28
THE CITY CENTRE
[The poor will be in the condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work. And people will work without refusing. They’ll work for nothing as they would have been chattel slaves who are owned by the evil rules and whose children and children’s children are automatically enslaved. But then the Avatar will appear among those slaves and rebel for the first time. He makes other realize what have they become.]
The second dream is creepier than the first.
I’m trapped somewhere in the PATANAGAR.
I’m crying and tearing and wailing like a small boy but in that dream, I’m forty.
Then the pain starts to stab in my head as if someone is drilling my skull, my eyes feel as if I’m being boiled in lava.
I’m in a small room, made of stone blocks. It’s creepy like a prison.
Lava starts to fill the room. I can’t understand from where the lava is coming. There is no way except a metal door shut closely on me. The door is watertight, impossible for even water to come inside or go outside.
I’m standing in the lava but the strange thing is that it isn’t burning my legs. I feel as if I’m standing in the water.
In some minutes the lava is drowning me. I try to swim. Try to keep me on the surface but my hands aching.
Tired.
I’m tired.
I’m so tired that unable to move my hands, unable to swim, unable to keep myself on the surface.
Something inside my body feels wrong. I’m dying.
The lava.
I’m drowning in the lava.
So… tired…
Unable to help myself.
Wrong. Everything is wrong.
I shouldn’t die this way.
And then it hits me – I’m betrayed.
Someone has betrayed me and tricked me in this room – inside me, I know this.
But who?
I don’t know.
And then my body hits the floor. I fumble to get something.
My hands find something curved, made of metal.
As I look at the thing my hand the lava drowning me disappears.
I’m again alone – in a prison-like room.
I look at the thing in my hand – it’s something strange.
Maybe it’s some kind of a weapon. On it is written R.M.
I don’t know its meaning.
I don’t know what is in my hand but I throw it at the door.
It hits the back of the door someone had shut on me and the door starts to glow and with a blast, the door shatters and I’m out on the road covered with abandoned cars and other vehicles.
“Samrat,” next morning my father wakes me up to hear the new news.
“What?” I say, half- sitting from the ground, y body aching with yesterday’s fatigue.
“Get ready to visit the city center.”
“City center?” I question.
“Yes,” he says, “Nirbhaya leader has ordered just now to make all apprentice ready for work in the outer field. We have to repair a building which is in good condition.”
“Where?”
“City center,” he says, “some Devatas will live there to maintain this city.”
I take a towel out from my rucksack and go out to a huge mobile water tank attached with a machine. They call the machine: tractor. It carries that water tank with us where ever we go.
We are allowed to bath once every three days using a bucket of water from this mobile tank’s huge tap.
After taking bath I change into the field clothes with field boots like one of the hunters, buckle my toolkit at waist and get ready to go.
My father has used his chance of bathing yesterday so he gets ready in field dress and rubber shoes without a bath.
“We don’t have much time,” Nirbhaya leader shouts when we gather back inside glass building, “we need to reach the city center before noon.” His voice as strained as his face, “Devatas has come to the city to examine the work. They are in the city center. Behave as you should or we have to behead you even on your small mistake.”
I feel as if he isn’t willing to kill us on small mistakes.
“GO!,” he says, “and seat inside the bus, all apprentice stay close to your parents and don’t forget to bow when you see Devatas or you will be punished to death.”
My heart skips a beat here. They kill a person only if he doesn’t bow to a Devata?
Is this fair?
NO. I think. NO.
My father looks at me, “Let’s go.”
After the brief hesitation, I follow him, almost rushing out to get out of the glass building among all the Sunyas, as fast as so we can reach the city center before noon.
I feel many emotions – why we need to do whatever they say?
But instead, my answer I hear, “GO, hurry. Get on the bus.” Shouts of the Nirbhaya leader seem me crazy.
One of Nirbhayas gets on our bus after we get in. the bus is in pathetic condition as it was facing the storm every night. When we came here the bus was in good condition but now its sides are dented and scattered, most of the windows are webbed with cracks.
“Get on!” Nirbhaya leader is screaming to the Sunyas at other buses, “Hurry!”
They do, forming into a tight pack they enter into the bus, one by one. And then the leader gets in and orders the driver to move.
Without a word, the driver (I think he is folk) keep his foot on the gas and the bus plows forward, driving off into the dusty and sandy air.
The next hour or so is a blur of sight as the sand is thick in the air but an hour later when we are on the road, the air has slim sand. Everything around is visible.
The driver is driving the bus at reckless speed, all the buses and machines and tractors and movable water tank are following with the same reckless speed.
