THE GOOD, THE BAD and THE UGLY

Stephan C. Hmar, 06.09.2014

I  heard good things about him, repetitively.

They said he is the good guy who don’t drink, smoke, or chew paan. He offers regular prayers, read the Scriptures every morning and evening and groomed his hairs nicely, and always ironed his clothes. And above all, they said, he doesn’t know how to spend money and he doesn’t need money.

My mind asked me, A person who doesn’t know how to spend money and who doesn’t need money? I want to be like him…..

It had been my lifelong desire to be able to have such a faith in such a divine providence as his, and be comfortably provided for, free of cost. I would have been able to save more money, would have looked more dandy and respectable. 

Naturally, I simply go with the flow and do not have a high regard of myself. But the hovering good thing about this guy suddenly made me feel my rank in the line of survival all the more lower. To add to that, they said, he is coming for an official visit to your place of posting and will stay with you for 6 days as a guest if you wish so.

I felt it could be rather  the  oddest  situation, to have such a perfect guest. However, in the long run, I felt it could be a positive turn of events, to rediscover myself, to learn at least a few good manners from the guy.

Before coming down to me, he gave me miss calls, mostly at 4 AM, every day for one month and fifteen day, to be specific. I always called him back to hear his angelic, ethical voice as I used to feel more safe. He would tell me all his prayers are for me, that I am a pre-planned man of god to provide a free shelter in the remotest part of the world, and that I am for his blessings and him, for my blessings. The air of conversations used to be as rich, as promising, as prosperous as discovering a gold mine. 

But before I realized it, I grew grumpy and foggy and loss weight which then forcefully let me see a doctor. He asked me, Do you sleep well?

I said, Well! Not exactly,doc! I have to wake up at 4 AM. Call of duty…you know?

Doctor said, Try to sleep well.

I accepted the setbacks as I feel I was positive that he was going to bring a positive change in me. I can sleep when I am dead, I said and carry on with the ʻmiss-call, call-backʼ business at 4 A.M. for one month and 15 days, until one day the doctor, out of no choice, prescribed me 60 chewable tablets of JIVA SLEEP WELL.

At last, the man I was most anxious to see have arrived. I got a call at 3.15 PM. He said, Iʼm at the Airport checking out. And I am like a blind man now, not knowing directions of which way to go.

I left my office files and hastened towards the airport. He was there standing by the Airport, exactly in a way I had calculated---well ironed pair of black trousers, shining shoes and silky hairs parted in the middle, but a small handbag.

I said, It is a privilege to see you.

He said politely, The privilege is mine. He continued, I do not expect you to be thin and frail like this. Looks like you are not keeping with the name I know, and he laughed.

I replied, with a white lie, There have been a setback, routine change in my line of duty and I guess it is affecting my physique. But I took it to my advantage. After all, you know, duty is God and duty calls.

He said, Nay!Nay! Remember the proverb, if health is lost, something is lost. You should keep your health torched up.

I looked at him and just smiled.

I said, You know, I cook myself and I feel we can head to market first and then home. You must be hungry.

He yelled, Well, thatʼs very fine. I am a great admirer of cook, especially great cook. And I bet you will be a great cook.

We went to the market, and I tried to offer complete generosity to my guest. I asked him, What curry would you like to have? The choice is yours.

He yelled again, Yehuuu! Thatʼs what I like. He looked around and spotted a bale of turtles and yelled again, Turtles? My favourite! Let's go for it.

I know something about turtles. Adult sea turtles tastes good, but are costly. I knew it would cost more than 800 rupees a kilo. My economy never allows me to buy things that costly. And that’s his favourite? But I took his choice in my stride, not as a setback. I purchased the turtle with all the money in my purse.

Along the journey back home, he narrated, with utmost absorption, his first turtle curry, then how to cook turtle, then how endangered turtles are, then the medicinal value of turtle and then he suddenly asked, do you have unsalted butter and fresh tomatoes?

I replied, No! Why?

He said, They are compulsory items for turtle curry.

I said, That means, without butter and tomatoes, we will not have a good turtle curry?

He said, Exactly.

