“You mean you rewarded those people for their horrid actions!!” the suddenly incensed professor exclaimed out aloud.
“Relax professor,” Kamal retorted, not at all perturbed by the tone the professor had taken to him. “A cardinal rule to life in this city or any city is to keep your distance from cops, mobs, and rogues,” he said with great confidence in his axiom.
“But giving them money is only going to encourage them in such abject behavior. They were discriminating against me and insulting me just because I am a Bihari. Did you know that before giving them that bribe?” the professor argued.
“Discrimination against people from your region is a common thing in this city professor. You cannot go fighting against it all now, can you? Most of the labor class of our city consists of people migrating in from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and many locals have a low opinion of them, even though the whole economy of this region is based on their hard work, be it in the factories or the fields. Dim-witted imbeciles are aplenty in this city professor, I am afraid you will have to learn to ignore them,” Kamal thus revealed to the professor the prejudice that many people in his city held against Biharis, his voice taking a wistful tone as he did so, perhaps conveying his own disappointment on the present state of affairs.
“What about the political class, don’t they take any steps to root out this problem?“ the professor inquired, a distasteful scowl had plastered itself on his face as Kamal had expounded upon the discrimination that was being faced by the people of his region in this city.
“Most of these people live here for six to nine months a year, going back to their hometowns during the hosiery’s off-season. So they don’t get their votes transferred here, as they still consider their hometowns and villages back in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as their real place of residence. No votes mean that they have very little political representation, so no one is fighting for their rights. You can talk about great human notions such as brotherhood and benignity all you like professor, but the truth is, if you as a class of people have no political representation then you are going to find yourself at the rough end of society’s stick quite frequently,” Kamal answered.
“Yes, yes, I second that opinion, that is true, but still,” the professor sighed, and started brooding about the whole situation.
For the rest of the drive no more conversation took place between the two men. Kamal took the professor to the guest house where the college administration had booked a room for him to stay until he was able to find a more permanent domicile for himself.
“So, I will pick you up in the morning and take you to the college. Mr. Rai is very much looking forward to meet you,” Kamal remarked, as both of them stood at the gate of the Guest house, about to part ways for the night.
“Yes, Good night, and thanks for picking me up,” The professor replied, trying to force a hint of a smile on his face, although he was feeling quite dispirited because of the earlier events.
“Good night Professor,” Kamal turned, and began to walk way.
But just at that moment, the professor recalled something of great importance, something he had forgotten about in all this stress and tension. How could he have forgotten it, it was the very thing that had brought him to this city, like every other city before it.
“Stop, wait a minute,” the professor called after Kamal and briskly moved in his direction.
Kamal heard him and stopped in his tracks and once the professor had caught up with him, he went on to pull his wallet out from his pocket, from which he fished out an old, slightly faded looking photograph with crumpled up corners, of a lovely looking young lady, who seemed to be around half the professor’s age.
“Have you, by any chance, seen this girl, recently or in the distant past? She should be much older now, about my age,” the professor asked, holding the picture up for Kamal, as the bluish glow of the street light above illuminated it for their eyes.
Kamal entertained the request of his guest by looking carefully at that picture, while at the same time wondering about the story, which could be behind all this. “I am afraid it doesn’t jog the memory professor,” He answered after a little while, and then looked curiously at the professor.
“Just an old friend I have been searching for, searching and hoping that in the vast wilderness of this world, I will, by some stroke of good fortune, stumble upon her one day,” the professor revealed with a light smile as he put the picture back in his wallet. He then wished Kamal a good night and walked away in to the guest house.
*******
2
Our years of early youth, the years when we are carefree and perpetually in love, wondrous times these are, and the fond memories they leave us with, stay with us until the last of our days. In life’s winter years, when everything else turns dark and bleak, it is these very memories, which constitute the few remaining embers at our hearth, giving us warmth and comfort like a near and dear friend, providing us company as we wait for the coming of the sweet sleep of death.
