A New Extract

Some more days. He would take his time. Let the rain beat down on him and the sun cauterize his wounds. Let the animals circle round him and dance their strange tarantella. The weariness would leave him and he would wake up to a new freshness, new and soaped clean without Shang dragons haunting him or Lopamudras titillating him. He had had his flirtation with all that, a real heck of an affair - deep down and reality-rich and there were things he had learned. But it was a dangerous game, a thankless dice-game, like going deeper and deeper into the bowels of a darkness in search of more of the artificial light that illuminates hidden corners of it, deeper and more of those flashing neons, the burning strobes and pink incandescence, but deeper too and deeper still.
The little river sniggered as it went by. Pedro stared at the clear water and the white and black stones on its bed. Why do you bring hard days to these people, he asked the river. Are you the river of bad news and ill omens? But the river did not answer. It sniggered and flowed by. Like an insult it went on going. And in the starlight he saw it winding away far away into the hills and through the forests and in a flash he saw it like an enormous serpent twisting and coiling over the red earth, hissing menacingly. His hair stood on end as in the dark night he saw the stream transformed into a poisonous ominous reptile of death. A blue slithering demon.
He moved away from the bank of the river, blue in the starlight and looked the other way. Should he tell what he had just seen to Suhuria? No, they are superstitious people and they will be scared. No use scaring them. If he does some good turn in life now was his chance to do it. He would help these people. He would teach them how to tame this serpent that was sneaking into their lives. Teach them some lessons in living. Living like head-high men, men of glory, of the present. The hills were laughing as he walked back to his hut.
He did not get much time though. A week and half later on a lovely clear night he heard the sound of gunfire from the village. And shouting of men and women blew in with the wind. Cries of pain. He was not sure what he should do. He waited. Could be dacoits attacking the villagers, so he should be careful. A few moments later he stepped out and walked cautiously to the village. Carefully through the darkness, stopping every time a shadow came to life. Or the trees whistled. Then when he was almost there he saw the darkness pierced by the powerful headlamps of a jeep. There were no proper roads leading to this village so only jeeps could travel but this was being driven like crazy. And the screech of the brakes as it backed out, like a thoughtless machine gone insane, wheels whining in protest. Ruthless; the lights changed direction as the vehicle climbed onto the laterite road and the engine roared with power. He stepped off the footway and planted himself carefully behind a big tree and watched the impudent driver scream the vehicle and madly disappear between the rows of trees. The jeep was packed with policemen.
At the village he was greeted by a terrible silence. Terrified villagers were slowly coming out of their huts and standing silently at their doors but no one said anything. Alarmed men and women choked into speechlessness. He went up to the village headman and asked him what exactly had happened. `Police came and fired on us,’ he said sulking away to where a group was beginning to assemble. Then he saw Suhuria among them. They were attending to two men with wounds on their legs, waist and body. Blood was flowing freely from the wounds and someone was washing these with water. One of the two was gasping as if life was jostling at the door to escape from the injured body while the other moaned and shrieked, tossing from side to side. His face had a mad wild look, setting into a queer mask of agony. The bullets had shattered his kneecap and damaged his ilium. The gasping man had a punctured lung. Luckily, there was a doctor among the group of tourists staying at the village and he took charge of it. A tall villager held the lantern up higher for light but still it would be mostly luck, and in ample proportions, that could save the life of these poor villagers, far as they were from proper medical aid and other guarantees of civilisation. Villagers carried the men away, one still screaming and twisting in pain contorting his face the other falling gradually silent.
The police came, Suhuria told him, looking for the bhattis and they protested. `They would have broken and destroyed everything and so we didn’t allow them. They tried to enter our houses and one of them misbehaved with our women! That mongrel Sukumar! We all came out and threw bricks and stones at them and that was when they fired on Marang and Shukrua.’ He was panting heavily.
Pedro tried to calm him but it was not easy. He took him to his hut and tried to talk about other things. `The doctor will take care of Shukrua and Marang,’ he tried to assure him falsely. But it did not work. Suhuria’s eyes were fired with hate.
`I will skin that devil Sukumar alive!’ he growled thumping with his fist. Pedro poured him some mahua and helped him drink it.
`You have to control yourself, I know this is intolerable but…’ Pedro tried to reason.
`How can I sit here without doing anything while they come and kill my people and destroy our living. We have to sell the drink to live! We have to; the mustard and paddy are so undependable,’ Suhuria was emphatic as his heavy words brutally bludgeoned the diffident silence of the night.
Pedro imagined Suhuria would make a good leader for his people and perhaps lead them on to a kingdom without cares, a kingdom free of all dependence, self-sustaining and happy. A land where power walks with head-hung in shame; where the will to power is cloaked in ignominy. Where men are free. Here in the village where he was big, Pedro believed freedom for all to be a desirable commodity. But somewhere deep within Pedro did not trust leaders. The glorious trait of leadership failed to impress him at all.
What a peaceful place the world would have been if men and women did not have leaders, he thought. Because it is leaders around which power builds its home. It is the stout shoulder from which force hangs its black bow, it is the brazen chamber where coercion bursts forth from its egg.
If there were no leaders - political, religious, business, tribal and more - individual conflicts, individual avarice, individual lust, individual cupidity would never become matters of collective emotion and there would be no manipulation, no driving of opinion. I would be blessed to be born in such a world, Pedro dreamt and wondered. Leaders and leadership, he believed it now, are behind a lot of collective unhappiness and violence that the world sees today. As if within the heart of the leader, are nurtured all the sorrow, all the woes of our lives.
Could he do anything? Was it necessary for him to worry? Perhaps if Rishi was here he would have discussed his thoughts with him and plan a glorious utopia and if, like Count St Germain, he could live hundreds of years he would experiment with one of these desirable solutions. An experiment of utopia within a small group of people just for starters, a model for emulation on grander scales later, perhaps. This little hamlet would be an ideal place to start experimenting. But would it be worthwhile, everything was so obvious, how easy it was to see within the hearts of men. Of course Rishi would talk of eugenics if he agreed with his thoughts about leadership. Leaders, their offspring, and those with inborn leadership qualities should not be allowed to breed, that is what Rishi would say. Castrate leaders! Sew the labia majora of empresses! Vasectomise some VIPs. Or, if it is possible, perhaps their leadership gene should be plucked out or neutralised. But who will do it? Won’t we need another leader to do that and coercion to make the poor leaders agree to this eugenic planning exercise? It all boiled down to hopelessness and, unlike Rishi, he did not put much faith by eugenics. Very easily, Pedro believed, eugenics becomes a dirty tool of power.

If you, oh weary friend!
Stand by this lonesome hill,
Mourn me not but do me lend,
Your stick to tame the will
RIP
Endless Equality Endeavour
(A horn of The Human Followership Development Project)
(1871- Present)

His thoughts calmed as he visualised this gravestone in his mind. But he would give Suhuria a few ideas. Of course, he would not ask him to lead a self-defeating revolution. There were smarter things on his mind.

Copyright 2007, Rajat Chaudhuri, All rights reserved.