I knew that my purse was empty. But somehow I need to get these two valuable ingredients. I told him to wait for me by the road and I approached one of my familiar shops, and after a long argument and clarification with the shopkeeper, I could procure the ingredients on credit. 

We, then walked up towards my place with loads of polythene. All along that 5 minutes walk, he asked me which way this and that road leads to, the name of localities, the name of the clans in majority. I was like an atom, bombarded by gamma-rays from every direction. When we reached home, the Masseter muscle holding my jaws were all strained, and I just stopped answering pressing at my jaws. 

It was the first turtle curry I had after I could reason, but it was not that good, at least in my opinion. I was in the kitchen cooking and my guest instructed me on the amount of oil, the heat intensity of the gas stove, the perfect time on when to add the ingredients and I felt, just ʻToo manyʼ is very less to spoil the ʻBroth,ʼ with this kind of  guest around.

As he was going to be with me for six days and as I wanted the time to be fruitful to rediscover myself, I took official leave for six days. But soon, I wonder whether it was actually a leave?

I got a knock at my door at every 4 AM. I prepared breakfast, and he would ask me to switch on the TV and put on his favourite channel, STAR MOVIES. After breakfast, he organized a prayer time, in which he thanked god for I was there and praised me for being such a caring host. And then we set out for his personal work. On the first day, he had to pay an auto fare of 50 rupees in all, as I did not have the proper change of coins. Maybe because of that, on the second day, before leaving the house, he took out his purse from his trousers, count the amount of money, put it safely in the drawer and said, Letʼs go!

I asked, You are not taking your wallet?

He replied, Let me rely on the richness of god.

Night time, after dinner, we would watch Movies, and if the film happened to be familiar to him, he would explain till the end. And if the film was unfamiliar, he would ask me again and again how it will end, complaining the wicked act of the villain, how he liked the hero to smudge him. And after I was dead tired with the ʻthousand voices,' he would organize a prayer session, praising god on how lucky he was and how good a host I was.

On the fourth night of his stay, at 10.30 PM, after he finished watching one movie said to me, You are so thin and frail. Tonight, we should ask god to give you a healthy body. He switched off the TV, dragged me and pressed me against the wall and started praying for my thin and frail body. He prayed loud, and lucky for him, unlucky for me, the spirit in him was forceful. I felt I was pressed at least two inches deep into the cement wall. He prayed, close to my nose, and the peculiar smell was awful. He pressed me harder, I was choking. At last, I said, I'm healed now! I'm healed now!, with the last of my strengths.

He released his hands, opened his eyes and asked, Really? Really?

I said, So very really! So very really!, exhaustively pulling myself towards the chair to lie down with my tiredness. He too was exhausted, he just sat flat on the chair. I wearily took out Rajdarbhar gutkha from my pocket, chewed a bit, and offered him saying, Will you have this?

He replied, Hey! Don’t eat those! They are bad for health. I said in my thought, your bad breath is making my health not only bad, but awful.

On the sixth day, the night before he leave we were watching the old movies, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It is still my favourite film and I wanted to watch keenly. But he kept talking, asking who was the good, the role of the bad and why they called the ugly, ugly. I secretly slipped into my bed room, took out my cotton rolls and pushed into both of my ears. He kept talking, and I watched the movie in peace.

Soon after the movie got over, I secretly removed the cotton rolls, and with a polite acts asked, How was the film? That’s my all time favourite!

He did not answer. He was busy counting his money. I stared at him for one minute, waiting for replies.

Then he said, Your  place is not that expensive as I had speculated. I came here with 1000 rupees, and I still have 950 rupees. It must be a good place for saving.

I walked slowly towards the open window. The full moon hovered above the green trees. I see the praised and the spoilt and the pretty and the ugly people walking across the street. I wonder why the moon is still shining above us all impartially.

And then I looked at my guest's moneyed-grieving-face and then I asked myself where he really fits in that bygone movie, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly---if life were movies, just for argument's sake! Satisfyingly, just for argument's sake, I assured myself that he fits in all the three characters. And then me? I satisfyingly assured myself that I did not fit in any of the extremities of the characters, nor any extremities of the characters in between.

I asked my guest, you seems to have something I seems to really understand!

He was one chap who could know he was captured with meanings behind questions. He  frankly said, I have mouths to feed. I have mouths to feed. 

