I am here for an assignment in my true art, photography. My pitiful attempts at writing stories have failed always, and so the job that puts money in my pocket remains my current occupation. Actually, I never send my stories to anyone to read – I just write them, and leave the papers in a drawer.

Layers within layers. A prominent film producer here in Mumbai wants me to shoot some photographs. They have a meeting scheduled for this evening, at 5 pm. His assistant called me up about a week ago to tell me to come. As usual, it was because I am the Wedding Photographer, I believe. What other reason could be there?

But this time the circumstances are a little different. This producer is in the process of making a new movie. He is the holder of a record – the most important one in Bollywood. Producerji X (I am unable to disclose his name) has made 16 hit movies in a row. Commercial success. And so he is now a Big Man, the Biggest, perhaps, in Mumbai. Producerji X has never called me before, so I know there was something strange going on when I got the call.

His assistant, Mehta, wanted me to take photographs of the first meeting for this movie. I asked him why me, why not one of a thousand other photographers in Mumbai. Why not someone from Producerji’s own film crew, in fact?

There is no way for me to know. At 5 pm, I am outside Producerji’s home, a palace really, in Bandra, a suburban area. The house is made of silver, it seems, starting from the pearly gates where two burly security guards keep watch. I hear the growls of the guard dogs in the distance, perhaps kept hungry on purpose in order to protect their master if called for. The inside of the house is pure luxury, a far cry from my hut back in the village. I feel a little lost with how big the inside is, and can only compare it to my visit once to a museum, with so many things left out to display. Where do the people of this house sleep and eat?

Anyway, I am still curious to know why I am here, as I look at the pictures of Producerji accepting a film award and one of a meeting with the Prime Minister. A screech of tires outside the house, and I know the Man has arrived. He enters the house in haste, his assistant trailing. Mehta briefs him quickly as to who this visitor is (me), and he turns to me and smiles his greeting.

Following the quick and obligatory small talk, he tell me what he wants. It is surprising, his request, but somehow it does not surprise me all that much. Here are the facts of the case: Producerji wants to make a movie, a movie that he wants to be a hit. But his main intention for this movie is not for it to be a success, though he anticipates it will be (having already made so many). He wants the main actor of this movie to marry his daughter. His daughter, Seria, is a bold, and intelligent young woman, and even has a degree in business from the USA. She is the first woman from the family to have a degree. Anyway, she is not interested in marrying right now (being only 21), and wants to work overseas for a few years.

Producerji, on the other hand, wants her to marry straight away, and to marry the biggest actor in Bollywood (whose name I must also keep confidential, my apologies) because, then, as he visualizes, this Actor will work for him without causing too much trouble, when he wants him to. One less hassle in the great business of Production, may every movie be a Hit!

He and his assistant (Mehta, who I suspect is smarter than he looks) have hatched a cunning plan. Only a few weeks ago, Producerji while talking to Seria (who even then, was making plans to leave Mumbai for London) asked if she would like to learn to dance the Salsa. She idly replied that she did, and to her surprise, the next day there was a professional Salsa teacher in their house. Arrangements were made for this teacher to come once a week, Friday, at a given hour (5.30 pm).

That is today. In 15 minutes.

As the second part, Producerji and Mehta have set up a meeting between The Actor and themselves, also today, at 5. 45 pm, to discuss the grand new Hit that they were going to make, and that the Actor would of course take the lead role in.

The plan is as follows: When the Actor arrives at their home, Producerji will be late, having been detained at a meeting. Mehta will then usher Actorji into a meeting room, but will then find that Seria and her salsa teacher are dancing there. Mehta will then introduce Seria to the Actor, and suggest that they dance together. The Actor being the best salsa dancer in Mumbai, will gladly accept. And once they start to dance together..who knows?

My part in this is to take a picture of the Actor and Seria’s first accidental, fortuitous meeting, for their wedding album. My cover story is that I am taking pictures of her learning to dance for Producerji, for he will miss her sorely while she is gone to London.

So it happened as planned- Producerji creating a moment in his daughter’s life as beautifully natural as one of his moments on the big screen. Both the Actor and Seria danced in each other’s arms for but a brief moment, before Producerji returned. The two stole a single glance (a glance I was able to capture, having being lying in wait all along) at each other as she was whisked away.

And Producerji knew that this too, would be a big Hit. He was discussing wedding plans with Mehta just before I left, my photos to be the sole and silent remnant of these events, and me the talisman (I think) that would create the impending miracle of a wedding. Surely my reputation has spread far and wide, now! For the click of my camera is to guarantee the future happiness of the people in it, so the legend goes. It has been proven many a time by the smiling faces of the brides and the grooms.

