After Life
He stepped down the stairs and came outside the shade of the peepal tree and turned his gaze to the only source of light, the sky. In the island among the clouds, he saw some stars. With nothing else to do, he got into counting them— seven. Seven was the number of stars. Seven was the number of stars in his favourite constellation, which was nowhere to be seen. Only if the cloud moved apart, he could see the Saptarishi, the Big Dipper. And just like that as if the clouds could hear him, they parted and tore apart until they completely vanished revealing to Buddha, the complete grandeur of the night sky. The Saptarishis were all floating as they had always been. A sigh of relief went through him, there was nothing wrong with the wind. The breeze had just been dancing in the winter night. That explained the bone-chilling cold. So far so good.
Up in the sky, an island of cloud remained in the sea that was the sky– the role reversed. When this last unit of cloud disappeared, the moon in all its pomp glowed shining upon the earth its warm light. Buddha thanked the moon but it seemed to smile "No. Not yet". The city, now with the film of the yellow light on it, came to be. Buddha didn't know what to make of it. What he saw didn't make any sense. He stood in the middle of what appeared to be a courtyard. Surrounding it in all four directions was a tall wall which appeared to be jointed at small intervals. As he looked closely though he saw narrow pathways at two separate locations surrounding the beautiful courtyard. One opening was a beautiful arched gate. Seeing a way out of this confusion, Buddha walked passed through the gate. As if by instinct, as if by something long overdue, he turned right and walked along the cold bricked path.
Suddenly the stars up above vanished bestowing the lights in its stead to the walls and poles of this strange place. The stars hanging on the walls and metal and wooden poles illuminated the pathway. "What a strange place this is." Buddha thought as he realised what he thought were just walls were, in fact, houses. Could this be an illusion? Were his senses numbed? If not, was this the heaven his childhood gurus preached of? This place certainly appeared magical. Dream? Illusion? Real? Unreal? It didn't matter. He was here and now. He decided to see for himself what else this place had in store, what maya this place could concoct.
Buddha kept walking at a steady pace along the cold brick path. For someone from the southern Terai plains, the cold bricks were not very friendly. But soon he got used to it, he had to. It couldn't be cured, it had to be endured. As he walked through the wall like houses, now and then he came across temples. The temples felt more like houses than the houses on either side of the path. Perfectly lain bricks and pyramidal roofs on top of pyramidal roofs, the abodes of the holy looked beautiful. Not content with just the beauty of the structure, Buddha headed for the doors. Padlocked and grilled as if to prevent a criminal from escaping his sentence, whoever lived within these structures were chained for whatever reason. He knew what this felt like. Inside, he could see small humanlike figurines. But they weren't just figurines, they were moving about. Some of these structures housed a single figurine and in some, he saw an elephant-headed kid riding a little rodent, a beautiful doll-sized human-like lady playing the sitar. Along the way, he came across something stranger. He saw a bull dancing before what appeared to be a giant severed phallus. This place was strange, full of erect severed phalluses— some tiny and some unnaturally large, dancing as they were looked weird and out of the world. Besmeared with red vermillion powders and bits of flowers hanging on the edges, it was a sight to behold. Perhaps this place was teeming with intoxicants. Buddha had lost all sense of reality.
***
In another part of the town, two men had just met. Two different people from two completely varied backgrounds. Lost in this massive metropolitan, these two looked confused and out of sorts. The man with a lit cigarette in his hand was running away from the other. He was trying his best, slowing down now and then to take a drag. But the man that was tailing him was relentless. Every other minute the man with the cigarette, looked back to see if he had lost the man. But every time the man with his fluttering one-piece daura skirt on top a loose-fitting suruwal trousers and flipping yak tail attached to a modest cloth helmet appeared to be gaining on him.
After running for close to a quarter of an hour, the man had had enough. He decided, despite knowing what he was about to do was not what a sane person would do, to have a go at the tormentor. Despite his lack of belief, he had heard of strange happenings around the valley. His childhood was full of stories of ghosts and monsters and freaky creatures. This skirt donning, yak tail flipping man lurking at him certainly looked like something from the stories. He stopped and hastily picked up a brick-sized stone from a pothole in the road and stood his ground. When the skirted creature came to his touching distance, he grabbed a hold of him and smacked his head, the stone almost swung away from his sweaty hand.
