn it out and he had been embracing it to his chest. The new book had been read and reread but he could only memorise each and every word but he didn’t test his intelligence to process and analyze what he had been taught and what he had memorized.

One evening he returned home in his new fine attire he found his seriously ill father sitting by the fire and his mother on her heels by a black pot boiling some pork. She said they all should sit down to have the stew together since he would go off for another year. He didn’t say anything and didn’t come out from his room for a while, this worried his mother and she entered his room to ask if he was alright. He said he couldn’t eat pork since the new faith forbade its followers from eating it. The stunned ignorant mother asked, “Is that lady a Muslim? I didn’t know that.” He was offended by his mother’s remarks because he was told by the lady about crusade and why he should hate Emperor Saladin more than the valley people.

He yelled at his mother for insulting the new civilized faith and this yelling had given an unprecedented power his ailing father, who planted himself before his converted son and showered “So, the new faith has given power to yell at your mother? It has forbidden what we eat! Now listen! My forefathers used to eat pork and I eat pork and I’ll continue eating because there is nothing wrong in it. If you are so much ashamed of yourself you may leave now and never think of coming back to this house!”

He knew he had a place to go to, with certainty he left the house to be below the new modern roof which would be extended over the heads of many people. They were to be a better people, who would have direct link to the best world and from this world he would look at the valley people. He had been in touch with the white angel and she kept her words. Before he could finish university he was pulled out and flown out and planted at a theology school where he had to put up with rigorous memorization of each and every bit of biblical accounts. When he had memorized enough he was dispatched to communities to reach out and speak exactly what the messiah had allegedly spoken.

When the plane touched the tarmac runway in the valley airport he was reminded of what he had experienced and now it all came back and placed itself against his compassionate theological learning. He was a torn man beneath his garb, the past experienced outweighed his theological learning but he must pretend and move around as though he was a man capable of enormous compassion. He was assigned to work in the valley to recruit more converts, he moved among the people since he had to move, but his heart wasn’t in the job and this was visible to his angelic boss. He was transferred to the administrative division where he was paid in dollars.

In that damp room of few pieces of furniture below large pictures of Him, and there was the vibrant man who had a large following. He was the man in whose drawer there were Marxist books next to their holy book. He thought the man was full of secrets and he was afraid of him because of the man’s intelligence and his enormous followers. The man had been in touch with some revolutionary godly men and he was to join them soon, and he expected his followers to join him.

The Marxist man expected him to join the expedition, and the expedition didn’t have anything to do with the valley and the mountains from where he had come, it was meant to be struggle against the government and to carve out a free state where everyone could have a fair place, it was nothing ethnic, nor was it religious although there were supports from the religious groups. He had a strong premonition that if he didn’t follow the man he could be in danger, he could be shot at. He wasn’t cut out for something so grand or something universal.

When he announced he would be off to join the man the angel, now quite old, smiled and gave her blessings. The rough terrains, extensive revolutionary talks in cliché and the mentally drawn picture of an ideal society; a defeated occupation force retreating, the comrades cheering at some victory point addressing the hopeful masses, there was to be everything; abundant food, free education, equality and everybody should be a part of the establishment, it was absolutely for the people, but managed by few on their behalf with utmost revolutionary spirits, but this didn’t mean that alleged or obvious reactionary elements could go about talking whatever they thought.

He had his own vision, a new vision which he had allowed himself to conjure up since the day a Lee rifle was thrust to his hands; a spacious land for his people where his people would flourish like the Jewish people and this would allow him the leverage to poke on those valley people every now and then or he could bleed them like a sadist bleeding a chained cow with a sharp knife. He would very much like to witness their blood oozing out and his feet getting bloodied with theirs and the sight of them collapsing in front of his eyes. This vision starkly contradicted the theological lessons he had taken, it was not that a difficult task since, by now, he was a man who was conveniently capable of separating bookish compassion from theological passion and sometime capable of leaning one against another to make one or other possible.

In China he sang the communist marching songs with his random comrades, but never spoke a word about the faith, lest they might have him shot. After China he grew and grew rubbing shoulder of the Marxist man, who he couldn’t really outshine as the man had more genuine charisma and he wasn’t complex. Despite his genuine charisma and easily likeable personality the Marxist man was failed by his health and each day he was seen by many crumbling, notably in front of the man who had long been waiting for this crumbling moment.

Although the Marxist man was crumbling before his eyes he couldn’t dare to mutter a word against the man, since he knew the man was liked by almost everybody because it was easy for people to accept him without any creepy feeling because of his universal and humane tone. In the thick impregnable Burmese jungles he saw the Marxist man shrinking each day and yet signing orders with his shaking hand. They had been giving him morphine which they could easily obtain from Kachin Liberation Army. In few months the Marxist man was eaten up on the inside and his mind was blurred by the morphine he had been importing. One morning he was found leaning against a cold wet boulder far away from the camp, wrapped in a thick shawl, as though he didn’t wish his last shrunk moment to be witnessed by people around him.

There were few takers, there were followers who were willing to leave the cause and go home, but the new rising man, the long-waiting man, wouldn’t allow that happen. He had been marshalling all his power and secretively he had completely grabbed almost everything and everything with his extending hands, which worked as maliciously manipulative tentacles. If his predecessor was respected and admired he was feared and no one seemed to have the courage to challenge him.

They could have fled the cause when the Marxist man was alive, but they didn’t think about it since they were concerned about him, now they were unable to escape nor able to mutter a word. He was sure how he would be ruling, they knew he would rule with an iron fist; the escapees would be shot, opponents would be charged and tried in his revolutionary court as reactionaries. Death was the ultimate punishment and it was dreaded by everyone. Man could put up with a lifetime imprisonment but he wouldn’t dare to confront death, which if he could defeat he could have his freedom.