I said, looking at the floor, I think, every one of us is fighting for the one prospect---something--always and always, in our own terms and definition.

I never look at his face again, even during the drop back at the Airport.

BITTER TRUTH

Agartala, 14/07/2014

I feel that life is most beautiful not knowing the reality behind it. The deep devotion, the enlightening emotion we had for someone by superficial observation is beautiful, and we must not dig deeper than that. I was having this thought after talking to Mr. Kamala. This was the eightieth times in two years and three months I spotted him, all by mere chances, in front of the same old pharmacy, Goodwill Medicines.

Mr. Kamala (I had known his name just a few weeks back) was rather an odd fellow you would naturally spot even in big crowds. He wore the same pairs of trousers  round the seasons, an old red shirt, and a pair of chapals whose soles were disfigured like a half eaten slice bread. He had an Aryan nose and thick, dry lips connected by unattended moustaches, and his empty eyes were housed beneath untidy hairs, as untidy as rodent nests. He was quite an odd fellow. He walked with his left hand on his chest, as if checking his heart beat, with slow pace, staring at things with detachments. It was difficult, not to look at him with pity when his whole sad face and structure seemed to circle only around that small polythene bag with syrups and tablets. I took him to be a very sick fellow, and I felt sad for the burden that rested on his shoulders and my heart was filled with pity. Soon enough, I made a good note of him, whenever I chanced to meet him, and kept a good track of the pharmacies he most visited, people he talked to the most, or anything else that would get me nearer to him.

We were taught that we should not talk to strangers, and in this modern century, we practice individualism, for we feel it’s the safest. This can be ascribed to the insecurities we have and the unknown belief that something  bad is more imminent than good. And, maybe it was this insecurity that made him shoo away every time I tried talking to him. I had made an attempt to speak to him ten times, and every time he was more careful; on the tenth attempt, he ran away just the moment he saw me from a distance. I did not blame him, but to the consequences of the lacking of sensible values in some of the things we were taught to believe, which for that matter made us to do ridiculously the sensible, or sensibly the ridiculous. I never had the chance to talk to him until very recently.

I took him to be a poorer fellow in being spotted by me; I did not give up my digging on him. I did not want to leave him before knowing the sickness that had troubled him. I was so emotionally attached pitifully to him that I was ready to help him, in any possible way from my side but I needed to know his sufferings. A week back, I went to Goodwill Pharmacies (the pharmacy he visited the most) and asked the pharmacy-keeper, Mr. Saha about Mr. Kamala.

I asked, “This short, mustached fellow who regularly purchased medicines from here, what is his problem?”     

Mr. Saha said, “You mean to ask me about Mr. Kamala?”    

“I don’t know his name, but he always wears red shirt, disfigured chapals?”

He said, “You are right. He is Mr. Kamala. His father is having some chronic sickness and he fully nursed him.”

My regards for Mr. Kamala suddenly soared from mere pity to highest respect. He had been shouldering the sickness of his father, keeping himself away from any luxuries or debonair. His dedications taught me an emotional enlightenment that the goodness of men could not be judged by mere appearances, that ageless morality is not necessarily found in books, but on the regular men and women we come across in our walks of life.  

I asked Mr. Saha with interest, “Can you tell me about Mr. Kamala?” to which he barely had the time to reply for he was dead busy with customers.

I said, “Can we meet on Sunday, 7:30 PM at Chinese Corners?”

He replied, “Okay!” and my mind asked whether he was serious, for if he did not turn up, something was going to be really undone in me. To my surprise, on Sunday, Mr. Saha turned up at 7:30 PM and approached directly towards the table where I sat.

He said, “Still burdened up by this Mr. Kamala?”

I said, “More than the puzzling Flight 370.”

He continued, “This Mr. Kamala is the strangest customer I have, the most dedicated poor chap I had seen. He abhors everything about himself or the world except his sick father. As far as I know from his acquaintances, they were quite well-to-do when his father was in his prime. They had a big shop in the most luxuriant spots of the city, and he and his sister were enrolled in the best school, until when he reached class XII, and his sister class X, their mother died with any warning. Within one year after that, his father caught up with some kind of sickness and most times, Mr. Kamala would take him to outside states for treatments. In the process money flew out like airs, financial instability grew. They reached a point where they need to sell their shop.”

