Beyond The Water
(Translation of Hindi Novel - Jal Tu Jalal Tu)
(3)
Father of the children interrupted “Actually, there is no scarcity of water in our county, only one part receives very scanty rain. It is a desert with big sand dunes all over. Otherwise India is surrounded by sea on three sides, has many big perennial rivers and in Cherapunji….,” he wanted to enlighten the about the whole geography of the country he had read in school, after all it was the question of our country’s honour.
But before the young woman showed any reaction, the mother’s gesture showed that the children were thirty. Luckily they were very near to a service station. They stopped the car to have some coffee and entered a cafeteria. The boy wanted to go washroom so the mother took him there. The little girl had never seen a showroom with such attractive articles hence wanted a few.
They ordered coffee and waited for mother and boy to come. The conversation continued. Father thought they were taking a lot of time and was just getting up to see what was kipping them back when the mother came running. She was almost hysterical, repeating again and again that the boy had disappeared. Everyone was astounded. How was it possible? Mother was there outside the washroom waiting for her son but he did not come out and was not inside either. There was no other door or exit. The two girls were also shaken and ran with others to the washroom.
The elder one dialed the member of local police and the younger was trying to console the mother who was her heart out. Six minutes had hardly elapsed when a police van stopped outside. Noisily and they all saw the boy sitting there with a police officer, his face expressionless. Everyone was wondering how it all happened? The boy disappearing from a closed place and arriving within minutes in a police-van! The mother ran and took the boy in her arms. The little girl who had been in a state of shock started crying when she saw her brother. The tension was relieved and the tears now had a trace of happy light heartedness.
The girls, who were trying to thank the police officer profusely suddenly, started laughing. Actually some part of the washroom was under repair. A trolley was sent down to inspect the pipes. The boy got into it and before he could understand what was happening it was pulled up right up to the roof. The surprised trolley man handed him over to the police who were on their usual round of the campus. Now that the tension was relieved the atmosphere became light and there was smile and laughter on every face.
Sun was going down and everyone was sleeping. Suddenly the father tried to pick up the thread of conversation as he had recalled the name of some movie in which Simmi Grewal had acted. He told the girls about the great writer-director Khwaja Ahmed Abbas who had high-lighted the water scarcity problem in desert areas in his ‘Do Bound Pani’ (Two drops of water) in which Simmi had acted. The girls were excited because they had seen that movie and it had left deep impression on their mind. Thus had concluded there was very little water in India.
It was night when they reached Buffalo City. The girls insisted that instead of going to a hotel they stayed with them. The parents also felt it would be much safer hence decided to stay with the girls as their guest. The tried children soon went to bed after dinner but their father wanted to meet the girl’s grandfather as soon as possible. He was contacted on phone and next morning was fixed for their meeting. They talked till late hours and gathered a lot of information.
The girls told the father about their grandpa’s work. He had a passion for collecting old thing. He loved making various type of thing. Once he made a beautiful nest and put it on a tree in front of his house like a decoration object. He said it was a charismatic (magical) nest and was waiting for the day when colored eggs would appear in it automatically. Nobody knew from where and how the eggs would come in the nest. The father was not much interested these stories, he just wanted to get rid of the evil shadow that was hanging over his children’s head. They forgot how tired they were and just waited for the morning.
The grandfather came next morning and took all of them to his home which was not far. The girls were to return to work next morning.
He stayed alone in his house. When he heard about the plight of the children he insisted that the Indian family should stay with him for a few days. The couple readily agreed as they wanted to be free from the haunting shadow that had been troubling their children. The grandfather’s persistence was like the intimacy of a doctor who know the patient needs closeness along the prescribed medicines. And specially when the patients are two innocent children. This feeling of intimacy comes naturally.
The whole family, the children as well as their parents liked the grandfather very much. He related how year back his family that included him and his two granddaughters, shifted from Scotland to Brazil and then finally settled in Buffalo. He told them without any inhibition that in his childhood he was a bully and a rogue. Torturing others gave him malicious pleasure. But the thing he was obsessed with was his love for old ancient objects. He said ‘if an old man has taken each step with support of his walking stick, that stick world automatically talk a lot about that old man if someone is able to understand its language. Similarly an aged lady’s old spectacles will tell the whole story of her won’t they. He asked the listeners.
