4
Star Reader
[The simple society around me never dreamed of their darling Krishna as being supernatural or anything of the sort. And indeed I did not realize that all I deed was with of Vishnu. It all looks like childlike games; nevertheless, every one of those was a part of the greater plan of the divinity.]
My eyes are tired searching but get nothing. I feel relaxed, no raid – tonight is just like another peaceful night.
I look up at the sky, perhaps to check if there is a god in the starts. My teacher says in old time god lives in the sky and rule over the earth but now the god lives beyond the wall and rule over us. Then he secretly adds: Remember he isn’t what he claims – gods never live on the earth.
I search for god but can’t find anything except start twinkling in the sky. They seem a lot closer now, closer than the innumerable miles away.
My teacher knows bit astrology and says I’m born when the moon was in Dhanishtha Nakshatra, Aquarius; the sun was in Swati, the Nakshatra of the sword. But this talk goes beyond my head – I can’t understand even a small astrological arrangement in the sky. I can see stars burning over I don’t know how far, I can feel them against my pupils but I can’t read them. I think no one can.
My father says my mother also can read stars- he calls her star-reader. I laugh at this. I think all this is in my mother’s head. My teacher also makes up things. There isn’t anything written in the stars. There is no plan in the stars. My mother and my teacher are living in hope and their imagination. They make up thing to get comfort from the miserable life in the wall.
The second thing my teacher says is that the earth has been purged in to darkness, three great rivers Sindhu, Yamuna and Sarasvati have ascended back to heaven, and only the holy Ganga is on the earth means Kalki is among us and as Jupiter was in Purva Ashadha Nakshatra, Sagittarius, Saturn was exhaled in Libra, predicting balance between justice and the sword. Ketu, lord of horse-headed Ashwini was exalted in Scorpio when I born so I’m the Avatar.
Again, I turn my face to the stars. It seems like my heart there is a war in the sky as the darkness trying to control the sky yet the stars giving the last stand of the gleaming spots of where they originated. The war continues across the constellations.
I don’t believe in star reading things. This sounds crazy. They are crazy. They have lost their mind. But how can call them crazy? They see everything good but I believe if everything seems good, then nothing is good.
My teacher says the earth has cycles; each cycle goes in order of Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali-Yuga.
Currently, we are in Kali Yuga.
It started with the end of the war of the Mahabharata and beginning of its end was the great Pralaya before 500 years. Said is that it will end through the purging of the world by a boy (the last Avatar of Lord Vishnu) named Kalki. (I don’t care as my name is Samrat, not Kalki.)
My teacher says I’m the one who will purge the world. I’m born to end the age of darkness. The moral values and mental capabilities have reached their lowest point and that’s why the world needs a purge.
The world is black now. And the blackness emerges from the temple (the tower). Men have turned to wickedness. Disease anger, natural calamities, and fear have dominated the world.
In short, I’m born in the Yuga when goodness and virtue have all but disappeared from the world. Beyond the wall, they call it the rule of the creator and I call it the rule of Adharma. And I’m here for the conjunction of two Yugas: Kali Yuga and Satya Yuga.
But I don’t like to hear about how I born or when I born. All I want to hear is about Pralaya. I don’t know how destructive it was. My people say it was destructive, so destructive to see or even hear about it. Mostly when I ask anyone about it, no one wants to give details. Some say there were clouds of fire in the sky, some says the sun has come to visit the earth and burned everything, some says there was a fight between the ocean and the sun and that fight wiped out most of the creatures of the earth, including humans.
But no one is sure of anything. No one is willing to give me a sure reason. They beat about bush, never coming to the point. They ignore my question, saying - have you seen Mare Mount in Madhya Pradesh? I say – yes and they narrow their eyes and reply – it wasn’t there before Pralaya.
Even my father says there was a huge lake named Amarkantaka that give birth to a giant river named the Narmada but Pralaya raised there a mountain in the center of the lake and now there is a mount Mare, wiping every trace of lake and the river, devastating a dreamlike huge area of in to a nightmarish dry wasteland.
In short, everyone fears to even talk about it. Or maybe my people are secretive, never sharing secret easily, not even to their own sons and daughters.
I have heard about many geometrical changes like where there is Samudra (ocean) at south there was Samudra but not so near there was land covering many states and a small country named Shree Lanka in the island in Hind Mahasagar (Indian Ocean). There were many rivers on our land.
I wonder what is a state and what is a country – we have no state or no country - we live in the wall. From where the wall starts people gossips there was a state named Gujarat and where the wall ends there was a country named Bangladesh.
And I try to imagine what would be this state and country? Would they be separated by the wall like ours? I have heard about cities. They say there was a huge city named Mumbai in the area of in the wall but the ocean swallowed it.
I can’t imagine what would be Pralaya exactly.
Now, in Bharatvarsha, we have just two parts ‘in the wall’ and ‘beyond the wall’.
We live in the wall while beyond wall lives people who have built this wall, to protect everything after Pralaya. They are called Devatas, they have the knowledge, they have books for all needful knowledge and they have the power. There isn’t anything like the third section or section four but still, we call it the third section, they call it the circle. In the circle lives people who are brave, their dress code is saffron and they are called Nirbhaya, nudity is the last word in fashion for them.
They are mostly rude, wears loose black trousers and saffron shirts, their sleeves always rolled up, on their hand a ring of gold shows their rank, and they bow their head against no one but Devata. I don’t know by fear or by respect. They never fear anything – not even death, fearing death is our characteristic.