“It is the worst of stories.”

“Yes, it is. The money from selling the shop was also soon exhausted and his father’s condition worsens. Changes from richness to poorness made her sister to get married to a guy, who people said is a good man.”

“How can his sister be so unkind? Can Kamala accept her acts?” I asked.

Mr. Saha said, “What do you have in your mind, leaving our sick father? Kamala asked her, and her sister replied that she was sick and tired of everything, that she felt it was more sensible to run towards her future with the guy. Kamala was furious and told her to run along in her future and warned her that there can be no future, leaving a sick father that he would rather nurse his father, the only god he can see for real.”

I said, “Poor Kamala! This is what has been troubling him. I sensed that, I sensed that first moment I saw him in your pharmacy, but I thought he was the one who is sick? But I feel now he is the best of humanity, he is a walking god among us.”

Mr. Saha, eating his noodles said, “You are right! He is one kind soul.”

Last Saturday, when I saw Mr. Kamala slowing pacing into Goodwill Medicines for the eightieth times, I ambushed him. He tried running away as usual, but Mr. Saha told him not to think it otherwise.

I told him politely, “I have been observing you. You are one kind man. Don’t worry god will bless you. Here, take this one thousand rupees note, as a token of my devotion to your cause and your faithfulness.”

He looked at me in surprise. Then he hurriedly took the banker’s note. We walked the flight of stairs, leaving the busy Mr. Saha. We happened to be more comfortable in each other’s company this time round.

I said, “Kamala, your story has inspired me, looking after your sick father even when your sister deserted him?”

He said gladly, “My sister? She is the greatest sister, I have seen. If it is not for her and her husband, I would have sold my house a long time back.”

I was perplexed, but excused him on his replies since I believed that good men like Kamala would not say anything bad about anyone, especially his own sister. To divert from the annoying story about her sister, I asked, “What is your father suffering from?”

He replied, “Asthma”

“Oh my god! You must be spending a lot by now?”

He said, sadly, “A lot and he would have been alright a long time back if he pays heed to my advice.”

“And what is that?”

“He is a chain smoker, and he cannot give up smoking. Thanks for the money.”

!!!A CLOSED OPENING CEREMONY!!!!

15.06.2014

I did not know the reality of it back then, my father used to say I am so busy, flesh and mind, I forgot days. I sometimes forgot even to eat. Those were the time in my high school, when I toiled hard for the holidays. During high school, you did not lose count of the holidays----the Puja holidays, the Easters holidays or the Christmas Eve or the actual Christmas. The regular Saturdays and Sundays? They were printed in our brain.

 Dad! Today is Sunday. What about the promised meat curry every Sunday?

History repeats itself, maybe really, at least for me. After 35+ of my life, I just happen to retrace the life of my father. I forgot days. And, more often than my father, I forgot to eat. So unfortunate for me!! My father was born macho, big bones, big head with dark skin. Any damn skipping of food for any damn day did not lessen his built a bit. But alas!, for me, even one less handful of food below my regular diet has its tolls. I grow thinner. Very bad.

Like Father, Like Son: it is true.  However, I seemed an exception. I am like my father only in some certain ways, and on those things I could not be like him are the things that derailed me strongly. For instance, being born thin and short.

I talk about something else, when the real topic is World Cup 2014. On second thought, I think of deleting the first two paragraphs and start straight to the topic. But I cannot do that….. yheeeuuu!, I have my father as a benchmark. Good or bad, I only have to retrace it back from my father, who gave me life, and success and failure, remembrance and forgetfulness, smiles and tears, and more, just like his life was.

World Cup 2014! I have waited for so long, for a good four years. You see World Cups grew so inherent in us that we instinctively waited eagerly whether we realize it or not. Any World Cup ended with more expectation of vigour and excitements  and you just stretched your mind to the next world cup, 4 years away, into the future.

