Thursday 15 November 2007

Scary House, Old Curiosity Shop and a Footpath

It was a good work. Little or nothing of physical work. He used to go at ten thirty in morning and work there till nine in night. He had to wear a skull mask and a hefty black gown with few red patches on it. He had just to frighten scary house visitors who were few and come at long intervals. He had to sleep on a broken bed and has to jump from it. In between he was free to chatter with his fellow blokes. He was paid four thousand of rupees for his work. Four thousand rupees were sufficient for his living in town and for a man who was a non skilled labour and pathetically educated.

He lives in room behind a laundry. It is dank and dark place. Walls are always wet and sometimes roof dribbles even in sun drenched days. Mildew is breeding in corners. Rain worsens its situation and sometimes he catches cold and sneezes all day. For sneezing and coughing his owner at work cuts his payment half per day as sneezing lessen the dread in scary house for visitors. Allergy to petroleum products used for dry cleaning and clammy atmosphere are responsible for it but he was helpless. Doctor gave him Cetirizine but it brought so much stupor with itself that he hadn’t felt like going to anywhere. He stopped using it.

It all happens in a very common way-
It was Thursday and raining. Winds were frozen. Bleak sky and grey lights were depressing but that day work was quite less and he spent it in yakking and terrifying schoolgirls. They were adolescent and celestial with growing little breast under their school uniform white shirts and voluptuous thighs beneath navy-blue skirts. He heard their raucous mirth and loud heartbeats. Inside scary house they looked like ghouls for lights reflects grotesquely on faces but he had learned to devour splendour beyond lights and shadows. He ate ice cream that day.

December passed and New Year arrived. Scary house was occupied almost all day and air conditioned air in it made it arctic as hellhole. He shivered and longed for sun, sunflowers and Sunday{Sunday was his off-day}. He sneezed a lot. He saw a ghost on that day. He is not sure but that man seemed to be a ghost. His cranberry eyes and blue lips were not sane. He came with his girlfriend, perhaps; who was fat and of hideous cerise complexion. They kissed in front of his colleague whose job was to operate on intestines of a corpse full of artificial human excreta.

He felt disgust and fear.

Then days followed were quite everyday, nothing odd. February came and with it came bit warmth which can only be experienced in February or in threadbare, old schooldays sweater. Ghostly man had not arrived after that neither he saw his girlfriend. They raised his salary by hundred and fifty rupees. He brought a tweed coat from old curiosity shop. It had strange orange cheques and crimson elbow patches and pocket on left side of chest. At scary house everyone laughed on him for buying such a droll coat. The old curiosity shop manager told him coat’s history. It was a coat from 1930s of the drummer of Ramdas marriage band who had this false notion that he will die on the day when he will not wear this coat and he died exactly on a day when he gave his coat to his son because he was poor and they both have only one coat. It was ruthless winter.

Nobody believed his story. Nobody never believed old curiosity shop’s manager’s stories. He was a teller of false tales. Highly erratic and known for his miscellaneous truths mixed with mendacities. He believed him and brought that coat with roughly half of his month’s pay. He felt in good spirits wearing that coat. Although co-workers called his coat a comic costume. He also brought spinach and corn sandwiches from Culinary delights cafĂ© ; costliest thing he ever ate.

Scary house visitors declined in last days of February dramatically as they were the days of university and schools’ examinations. Owner asked them to stitch new costume and make new atrocious puppets, some dying hanging and some being stabbed at belly with intestines open and nether region exposed. He was a bad owner, who paid less and took too much of work. They all thought about original and novel ways to petrify visitors.

He suggested himself copulating with a morbid rubber doll. Everyone laughed.

He wore that coat everyday religiously. In march when cold was fading and sun felt warm and winds were temperate and restless; he had not stopped wearing that coat. Others asked him about his health and he laughed. He wrote a long letter to his mother.
He wrote,

‘Dear mom

I’m happy here and wish the same for you.
How’re you and dad and everyone in home. I’ll come in summer. Everything is fine except my job. I don’t like my job nowadays. I feel fear. Every visitor who comes to scary house seems to a ghoul. I know that a boy came on sixteenths of February was a zombie. I know. His eyes and lips were insane. I’m not afraid of surroundings but people. They horrify me. I’m planning to leave the job. I’ll find some other job. I can live poor and hungry but now I can’t work at this place. Instead of getting afraid people here laugh. That is such an abnormal thing.
How is Mohini my little sister? Give my love to her and respect to father. Pray to Bajrang Bali for me.
Yours
Arvind’

His mother sent him lucky charms and an evil-eye bracelet and asked him to continue work at scary house because they were poor people and money was the thing which was the most wanted.

