Commixed |
Like a statue I stand outside my house, caught there by the rays of the setting sun. My feet feel like they do not have any muscle to move. It is only a single bone covered with skin. I feel like a snowman, immobile, built at the door of my house, starting to melt in the slight heat from the sun. The sun would disappear soon to put a spotlight on the moon, and the chilly breeze would blow again, leaving me to stand there like an ice candy that melted and refroze in its packet. My gaze extends to an infinite point underground. Behind white net curtains at the door, my eyes are emotionless. I look into my room and see all the things there being taken away by a stranger. He is a thief, who drags a huge bag behind him to keep in it all that is mine or rather, all that is me. He picks up my pieces, and puts them in his bag.
I suddenly feel free to move, as if the sun’s grip on me has slid off. I walk into my room through the curtains, with its soft touch caressing on my face. My room looks a little dingy, and untidy, and has wooden and bamboo furniture that has withered off. The stranger ignores my presence and continues to collect everything that I own, and things that I kept carefully for years in boxes of various sizes that I collected from all over India. There were the papier-mâché boxes from Rajasthan, walnut wood boxes from Kashmir, and golden grass (Kaincha) weave boxes from Orissa. They were all meticulously arranged like showpieces on shelves and on tables, and each one had one thing special to me, but now they were vanishing from my room. I walk towards the stranger, but slowly. I try to stop his hand from picking up my boxes, and other items from my shelves, tables and my cupboard, but it seems like my hand does not have enough strength to stop his hand. I use all the force that I have, but I am invisible to him, and he has unquestionable intentions. Failing several times in my attempt to save myself from being stolen, I look away from the man, and see the door. In the flickering dull yellow light close to the face, it is another me, standing behind the white curtains, gazing into the distance. Then that gaze shifts, and she looks up. She sees the evening sky, pinkish and slightly cloudy. I am running on a railway track behind a man, whose identity is not clear. I run, and keep running, but in a while I lose him, as I slow down. The harsh sunlight of the afternoon has drained me out. I gasp for breath, and as it returns, someone pushes me, and I lose consciousness. I keep travelling between my conscious and my sub-conscious mind. I see flashes of faces of people I know in between complete darkness. Then another time my eyes open for a few seconds, and I see green, and then the setting sun behind the glistening golden snow. I am waking up, and realise that I am rolling down a steep meadow. I reach a plane, and I halt. Standing up dizzy, I see my boxes all around me. They are all open, and all that was inside them is gone. Still, they don’t seem wrecked or neglected. They lie securely and comfortably on the velvet meadow. I sit in that vastness among the bare boxes with a blank mind. There is a sense of loss, but relief is more. It feels like I have been born again, and that everything around me and inside me is new. Everything waits for me to be occupied again, and to be kept in a warm and cosy bed, of thoughts that arise from a newly evolved mind. I see her, the other me, peeping through a window with white net curtains gently pleated to the sides with blue satin ribbons. She looks at me looking back at her. She is jaded now since the last time I saw her. She pushes open the window, and fades away in the breeze. I lie on my back with the boxes all around me, to look up to see a mackerel sky painted with a tint of pink.
0 Comments
Inspired by Macbeth The night sky peeped in from an opening between the dark faces of the mountains that circumscribed a small wooden house and just beside it, a miniature terrace of wheat. The house stood solitary, separate from the rest of the village houses that were built on the other side of the mountain. As the wind swirled inside this funnel, travelling from the sky to the infinite blackness below the house, the rustle of the husk of the crop echoed and rode the hollowness of the wind. Even inside the house with bolted windows and doors, the wind could be felt in the crackling of the century old pine wood panelling of the crumbling house, and also through the chimney over the fluttering flames in the furnace. This was the only audible element that Garjan noticed the presence of in the house, besides the usual crickets, sporadic dry coughs of Nanima, and the sound of aluminium utensils being slid, lifted and dragged around once in a while in the kitchen by Amma. He was a lean boy with dark brown serious eyes and a sharp nose. He had his Science book open in front of him, as his final exams for class five were going to start in two days, but till Amma wouldn’t come and give him a beating, he would remain to be ignorant of the existence of the book. He always failed to understand all that was taught to him, because every day after coming back home from the chaos and excitement in school, when he sat down to gather in his head the lessons taught in class, he experienced for long hours the high pitched disturbing sound of silence. It would break only when his mother would return late in the evenings exhausted from an entire day’s physical domestic work on a pakdandi over the peak. She had the physique and hands of a labourer. Wrinkles had begun to appear on her face, and the coarse skin of her firm hands had sagged a bit. As she entered, the feel of spoken words was relaxing to Garjan’s ears, but in this too, he did not find relief. “Saara din peeth tod ke aao, aur ye saahab wahaan let ke sapne dekh rahe hain. Doosre ne to bas saunp diya hai mujhe in dono ko sambhaalne ka kaam. Wo khud ghar na hi aaye to khoob hai!” Bhama had become very frustrated lately. Garjan could recall spending enjoyable time with her till just a few months back when his parents had a tremendous argument. Lying down on his stomach with his head resting on the book, and entangled in the memories of the joys that seemed lost somewhere deep down the past, he is brought back to the present with the murmurings of his mother. He could hear only fragments of whatever she spoke to herself while washing utensils. She mumbled, “yahaan kya bachaa hai…ghar pe to rehta nahi…baarish bhi…khet bhi saara khatam…” Garjan tried to distract himself from the constant muttering of insignificant and almost incomprehensible succession of words. He squinched his eyes and face to look through the mud streaks on the cracked glass window behind the rusted iron grill, but no matter how hard he tried, he could see only the darkness of the night and the soft reflection of the warm light from the fire behind him. The orange glow in the glass gave him a temporary comfort, so he kept his eyes fixed at it. Just