I clearly remember those World Cups during school days. We considered it as a must watch. As children and teenagers, we did not know much of the World Cups. But the airs it spread told us it is a must watch. We would wait till 1 a.m., 2a.m., even till 3 a.m., mostly not for the game, but for current to come. I always cheered for Argentina, I don’t know why? (Maybe my father cheered for them or maybe because of Maradona). I still remember the blue-white stripes T-shirt they wore. You know! Some things can be really crazy-after, and you are just in the spirit without knowing the spirit and without knowing much why?

I did not miss a single action of World Cup 2010, from opening ceremony to the end. I was in Shillong, and the hotel where I stayed was fuming with the spirit. Good! I had plenty of other guests to remind me. I watched every match and every move with absorption.

I am hassled by life now (Like my father was). I forget the opening day of the World Cup, the 12^th June, 2014, once in the 35+ years of my life. It was weird.  Fortunately, on the day my wife informed me through phone. I left my office at 6 PM, and reached my place at 6:30. I felt the house was empty or rather emptier. World Cup night and empty house? Very odd! (It is my first experience) Back then, fathers, mothers, teenagers and children would sit around a TV, late into the night, cheering.

I called all my friends to come to our house, to celebrate the opening ceremony. I called up Johnny Tusing and Peter Tryte. They already glued to their TV and barely even have time to talk to me. I was so unsuccessful in inviting them.  I called up my native place, asking whether they will watch it. You know! It used to be a competition to watch the world cup ceremony.

Desperate situation demand desperate measures. And my friend Lalsiesang Inbuonz came up to my house from his lonely hole. It was 9:00 PM. He felt bored watching with his Land Lord, so he came out of his lonely hole to us.

He switched on the TV. No pictures. Only then did I realize that the TATA SKY had been kept uncharged, dormant. Oh! What a forgetting!!

This had been our practice for a year now. My wife and I did not have time to watch TV and so we would keep our TATA SKY uncharged, dormant, and make it active only when we have guests by recharging through the internet. It was easy, and always successful. 

My wife pulled out the laptop, humming an eager sound of World Cup 2014, and tried recharging it. She tried three times and every time was a message: server error, refresh the page. I was sweating, time was running out. I soon found out that the TATASKY website was jammed, not the fault of the laptop or internet. We tried, tried and tried again and this time not only with a laptop but with two internet phones. Still JAM, JAM, BLOCK, BLOCK, everywhere, and I felt like an eternity was lost. We called up dukans and friends for the recharge, but everyone reply the line is so slow, I cannot do it.

I give up, but my wife did not. She tried maybe ten times. At last she proclaimed ka recharge thei ta. HUI HA!! I got a message: Thank you for recharging your TATA SKY with Rs. 600. Now available balance is Rs. 603.

But the TV was blank. I changed the channel, no signal. I rushed out to turn the disk, no help. We then called up the TATASKY customer service. They were polite, but not polite like other times.  Business! Right? There was such a demand for their signal for world cup 2014, even to reach them, to make payment was a Herculean task. I told the customer guy my problem. He said that I called him very late and that the problem will be solved between 11 AM and 7 PM the following day. I asked him, that’s it. He said that’s it. I want to say F**K Y*U, M****r F****r, but I don’t say out. I played with my patience. As I had worked at the Call Center, I know that every conversation are recorded and the more he can satisfy me (or the more I appeared to be satisfied) means more positive points for him. I just feel pity for him to spoil his points…. you know! I guess I could be the angriest, but softest TATASKY customer that calls TATASKY customer guy in the most important night of 2014.

I detected something. The tree leaves were tall over the disk. I asked myself, Why to live in the most forested state in NE. Siesang Inbuonz climbed the tree and cut the branches of the tree. But still no signal.

The end result was a world cup night with no TV signal. I didn’t understand.

The following day, one fine young man called me up, to repair the TATASKY. I dashed out of my work. He was there waiting for me near the round gate. He opened his airbag, took out strange equipments (I surveyed at them closely if I know anything about the equipments. You see I should know how to fix my TATASKY for World Cup 2018). He was one real hard worker in this place of the world; he tried five, six, seven times, maybe, running between the TV and the disk. The signal was full, but no pictures. He gave up. He told me to call up the customer service to ask for REALLOCATION OF THE DISK, for which I didn’t have any more time and patience for. BULL SHIT!  I said to him WC happened only after every 4 years, and we ended up not watching anything the previous night, and that if we were to start afresh from calling customer supports it was going to take another week.