He said all comrades were to be fully committed to the cause and to “propagate the revolution” they should ask people to “donate” as much as they could to achieve “sovereignty” for the people. Most of the time he had difficulty differentiating “anti-valley movement “ from “anti-occupation army” , “ revolution for the masses “ from “ execution of masses.” He had along the way been trained well by revolutionary melodramas and by now he had already mastered the arts of staging a trial, speaking with venom and stinging people and yet charging the innocent mind. His obvious melodramas were supported by his faith-people since he and they had an understanding that their faith was on the verge of being marginalized and in the name of defending it they should go to any extent, this they did and this he exploited and mixed up to pursue his pursuit.

The holy money diverted in the name of faith by oil-people was plenty, enough to procure the necessities of a violent revolution and it also gave him the power to play an arm dealer against another. Money really talked for him. But like other humans his needs were never enough, the more that he couldn’t obtained through the holy channel was to be obtained from the masses; every person should pay him 5% tax, there were extortion or donation, vehicle taxes. He felt it was justifiable for he and his comrades had been in the jungle sitting by the fire fighting for the masses and the masses were at simply at home “safe and sound.”

One old man asked a comrade collecting tax in a village “Have I been taxed for the empty pigpen?” The comrades knew the pigpen was empty but he couldn’t lose his face in front of an “old bugger”, so he went in to the pen and poked at the excrement to check whether it was fresh or not. It was wet and the comrade declared the “old bugger” an old traitor and mocking a freedom cause. The comrade, thinking about his faithful leader, wanted to set an example by simply doing away with the “old bugger.” When one of his footmen placed a cold barrel against the “old bugger’s” temple he shrieked and announced “You will have your sovereignty after you have pulled the trigger.” Before they left the village with food supplies and cash the old man was declared “an impediment to the cause” and with a stern warning they let go of him.

What he started with grand plans forty years ago had taken him to London, where he had been staying in hotels and he had managed to bring his children to give them good ‘revolutionary education” at LSE and separate flats for them in downtown London. Now in his sixties, having been away from the days of olive green uniform, which he had traded with Armani, waking up to scrambled eggs, hems and black coffee in his sunlit bedroom, being briefed by his men his livery about the jungle wars and how it had grown static.

He was worried and for few years he was grumpy at breakfast table and he wouldn’t touch Darjeeling tea, sometimes he would punch at the fine China bearing pasta. His empire was surrounded by the ‘occupation army ‘and he felt his would soon he strangled and this would leave him alone in London completely severed from the rein and whips. Besides he had been complaining about chest pains, but he wouldn’t heed to the advice to quit “sucking Havana cigars.” He had no desire to leave the cause like a headless chicken.

He said he wanted to enter into a dialogue with the “occupation force.” He could imagine the gloating smile on the face of the “occupation force’ but he had no choice, besides he didn’t want to go down in history, didn’t want to fade and burn out in some unknown capitalist setting. He was doomed but he wished not to think so. The occupation asked him to come home and talk, but he insisted they talk in a tulip-garden over a cup of Darjeeling. “Sovereignty” was what he had in his mind and he mentioned that once, the word infuriated the “interlocutor of occupation force” and threatened the word could sabotage the whole process. He was brought to his knees, not physically. Then he said “unification of my people”, to this the interlocutor nodded his head and “sounds feasible, but the feasibility will be discussed in Delhi over a cup of milky tea.”

He knew he had been summoned by the “occupation force”, but he twisted and sounded out to his ‘would-be-united-people” “ I have been graciously invited by the PM of their country and it will be Me-to-their PM talk.” It was not him-to-their PM talk, it was another interlocutor-him talk and he was shattered by this downfall, this was the only time he had found himself as a beggar from his once-accustomed-chooser privilege. They said they couldn’t allow unification to happen when he said he wanted it, when he said there should be autonomy to his people he was told that would compromise the fabric of democracy, when he asked why he had been invited then they said he had been summoned not invited and he should die there. He was more weakened and now he had turned on to “his people” and began charging them with his valley-anecdotes, playing his would-be-united people against the valley people.

Those who would have otherwise have been loafing about drinking and puffing beedi now had come out to pelt stones, those who were not interested had to pelt , if they didn’t then they would be termed anti-would-be-united-people. Everyone had to be a part of the charade and those who would have a lot better-off in the paddy fields had been compelled to man the highways with stones in their hands eyeing for goods-laden lorries inching their way up the steep and dangerous roads. They were to burn those trucks, push them into the gorges or snatch the goods, like some mischievous children who would do things for no rhyme or reason.

In this act they became more involved since it was entertaining and for this mischievous indulgence they had to have a group but that group should have the blessing of the weakened man. He said they should do what should be done and they would do and ask what was to be done next. One day the there was a talk the crumbling man had fainted in front of the interlocutor and his lips smacked press against the man’s black shoes, photographs of him kissing the man’s shoes were circulated and some valley newspapers also were in that circulation act, this had infuriated the man and his blessed stone-pelting-highway people. They said it was a communal act and more lorries bound for the valley were burnt down and they jumped by the burning lorries like some children in Halloween night.

Back in his village where his father was buried there were talks that the month-long food scarcity and lack of medical supplies had to do with the crumbling man’s organization, out of deep shame his dying mother told a villager to write something to him. She said he had no right to deny people of food and medical supplies, with his acts he had brought them shame ,with his inhumane act he had been a black sheep in the family, his brother died in a hospital because there was no oxygen , the oxygen tanks were pushed into the gorges by his people, his nieces and nephews who had been settled and living in the valley now were starving and their children hadn’t been going to school since there was no fuel. The mother cursed him and said he should never return home and if he did he must know he was not welcome.