as he started to feel drowsy, and his eyes started to roll into sleep, he heard the sound of ghunghrus. It was her, the one who wandered across mountains in the night, with her feet facing a direction opposite to her destination. She was the one whom all feared, as the one who would see her would be stolen of all the years left in life. She would exist till people would continue to see her. Sleep was the only thing that could save one from her, but it was much past Garjan’s time to sleep. Tales about her were recited in each house to each kid several times like a nursery rhyme. Dhokar bojh jo pairon mein Chale wo do do ore Dikhe to mukti de de Chura ke ik ik saal Just as it was repeating in Garjan’s head, with his eyes now transfixed at the foggy and bitter cold window in fear, he saw a black figure pass from the outside. A gentle walk seemed so ferocious when at night it was accompanied with the periodic thumping of unnatural bare feet on the ground with a single tone reverberating from the ghunghrus wrapped around the ankles. The sound had faded away, and as Garjan recalled his ability to speak, and brought words to his mind and tongue, he realised that his mother had not heard anything out of the ordinary, as she was still mumbling, “…kya samajhtaa…ghar aayega beech raat…khaana…mauj mein…haath uthakar…chala kyun nahi jaata?” In shock and frustration Garjan erupted. “Amma, to main bhi chala jaata hoon na. Waise bhi mujhe yahaan nahi rehna. Appa ko to kuchh farak padega nahi. Shayad unko pata bhi na chale ki main chala gaya hoon. Aaj kal tum bhi kahin khoyi rehti ho. Baat bhi nahi karti mujhse. Mujhe padhna achha bhi lagne lage na to bhi nahi padh sakta main yahaan. Bhaag jaaoonga main ek din yahaan se. Tum sab se door. Dhoondhna chahoge bhi to nahi miloonga. Nanima bhi aaj kal beemar rehti hain. Kuchh din mein tumhe kisiko nahi sambhaalna padega. Phir jo tum karna chaahti ho kar sakti ho. Koi tumko nahi rokega.” As Garjan was hypnotically letting out emotions that had been pecking at his brain, and playing with his nerves, Bhama walked towards him and took him in her arms. As if in a Trans, he continued with the explosion of words even with his face tucked hard into his mother’s chest. Amma gradually rocked along with him to make him calm down. With the meditativeness of the steady motion of their bodies, Bhama could feel her uncontainable eyes that were tightly squeezed shut, but would open any moment to the uncensored stream of tears. She could sense her own suffering in her child. Garjan’s voice faded into silence, and they both sat on the cushioned settee in absolute stillness, merged into each other, as if the child still lay in her womb. Then, Garjan heard the ghunghrus again. Before he could turn around to look at his mother for answers, they both jerked up to alertness, hearing a loud thud from the creaking door of the house that would have banged on the adjacent weak pine. Nanima also hauled her head up from the pillow only to realise the weakness of her muscles which gave way in that reflexive moment itself. They could hear the abrupt movement of feet over the wooden flooring, and they all knew that Gaurav had returned. Along with his drunken body came the wind that had earlier been much less frozen, and had found its way in only through cracks in the walls. Now, the house was full with the darkness outside. The compensation provided by the starry sky was also not present inside. Not a father, but an intruder he seemed to be. The serenity with which everyone in the house lay, transformed into repulsion and disgust. Bhama got up throwing her black woollen shawl on the settee, and with heavy steps she paced towards the kitchen to her left-over work for the night. The pungent scent from Appa struck all of Garjan’s senses, so he swiftly moved towards the open door to purify himself by drowning in the gush of the numbing freshness of the wind. He stood there even after he was unable to move his jaws or feel his hands. In the days, silence pierced him, and in the nights he searched for niches in the house where he could find it, but this day was different. In his mother’s arms, he had found peace in the silence of the day, so now he hoped for peace in the same arms in the night, from the muffled shouts in the wooden house. The yelling had started to reach its peak now. Bhama’s voice rose. “Chalo sheher. Kitni baar bola hai maine tumko. Ye ghar jis din gir jaayega sar pe, kya us din samajh aayega tumhe?” Gaurav’s face was a burnt brown due to the strong sun. He had been farming in the other side of the village, on a businessman’s land, for the past ten years. His wrinkled and sagging cheeks now matched the colour of his eyes, swollen with the drinks he had had with his friends in the field. He shouted, “Ammaji bhi to padi hain yahaan takhat par, tooti phooti, saalon purani. Inhen bhi chhod do yahaan, jaise is ghar ko chhodna chahti ho!” Bhama noticed Garjan’s pale face peeping in from the door, and hoped that soon he would be relieved of this noise. Bhama wetted her cracked lips with her tongue, and knowing that Garjan could hear her clearly, she responded to Gaurav. “Tumhe is ghar se zyaada pyaar hai ya hum se? Garjan ka socha hai kabhi? Uski padhai pe dhyaan diya hai? Aaj kal man nahi lagta uska kitabon mein. Aur lagega bhi kaise… saara din to hum kaam pe rehte hain aur thak ke raat ko aate hain. Wo bhi kyun? Kyunki ye tumhaari pyaari sookhi zameen kuchh deti nahi humein, aur is ghar ko khada rakhe rehne ke liye wo kamaaye huye paise bhi dene padte hain.” “Tumhaari yaadein nahi meri yaadein judi hain is ghar se. Paison se zyaada, mera bachpan keemti hai mere liye. Paida hua tha yahaan, to maroonga bhi yahaan.” Saying this, Gaurav stomped and went out the back door, into the small garden, almost falling to the ground in his state of partial consciousness. In this chaos, Garjan had entered the room and had crouched under Nanima’s bed. He sat there, trying to still feel the gentleness of her mother’s arms that were wrapped around him a while ago. He hugged himself tightly for there was no one else to make him feel better. The love that he had felt a few moments back now dissolved into the voices that only sounded like murmurs through the bony fingers that clutched his ears tightly. His eyes were squeezed shut so hard that he now could only see behind his eyelids patches of red and maroon. He tried to focus only on the creaking sounds that came from over his head, when Nanima shifted in her bed. Just as Garjan had blocked off all the other sounds, the creaking of the bed transformed into a painful moan from his grandmother. This broke Garjan’s concentration, and with a jerk he opened his eyes. He sat there quietly for a while, waiting for another moan, unsure if he had really heard it the first time. A brown blanket draped down from the bed, so he wasn’t able to see anyone. He only could hear heavy footsteps on the wooden floor. So, he lay down on the cold floor and lifted the