Or maybe Producerji was only covering all his bases, he knew that his crazy plan would succeed with or without me. He wanted the photos to be on the first page of the wedding album- this is all he told me.

Alas, this movie (no. 17) failed at the box office, and this marriage produced in heaven never took place, as a result. The Actor swore never to work with Producerji again, who retired a broken man. Seria moved to London, where presumably she found other males to dance the salsa with, her newly acquired skill. Mehta never called me to ask about the photos, and of course they did not pay me.

My relative, Raju (I think his name was) had just got married. He wanted to go on his honeymoon, and decided on a place called Ooty, a popular hillstation in Tamilnadu, where I live. It is a popular tourist destination and particularly during the annual flower show in Spring. The air is so fresh and cool! Another of my relatives lived in Ooty, so a plan came up rather mysteriously, in that strange Indian way. Raju and his new wife would come to our house, and from there my mother and I would go with them to Ooty. We would all stay at my aunt’s home there for a few days, Saturday and Sunday. Raju said he had to get back home by Monday, the wedding season started in Spring, and he had a lot of work to do.

Normally, we would drive all the way to Ooty, but in keeping with the spirit of the honeymoon, it was decided (mysteriously) that we would all go by train. There is no direct train there, as far as I know. We took one train to Mettupalayam, and then from there another train, with different rail tracks (because it was so steep, or because it was the original tracks laid by the British, I don’t know), to Ooty.

It is a very steep mountain to climb, and the train proceeded slowly but steadily. The scenery was beautiful, and Raju wished out loud almost every minute that he had his camera. But he had anticipated the need, and perhaps in a moment of transcendent realism had decided to just enjoy the journey. The fresh, bitter smell of Eucalyptus pervaded the air, so fresh and so cool, cooler as we went further up.

Gradually it dawned on me that Raju was having maybe the best day of his life. He was just married, and on his honeymoon. I heard that he had met his wife by accident or by fate, something that rarely happens in our strict society, and that they just “liked” each other. He spoke a lot today (in his native language, Malayalam), which I never remembered him doing before, at least in our limited interaction. He looked at her in his curious sideways manner, shy almost, while they spoke to each other.

Over the course of our conversations, he said something funny, something that has stuck in my mind all these years. He said he had a friend in the US of A. One day, someone asked him where his friend lived in the US of A, and Raju said “near the railway station” – a common answer in Kerala when someone does not know an address.  It still makes me laugh today.

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Today I got a call from my mother. Raju is dead. They believe he was depressed. A few months earlier, his wife had died, or had left him, I’m not sure. He committed suicide yesterday, swallowing a number of sleeping pills and he was drunk as well. Ah now I remember, his wife had left him a few months earlier because Raju used to beat her when he was drunk, she wasn’t dead.  He left behind a son, Rajesh, who is now four.

I need to catch my train soon, so I can get to where I want to go. But there is one thing I need to do first. I must get a ticket.

My town was racked by a series of bomb explosions a few years ago, when the vice prime minister of vice came to visit. So there is a bomb detection squad at the entrance of the station. There is a bomb detection tunnel that looks like it was made of old odds and ends, such as cardboard and wire. The tunnel whistles and clicks when it senses something. When the policeman sees me, he ushers me through the tunnel, perhaps sensing my innate terrorism. It clicks and whistles, but I must have been ok because they had no further questions or searches. The tunnel, strangely, was so narrow, and the number of passengers so many, that people with bags were allowed to enter the station without passing through the tunnel of whistles and clicks. I guess it is a good thing the idea of carrying bombs in bags has not yet caught on yet here in my small town.

I am standing in the queue, finally. This took some time. The train station here is very crowded, and there are many queues for many reasons. There is one queue for platform tickets (people who need to get into the station to say goodbye to passengers), reserved tickets, unreserved tickets, handicapped tickets and so forth. I need to get a ticket to Bombay.

My queue is long, and there are many animals living in the ecosystem of this queue. People wait with wary expressions, watching out for other people who might try to jump their place, or just walk to the front of the queue, or (most commonly) try to persuade another passenger, better placed, to buy their ticket.

