Beyond The Water
(Translation of Hindi Novel - Jal Tu Jalal Tu)
(17)
All were listing intently rapt in curiosity…… when Grandpa’s (Nana’s) Story came to an end. It was their daily routine’s after dinner children went to Grandpa (Nana) and the story continued like a flowing stream, the story that ripped and swirled in series like a cascade reflecting the scenes and characters as if a motion picture was going on in front of their eyes. Their parents were also flabbergasted as they listened.
The best part was that as the children listened to the story the fear of ‘souls’ and ‘spirits’ that was lovering over them, evaporated. They realized that ‘soul’ itself is absolutely helpless as it so wrapped into own sorrow and despair. It has no power to harm anyone.
Grandfather explained they were nothing more than water. Bubbles that isn’t stable. The effect or fear one feels is momentary and is more due to the weakness of one’s own heart. Or they are experiences of others or just based on hearsay that are unconsciously lies stored in some of our brain cells.
Children found Grandpa’s theory quite interesting that whenever there is a new birth in any form, for a fraction of second the creature is in great agony. If the soul in has is discontented it tries to convey its feeling. Then by some effort repentance or just a coincidence, it is satisfied and steps forward to take the new birth.
Whatever the children understood was enough to bring their fever down and they ran out to play in open where other children were already playing and joined them.
The parents with bottles of soup in their hands sat in front of the Grandpa as if they had been turned to store. They were bewildered, astonished at the coincidence of meeting the two American girls at the tourist spot who had brought them to the right person, who took charge of them and their problems were automatically solved. Otherwise God knows what would have happened to them in this foreign land, where they would be knocking around in their dismay.
Grandpa continued, “Just as sperms rush towards egg for fertilization in words, in the same way millions and billions of souls are restlessly bustling every second to come into the world. Nature’s creation semen in the magical water in which all mysteries of past, present and future are hidden and stored. Nature has made special arrangements for its outflow from body, when one looks, touches or thinks about another body. This life water gets restless in its bowl and when it flows out it contains reeds of hundreds of magical stories.
All the mysticism regarding sprits and the almighty is hidden in the manner and aspiration of how this water is spilled and poured from one pot into the other. When children’s mother listening to Grandpa with astonishment collected pots in the tray to take them to the kitchen it had become very dark.
An Indian housewife hardly takes any time in getting families with the kitchen as it she comes on this earth by taking this training from nature. Grandpa was also enjoying this family life with guests along with a variety of Indian delicacies.
Many days had passed. Indian guests wanted to return their country. Even during their stay in America. They had to put up with complexity that was heavy like Indian philosophy but were impressed by its simple authenticity too.
Children father, who was usually a silent listener, said, “One thing is constantly settling me. This orange coloured fish that is often mentioned in your story, what’s that? Does it really exist? Is it found here? Kinjan’s friend Ernest also saw it. Where do you get it?”
A smile crossed Grandpa’s face. He was very much contented that the Indian family not only heard the long story with interest but developed so much association with all the characters that even remembered their names.
He said, “Yes, this fish very much exists. It is found at rare water sources. It has been scientifically proved that this is how it procures its food. This rare fish breeds in very clean water, so clean that you can count sand grains lying in the bottom.”
It struck the children’s fathers mind that this type of water can be found at the sources of river or waterfalls. He had seen many such places while touring, but he never came across that golden saffron coloured fish, nor knew anything about it. May be he saw it somewhere but never paid attention to it.
Grandpa continued. “This fish emits a gas from its body that makes the water murky, hence insects, thinking it to be shallow water swim into it. Actually this water is over a deep whirlpool. They are entrapped in it, die and become an easy prey for the golden fish.” Grandpa’s information that some witch doctors used this fish for preparing rare medicines was quite shocking. Those, who practiced witch craft, believed the fish could create life. This fish is like a rare cave where nature has kept its mysteries safely.
This hair raising description of the fish was absolutely terrifying for the father. He remembered how tantriks praccting witch craft proclaimed of preparing such medicines, thought him, having a scientific turn of mind, never took these things seriously. But now with incidents that took place in this foreign land with his children, he was compelled to give these theories a second thought. Grandpa had told them that in this in species of fish. There are no males and females separately but both modes are deviced in one body in such a way that they have power to create ‘like’. The way it ends its life is also extraordinary. It cannot be killed.