He was not an old man yet, Professor Raghuvir Dixit, and good fortunes be on his side it shall be a long time before he would see the mysterious face of death, but still he knew the value of these memories. It was only their sweet reminiscence that gave his heart some solace, in its incessant yearning for the sight of the loved one he had lost all that time ago.
Tonight, sitting all alone in the room of that guest house, a stranger in this new city, his pining for her was stronger than it has been in recent times, and so to console himself, he took out a folded leaf of paper that was hidden away in one of his books, and began to read to himself, the poem he had composed for her, during the time when this universe had not yet broken the promise of love it had made to him.
‘I sing of good fortune, of the first time that we met.
The first glimpse of your face, and upon you, my affection was set.
That blush on your sweet cheek, wreaked immediate havoc upon my heart.
And your mesmerizing smile conspired along, yes it too played its part.’
He still vividly remembered the first time he had seen her. She had come to the town’s square, to see the performance of a visiting ventriloquist. Her curious eyes as she witnessed the playful gimmicks of those puppets, her ecstatic laughter as she heard the witty exchanges between the puppets and their Master, her unrestrained joy as she lost herself in the magic of the performing artist, all of it and more he could still recall with the minutest of details, for there was not a moment then, when his own awestruck eyes had wandered away from her beautiful face.
‘An angel I had seen, amidst mere mortals that afternoon.
Who could have imagined, that she will be in my arms one day soon.
Her gentle love, imbuing my life with many a colorful hues.
Her tender touch, making me forget of all my blues.’
Near the river that flowed by the southern outskirt of their town, in a small shady clearing surrounded by tall mango trees, they used to meet and kiss each other and hold each other, the blessing of her sweet company effacing even the faintest traces of sorrow from his life.
‘Two lovers we were, more than that two best friends, accompanying each other in this journey called life.
Giving each other reasons to smile, even when with troubles, our lives were rife.
Drawing strength from each other, when we found ourselves fearful of the surrounding dark.
Keeping faith in each other, knowing that our love will help us find our mark.’
And then there were the tough times. With their schooling about to come to an end, he was to go away to Kerala for pursuing literature, while her family would not allow her to continue her education further. Different standards for different genders, an untenable and bitter reality, but a reality nevertheless!
‘A simple song I sing now, to tell of our love so simple and true.
Finding you through these words, as I am now far away from you
&
nbsp; But I promise to find my way back to you someday.
To meet you to never part again, and love you till times have us beyond old and grey.’
And there he was in Kerala, far away from her, sitting by the ocean and jotting down the words of his poem, harboring a great hope in his heart that after the completion of his studies, he would be able to go back to her, marry her, and live happily ever after with her. If only he had just the slightest premonition of the tragedy that was to befall their love!
With a heavy sigh, he ended the pensive reflection. A deep melancholy had by now, spread itself throughout that lonely room, making the silence in their suffocating, compelling him to step out of its broody confines. But he was able to resist these extorting forces for enough of a time, to pull out his pen and add another little verse at the bottom of that old blanched piece of paper carrying his poem.
‘To spend this life with you, is now nothing but a fragment of a broken dream.
It seems I have lost you forever, in the tyrannical flood that occurred in time’s stream.
But still I pray, that a glimpse of your face, this universe, will to me one day lend.
For who knows there may come a time, when even forever, could come to an end.’
*******
On the eastern side of the city, lies a posh suburban area, known in both official records and popular parlance by the name of Sector 32, and it was here in a small rectangular park surrounded by a group of upper-class houses, that our ghost of hope Ankit had buried his sapphire stone and thereby grown himself a mother-tree, a semi-deciduous Sal. Overnight a tree had been added to the ones existing around the perimeter of that park, but nobody paid this magical manifestation even the slightest of attention, being unremittingly engaged in the hustle and bustle of the modern world, people are left with little time for nature, and the inherent magic in all natural things thereof.