He put aside his packed bag and asked, Sir, aap ke paas dau (Knife) he? I ask, can you climb trees? (My worries are that if he falls, my responsibility). Kawsish ka runga. He cut the branches, in fact, only three small branches, and the signal was okay. And then he started complaining (Just as I had expected).  Mera kam to kya hai? Ek din ghar ka upar zaia ga! Ek din peer ke upaar! Dusra admi aiaga to, bahut daar pahla choor re ga!!

I was feeling with emotions, what a job, but I didn’t show it.

I paid him 100 rupees, but he asked, Customer care lok ne ketna paisa dene ke liya bola hai…sir? (He was expecting more). I kept quiet. (I want to say, customer care didn’t mention anything about money. That’s charity from my end. Shut up and go!).  He earned too much for the day, cutting three small branches and 100 rupees.

We watched World Cup 2014 highlights from the second day. All the teams whom I supported were losing.

Greece…..how can they lose? I learn Pythogorus, Athens, Olumpus, Marathon from them. They shaped the world and they left it? (Ha, maybe I confined only to the small history I had learnt). England lost. Who invented the game football and cricket, England…isn’t it?

I got a call from a friend from Delhi. I asked him if he watched the World Cup ceremony. He said that there was load shedding and missed the whole of it.

And then I said to myself that everything is 50-50. I opened the refrigerator and took my favourite 50-50 biscuits. Deforestation and afforestation. I missed the first night of WC because of afforestation here in Tripura. People in Delhi missed the same because of deforestation, maybe? Everything is 50-50. The factories and the greenery; the scarcity and the plentiful. What is there is not here. What is here is not there. And life rolls on and on.

Oh! Today was Fatherʼs day. Oh! No! No! At least not this time on this type of a day!!!

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

 Stephan C. Hmar, Agartala, 14.05.2014

My father said that his father (my grandfather) was the second or third earliest believer  among  us. Separations left him alone, he stayed with his belief, his God, and did not follow any of his colleagues that fluttered like chaffs in the wind of changes. He was faithful to his original Mission.

He said he was one of the earliest mission pensioners of our original Mission….

I said to myself, “Oh! Another story….. Dad! Give me a break!! ”

My father could study my thoughts from my looks, that I am most interested in the unknown, the delights or the tears it brings. So, he deliberately changed his topic, and started speaking about the unreality of the unknown, in a way I could understand and stay awake.

I arranged my pillow, straightened my neck. My ears started to grow bigger.

He took a deep breath and continued…..

That was during 1910 through 1912. People heard the story of the son of God from missionaries and started giving up their regular ritual of slaughtering animals to pacify spirits. As the spirits knew they were fighting a loosing battle, they attacked the new believers in their most violent ways. It was the time when spirits physically fought the new believers.

One evening, he said, my grandfather was walking along a deserted road in the village with the Bible in his hand. (It was a practice, then, for the new believers, to carry a Bible, as spirits confronted them anywhere). He saw a dark shadowed faceless form approaching from the opposite direction. He, at once, knew it was an evil spirit, but he kept on walking advising himself not to be scared. When they met in the middle of the road, the faceless form grabbed my grandfather on the chest, put the smelly black leg  against him and pushed him. My grandfather was thrown backward. The whole space was filled with nasty, irritating smell. He held back his ground fearlessly and looked around for the faceless, smelly form.  But, like the quickness of a lightning, it had disappeared right under that opened sights and spaces in that half-dark evening.

My father said, “That was the story of your grandfather as told by himself! You see! Believe in God, and don’t look back and even evil spirit will not be able to harm you. They will disappear in thin air….”

He told me that the only thing that remained in his childhood home was poverty.  They depended on the seasonal jhuming farm (where they grow rice and crops) on the slopes of hills in those thickly forested landscapes, far away from the village. The success or failure of the farm depended on the unpredictable monsoon.

The first time when he went to their jhum farm alone, he was 15 years old. It was nearing the harvest season, and he needed to keep guard of paddy and crops from wild animals.