But he left his job. He loafed on road and slept hungry for days wearing his droll coat.
One day I met him. He pretended as if he hadn’t seen me but I asked,’ what are you doing nowadays?’
He looked pale, thin and depilated. He was smoking a cigarette butt which he must be picked from footpath.
‘Nothing. I’m searching for a job.’
‘Come to my office at Amarchand Press, there is a vacancy for a proof-reader. Lets see.’
‘I can’t be a proof-reader. I’m bad with spellings.’
A grin came on his shrunken pallid lilies like lips.
‘What is your experience?’
I’m good at petrifying people.’
It seemed useless to talk to him. I came back.

After couple of weeks, I saw him again in his tattered coat and with an old hat on his head. He was happy. Hungry too. And bare foot under his threadbare pantaloons.

‘I bought a new hat from Old Curiosity Shop. Its manager says it brought luck to so many people. Especially fearful people.’
‘Why don’t you stop buying things from that foolish shop.’
But I need a cap. I left that house because of money scarcity. And now on footpath ‘I need a cap to protect my ears and head from sunlight and cold during nights.’

He had not found any job. He was bad with spellings, poor in grammar like me but unlike me he was good at horrifying people and he himself was a very frightened man.

Old Curiosity Shop closed down after its manager’s death. He committed suicide.
Scary House is still making profits. I went there yesterday with my children. They laughed and laughed until cough caught hold of them.

Tuesday 6 November 2007

Tale of a writer

It was not late in a day; Mr. Kusumakar Sapre, deputy collector, made a last-ditch effort and wrote a tale for story-telling competition at Residency club. He completed it with his twenty three years old fountain pen which was on its last legs. It was witching hour and only a quaint and pale reading lamp was making a sphere of greenish sallow light. High and lumber ceiling of bungalow was casting shadows and he felt cold in his lined half-pants and vest.

Kusumakar was thirty three years old, fat and bald man, who wore thick glasses in black, wide frames and a scarf, usually silk, on his neck and tweed trousers and hefty boxers with coat and half-sleeves sweater in winter and cotton shirt with half sleeves V-neck vest in summer and spring and at all times maroon socks. He had little belly, rotund and content and gave him character and fullness.

He slept under his mosquito-net and patchwork quilt.
In morning, he shaved, used hair cream with lemon odour and left for his office after eating breakfast consisting two omelettes with onion and coriander dressing and pomegranate juice with honey.

His office was the Raj construction and in calamitous condition like other governmental structures in India. Roof made with terracotta blocks used to trickle and walls were feeble. Furniture was going to pieces bit by bit and had been reinstating with the same. Only floorboards made with black and white marbles were in good condition. Outside there was a grass court pallid because of water scarcity and gardener’s indolence. Backside was full of feral flora, ammonia stink of human urine and claret blots of saliva of pawn-eaters.

Mr. Sapre was rather pompous in his official mechanism. His administration was quite conservative and sternly hierarchical. He was honest unlike other governmental officers of gazetted rank but easily bullied by political pressures. Businessmen, civil construction contractors and quacks were petrified of his post because being a deputy collectors he was in charge of mentioned people’s motions and immune to subornments.

At five thirty in evening, he stood up and left office for residency club.
Officers’ ladies club meeting was going on. officers were in billiards hall and reading lounge. Mrs. Sadhana Sharma, wife of district magistrate, an old-aged woman with agreeable features and plump, was sitting on a wooden chair painted in green and upholstered in red frayed velvet reading submissions for story-telling competition. She was one of the judges in the panel of three judges consisting of a respectable writer of town, poetess wife of district judge and herself.

Mr. Sapre submitted his story to her after it being properly sealed at reception counter. He was tickling pink and sat beside her. Mrs. Sharma was an intellectual, and a muse to Mr. Sapre. He always wanted to write a poem on her. On her salt and pepper locks tied in a slapdash fashion either in bun or braid with almost always in turquoise ribbon and her bohemian beads, she used to wear around her collars.