Presently, Ankit was hovering above his mother tree, prostrated on his back with his hands joined loosely behind his head, his eyes occupied in the idle gazing of stars while his mind pondered upon a problem it had been grappling with for the past so many days.
The case in consideration went something like this: A couple of weeks in to his duties as the ghost of wisdom, it was one evening while he was hanging around his mother tree and looking at the people moving past the streets around the park, when in the customary form of a blinking dot, a distress signal issued itself forth on his map. Following it to its origin, he came across a white Alto resting in a secluded corner of a parking lot. On some inspection, he found that in the back seat of that Alto, there was present a young couple, lost in the act of making out with each other.
For minutes he just floated around that car, and wondered what sort of wisdom was he meant to impart in such a situation, it was not as if that couple was not good in what they were doing.
For a while he raked his mind, but no answer came to him, either definite or nebulous. Then, all of a sudden, he noticed the blinking dot on his map disappearing by itself, perhaps whatever was the intricacy involved had solved itself without any need of his assistance.
So he came away from the scene of action, but much to his bewilderment, even before his mind had time to fully contemplate upon that incident, he found himself faced by another of a similar kind. Once again there was a young couple making out, once again he had no idea what on earth was he supposed to do about it, and once again in spite of his inaction, the dot on his map disappeared by itself after a while.
Over the following weeks, this procession continued unabated, so that by this day around a dozen similar incidents had brought themselves forth in to his attention, and still he had little clue on the role he was meant to play in any of them.
“And where are you lost to?” suddenly came the sweet sonorous voice of the ghostess of love, pulling him out of his ruminations.
“Nowhere, just here,” Ankit shifted himself in to an upright position, a little surprised to see Neha here. Miffed by her continual rebuffs of his amorous advances, he had been consciously avoiding her these past few weeks.
“Glad you are, I haven’t seen you around much lately, what you been up to?” Neha asked, her levitating form looking graceful as ever against the background of the starry sky.
“Nothing, just wisdom stuff,” he answered a little wryly. “And yeah, waiting to see if my tree can weather an autumn or two,” he could not help but add the little jibe.
“Oh, don’t tell me you are angry about that? Oh damn! Have you been avoiding me on purpose?” Neha asked, raising a brow.
“Took a while for you to notice that,” Ankit riposted.
“So just because I refuse to be your girlfriend, you are going to act all stubborn like a brat and stop hanging out with me, is that what you are implying?” It wasn’t just Ankit who was in an irritated mood above that Sal tree now.
“I am not implying anything,” Ankit felt somewhat trapped in her words, being compared to an immature brat shaking him up a little. “All I want to say, is that…we had a moment there, the first night we met, you can’t deny that there was a moment, that is all I am saying..” he tried his confounded best to assert his point.
“Yes, may be, we had a moment, but it doesn’t mean that..” Neha paused, and heaved a long sigh, trying to regain her composure. “Okay, answer me this, and if you do so correctly, then I will think about me and you. Tell me how old I am as a ghostess?” she asked.
How old was she as a ghostess? She looked twenty five, twenty six at most. So her age as a ghostess should be that minus her age at the time of death. What was her age when she died? Or what if this was a trick question? What if she was using some anti-aging cream for ghosts? There were just so many factors to consider and reconsider.
“Ten..no..five years..five years..” he ended up making a wild guess, five was his lucky number, so maybe he could count on that.
“Seventy nine years,” Neha answered with an amused smile.
“Seventy..nine..!! but you look no older than..twenty five, twenty six at most..” Ankit remarked scratching his head, what ungodly kind of anti-aging cream was she using?
“We ghosts don’t age in our appearance Genius, I thought you would have noticed that by now,” Neha revealed. “We retain our appearance from our time of death. And it stays with us till the end of our days here. Although I look in my twenties, I have been this city’s ghostess of love for the past seventy nine years.”
“And your clothes, how come..they are so..modern?” Ankit now asked, pointing to her cocktail dress, surely no woman wore an attire like that seventy nine years ago.