A man, towards the end of the queue (now a hundred strong) huddles and whispers with a woman, probably his wife. A moment later she rises, and with a purposeful stride walks to the ticket window in front, and announces “Women’s queue”, scoring a win for equal opportunity, but not women’s liberation. A man, probably without any female company, slithers out of his place in the line and begins to yell angrily, for he knows what is about to happen. Seconds later, there is a long queue of women – women from the newly differentiated men’s queue, or from other queues without equal opportunity women’s queues, or wives pushed forward by anxious husbands desperate to get a legal opportunity to travel, where previously they dozed quietly in the middle of this commotion next to the luggage, waiting for their long suffering husbands to return with the golden ticket. Now for each man who gets a ticket, so must a woman. 50:50.

A male prospective passenger walks up to the front of the line, the same who yelled in anger (or anguish) when the women’s queue was created. He tells the person in front to let him pass, buy his ticket, his train leaves in 5 minutes. This person refuses vehemently, his train leaves in 3 minutes, and to go back to the recesses wherefore he came from. First come, first served. An angry argument erupts. Finally the passenger walks back to his place, muttering and cursing. A few people glare at him.

The queue moves forward slowly. I hear a few muffled noises at the front, and I look to see what is going on. Oh my God, it is a ticket agent. I move quickly to another queue, and hope for the best.

A ticket agent is a virus in the System. One can get a ticket agent to buy a ticket for you for a very small fee – maybe 10 or 15 rupees. Armed with a pen, a stack of application forms and a mobile phone, the agent strides leisurely to the queue in the morning. As the queue progresses, he starts to get calls from people who need a ticket, and he starts to fill in the forms. When he gets to the front of the line, he very often has ten forms filled in, and as each form takes about 5 minutes to be processed (outdated computer systems, and bored public servants the chief reasons), the agent often gets more calls while these forms are being processed. Now that the virus is at the top of this little eco-system, he needs to keep the main animals happy. A system of tradeoffs is required.

Contrary to all the existing laws of queue theory, the second passenger in line now has to wait for an hour or more to get his ticket. Often this does not happen, as the virus will kindly offer to let the next passenger buy his ticket after 3 or 4 of his forms have been processed, After all the agent has the entire day to stand in front of the ticket window. Sometimes things can go wrong. Passengers at the back of the line are sometimes unaware that their system has been hijacked. They might check their watches impatiently from time to time, blissful in their ignorance and misplaced anger. But the people in front have a bird’s eye view. They have waited for much time, and in the main it has been an honest wait. They can see the eyes of the public servant who is to process their forms. A small victory over the system is imminent. They smell blood – their ticket is close at hand. And then they have to wait.

You can push a queue member only so far, and then they can snap. You can see it festering in their eyes. So it is best to be careful for the virus. It isn’t worth being beaten up by an angry member of the eco-system. So they need to be managed carefully.

Many hours pass.

His brother said many true things, and many things he believed to be true, for Jude knew his brother better than he knew himself. But doubt kept creeping up in his heart, faulty logic instilled by a world already corrupted. He saw the fire and the spears of those against his brother, but one man, and he trembled while others stood firm. And all he said came to pass, but still Jude harboured his disbelief deep within. And then the ultimate proof, shocking proof, and Jude could not but surrender, the rocky walls of his softly whispered lies broken down, to let the thunderous waters of faith into his heart.  Fifty long years, and he had spent much time thinking, reflecting, and his thoughts he wrote down on many scrolls, painstakingly, for he seldom could stay long in any place. And the more he wrote and reflected, the more he began to believe, to know, to experience the truth. The joy of the truth overcame him, and he began to speak to all those who listened, those who would not turn aside. And so he came to this distant land, a land of dark people, not running away from his destiny any more, but towards.

Jude walked slowly, regaining his equilibrium from many weeks at sea. He saw a small boy standing near, a dark boy, a shade he had never seen before. The boy stared at Jude, curious, and then scurried away, not from fear, but because his parents had called. Jude looked to see, and he saw in the distance, along the sandy beach, the little boy’s parents, and many more besides. They stood near another boat, a fishing boat close at hand, and prepared to welcome it back from the sea.

A fishing village. He watched, a smile on his face, as the fisherpeople came ashore from their day’s work. They worked tirelessly, dragging the net on long ropes of jute from their boats, bringing their catch in. Today was a good day, and so they would eat with joy tonight. They noticed this man, and a few others besides, close by, and so they worked watchfully, observing from beneath half lowered eyes as they toiled. For no man had come to the village, not in living memory, but for the merchants who bought their fish.