The sky was moonless and he was in the farm hut, making fire, to chase away wild animals. The fire made a reddish sphere, enveloped by an unimaginable darkness, in the middle of nowhere, far far away from the village.  The reddish sphere blinded his eyes to see anything across the swaying paddy field. He looked out across the darkness. He could see one big man approaching the hut. He could not believe his eyes. He rubbed them and looked at it again. The approaching man was bigger and walking faster.

Quickly he put off  the fire, and stayed quietly in the darkness, trying to notice any sound of footsteps. There was no sound, except the sound of the swaying paddy field. He peeked through  the window again. Still, he could see the man approaching. He was almost scared to death. He hid behind the thatched wall.  

He was enveloped by the eternity of fear of the unknown man. He knew he was going to die anyway and a thought came that he must prove the man that was going to kill him.

He then took his slingshot and shot at the approaching man. No sound, except the  sound of the sling stone over the field. He  shot him maybe five, six times. He was still approaching him.

Then, my father took his big knife, walked out of the hut and approached the approaching death. He walked nearer, the man too, walked nearer. When my father came face to face with him, he cut the man right on the neck.

Then, there was this strange knock in his head, knocking him back to senses.

He said when he came back to sense, he realized that he cut the half burnt tree right in the middle of the field.

And then he looked at me, and said, “You see! Don’t be scared. Move forward. Things may appear big, difficult, scary or deadly. If you sum up your bravery and courage, they will be as timid as that half burnt tree, which I mistook for approaching man.”

He would tell me, not of the tribes unrealistic folklore or myth, but of his own experiences in flesh and blood. And he would try to hand over me the morals linked to each of them.

Handed over the morals from his experience?

That was what bored my innocent mind. From my kindergarten to class X (the time when I was with him) in that sweet hometown was filled with tales from him---from the Bible, from his father, his childhood adversities and more.  I was fed-up, to be filled with tales of morals and I was ready to explode like a balloon.

More and more, I wanted to run away from his known morality. I don’t want to live in his shadow. I don’t want to live a borrowed life. Why can't I live a free life as I wish?

I tried running away from his life and from him to mine. I really tried hard! But the more I ran into mine, I see his life in me. His moralities were induced in me. Perhaps, that could be why I don’t seem to give much attention to my own. At times, it seems I am not living for myself, but just for his moralities.

Was my father doing so wrong, to his son by telling him everything, so that I will tell those stories to other people? Indeed, he wronged, and left me empty. He left me empty like a barrel filled with his stories. He left me not having any story of my own.  

Today I am telling some of the stories in brief, but it took my father 70 years to experience them and 10 years to tell them to me to the smallest details and particulars. And today, against my will, those stories let me say out the thing I had never liked to say: My father is the greatest story teller to me.

I am going to be forty years old now. My father died six years ago. I could not go to his funeral even. Death took him away from me. Today, long after my father is gone, I began to know the greatness of my father as a story teller. My father must have suffered so many awfully great things in his life and in his later stage, has something to tell me. He had left me with plenty, of course, plenty of stories that I don’t have any of my own to write----only his.

THE END

A Babel Story for the Real Babels?

Last month for one long week I had a strange headache, not that kind of headache that would get all right by popping Stopache or Sinarest tablets.

The headache started dramatically from the different sounds I heard. First, those sounds itched my ear lobes, and then vibrated my eardrums and the electrical waves that travelled through my brain produced that headache.

The pain was severe. Considering only the pain, It was serious enough to consult a medicine doctor. But I knew the doctor (after knowing the reason) would refer me to a psychiatrist, who would in turn refer me to a neurologist, who in turn would say that I have a unique headache, and would, in turn, refer me to doctors of outside state.    

That was the only reason why I did not consult a doctor. No one wants to look foolish, you know!!

Huuusssshh! Why do I remember that headache-week, only now? Flop-things should be forgotten…isn't it?

But as I had already started, I better finish it. It is always better, way better to finish what we start.

And here, the story of the headache goes.....

Last month was very hectic for me: Office works, everyday household problems, problems relating to far-ones, etc. piled up. It was very hard and dull to carry on unless you take a leave to set them aside. So I took one week’s leave, with a station leave permission.