blanket, slightly. A pair of tired eyes, just above the ground, looked around. They saw Gaurav standing at the edge of the garden below which were only rocks and darkness, and then moved to Bhama, who continued angrily, “Ye wo hai jisne hum sab ko yahaan baandh ke rakha hai, jisne Amma ko manaa kar diya mujhe sheher le jaane ke liye, aur is toote huye ghar mein rehne ko majboor kar diya.” The eyes travelled out the door, and into the garden. They watched Gaurav take hesitant steps over the loose mud at the periphery of the garden. Then, a black figure dashed at a blinding speed, and with the sound of ghunghrus bouncing off stones and fading into the depth, Gaurav vanished. Garjan ran to the end of the garden, and looked down. It was all black. He bent down and picked up his father’s red shirt that had ripped off, and was now stuck on the stem of a dead plant. Hearing sudden movements and sounds from the garden, Bhama ran out of the house. For a moment she thought that she saw Gaurav, but soon realised that it was Garjan with Gaurav’s deep red shirt in his hands, flowing down to the ground. Bhama’s strong body dropped to the knees, lifeless. Garjan lifelessly walked away, without turning or stopping. He walked out into the soulless night, and moved straight up on the mud tracks, into the forest. The night grew darker than the black he ever knew. The stormy wind was carrying Garjan through the deodars, when he saw something black and slender behind one of the trunks. It growled into the winter night. Bhama’s numb eyes were shocked by the redness that hung from Garjan’s hands. She had been hearing Ammaji cough for a long time, but hadn’t been able to move. Now, the coughing had stopped, and so had the creaking of the bed. The storm was getting stronger, and Bhama could hardly keep her eyes open. She got up and walked towards the point where Garjan had stood. She could see the red cloth in his hands. She tried to pull it out, but was unable to. She could see it, and feel it, but she felt helpless. She tugged at it, but Garjan’s hands held it so tightly that all her efforts went in vain. She lost the strength to see her innocent child who had become someone she had created for a better life, that seemed much further away than it was yesterday. She had to destroy this creation. She had to throw away that red shirt that rippled in the wind. With all her speed she ran to push him down. There was no one there, her steps were much too quick, and the grass was too wet with dew to have made a halt possible. Waves of sand particles were gently flirting with the straw roof, and distracting it from its lazy afternoon basking, when Suraj stepped out from the natural air conditioning of his mud house. He could feel the sand caress his cheeks, welcoming him into the world of its dunes. He scrunched his nose and rubbed it vigorously with his index finger, after sniffing in a few fleeting particles from the air. He squinted and gazed far into the distance, noticing the low intensity of the wind. There was a soft and warm breeze which traversed the expanse of the landscape. The sand skimming off the loose edges of the crescent-shaped dunes dissolved the starkness of the seemingly unchanging relief of the land and the crispness of the impeccable blue sky. Suraj stood there looking around, trying to trace the source of the curious sound of rain that faded into the unobstructed landscape. Pressing his lips together, and curling up his thick black moustache he listened in wonder. His dense eyebrows lifted up, revealing deep lines on his forehead. In his leather jootis he went around his hut, and the rain seemed to get heavier and sharper. He turned further and found an aluminium pot lying on the bed of sand under the three feet high mud wall that surrounded his hut. The sand was slashing on the surface of the pot, and getting reflected off of it, making the sound that had not been heard for several weeks. It had been a dry month and an even drier month had approached. December had begun, and with it was going to arrive winter. The only vegetation that was left was the bunch of Khejri trees that Suraj had planted a couple of years back. He goes to the city Mokal, once a month, with bags of dried sangri, the fruits from this tree, and sells them at quite high rates. The fruit then gets distributed to markets in Jaisalmer. The wood from this tree served as fuel wood and after separating out the fruit to be sold, there was enough left for Suraj and Bhanuprasad. Bhanuprasad was his closest friend in this village of Kalibhar, which was a vast blanket of sand at the Indian side of the border in the district of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. Winters were harsh times as it hardly rained, so all they had was to survive on these trees and on each other. Even standing in the loneliness at the edge of the Thar Desert, Suraj had a companion. Bhanuprasad sat down on the bed of sand around the cosy hut, and waited for Suraj, who had now gone back into his hut to get himself ready for his daily trip to the army bunkers about an hour away. For over a year now, Suraj and Bhanuprasad had been in the business of being the evening tea bearers for soldiers in the Punjab Regiment guarding the post at Longewala. Suraj strapped a mashak to his waist, wrinkling the cotton of the angrakha, and wore his red and yellow pencha pagari that protected him from the heat waves. Then, he hung around his neck, a yellow dupatta. He wore it on every journey he went on, as he believed that it brought him good luck, and kept him as close to his wife as possible. He walked up to Bhanuprasad. Putting his arms around his twenty year old friend, he patted Banu’s head and stroked his smooth fur to greet him. Suraj would say, “Bhanu, chal taiyaar ho jaa. Tere doston se milne jaa rahe hain!” Hearing this he would swing his head up and give a tiny grunt of affection. As he would enthusiastically perform this ritual, the copper bell around his neck would swing and its comforting tone would mark the beginning of their journey. Suraj picked up four large camouflage-printed insulated containers filled with his special ginger tea, and hung them just beside Bhanu’s hump, two on either side, secured with a strap. Given this important task by the army, Bhanu felt proud and expressed it with mild snorts and foolish open-mouthed grins. Suraj had now mounted Bhanu’s back, and Bhanu jerked himself ahead, sprung up, and trotted where he stood, making the metal inside the camouflage covers clang together. The sun’s presence was felt much more than any of the usual early December afternoons, but the breeze was getting stronger and cooler. The two travellers were relieved with the presence of this wind which felt as fresh as if it had just bounced off of snow fallen at some distance away. They continued their journey towards the post at Longewala. The bell around Bhanu’s neck dangled all the way with the rhythm of his walk and the swaying of Suraj’s body. Suraj used