Fish for them was their sustenance, their daily bread, but the people of the town looked down at them, sniffing at the air of this seaside town daintily almost, when one of the fisherpeople passed too close in the streets. This town had evolved, as had many a town, for the fisherpeople to be a race apart, unwanted, both them and their fish. Gradually man and fisherman grew apart, distinct in their lives from birth to death, for no pujari would perform the rituals. And this was just the way it was, fatal acceptance inevitable. In poverty they lived, for the rich sustenance of their fish, life giving, went to others of uncertain caste, their produce of the lowest value. No man spoke to them, and eventually the fisherpeople did not exist – they were dead in this discriminating society. But life went on nonetheless, and in the daily rituals of activity they hid from their hearts this shame.

Ismail the Arab arrived presently, looking at the fish with crafty dismay, pointing to the small and ignoring the big, playing the game of commerce with the fisherpeople. He too saw Jude, and Jude saw him. Jude walked to Ismail the Arab, and with a smile said “Will you translate for me?

Ismail the Arab did as Jude asked, and many of the fisherpeople looked at Jude with toothy grins when he spoke:  A wise fisherman cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish.”

A murmur went up among the fisherpeople, for this strange man, standing apart from them, different from all the life on this land, had come to them, and spoke to them, like they too were alive. Their capacity for wonderment, to be a part of something Great, long asleep, begins to creep awake, slowly, but knowing it can make this journey back to the land of the living. A word spoken gently, sometimes, can awaken the deepest insight even in a life unlived.

Jude Thomas, the Apostle, brother of Jesus, began to speak again, not just to the fishermen, but to all men:

…the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves..

The wedding season ran from April to September, and there was scarcely a day then that he did not have to go to a wedding, camera in hand. But from September to April, there were sometimes long periods – days, weeks, that he did not have any assignments- such was the nature of his work. These long days were taken up by photography of his own. When he could afford to buy film, Raju would visit the nooks and crannies of the land, with his camera in hand.  And these pictures he would keep in his hut. Many of these, framed, decorated the inside of his hut, and many lay consigned to a dusty drawer within, frameless.

The wedding photographer went on his journeys no longer. He spent his days in the kallushaap, looking at his dusty glass, unquenchable thirst, picking at his meals. And some nights he lay senseless in the paddy field, sharing the open air with a stray dog that was now his only friend.

A time ago, not yet quite a year, his wife, newlywed, had walked with him in this very field, hand in hand, fingers tightly interwoven.

Raju had not always been a photographer. He was an artist, a painter, and again his love for nature came to his art- of mountain streams, a rarely seen tiger, the Arabian sea. But his art was poorly paid, and to feed himself and live in his hut, he bought a camera, and began to learn.

A time ago, he found his reality with his camera, rejoicing in the mechanics, the heft of his instrument in his hand, at his eye. A simple process, point and shoot, focus and exposure, subject framed, lighting critical. Things real became things photographed, reality first a negative on a film, then filled with color again, filled with a beautiful, chemical induced, eternal second life.

Focus, focus, focus. The photographer’s focus lay unwavering, between hand and eye, camera steady, subject ready, waiting for eternal bliss. The click, and the conversion began, but the wedding photographer’s focus had already shifted to a point in the future, when he would create that second life.

Perhaps a moment of his life, that physical moment, was lost this way, and perhaps the intensity of his work meant a great many moments of his life was lost. And this may have been Raju’s karma, his place in Life. But Life sometimes has its ways, and in this case it played strange games.

On the first day of spring, he received the assignment that would, eventually, become the reason he was called the wedding photographer. A visitor came, a young woman named Maya. She held a copy of the paper, his ad within, and asked if he would take a photo. The day was bright and sunny, and they stood outside the hut, Raju measuring light and distance, his hand steady, about to take his first wedding photo. But his focus wavered, from frame, from aspect, from sunlight, to subject itself – he saw, perhaps for the first time, Life bursting through this woman’s smile, her dusky skin glowing, her countenance light – a sunrise he once sketched but did not remember now. These details he sees now, he will remember forever.

The picture is taken, but Raju thinks not of the work he must undertake for the day, his interest now the woman who has visited him. He asks her why she wants a photo, and is dismayed to hear it is a wedding photo – her parents want one, she says, so they can find her a suitable boy. They share a few quiet moments sipping hot tea, but those fleeting moments are enough.

A month and a day later, they are married.

And many a month goes by that the wedding photographer is enraptured, staring at Eternity, unwilling to come down from Heaven. He looks up at the sun in the sky, and he sees Maya. And when a cloud comes by with the promise of rain, in those raindrops too he sees Maya. The wedding photographer has discovered a new science, a new art, the art of love. He begins, as he started at photography, but perfection so difficult to attain this time, every moment not in black and white, not hidden in a dusty drawer but with ever fresh detail. This Love is truly infinite, but also granted to all on this earth.