Out bus crosses a dry river by an old concrete bridge and a few miles later passes by a roadside huge building.
“What’s that building?” I ask my father.
“It’s gas station.”
“What’s for it?”
“Here vehicles get its fuel.”
“Will our bus stop here?”
“No, this is abandoned one.” He says, “Before Pralaya everyone has vehicles and all get fuel for it at the roadside gas station.”
I glance at the gas station before it passes by completely. It’s like debris. Some pumps and huge hoses are oddly but still in place. Instead, the window the building has gaps. The left half of the construction is totally broken. Dust and ash everywhere as if someone has burned the whole building.
And now bus passes by far of the bridge, turning left with the road. My eyes can see only ash instead of dust and sand as if the whole area has been burned. Chattered and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side make my heart tremble. Ash moving over the road is making the air black.
Many burned buildings here and there on both sides of the road. Everything seems as if made of nothing but charcoal.
We leave the ash area in an hour and enter the city where again broken buildings are visible.
I observe various giant buildings till our bus halt in a big clearing in front of a small building. It’s not much damage. I guess it as the city center.
We get out of the bus as the Nirbhaya inside our bus orders. In no time all the Sunyas gather in the big clearing in front of that small good conditioned building. I wonder why that building has no windows. Not even glass decorated over the concrete.
A troop of the Nirbhayas is waiting for us with some machines; one of those machines was making rumbling noise.
“What’s that?” I ask my father pointing at that huge black machine attached with a jeep.
“It’s a generator,” he says, “it produces electricity to wielding. It’s useful to ironworkers.”
In no time the orders are given for various works.
My father gets work to pour a concrete walkway with five other Sunyas.
I join them.
“Hi,” Aditya, the boy who was called first in test room comes to me, “how are you feeling?”
“About what?” I ask.
“everything.” He says.
“Nothing makes sense.” I say, “and what do you think?”
“I think about my hut, my younger brother and my mother.” He says, “I’ve no time to think about all the shits beyond the wall.”
I nod, “nice to meet you.” I say.
“Me, too.” he smiles and leaves for his work. His father is working on the pavement near the front door.
His mention of his family floods memory of my hut. I miss my mother, Padhma, Daxa, Krupa and my every friend in the wall.
“Pay attention.” Before thoughts make me sad, says one of the Sunyas, “apprentice should give proper attention.”
I just nod, not wanting to answer such nonsense.
Our troop gathers concrete float, hammer, garden rake type big rake, gravel, some boards and then my father and uncle Durrani starts to mix concrete in a machine.
As all say my father best in even field work too. He plots out the course of the path using stakes and strings. Mark with white paint. Excavates the path to a depth of 10”, removing all debris from the path. Tamps down the soil to form a flat base.
Then all six in my troop pour gravel to a depth of 5” and tamp it down to a level surface. It takes more than two hours.
All others are busy in their own work, some in ironwork, some making concrete, some repairing pavement, some working on steps, some on the wall and some on pillars. All are working as they are repairing their own house. I wonder how we Sunyas can work with so loyalty.
We use boards to create forms for the sides of the walkway. Drive wooden stakes along the path at 4’ intervals, placing them just outside the pathway, attach 1’x 5’ x 5’ boards to the sides of the stakes with screws to create the form for the concrete.
My father makes sure all form boards are plumb and level.
My father teaches me why it’s imperative that the tops of the stakes are lower than the form sides so they don’t interfere in the smoothing process later. Why after the forms are built we should spray them lightly with water before filling it concrete.
Really, my father is a good workman.
It makes us exhausted to pouring the concrete, here again, my father says me why we should pour walkway’s lowest point to its highest point.
We level it with rakes as soon as we finish pouring.
When we level and smooth the walkway it about to dark.
And then I see Devatas coming out of the building. They are five, four of them are the age of my father and one is of my age. All are in same dress code – white &white.
Their features are the same; they all have eyes crisscrossed with red veins and body webbed with green veins. No hair over their body, not even on the head or as eyebrows.
They check the walkway but say nothing. Just observe and retreat to the building.
“Don’t they like our work?” I ask my father as Devatas disappear inside the building.
“They do.”
“Then why they don’t say anything?”
“What do you want?” he says, “Do you expect them to praise your work, boy?”
“No.” I stammer, “But…”
“We are lucky they have found no problem in our work.”
“What if there was a problem?”
“We wouldn’t get dinner at night or breakfast at tomorrow morning,” he says, “not even tomorrow evening if we haven’t make the walkway again as they like.”
I have no words, no food till you make them happy with your work.
Fuck Devatas! I curse in my mind.
***
to be continue...