It was only after the man screamed in pain that he realized, it was, in fact, a man. Now, more afraid than before having been that close to killing a man, he loosened his grip on the stone. As it fell, the bleeding man let out yet another scream. The curve had broken off of his left shoe and was now carrying blood jammed darkened toenail. Kabi was in trouble. What if something happened to this man? What if he pressed charges? Kabi had to do something.
***
Buddha was standing in front of a dimly lit glass wall. The red and blue neon lights along the frame of the glass door only just managed to show that an entrance existed there. Buddha went in and down the even darker neon blue stairs. As he went in, the music-filled noise became louder and louder and it started to get warmer. Groups of middle-aged men were scattered around the circular tables. Cigarette in hand, smoke clouds rising from the mouth and a sip of rum and beer once in a while, followed by dried buffalo meat, peanuts and circular pieces of cucumber and lemon completed the scene. At the farthest corner of the room were three girls, only just in their twenties, dancing to songs playing through the walls. Each of these girls was paired up with a pole. Every so often the girls changed their station and that they did with utmost elegance. The men, numbed by alcohol and smoke, drooled over them.
One of these girls caught Buddha's attention. Dressed in a skimpy blouse and a thigh-length skirt, Rupmati swung around the pole like blades of leaves dancing in the gentle wind. Dancing was like breathing to her. Buddha felt a tingle within him. Rupmati echoed in his heart. As he walked towards her like a nail to a magnet, he saw a deep-rooted melancholy in her eyes. She loved dancing but hated that she needed to.
***
Kabi walked in with a limping man whose head-dress was soaked in blood. He managed to find an empty table, seated the man at it and went to the bar to order drinks for the two of them.
“Give me two bottles.” he said still keeping an eye at the Man. He was worried he would talk to the man in the monkesque robe standing just by the table.
"Two bottles of what? “the bartender asked, " Pani? Raksi? Beer?"
"Two bottles of your strongest stuff. Fast! Send it to that table`` Kabi said pointing to where the Man was.
Kabi went to the table, nervously pulled a chair and sat on it. The Man was still pressing his head with his hand. Kabi was sweating in this chilly mid-winter night. “Ekai chin. Just wait for some minutes. The drink will be here. Aru kehi? Don't worry, I'll ask for sitan to go with the drink. I'm not a bad person… I don't know what happened. I thought you were a ghost. No… no… I don't believe in them. Bhutpretma biswas gardina ma."
The Man didn't speak a word. Kabi glanced towards the bar and signalled "Hurry up!". He smiled nervously at the Man. The Man remained mum.
***
As Buddha stood in awe of Rupmati, two men had just arrived at the nearby table and were having a nervous conversation. One man was talking nervously as the other one covered in blood, looked irritated and angry. From dancing penises to head covered in blood, this had been a crazy night. Buddha was struggling to make sense of this place. But, there was no time to be wasted thinking and trying to make sense— Rupmati was waiting.
Buddha had refrained from temptations for all these years and it was precisely why Rupmati had him by the loins. The cork had to be unscrewed and it was time. He went towards the dancefloor hoping to be seen. But for Rupmati, who was in a cocktail of her love for dance and hatred of the situation she was in, he was just one more in the sea of predators waiting to pounce on her flesh. He was like a tree in a forest– invisible.
***
The Man was gulping straight from the bottle. Kabi had a timid smile as he sipped from the tiny glass cup. “This is some good stuff. The sukiti is at its finest as well. There's a slight chance he might forgive me. `` Kabi thought. The Man was still silent. He had almost finished his bottle. Kabi was barely one shot down. Kabi ordered one more for the Man. "Try the sukuti. Esto mitho aru kahi paudaina. ``, Kabi said pointing to the dry meat on the steel plate. The Man gave a slight grunt as he laid down the empty bottle. He suspiciously picked up a piece of the dry hard buffalo meat and put it in his mouth. He smiled. Kabi did too.
Kabi, now gaining in confidence, asked the Man to look at the stage where three girls, who had probably come to this land of many dead dreams with hopes of making it big, were dancing. The girls ripe like apple were in every man's eyes in the room. The man in the robe, too, appeared to be enchanted by the girls. A monk-like figure drooling over something so earthly and base, was something Kabi couldn't grasp. It must be a pretatma Kabi thought. For a moment he wanted to hit him with a brick but then remembered the “pretatma” drinking beside him.
The monk was now just in front of the girls. It was then Kabi heard a man shout, “Eh, sonofabitch, move over. Tya bata hatt. Those are not your bitches. I wanna see them shake." When the monk didn't budge an inch, a man came over and pushed the monk and then grabbed a girl. The girl tried to push him back–"eh murda, k garchas chod malai. Let go of me!" The man pulled her more violently and as she was about to fall off the stage, the monk, now full of rage, punched the man at his jaw. The man fell to the floor. The monk smiled at the girl.