His red face with no bones jolting out looked like a statue.
He told them he had a huge piece of land near the Grove City. He sold it to a builder company at throw away price because he wanted all the coffin-boxes that they found in it during the digging process and the company assured him. he said he had treaswed century old spirits with him.
***
The story of Kinjan a boy from Somalia, which the grandfather related was so appalling that everyone was shocked. Right from his childhood, the infinite sheet of foaming water of the Niagra fascinated the boy so much that he forgot the whole world and kept on gazing at for hour just as children watch a movie or a TV show. The endless stretch of that gigantic waterfall appeared to him like a silver screen, an enchantment beyond words. Even when he got the news of his father’s death, who was a soldiers in the American Army and had died in some distant land he did not give up his usual habit of sitting near. The waterfall for hours together. Kinjan’s mother Rasbi wanted her son to join army. Although he did not want to join army, the fifteen year old boy did what his mother asked him to do.
Just as you eon take a gorse to water but cannot make him drink, in the same way a person may take up a work at others bidding but can’t remain in it for ever. Kinjan also ran away from the army and came back. His only obsession was to span the Niagras from the highest point to its bottom, accompany the fast current by flowing with it. He tried dozens of jobs to collect money for this adventure and attempted to make a protective as armour by assembling paraphernalia of different kinds that would safely take him down the fall. His mother tried to dissuade him telling him it was madness but with no avail. Her son’s obstinacy made the mother stubborn ti the extent of savagery. She was prepared to go to any limit to get rid of her son’s mania. She imprisoned him in house, employed fierce watchmen on high salary who would not let the boy go near the Niagra falls and them decided to take the boy away from Buffalo City.
It was like fanning the fire. The more she tried, the more grew passion of the boy to do what he wanted. Although the mother and son were living together, this antagonism was always there. Kinjan got bored with the army service, came back and now wanted to cross this enormous waterfall, but this thought it self gave his mother Rasbi a fright. She had sent her son to join army although there was a risk of life in it all the time, but in this deadly game, her son wanted to play. He was sure to die.
It was a cat and mice play, Rasbi trying all the time to send her son back to army and fight at front and Kinjan trying to make equipments that would help him cross the fall safely. He was an excellent swimmer playing with water like a fish, crossing wild waver was a child’s play for him. Now his sole dream was to jump into the gushing foams that seemed to stretch from sky to deep down the earth, spam them and come out as a champion, a little holder blowing his clarion and waving a flag, thus emerge from the water at whirlpool. To fulfill this dream, he was fighting with his mother, his livelihood, his very existence.
He had heard about those who had ventured daringly to do the same, had failed and their names were added to the list of unsuccessful candidates in the history of this feat and forgotten. She stories of these persons did not frighten him but made him more alert, more careful, more insistent fest he should repeat the mistakes they had made. He was neither after name nor money, his real competitor was the flowing water, the silvery cool massive current challenging him with stormy raging waves. He wanted to ride those boisterous high unruly wild and harness them. He was longing to be honowred by the spray of sprinkling drops.
A strong woman like Rasbi. Who in spite of losing her husband in was bent upon sending her only son to army and had chosen that dangerous path for him, often wondered why nature had filled the fragile body of a seventeen year old boy with such a tempestuous dream! She could go to any extent to stop her rebellious son. She neither loved life nor was afraid of death nut not want her son to lose his life in such a frolicsome way. The country needed soldiers not maniacs.
Kinjan was very meticulous in his groundwork and kne wood was not dependable become may boats made of wood became past history as they went down with their gallant heroes and never came up. It was the age of plastic Perhaps that was the right thing. Plastic parachutes had done wonders. But it was expensive and Kinjan had no one to sponsor his feat. The whole world runs after a successful person but who is there with a young man running only with the dream of triumph! That too, when the mother, his own mother who had given him birth was trying all her lactic to shatter his dream.
Kinjan’s friends first mocked at his fantasized aspiration but then putting all joking aside started giving him a helping hand. The dark clouds of despair that were hovering due to lack of funds were slowly disappearing. Waving a green flag to speed up a racing horse is in itself is adventurous. Kinjan felt his dream was at an arm’s length, within his reach.
***