Nirbhaya believes Devatas are holy men. They are men of knowledge and man of latter. And they are. Mostly they write every book and keeps for themselves, not allowing anyone to read or even touch it.
Then beyond the wall live traders. Their area is called the Square, surrounded by a fence, in shape of a perfect square. The square is only for the traders, having beautiful houses and very good facilities. My people know the square as section four.
They trade everything as it’s their birthright. No one else is allowed to trade, even after paying tax we aren’t allowed to trade. They say it’s not our birthright. And most of us believe them.
Traders are mild, they never quarrel with anyone. They just trade and earn money and live a happy life. Their dress code is undecided. They can wear whatever they like, except for the same dress as Nirbhaya or Devata, even not of us. They mostly wear colourful clothes, killing red, blinding yellow, eye pain-ing white, but never somber. Their characteristics are fearful and selfish. They never show selflessness; they never give a food packet without money even if a person is dying with hunger in front of them.
And then beyond the wall lives people called folk. They have last names and they aren’t untouchable like us are the key differences between us. Of course, they live beyond the wall so no huts – they live in square and old houses, built of grey stone, with dark slate roofs. The houses built in a row, leaning into each other, one upon the next.
They are touchable but that isn’t mean they are equal to Devatas or Nirbhaya. But they haven’t any objection to this truth. No one objects rules from them and that’s why they’re called the folk.
And then we’re – not fit in ‘beyond the wall’. That’s why we live ‘in the wall’.
WE ARE THE SUNYAS – THE SUNYA MEANS NOBODY.
My people, always walks wearily, tired and with flat face – no expression over it. NO HOPE IN THEIR EYES.
We’ve no right to education. We’ve no right to knowledge. My people believe knowledge is a dangerous thing. People had killed each other in olden days for it. That's why we have to be so careful. We should stay away from it. We’ve no right to trade. We’ve no right to show bravery, we’ve no right to show selflessness and the most, NO RIGHT TO BEING HUMAN.
Beyond the wall lives head of all, we call him nothing but they call him ‘the creator’ and honors him as same as the god, believing both in the wall and beyond the wall is only due to him.
The area where the creator lives is with max security. All Devatas have grand houses there. They have all magical equipment to protect their area. They call it the PATANAGAR – an area in the shape of a triangle and in its center is a huge tower.
Once I’ve asked my father, “Who is the creator?” and his answer didn't make any sense. The answer was - As long as no one mention the Creator, everyone in the wall is happy. We're not supposed to know about him. We should just worship him.
So, people believe every natural disaster is under his control, or maybe he can stop them.
And so believe us.
Not all but most of us.
Some of us believe the creator is no one but the Avatar of Kaliyuga (Kali Purusha) itself. In his reign the age would be the dark, giving every creature misery and pain. And I think such gossipers are right. He can’t be the god as people believe him. How can a god make discrimination? Can God say half of his own children are untouchable?
NO, I THINK NO.
Sometimes I imagine a battle between us. In it, the Creator is overwhelmed and escapes the battleground on his ass as his chariot is destroyed and his owl charged war flag is being trampled on the battlefield by my people. I sometimes imagine him as a huge being as black as the smoke and sometimes I imagine him a demon with a dog like face, protesting fangs and pointed ears. I don’t know why but I mostly imagine him in red clothes.
But each time after imagination I smile at myself, at the foolishness of my imagination.
Sunyas cannot win him, just all this happen because my teacher has made up stories and filled my mind with them. Those stories can’t be true. I know that and I should forget those stories even though imagine them makes me happy and it’s not easy to forget them.
I haven’t seen ‘beyond the wall’, yet.
I’m sixteen today and so I’ll go beyond the wall, in the next round when the train would come. I’m so excited to know what is beyond the wall. How that people look that our people call Devata and Nirbhaya? I haven’t seen except the traders – they come in the wall to sell their goods at Traders’ fair.
I’ve waited so long for this: most of us feared to go beyond the wall, I don’t know why but I’m more curious than feared. There I’ll see, for the first time, the faces of the Devatas who make rules and Nirbhayas who force everyone to follow them. It will be the first time I go beyond the wall.
We buy necessary things from Traders – in exchange for coal, silver, and gold of mines, or any jungle product we have collected. That’s not surprising – they are traders – they do the trade – it’s their birthright. But the surprise is that they never touch us. We aren’t allowed to touch them, not even anyone.
They believe we are the Sunyas. The creator has allowed us to live on this land only because we can endure anything. We can bear hot weather, we can bear cold weather. We can even live in the desert. And the most important we can do labour, hard labour. They need us to make constructions beyond the wall.
Each of us is born-labourer of the creator. When we reach at the age of sixteen we do the compulsory labour of months every year beyond the wall. No one can deny. No one has ever denied.
Why?
We have no water, I mean drinking water. We have plenty of water in Samudra of the south but not drinkable still that water is our life. We get fish and many ocean foods from there but how can one survive without drinking water?
And we have no river in the wall.
Anyway, there isn’t a river beyond the wall except one – The Ganga. Pralaya had changed the climate, every river has died. There are only dry rivers or muddy rivers in some areas in the wall.
People say before that we had many rivers but now not, they say we also got water from the sky every monsoon for four months. And I wonder how can we get water from the sky?
Old men call it the rain. I’ve seen the rain, everyone in the wall has seen it, but we have just once or twice rain in a year. I remember.
I don’t know how long I stare at the sky but when I feel the cold is too high to bear I climb down. It takes me another hour to reach my premise, tiptoe in my hut and slid myself under the blanket.
***
To be continue.....
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