to talk to Bhanu the entire way, and Bhanu would acknowledge him in his own ways. Often they would joke about funny times spent together. “Bhanu, wo Ajeet aaya tha na Jaisalmer se ghar pe ek din rehne ke liye, uske paas ek bohot bada khajoor ka ped hai. Tere liye poori bori bhar ke laya hai wo. Khajoor, Bhanu, khajoor!” Hearing this, Bhanu had not been able to tame his excitement, and had sprinted off without warning, leaving Suraj hanging on one side, barely holding himself up with a grip on the strap of the tea containers. They had laughed about this incident on most of the journeys. Suraj would threaten him, “Toone phir aisa kiya to tujhe bas ghaas-phoos hi doonga. Phir ghar ki khidki ke andar muh daal ke khajoor ke liye mat rona!” The sand had started to become a golden orange, and Suraj’s face was now red with the heat of the sun. They had reached Longewala, and in about twenty minutes the army area would start. Suraj had been talking for a long time and his throat was getting dry, and Bhanu was also tired, so they stopped to take a small break. They sat on a dune with the sun on its way to soon turning crimson. The harmony with which brown, golden, burnt orange and streaks of red were present created a scene from a rich oil painting. Like water in an ocean, sand lay all around, and it travelled in ripples along with the other travellers. Where his vision could just about reach, Suraj saw a group of men carrying a long roll of cloth travelling on camels towards the village he was coming from. They were all wearing white bagas, so he realised that they were Bhopas going to a village they were invited to, to perform the phad vacnos. They proceeded ahead and vanished into the mirage, but Suraj had his eyes fixed at the same point where he had seen them. Bhopas were invited in times of misfortune, but as Suraj was not aware of any incident in his village that would require the gods to be called, he imagined the worst possible reasons. He got up with a sigh and in a low tone said to Bhanu, “Anhondi hondi nai, hondi hoye so hoye.” With this he climbed onto Bhanu, and resumed his travel to the bunkers. Square posts protected by sand bags stood at small distances, and dotted the landscape. The desert extended to infinity, and it was hard to know the location of the line that can be seen on maps, marking the end of the Thar Desert in India, and the beginning of the land of another nation. The only rough estimate that could be made was by looking at another set of bunkers that could be seen at a reasonable distance in the same sand. As Suraj and Bhanu approached a bunker, Subedar Khushwant Kumar with his hands on his waist and his back upright, strolled out, and seeing them gave a salute. Last year when Suraj had visited the army post for the first time, he had given a salute to the Subedar, as Ajeet had told him, “Wo bohot bade log hain. Unko ache se salaam karna.” The Subedar had said to Suraj, “Ye kya! Ye to Navy waalon ka salaam hai. Aise karo to maane.” Seeing the Subedar salute as an Army officer did, Suraj had obediently imitated him, saying, “Aage tharo, peechhe mharo!” Seeing such a perfect salute by Suraj, the Subedar had offered him a complementary salute. Since then, every time he would see Suraj, he would greet him with the salute. Their friendship didn’t extend much beyond this, but it brought a smile to both their faces. Suraj and Bhanu continued to the Brigadier’s bunker, from where the tea distribution always began. They came to a halt and Bhanuprasad sat down next to the other BSF camels. He shook his head, and with his dangling bell, greeted them all. Suraj got off, and all the army men came out of their bunkers with their own glasses, cups, and beer mugs, to be filled with the refreshing scent of ginger. Everyone sat in groups and laughed about things they did back at home, while Suraj went around to each soldier and poured tea into their cups in a way that a beautiful layer of bubbles got formed till the rim of each cup. When he would finish pouring tea for the soldiers, Suraj too would sit amongst them and drink tea. After so many months, Suraj now knew all the soldiers posted there, about eighty to ninety of them. He too had become their friend, and enthusiastically participated in most of the conversations. Bhanuprasad also enjoyed the company he had, and they too shared their stories. After the lively evening, Suraj tied back his tea containers, and got ready for the journey back. The sun had set, the sky was purplish, and the breeze was chilly. They got back home in absolute darkness. Suraj went inside the hut, cooked some light dinner for himself, and went to sleep. It was the usual time to get up for Suraj. He always woke up before the sun did, but this day, on the third of December, 1971, the world seemed brighter than any other day. His room was lit with a highly unnatural white light that came through the grill of the window. It couldn’t have been the sun, but in this desolate place, who else could it be! Feeling disoriented, he peeped out from his window and got blinded by two circular spots of light. They suddenly reduced to tiny bulbs of light, and revealed an army truck behind them. Two men dressed in uniform approached the door of the hut, and called for Suraj. Baffled and still waking up, he was alerted about the beginning of a war at the border. Also, he was asked to leave his village for an indefinite period, and move to Mokal, to be safe from the shelling. Suraj couldn’t utter a word. The men went back to the truck and waited for Suraj, while he went back inside, sat on the bed, expressionless. He thought about the faces he had seen just a few hours back. Knowing the cost of war, he tried to detach himself from memories related to the soldiers. His eyebrows seemed to get denser, and his eyes became restless. He had to pack his belongings, but knew that the most important one he could not take with him. Bhanuprasad would have to stay here. It felt like someone had stripped him bare of his abilities to move or think. Then, a horn from the truck brought him back to the present, and he finally could stand up and prepare himself for the incalculable days ahead. In the strong sandy wind too, the hut seemed motionless. Darkness lay as vast as the sand. All that was visible was the flickering light of a lantern mildly illuminating the interiors of the hut, partially visible through the half-open window. The metal rods of the grill were glistening in the light, and there were muffled sounds of footsteps and dragging of metallic objects on the dry mud floor. Just as the second horn was about to be blown to inform Suraj that it was time to leave, he struggled out from the door with a large cloth bundle over a shoulder, leaning to the left to balance out the weight. He dropped the bundle and wrapped his arms around Bhanuprasad, who had to be left there, as the truck was big enough only to transport the villagers to a safe location. Bhanuprasad waited for Suraj to climb