‘Weather is quite pleasant today.’ He said.
‘Namahste, Mr. Sapre, I’m sorry I’ve not noticed you. Weather is quite good today but you’re a young man Sapre, you need not to worry about weather. Old people like us should be bothered with weather.’
Mrs. Sharma was not a much enthusiast of cliché conversation.
‘But Mrs. Sharma there are some advantage too of old age.’ He said in philosophical shrug; his quite typical and dull gesture.
‘Ha not much but I’ve always been bad in finding advantages in anything. I was a communist in my young days.’
‘We all are communist in young age. It’s like being young.’
‘Amour, communism, poetry are sign of being young. Even now I feel all three.’ She laughed affectionately.
He also cackled.
‘Oh so you’re communist; that means squabbles with sir at home over administration issues.’ He said and again laughed but feebly.
‘But I feel amour too.’
She said and stood up to greet one of her lady friend.

Mr. Sapre went to the billiards room and sat there reading Times for half an hour over rum and chocolates muffins. He was reflecting on his narrative which was more of a fable but a splendid bit of his writing. He envisaged himself on stage accepting prize for the best story.

Mrs. Sharma, Respectable writer of the town and poetess wife of district judge were sitting and conversing over tales submitted. Respectable writer was stout man with voracious lips and covetous and twitchy eyes predominantly fluttering over ladies’ cleavages and shoulders. Poetess was a lady in her thirties, only bones and skin, unsightly and an idiot like all those people who don’t know any language entirely. Her curls were dyed in charcoal black and eyebrows were auburn in tint which gave an impression of their absence. She spoke in shrill voice about the aesthetic beauty of a story written by son of her yoga partner.

‘It lacks any kind of beauty Mrs. Agrawal.’
Respectable writer of town said and stared at her midriff imprecisely. She is fairly slender at her naval. He thought. He was not concerned with tales told by neophytes and judgement of two greenhorn ladies. He was a male chauvinist pig. Poetess was too quite misogynist for she hated every other woman and Mrs. Sharma was a feminist. Respectable writer of town tried to browbeat ladies into acknowledging a very weak tale named Spin the yarns’ as paramount written by her mistress. Mrs. Sharma plainly demurred it. Respectable writer of town sat for some times with these ladies and then retired to bar for his daily dose of gin.

Mrs. Sharma asked waiter in white jodhpurs for respectable writer of town. Waiter returned and told her that respectable writer is not sober enough to come and converse with ladies and he thinks that this task should not be given much impulsion as it is not Noble Prize they are deciding and he does not care whether his mistress be given prize or not and said that he thinks he is far better a judge of human beings than stories.

Mrs. Sharma stiffened her nose in a fashion royalty sometimes does and poetess also tried to imitate her gesture and succeeded to an extent. She twisted her nose too in a way clerks do.
‘Mrs. Aggrawal, now we have to take decision about the best story. Have to read all of them.’
‘oh, I have read all the stories and none of the work is enough poetic for my taste except the story written by Mr. Saluja named Poetic judgement ‘
‘oh, I also liked that story very much but isn’t it written very badly. I mean its structure is loose and style is too pompous.
‘lets not think much Mrs. Sharma.’
‘Mr. Sapre has also submitted a beautiful fable.’
‘I have not read it.’
‘I suggest you to read it as soon as possible as I’m thinking to award best story prize to it.’
Poetess was in doldrums and said, ‘ oh yeah, it’s quite a fine story. We should declare our decision.’
‘Don’t you want to read it Mrs Agrawal?’
‘oh, Mr. Sapre told me about his tale and I found it quite amusing.’

At last Mr. Sapre was given a trophy for best tale written. He read it on stage in tweed pantaloons and military print jacket in olive green hue.

In reality he plagiarised Ivan Andreyevich krylov’s tale and triumphed accolades from judges and members of club. They served ceremonial feast on that night.
Butter chicken and Biryanee were in menu. Everybody enjoyed sumptuous supper with sweet corn soup and three desert with cappuccino at last. Weather was nippy. Everyone was on either on gin, rum or whisky. Mr. Sapre found himself physically very striking that day as he found ladies were staring at him.

At one in night, he felt an urge to read his story again. He read a paragraph and search for original tale written by Ivan Andreyevich krylov as he preferred original more.