I then visited the native side of the state to meet my own people who have a short, blunt nose like mine; narrowed eyes, short stout legs; who also eat my favourite Sodium bicarbonate (soda) curries, smelly fermented fish, fermented pork fats; who would not think even for another second to eat anything that crawls and fly in the sky.  

My whole eagerness could be noted down in one sentence: No place is better than the land of similarity, where even differences come out from this similarity. 

I was eager like a child going to his favourite toy shops, where he will get his heart’s other half.

First, I went to my good Kokborok friend. He had been such a good friend (mainly because we could share thoughts with each other in English) and I wanted to say hi!, to his family. My friend had informed me through the phone he would not be home because of official duty, and that I could see them in his absence and it would not make any difference. 

He was wrong…..

I knocked the door, an old woman opened the door. I said, "Mami, hum Stephan, tera larka ka dost, milne ke liye aia," with my sweetest smiles.

She looked startled, not understanding, not smiling, with noticeable headache. After staring at me like an alien, she said, "Phai-di! Phai-di!"

I thought she was talking about a big flat land somewhere. Phai, in my Hmar dialect means a flat land.

I still tried my best. I switched on to my dialect with action, like a man singing action song. "Kei ka hming Setefan! In naupa ruolpa..I hriet am ka trawng?" (My name is Stephan, a friend of your son. Can you understand my language?)

She had a perfect headache then. My sound triggered her earlobes, and then the eardrums and then the brain, which, at last, attacked her skull.

She said, "Maya!Maya!," and then she looked at me with an interrogatiive expression, "Ani kok bujiya?"(Do you understand our language?)

The only words that created senses in my head was the words Maya!Maya! I read somewhere! Maya reads something like illusion. (I found later on, what she meant was "I don’t know! I don't know!")

Then the symptom of headache started on me, too. My earlobes itch, and then vibrated and the sound waves attacked my head.

I tried, still, at my level best. "Hindi samasta?

"Phaidi! Phaidi!," (come!come!) and she pointed towards the chair.

The next minute, father came, we shook hands, all family members came to meet me, we all shook hands. We all smiled (or tried to smile) with our sweetest smiles and talked to each other in sign language, like deaf people. 

I was a horrible situation. It was the widest gap in the whole universe between two people who wanted to be so close---We don’t understand each other.  

I went out of the house, exceedingly used, without understanding anything.

I just started my holiday inning, and it started with a terrible headache. Would I go back home and cancel my leave? I thought.

I had known Halam tribe years ago. I also knew from someone that they claimed themselves to come from mountain road, and thus called themselves Halam, just like my tribe Hmar, who called ourselves as people coming from North.

I wanted to give a next try. I visited my other good Halam friend.

This time my approach was different. I did not talk with the family, I asked my friend to teach me Halam dialect first.

Bu I fak ta? (Do you take your food?)

Bu maw na nek zai?

It sounded like Hmar olden songs.

Kan trawng I hriet ? (Do you understand our dialect?)

Kan chong na riet maw?

What a similarity!, to create such difference!

Ka hriet nawh. (I don’t know)

Riet naing.

He said there are 19 Halam sub-tribe, having a slight different dialect, then Debbarma, Tripuri, Reang, Jamatia, Chakma, Garo, Kuki. Maybe more.

"Oh!" I said, "What a headache to have different dialects when language is the only instrument to express emotions."

He bowed.

I said that everywhere we are the same. In my home place, there are the Hmars, the Paite, the Kukis, the Zos, the Gangtes, the Lushais, the Simtes. I don’t know all…

And then I said, "English is not just a trend! It is a way to unifying us."

I had head ached more to say that! The story of the tower of Babel from the Bible came to my mind. And then more headache.

God came to see their city and the tower they were building. He perceived their intentions, and in His infinite wisdom, He knew this "stairway to heaven" would only lead the people away from God. He noted the powerful force within their unity of purpose. As a result, God confused their language, causing them to speak different languages so they would not understand each other. By doing this, God thwarted their plans. He also scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.

Today, I wonder, why is God so artistic in making us speak different dialects?

All my brothers and sisters are different only for one thing---dialects. I am as strange to them as much as they are strange to me.  The more I wanted to be with them, more headache for me, and more headache for them, too!

Next holiday, I will try to find the cure for my headache, in my own dialect!

Salah!