But perhaps Life itself knows, when such Love exists, that it cannot be allowed to last forever, for its power might destroy the fabric of the very universe, with its fiery radiance, a power to surpass the might of any sun..

The wedding photographer went on his journeys no longer. He spent his days in the kallushaap, looking at his dusty glass, unquenchable thirst, picking at his meals. And some nights he lay senseless in the paddy field, sharing the open air with a stray dog that was now his only friend.

A time ago, not yet quite a year, his wife, newlywed, had walked with him in this very field, hand in hand, fingers tightly interwoven.

While he stayed with us, he often told me stories at night, before I went to sleep, for in my childish way I expected a stranger in the house to owe me something. There was one story he often told me, and when he told me the tale, the hairs prickled on the back of my neck. Uncle Raju was a good storyteller, and he told this one with himself in it, so it seemed to be almost real.

I used to live in a small town in Kerala called Kuttipuram. Our house lies on the banks of a river called the Bharathapuzha (puzha= river). This gently meandering river is the reason our town exists. Early in the morning do the women awaken, and go to the river first to wash the clothes of the household, and then to have a bath. A little later, perhaps at 7.30, did we, the men, wake up and yawning, make our way in turn to perform our morning rituals. This being done, separately, the men and women continue on our distinct ways – women, back to the household for their daily routines, cooking and cleaning, taking care of the babies. Men to their jobs- farming, or labouring. Some did not work at all, preferring to while away their days in the kallushaap, and these died young and poor.

As the river cleanses the inhabitants of our town in life, so does it in death. For when we die, we are cast into the funeral pyre, and our ashes scraped up into a small clay pot. This pot is solemnly placed to float in the river, where it gently floats into the distance, flowers trailing, presumably all the way to the sea where all rivers end.

This river is part of our life, and of our death, and is a reflection of our spirit, as we are a spiritual people. But our spirit is both good and bad, and this river too, meandering gently past in the day, becomes darkly menacing at night, and none of us would venture close for those who own the river in the night, the Gunas, come.

No one has seen the Gunas, none who has lived, except I, and I have not long to live.

People speak little of the Gunas, and not often at night, only in the late evening where there is still a few rays of sunlight. And always in hushed whisper, glancing around to see that they are safe.

A vague feeling of foreboding always envelopes the group, and the conversations quickly shifts of its own accord to other topics.

I, Raju, (here Raju quietly tapped his own chest for emphasis) have never believed in these stories, of how a neighbour managed to catch a Guna and put him in a bottle, and thereafter harness its malignant power to do his bidding. This neighbour, Taufeeq, then quickly became the richest and most powerful man in our town, for all his competitors mysteriously died, or their business befell misfortune. But one day, while his wife was cleaning the cupboard, the bottle fell, and broke, and the Guna escaped. The Guna turned his wrath first on Taufeeq, and then his wife. Within the week Taufeeq was dead of lung cancer, although he never smoked. His wife died soon after, tripping over a hidden root in her own garden, and breaking her neck in the ensuing fall.

I never knew Taufeeq or his wife, and they never told me this fanciful story of catching a Guna. Even if he did, I would not have believed because I believe only in things I have seen with my own two eyes, not things said to me.

One day I went to Trissur, which is many hours away by train. It was the annual festival, Trissur Pooram, where the temple elephants are dressed in all their finery and they parade with headgear of radiant gold and red. Their mahouts – trainers, trail behind, hoping to win, worrying that this year another elephant may claim the prize, and its mahout the attendant glory for an entire year. There are boat races, and traditional dances. At the end of the festivities, we all went to kallushaaps dotting the town, and we made merry for a few hours, young man that I was. After all this, I had to return home, and was quite naturally, very late. I only got back to Kuttipuram by two in the morning. There were no auto-rickshaws to take me home, so I had to walk. It being late, and me tired, I decided to walk back by way of the River.

I had not done this walk for many years, the last when I was a child and the legend of the Gunas still young in our family’s ears. My uncle took me home by this route, along the banks of the river, after a late night movie at the theatre. My mother’s face went white when she saw the direction we returned from, framed against the trees bordering the river, and she screamed mercilessly at my uncle, her younger brother. I did not know then, but of course now I know. The next morning my mother offered many coconuts to the Gods as thanks, for sparing us from the Gunas that night.