***
Rupmati was trying to tell Buddha something but Buddha, happy to have saved her skin, was lost in his victory. He then felt a bottle smash at his head. His mop of hair did limit the impact but not enough to prevent him from bleeding. As he fell on the floor, the man's friends started kicking him. Buddha felt powerless. The whole room went quiet except for the music coming out of the walls and the sound of Buddha getting kicked. He covered his head with his hands. The kicking continued.
Kabi, who was seeing all this from a distance, was mulling over his next course of action. A holy man was being beaten to a pulp, should his half-drunk-self remain an audience? The other option for him was to join the holy man— land a punch and then be the sandbag. The Man, however, stood up—an empty bottle in hand, still not over Kabi's preratma incident— walked straight to the men, smashed the bottle on a head, kicked the other in the nut and hit a tight left hook at another's jaw.
***
A Man with bloodied head pulled Buddha up from the ground. The Man smiled. Another man followed soon after, "Are you alright monk? Tapai yeha kasari? Buddha risaulan." "Thank you.” Buddha replied. "Come join us.” said Kabi as he directed Buddha towards their table. Kabi pulled a chair from a nearby table. Buddha sat down. Kabi poured some water in the glass and passed it to Buddha.
Rupmati soon came to the table, smiled politely and asked, "Are you alright? I could have handled those jerks. It was nothing new. But thank you anyway. “Buddha kept sipping water from his glass and smiled shyly. The Man, however, nonchalantly looked—"No big deal. “Rupmati, soon went about her job. Everything was back to normal in the room.
"That smile doesn't bode well, monk. I know. I also know this is out of your ball game. Yo timro basko kura haina. " Kabi took a dig at Buddha.
Buddha had waited a lifetime for this. He would wait no longer. His eyes sparkled like the North Star as it followed every intricate move Rupmati made around the pole. Each of her moves was a different constellation. She was stars reincarnate. Aries, Taurus, Sagittarius, the Saptarishi… she held within her the entire star system. She was a stargazer's dream. Buddha was intoxicated. And as Rupmati danced to the tune, he danced to her. Buddha was no more.
***
Buddha was standing in front of a dimly lit glass wall. The red and blue neon lights along the frame of the glass door only just managed to show that an entrance existed there. Buddha went in and down the even darker neon blue stairs. As he went in, the music-filled noise became louder and louder and it started to get warmer. Groups of middle-aged men were scattered around the circular tables. Cigarette in hand, smoke clouds rising from the mouth and a sip of rum and beer once in a while, followed by dried buffalo meat, peanuts and circular pieces of cucumber and lemon completed the scene. At the farthest corner of the room were three girls, only just in their twenties, dancing to songs playing through the walls. Each of these girls was paired up with a pole. Every so often the girls changed their station and that they did with utmost elegance. The men, numbed by alcohol and smoke, drooled over them.
One of these girls caught Buddha's attention. Dressed in a skimpy blouse and a thigh-length skirt, Rupmati swung around the pole like blades of leaves dancing in the gentle wind. Dancing was like breathing to her. Buddha felt a tingle within him. Rupmati echoed in his heart. As he walked towards her like a nail to a magnet, he saw a deep-rooted melancholy in her eyes. She loved dancing but hated that she needed to.
***
Kabi walked in with a limping man whose head-dress was soaked in blood. He managed to find an empty table, seated the man at it and went to the bar to order drinks for the two of them.
“Give me two bottles.” he said still keeping an eye at the Man. He was worried he would talk to the man in the monkesque robe standing just by the table.
"Two bottles of what? “the bartender asked, " Pani? Raksi? Beer?"
"Two bottles of your strongest stuff. Fast! Send it to that table`` Kabi said pointing to where the Man was.
Kabi went to the table, nervously pulled a chair and sat on it. The Man was still pressing his head with his hand. Kabi was sweating in this chilly mid-winter night. “Ekai chin. Just wait for some minutes. The drink will be here. Aru kehi? Don't worry, I'll ask for sitan to go with the drink. I'm not a bad person… I don't know what happened. I thought you were a ghost. No… no… I don't believe in them. Bhutpretma biswas gardina ma."
The Man didn't speak a word. Kabi glanced towards the bar and signalled "Hurry up!". He smiled nervously at the Man. The Man remained mum.