onto him as he always did after a hug, but he left, leaving a heap of grass for him, waving goodbye. Suraj walked towards the truck in a daze, and at the back of it saw more like him. Being a village close to the border, people of Kalibhar had already been briefed about actions taken in such situations, but nobody believed that they would witness a war in their lifetime. The engine started, blowing out sand from the exhaust pipe. Suraj wrapped his shawl closer to himself, covering half his face. They stopped at another house before heading for Mokal, by which the sky had started to light up. The first rays gave goose pimples to Suraj. The eyes of all the villagers in the truck stayed lowered like in a hypnotic state. They were quiet the entire journey, as everyone felt like an empty canal, not replenished in winter. In a few hours they reached Mokal, a place with a landscape not very different from that of Kalibhar, but with more inhabitants, and more connectivity to major cities. The army had started to build a camp there for locals who were being brought in from areas next to the border. Suraj didn’t have to stay there as his parents stayed in Mokal. The camp was not too far, so he walked home. The sun was at its peak, so the roads had been abandoned. The white shirt that Suraj was wearing was stuck to his back with sweat when he reached his house, where his mother came out surprised to hear her son call out to her. Suraj’s mother always insisted him to get married again. There were a lot of young girls in Mokal who could care for Suraj and help in household work too. Suraj had never agreed, but lately he had been feeling the presence of a void in his house. He was about to take another bite of the roti in his plate when he paused and almost dropping the food in his hand, he sprang up and ran to the luggage he had got. He untied the two knots in the cloth and frantically searched its contents. His arms moved in a haphazard manner, and then suddenly dropped dead. He had left the yellow dupatta back at Kalibhar. He had never travelled without it for the past two years. It was his wife’s favourite dupatta. She had once returned from her parents’ home and had quietly come up to Suraj from the back, and blindfolded him with it. She had then spun him round and had run out of the house. “Kya kar rahi ho! Kahaan gayi?” Suraj stood there for a minute, with no clue about what he had to do, or where he had to go. Then, a small and embarrassed voice emerged from below. “Baayaan paon uthaiye.” “Kya?” “Baanye paon ko uthaiye.” Suraj lifted his cracked soles off the ground, and as he did, she said, “ab neeche rakhiye.” He lowered his foot and felt soft leather under it. The other foot also slid onto a similar surface. His tired feet had received a gift from the angels he had thought. That night he had prepared a delicious meal for his wife’s return, so he had then blindfolded her with the same dupatta, and led her to it. Suraj felt restless without it. All that he cared about remained in Kalibhar, while he sat here in safety. For two days all they had been hearing were rumours from the army camp. Someone said that the Pakistani Army had bombarded Longewala, and nothing was left, while others said that the Indian soldiers were in the process of making the other army retreat. On the third day, Suraj was informed about the arrival of the Bhopas to the village. Through the night, the village would be immersed in folk tales. Suraj and his parents sat on the sand in front of the painted cloth screen hung in darkness. The cloth then illuminated partly with the brass lantern held by the wife of the one reciting. The melodious sound of the sarangi now travelled like rain, filling the desert with assurance of better days ahead. The melancholic sweetness of the instrument entangled him in itself, and made him walk on the threads of memories of those he had left, or had got left behind. Bhanuprasad smiled and the Subedar saluted. His wife peeped in from the door, showing excitement in her eyes, but then she flicked the yellow dupatta into the house and ran away. The sound from her anklets travelled far, and disappeared. Suraj became drowsy with the music, the yellow light from the lantern, and the cool wind with which he felt a soothing sensation from his fluttering shirt. It was like a painkiller that relieved him of all the suffering without erasing the cause. Ten days had gone by, and there had been no news about the war, when one of the villagers came breathless to Suraj. “Mera dost aaya tha waapas seema ki taraf se. Bishti hai wo. Aaj kal bohot log gaaon se gaaon jaa rahe hain, to paani ki zaroorat padti hai. Tere hi gaaon ke paas rehne waale ka mashak bharte huye pata chala. Woh keh raha tha ki ladaayi khatam ho gayi hai, lekin tera Kalibhar to sab jal gaya hai. Ghar, ped, jaanwar, sab. Kuchh nahi bachaa wahaan ab.” The villager was in a hurry, so he sped off, but Suraj didn’t move an inch. His legs became too heavy for him to lift up with leather jootis in his feet. So he just stood there. Yellow flowers fell over him, and he lifted his head to look up. With his eyes he softly embraced each branch, each flower, and each of the few green pods that had started to sprout. He was standing under a Khejri tree that was flowering in December. Shifting his eyes from the tree to the road ahead, Suraj walked forward and headed home. One day I came back from school with Tripti, and we, as we used to, raced till her home, which had the peach orchard. We slipped and fell several times as our school is at a pass on the same hill, and so we had to run down-hill. We crossed a corner of the fir forest, in which we were not allowed entry as there were bears in it, or so said our elders. So, leaving the forest behind us, we ran down the meadow with the snake plants. We ran for twenty minutes, but I lost the race by just half a minute. For some time I helped Tripti and her father, who used to be my father’s friend, in packing the peaches from his orchard into wooden boxes. He used to sell them. Before leaving, I told her that I’m getting better at racing, and that one day I will beat her.