“Oh, this. Yeah I take trips down to the nether world every now and then to update my ethereal wardrobe,” Neha answered simply.
“Nether world?” Ankit asked, looking a little perplexed.
“Yes the nether world. It’s a whole different world from this mortal one, mostly surrounded by ghosts and specters of the baser sort. Well I don’t consider them as base, but that is how they are rated in the spirit world, they have low spiritual energy, so they are sent to live in the nether world until their time of rebirth. Conversely the ghosts that have high spiritual energy live in the higher realm, where you and I have come from. And right in the middle of these two realms is our mortal world, and even this one is not free from discrimination, only the standards for it changes to caste, color, creed and such,” Neha expounded ruefully.
“How do we travel to the nether world?” Ankit queried, wanting Neha to carry on, he just loved the solemn expressions that came on her face whenever she got in to her knowledge imparting avatar.
“Through Ghost-warps, these are points of zero spiritual energy, a perfect cancellation of the positive and the negative, and they act as a door way between the mortal world and the nether world. There is one ghost warp in Ludhiana, I will take you there someday,” Neha explained.
“And what about traveling to the higher realm?” Ankit asked nex
t.
“We can’t, we only go back there at the end of our term as a ghost. At the end of every ten years, a ghost is offered a chance to retire, or carry on for another ten. When a ghost chooses to finally hang up his boots, he or she then travels back to the higher realm and stay there, until the time of their rebirth,” Neha clarified.
“So, you are the oldest of us seven?” Ankit asked, as if he was still not able to believe the statement about her age.
“No, not the oldest, that would be Mr. Jai Prakash. He has been serving as the ghost of contentment for more than a hundred years now. I come after him, seventy nine years. Then there is Vibhuti Lal, sixty eight years, then Janu Khan at thirteen years, and then there is Arjun, eight years, then Roshni, who joined us only a year ago, and then it is you. Anyway my point in all this is that you barely even know anything about me to fall for me,” she reiterated, hoping that Ankit would understand her point.
“Alright, alright, I get what you are trying to say…” Ankit yielded just to avoid any more confrontation, though he did not fully agree with her. Lovers fell for each other through the magic of a passionate moment, not by the long ardent study of each other’s character.
“Wonderful, and at least come and talk to me before you get the desire to sulk again,” she rebuked lightly. “Anyhow, I came here to take you to a meeting of the seven that is happening tonight, and it seemed as if we are already late for it, so come with me at once.” And thus, she fleeted away, with Ankit following her in close proximity.
Soon the two of them reached Rakh Bagh where they came across the other five ghosts, who had apparently been waiting for them, hovering over the familiar location of that old Banyan tree. After the exchange of a few pleasantries, the meeting began, presided over by that refined and stately specter, Jai Prakash.
“So the statistics for the months of January and February have come in this morning. The ghostess of love, Neha, has performed the best, solving every single one of her cases,” he announced in his gruff voice and paused to give an appreciative look to the Ghostess, in reply to which she nodded her head and smiled, after which he resumed with the declaration of the other results. “The ghost of freedom, Vibhuti Lal, the ghostess of dreams, Roshni, and the ghost of wealth, Janu Khan have done reasonably well too and the council is happy with their performance,” he paused again, letting his words sink in for a moment before carrying on. “Lastly, the ghost of hope Arjun and the ghost of wisdom Ankit have performed well below par. The council understands that the ghost of wisdom is still new to his duties, and as such, is confident that he will improve with time. For the ghost of hope, it issues a strict admonishment and advises him to quickly get his act together. Thus ends the announcement of the Statistics for the months of January and February, which were read to you on the evening of April 23rd, at 9:00 PM Indian Standard Time, with an offset of 2% on either side. Please say your Ayes to acknowledge receiving the same,” Thus he ended the formal announcement, in response to which all the other ghosts said their Ayes, thereby allowing him to proclaim the meeting as concluded.