Late at night, when they were sitting round the table laving dinner and the children came to know they were going back, they did not like it. They locked at Grandpa with expectancy. He looked like a teddy bear made of pink soft fiber. He was enjoying the idles their mother had prepared and just served. The Grandpa who was ripping ‘sambhar’ with a white spoon. Sometimes looked like lord Shiva sitting on show clad peaks of the great Himalayas. And sometimes like a child who had come to play with them in the lawn with a lollipop in his hand. How could the children bear the thought of going away from there?
Children had fully recovered. Their father told them that would be going to New York in one or two days. Grandpa who was quietly eating his food and listening to conversation was not relishing the idea that. These small quests would go away leaving him alone. He through his story had imparted a lot of knowledge to children and the children, with their innocent curiosity had blown fresh breath of life into his loneliness. Children were now looking forward to complete the journey that had been interrupted. That is why the saying out of right out of mind fits so well on children. Who not take a moment in forgetting the past and looking at future. They were tired too after playing for a long time, so when they finished their meal, they went to bed.
The Grandpa said quietly, “My daughters your friends are coming next Saturday. They had asked me not to let you people go till they arrived.” He called his granddaughters only. The Indian guests were ashamed because they had announced the programme of their going back without asking their lost. The mother said, “so be it. We shall only go when you allow us to go. And anyway, we’ll not like to go without meeting them.”
This intimacy was very touching for Grandpa. After dinner, the mother got busy in kitchen and the Grandpa accompanied the father to his room. After a while he took out some photograph from a shelf and stated showing them to his guest. They were many and some of the pictures were of the nest that was outside Grandpa’s home, the nest was in many forms. Picking one from them father remembered he had seen exactly the same type of picture on the box containing fruits in hotel and as soon as his daughter had touched it, her shoe had caught fire. The whole scene flooshed before his wyes and he shivered.
Night was getting darker but in America these was not much difference between might and day. And any way, since they had not stepped of the house for the whole day, they weren’t much sleep. The father related the incident of that box in short to Grandpa and showed him the picture he had seen on that box.
Grandpa laughed and said, “Oh yes, my daughter told me about it, Prosperity hasn’t come to this country easily. So much effort had to be put in.”
The children’s father was taken aback. He was at a loss to comprehend why Grandpa had abruptly started talking about prosperity? Perhaps he did not want to talk about that nest? But it was not so. He was replying to the question. Grandpa explained that America adapted things from all over the world, got patents for them and then presented them before the world like a new wonder. This tradition of serving old wine in new bottles was quite old. In this case an ad company had purchased the picture of that nest from him, made some experiments on it and processed it with chemicals in such a way that in different areas they appeared to have different colours and with change in temperature they became multidimensional. The changes were due to those chemicals only. At times they became ice-cold and sometimes gave the three-D effect. The fruits kept in then were better preserved.
When he heard all this he was shaken up but also realized that the little girl might have tried to scratch the picture of the nest with her hails, and when calcium of nails came in contact with silver colour. It caught fire and frightened them. To what extent the children’s father had realized now science can go. And it were the American, people of this country who had set foot on the moon and were studying the fossils that existed crores of year back on the mars when it was flooded. When, parting with excitement, he related what the Grandpa had said to his wife, she too was dazed. The thereof them kept on talking till late night.
Next morning in the sunshine when drops of dew were transformed into little diamonds and the children were informed that they would be staying there for a few more days, they wore overjoyed. They too waited eagerly for the two elder sisters whom they called ‘didi’ and who were expected to come on weekend.
Today, on the insistence of children, the Grandpa took all of them to the market. Their father located an Indian store there and brought a silk ‘kurta’ and ‘dhoti’. The traditional Indian attire for his host whose eyes were filled with tears when he put on those clothes. He too got many presents for his guests from market.
The guests were surprised that in this country age does not got the upper hand over body. When much aged Grandpa came out of the house he did not need anybody’s support. Nothing was different between him and the excited agile children. Perhaps constant activity and struggle in life fills their bones with astonishing flexibility.
In the evening Grandpa even came out in the open ground to play with children. It looked as if in living a lonely life he had only spent years, life was still intact in his pocket. It was dusk now and the nest on the nearly tree was still an object of attraction for them, though they were no more frightened now. The Grandpa had said that one day eggs unit would be there in it automatically so they were curious as they had never seen any bird fluttering rear it while playing or loitering around. In its pink and white brilliance, the nest glittered like a conch shell placed reverently in a Shiva temple and its straws shining like golden wires. And yet it looked perfectly nature, nothing artificial about it. The children were now fully accustomed to American ways. They had collected a lot of information from their friends while playing with them and were eager to share it with their Indian friends. That isolated and peaceful part of Buffalo City was now very close to their heart.
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