I reached home, which was just five minutes down the hill from Tripti’s home. I ran that part too. When I reached, I saw that my mother was not at home. She had always been at home whenever I had come back from school, to give me food, but today she wasn’t there. It was just my food kept for me in my plate. Also, my brother’s food was kept beside it, packed, to be taken to him in the field. Since my mother took it every day for him, and she was not here, I supposed that I had to take it to him. So, I ate, and as I opened my trunk of clothes to change out of my school dress, I saw that things were missing in it. I suddenly noticed that the bundle of torn cloth that had been in my trunk for two years was also not there. I used to keep a peach seed wrapped in a small piece of cloth. It was from the sweetest peach I had ever had, and the peach was spotted on a tree by my father in his friend’s orchard. He had sneaked into the orchard from the back, and plucked the peach for me. I had saved that seed two years back, and that year my father had died in a bus accident. There was a landslide at about 11000 ft, on the way to the trek for Vaayukund. My father was a guide. He used to take trekkers to Vaayukund around six times a year. In winter, the trek route would stay closed because of heavy snowfall. He died in the summer. It was the perfect day to go for a trek, but as they reached the base of the trek, weather suddenly got rough, and due to a cloud burst, the mud on the hill they were on became loose, and the bus fell two thousand feet down the cliff. Nobody survived on it. Mamma, who was anyway going through tough times due to grandfather’s death a year earlier, now had lot more responsibilities with her, of me, my brother, and also our field. Even with all of that I never saw a tear in her eyes, or any exhaustion. I knew she wouldn’t do it, but leaving my brother and me alone here is still what I feared the most she would do one day. Now, she was not at home, and clothes from the trunk were missing too, along with my peach seed, so I was terrified that my fear had come true. My mother had gone, and that peach seed which was the only thing that remained with me that reminded me of my father had also vanished. I am generally not scared of anything. I go around my village, up and down the mountains, not worrying about anything at all, but that day I felt exposed to danger, and had a fear of losing all the love that mamma gave me. I had already started to forget my father’s face. There were days when I looked at his photograph kept with mamma’s clothes, just when I was not able to picture him clearly in my head. I looked around everywhere in the house for my seed, but didn’t find it. Not knowing what to look for first, my mother, or the seed, I decided to take food for my brother, and also ask him if he had seen mamma. So, I ran again, and just a little down the hill, I saw my brother. A dark and lean figure with sweat streaming down the forehead was shovelling up the mud in our field. I sped towards him with his tiffin, and asked him if he had seen mamma anywhere. He said that she had mentioned about going to the next village, but he didn’t know when she left. She was going there to give away the torn clothes to the wife of the uncle at the tea shop. The wife would sell the rags in the town, and give some of the money to my mother. Now realising that the peach seed has been taken away with the clothes, and that my mother had just gone to sell off some clothes, I relaxed a bit. I started walking towards that village where my mother had gone. It was a beautiful walk, with fields of some kind of tall golden grass, which was now starting to shimmer in the light of the sun that had started to go down. On my way I met my mother who was returning back home. I told her that my peach seed was in the clothes that she took away, and that I was going to the village to get it back from the lady she gave it to. My mother said that I could try getting it, but the bus that had to go to the town where the clothes had to be sold would have already come. The thought of losing that seed forever made me run as fast as I never had, and the beautiful scenery that had spread across the journey became a blur. I reached the village and went straight to the tea shop where that lady used to help her husband. I could not see her there, so I asked her husband where she was. He said that she went to town just about half an hour back. I felt helpless and insecure without that peach seed. It was like losing my father once again. Frantically, I started running uphill towards my home. In no time I reached, but continued running up. I crossed the peach orchard and the meadows. Tears that streamed down my cheek blew away in the wind. Then I reached the fir forest, inside which I had never been earlier. I ran into it, ignoring the fact that I was doing something wrong. I knew it, but I kept running deeper into it, till the time I was out of breath, and all my energy was exhausted. For a while, I sat inside a hollow tree trunk, cuddled up, and warm. In comparison to the towering fir trees, I looked just like a seed. All I could hear was the resonating sound of crickets, and the wind. Then, I realised that the sun was going to set very soon, as the forest had already become really dark. I got out of the trunk, and started to walk back home. I was as calm as still water. When I reached back home, I my mother had started preparations for dinner. I still hadn’t changed out of my school dress, so I went up to the trunk. It caught my eye instantly, and I bent down to pick up a peach seed lying right on top, in the corner, where it always lay. I looked a little puzzled and excited, so my mother said that she found it fallen behind the trunk. I felt a little foolish, but I was elated. I looked at the seed carefully, and put it back in the trunk. Then, as I took out clothes for me to wear, and turned around, my mother was peeling potatoes, and she had a smile on her face. It knew this smile. Whenever she would do some mischief, her face would tilt down, and her lower lip would get pressed between her teeth, and there would be a slight smile, almost unnoticeable to a stranger, but not to me. I had checked the trunk, and the entire house, including the part behind the trunk, when I was searching for my seed. It was not there. Around this time, my mother would already be resting after putting the vegetable to cook on the fire, but she had just started to peel the potatoes. I know what she did in the time I was in the forest. I could have recognised my seed by just touching it. My mother would do anything to keep me happy, and so could I, to keep her away from shedding a tear. Power comes through the acquisition of knowledge from a constructed society, and advertisements are channels that project this power onto people. They instigate people to feel a sense of superiority, or a need to reach a position of absoluteness. Every advertisement, according to the space and time in which it is being produced, takes a context in which this power and absoluteness can be realised. Soap advertisements have been important throughout history in highlighting the psychological state of society. It can be seen that Pears’ Soap advertisements contain moments captured from the past. They hold in them, the context in which they were disseminated. A strong example to support my observations would be the Pears’ Soap advertisement that was out in the public, in India, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Advertisement for Pears' Soap taken from The Times of India Annual, 1929. Courtesy British Empire & Commonwealth Museum [1] There are three principle subjects in the advertisement above. One is the female figure, who is the goddess Lakshmi, second is the baby in her left hand, and third is the text