***
As Buddha stood in awe of Rupmati, two men had just arrived at the nearby table and were having a nervous conversation. One man was talking nervously as the other one covered in blood, looked irritated and angry. From dancing penises to head covered in blood, this had been a crazy night. Buddha was struggling to make sense of this place. But, there was no time to be wasted thinking and trying to make sense— Rupmati was waiting.
Buddha had refrained from temptations for all these years and it was precisely why Rupmati had him by the loins. The cork had to be unscrewed and it was time. He went towards the dancefloor hoping to be seen. But for Rupmati, who was in a cocktail of her love for dance and hatred of the situation she was in, he was just one more in the sea of predators waiting to pounce on her flesh. He was like a tree in a forest– invisible.
***
The Man was gulping straight from the bottle. Kabi had a timid smile as he sipped from the tiny glass cup. “This is some good stuff. The sukiti is at its finest as well. There's a slight chance he might forgive me. `` Kabi thought. The Man was still silent. He had almost finished his bottle. Kabi was barely one shot down. Kabi ordered one more for the Man. "Try the sukuti. Esto mitho aru kahi paudaina. ``, Kabi said pointing to the dry meat on the steel plate. The Man gave a slight grunt as he laid down the empty bottle. He suspiciously picked up a piece of the dry hard buffalo meat and put it in his mouth. He smiled. Kabi did too.
Kabi, now gaining in confidence, asked the Man to look at the stage where three girls, who had probably come to this land of many dead dreams with hopes of making it big, were dancing. The girls ripe like apple were in every man's eyes in the room. The man in the robe, too, appeared to be enchanted by the girls. A monk-like figure drooling over something so earthly and base, was something Kabi couldn't grasp. It must be a pretatma Kabi thought. For a moment he wanted to hit him with a brick but then remembered the “pretatma” drinking beside him.
The monk was now just in front of the girls. It was then Kabi heard a man shout, “Eh, sonofabitch, move over. Tya bata hatt. Those are not your bitches. I wanna see them shake." When the monk didn't budge an inch, a man came over and pushed the monk and then grabbed a girl. The girl tried to push him back–"eh murda, k garchas chod malai. Let go of me!" The man pulled her more violently and as she was about to fall off the stage, the monk, now full of rage, punched the man at his jaw. The man fell to the floor. The monk smiled at the girl.
***
Rupmati was trying to tell Buddha something but Buddha, happy to have saved her skin, was lost in his victory. He then felt a bottle smash at his head. His mop of hair did limit the impact but not enough to prevent him from bleeding. As he fell on the floor, the man's friends started kicking him. Buddha felt powerless. The whole room went quiet except for the music coming out of the walls and the sound of Buddha getting kicked. He covered his head with his hands. The kicking continued.
Kabi, who was seeing all this from a distance, was mulling over his next course of action. A holy man was being beaten to a pulp, should his half-drunk-self remain an audience? The other option for him was to join the holy man— land a punch and then be the sandbag. The Man, however, stood up—an empty bottle in hand, still not over Kabi's preratma incident— walked straight to the men, smashed the bottle on a head, kicked the other in the nut and hit a tight left hook at another's jaw.
***
A Man with bloodied head pulled Buddha up from the ground. The Man smiled. Another man followed soon after, "Are you alright monk? Tapai yeha kasari? Buddha risaulan." "Thank you.” Buddha replied. "Come join us.” said Kabi as he directed Buddha towards their table. Kabi pulled a chair from a nearby table. Buddha sat down. Kabi poured some water in the glass and passed it to Buddha.
Rupmati soon came to the table, smiled politely and asked, "Are you alright? I could have handled those jerks. It was nothing new. But thank you anyway. “Buddha kept sipping water from his glass and smiled shyly. The Man, however, nonchalantly looked—"No big deal. “Rupmati, soon went about her job. Everything was back to normal in the room.
"That smile doesn't bode well, monk. I know. I also know this is out of your ball game. Yo timro basko kura haina. " Kabi took a dig at Buddha.
Buddha had waited a lifetime for this. He would wait no longer. His eyes sparkled like the North Star as it followed every intricate move Rupmati made around the pole. Each of her moves was a different constellation. She was stars reincarnate. Aries, Taurus, Sagittarius, the Saptarishi… she held within her the entire star system. She was a stargazer's dream. Buddha was intoxicated. And as Rupmati danced to the tune, he danced to her. Buddha was no more.
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