that is centred at the base of the advertisement. The text highlights the lotus as being a symbol for purity, and here, purity has been indirectly associated with fairness. The concept of white being pure, and black being impure, had been present in the mind-sets of the people because of the surrounding Western media influences. The lotus has a pinkish-white complexion, even though it is floating on contaminated water. So, the advertisement is trying to show the strength of the soap in terms of cleanliness. The presence of a baby in the advertisement, who seems to have just come out of a bath, implies that the soap is extremely gentle on the skin, and preserves tenderness and moisture. Lakshmi holds the child in her left hand, and a mace in the right hand, equipped to protect the child from any difficulty or harm. Lakshmi, wearing jewellery and a sari with a golden border, sitting on a lotus with a confident and authoritative expression, is given the highest position in the field of beauty, youth and glow. As Lakshmi is portrayed as a young beautiful woman, and the text suggests beauty to be godlike, it is clear that Pears’ Soap has the power to make one as beautiful as a goddess. So, through the woman, child and lotus, the advertisement is saying that Pears’ Soap will take care of you like a mother takes care of her child, and your skin will blossom like a fresh pure lotus. Also, the border that surrounds the image looks like an entrance to the world of Pears’ Soap. So, not just the elements, but also the placement of the elements in the advertisement is constructed to be inviting for people. The door is open for us to enter, and on the other side of it lies purity like that of a lotus, and beauty like that of a goddess. Getting a hold of these two intangibles is possible only if we use Pears’ Soap. India has had a religious majority of Hindus, who believe in idol worship of numerous deities, but in 1929, this Hindu identity was being threatened by the Christian missionaries that had been extremely active over the past few decades. [2] India’s belief system was shaken, and this added to the insecurities that were already present in the country on account of still being a colony under the British Raj. This advertisement encompasses in it the then prevalent subjects of identity and freedom, and consists of multiple layers of meanings, or connotations beneath the obvious ones I have already briefly talked about. The unofficial, but popularly known flag that got approved by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the session of 1921 of the All India Congress Committee, initially had just the colours red and green in it. They represented the two major communities of Hindus and Muslims, respectively. Then, Gandhi realised that other communities have been neglected, so he added a band of white that depicted them. It also symbolised peace among all. The bands of colours on the flag, from top to bottom appeared as white, green and red. The flag also had a blue charkha, or a spinning wheel in the centre, symbolising self-sufficiency, and life in movement and death in stagnation. [3] In the Pears’ advertisement, Goddess Lakshmi is elaborately dressed in a red and green sari and blouse. The colours of the clothes she is wearing were national symbols for India at that time, and so Lakshmi is not just the one who possesses the highest authority of beauty, she is the strength of the nation. The country at that time was in a fragile condition, but it was also the time of change, as Indian nationalism was on the rise. This advertisement was printed in The Times of India that along with The Statesman supported Indian nationalism. Both these newspapers printed in English were started by Robert Knight, an Englishman, and reached a large number of Indians, making them aware of political issues and processes. [4] At this time, when people were coming together to gain freedom from the British Empire, and re-establish their identities, a new nation was being born. The child portrays the country in a state of nakedness and vulnerability, as it starts to separate from the body of the colonisers, who provided this child with nutrition not like a mother, but like a ruler. The country’s forced dependency on the British was questioned the way it had never been. Now, the country had fallen in safe and protective hands, like that of a mother. Lakshmi here can be seen to be symbolic of freedom fighters who had taken upon themselves the responsibility of nurturing this nation, and protecting it from foreign agents. Lakshmi has eight forms, and one of the forms is called Dhaanya Lakshmi (Goddess of Food Grains). [5] This is the form that carries a mace in one of the hands. This goddess holds all the nutrients and minerals required for a healthy body and mind. So, the representation of a new-born country in the hands of the one who can give complete nourishment, could not have better portrayed the idea of a developing nation that was starting to build resistance against the repressions of the world. There is also a striking difference in the expression of Lakshmi in this advertisement from her usual one. The calm smiling face has been replaced by a determined look that emits a will to not give in. The lotus here too is a symbol of purity, which depicts the rise of a nation out of dark times, while the carved frame that borders the entire scene becomes the entrance for the nation into a world where one’s life is not dictated by others, and there is self- sufficiency, and independence. The background is still dark, but the lightness with which the goddess sits on the lotus, with the child and the mace in her hands, and a bright light falling on them, projects the hope of a positive future for the country. A metaphoric relationship with this positivity can be also be observed in the roots of the banyan tree that hang loose in the air, in the background, but are in the process of attaining a firm hold in the ground. This advertisement was very relevant in those times, as it captured to a great extent people’s doubts, insecurities and desires concerning India at that time. Time and space play a crucial role in the realisation of the significance of an advertisement, as it is not possible to recognise symbolism, or observe connotations, unless the advertisement is looked at with knowledge of the kind of society it existed in. ‘Bubbles’ (1885-6) by Sir John Everest Millais [6] The painting known as ‘Bubbles’, which was earlier called ‘A Child’s World’ was painted by the artist Sir John Everest Millais in 1885-6. In the 17th Century, through the paintings of Dutch artists, a discourse about bubbles was created. Since the Thirty Years’ War was fought in Europe from 1618 to 1648, and was one of the longest and the most disastrous wars in modern history, its impact on Europeans of all classes was extensive. It was estimated that 25% to 40% of the German population would be wiped out due to the war and the diseases that spread thereafter. [7] This was the time when bubbles became symbols of the brevity of human life, the transience of beauty and the inevitability of death. Children blowing bubbles were frequently painted by artists then, to depict the state of life in those days. In the painting sits Willie James, the grandson of Millais, blowing soap bubbles by dipping a pipe in a bowl of soap suds. [8] He is sitting on a stone in clothes that were then the best clothes of the elite. So, the boy is not a destitute. In fact, he belongs to a well-to-do family. He is looking up at a soap bubble with a worried and curious expression. On his right lies a broken flower pot, while on his left is a plant present in darkness. The painting was created with the concept of bubbles being associated with death. Even the title ‘A Child’s World’ was given to the painting, as children live in a life that is full of questions, and free of worries. Their world is a whole new space that rarely intersects with the problems of the world on the outside, but like a soap bubble, the bubble in which a child lives also does not have a long life. Contrary to the lives of children, which have a reality that is different from that of the rest of the world, Willie in the painting looks at the bubble not with excitement, but with fear and concern. It seems that he is not looking at the bubble as a beautiful formation that is magically floating in the air, but as a sphere that is about to disappear. He looks like he is aware of the fact that the bubble is going to burst any moment. When Millais painted Bubbles, he used this symbolism of bubbles that could be traced back to the paintings of the 17th Century, but since the time and situations had changed by the end of the 19th Century, the discourse built up on the subject of bubbles had also adapted to the change, and was produced differently. This painting was created in the Victorian Era when children were not seen as they were, in the 17th Century European paintings. This transformation took place, and can be seen through paintings like The Age of Innocence by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1788, and ‘And When did you last see your father?’ by William Frederick Yeames in 1878. [9] Children, in some 17th Century paintings, were depicted as victims of violence and disease as opposed to a century later, when they were made to possess innocence and sweetness. So, after Bubbles was painted, Victorians could not relate to the previously existing seriousness in the meanings that the bubbles and children held in paintings. This does not mean that the condition of Europe was in perfect condition with no disparities. In the 19th century, the population of Great Britain had increased by three times [10], so there was a rise in unemployment and child labour. The poor lived in a gloomy world, but at the same time, the wealthy flourished. So, by portraying a wealthy child in the painting, it is clear that the artist did not intend for the painting to carry the essence of the present, but the ideas of the past. This painting, with its copyright was sold to Sir William Ingram, Proprietor of the London Illustrated News, and then seeing the painting’s potential, A & F Pears, manufacturers of Pears’ Soap bought it with exclusive copyright. Thomas Barrett, the Managing Director of Pears, used the painting for an advertisement of Pears’ Soap, by adding a bar of soap in the foreground. Subsequently, the painting became the most famous of all his works. [11] So, was it just the reproduction of the painting through an advertisement that made the artwork reach a large audience? Pears’ Soap advertisement printed on postcards at the end of the 19th Century with the same image, but a variety of captions
The advertisement changed the concept of bubbles and children in the painting, which led to the formation of an alternate meaning of the painting that became more acceptable and understandable in that time, than the original idea. So, the advertisement captured well, the knowledge that existed then, and it gained the power to build a connection with the people. The soap bubble, from being related to a heavy and intense history, acquired a lightness, or verticality in the advertisement. Bubbles now reflected fascination and beauty. Pears’ Soap lying on the ground suggests that the bubble is from that soap. So, it is only Pears’ Soap that is capable of making a short life beautiful, by preserving tenderness and innocence in its translucency. The child no longer seems to be out in the world, dealing with difficulties. He sits lost in his own world, playing with bubbles, with no one around to worry him. Pears’ Soap travels with him into his world as a companion, and keeps him untouched by his dark surroundings. With him sitting in the light that seems to fall just on him, it almost feels like Pears’ soap has created a bubble around him to protect him from dirt and darkness. He looks pure, and his skin feels soft. So, this advertisement conveys that by using Pears’ soap, not only will one get clean and tender skin, one will also be able to forget all worries and build a world of one’s own, where fascination will always be present. The soap gives people the power to transform their world into a purer and a more beautiful one. Change in discourse over time is inevitable, and advertisements for Pears’ Soap have been able to adapt to this change. They have been successful in gathering available knowledge, and using people’s desire to gain power as a tool to sell the product. In the course of time, there have been drastic changes in the meanings associated with concepts constructed in society. It is also said that change is constant, but then the ultimate aim of advertisements has been the same forever, and they achieve it by converting people into carriers of illusory absoluteness. References 1. http://www.culture24.org.uk/places-to-go/south-west/bristol/art18195 2. Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline, and John Savos. “Deity.” Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia. Routledge, 2013. 28-30. Print 3. http://knowindia.gov.in/myindia/myindia_frame.php?id=4 4. Edwin Hirschmann, "An Editor Speaks for the Natives: Robert Knight in 19th Century India," Journalism Quarterly (1986) 63#2 pp 260-267. 5. http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/-know-more-about-ashtalakshmi-the-8-forms-of-lakshmi--29920.html?page=5 6. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=299 7. Lockhart, Paul Douglas (2007). Denmark, 1513–1660: the rise and decline of a Renaissance monarchy. Oxford University Press. p. 166. ISBN 0-19-927121-6. Retrieved 7 August 2009. "Thirty Years War". www.infoplease.com. Retrieved 24 May 2008. 8. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=299 9. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/19c/yeames.aspx 10. http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty.html 11. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=299 |