Still, I did not believe, and after all these years the opportunity was there, and with good reason- it was only half the distance. And yet the entire town’s folk avoided this river’s banks. I would walk home by this shorter path, and perhaps prove everyone wrong once and for all. .

The Pozha (as we affectionately call the river) is fairly shallow, maybe 3 or 4 feet deep in most places. There are sandy banks on both sides, and it was on one of these sandy banks I walked. It was a full moon, and by its light I could see clearly, so later I could not accuse the darkness of fogging my vision.

As I walked , perhaps ten minutes away from my warm bed at home, I sensed that there were other people nearby. I looked up, and saw, at first glance, a man on the other side of the river, walking slowly, slightly ahead of me. Away from him, by his side there walked a few more men, maybe 5 or 6 in all. I could not see this man’s face, so I called out, hoping he might be a neighbour (but still, surprised that anyone was walking here so late at night, so close to the river). I called out loudly, my voice breaking the stillness of this late night, and he stopped, and I walked closer to him.

As I neared, two things occurred. I was he was not walking in the bank of the river, but on the river itself. Not submerged, but walking, his feet clearly visible on the water. And in that heart stopping moment of realization, he turned, and looked at me full in the face, and I knew I was looking at a Guna.

I cannot speak of his face, for it may give you nightmares today, and for every day, as it has for me.

As the echoes of my voice died out, the rest of the Gunas too stopped and turned. They saw me, and I sensed, not heard, an ominous rumble from them, like the river itself was angry at my intrusion. They took a step forward towards me, and then another, but the Guna who was walking on the water raised his hand imperiously, their leader, and they stopped. He turned away and began to walk again on his river, and the rest with him, a few running their eyes over me as they left, their bodies quickly merging into the darker shadows of the distance.

Weak with relief, I sagged to my knees, on the banks of this river, and knew not what came of me, but in the morning my family found me outside the door of our house unconscious, insensible to the world, and I lay in bed for many days, unable to speak of my experience.

As I walk I see, on a bench beside the long and winding garden path, two old men. They are playing chess, the board placed between them, shadows playing across my vision with the swaying of the branches of trees hanging low above them.

I come closer, curious, for I love this game. To see this Noble game of Kings played with such fervour, so late at night! Truly a sight to be seen, experienced.   I felt a sense of peace wash over me just knowing that this game was played within the strict boundaries of law, with structure, beginning to an end, checkmate, victory or loss until the King is set again on his rightful Square, reunited with his Queen.

As I come forward to see, delicious sense of anticipation, I see this board has many pieces, too many to count. These chess men move by themselves, twisting past each other, in battle for themselves at the speed of thought, almost. Anticipation becomes a sense of Foreboding. This game is not following the rules of logic, of Physics, of Science. But yet it happens, before my very gaze.

The two old men sit in front, watching the game, carefully, never looking up. With a start I realize the pieces are made of ivory, no, not ivory, but of human bone. Teeth, beautifully carved by a master craftsman, made perhaps for this very moment, glinting in the ivory light of the moon. I look up at the old men, my interest in the game vanishing. One of them is looking at me, and the other continues looking at the board. He begins to smile, and I see he has not any teeth, a desperately dark emptiness where before they had been beautifully white.

His malevolent smile grows wider and wider, and so does the darkness. I start to drown in this darkness, and with my last breath of air I scream, my lungs emptying with a bellow of fear, and I sink into the darkness of great black unreasoning fear.

And I wake again, sweating, even on this cool moonlit night, as I have every night since she left me. And always this fear takes on a form, a reality of its own, something fearful, something to fear, endlessly creative in its manifestation, knowing what it likes, even as it grows stronger with every passing night. I lie awake until dawn, hoping the first rays of light will clear away the cobwebs of this fearful darkness.

Many years later I read a book named “Shantaram”. The author says that Indians make the best actors, because they “shout with their eyes”. When I read that phrase, I remember that boy shouting at me with his eyes, at all of us, that day in a dusty train. But he wasn’t an actor, not really.

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As I searched for it over and over, you found it, again and again.”

I saw nothing, but heard a voice approaching my train compartment. This male voice sang an old ghazal, a love song, mournful lilt to its tone. I did not understand the words, but the melody of the song was pleasant to my ears. A man came into sight, perhaps eighty years of age, shuffling slowly forward. His cane tapping, sweeping across the floor, from side to side, in a graceful arc. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead- the milky film of blindness evident, not hidden in any way. A fresh song began as he paused by our compartment, and his voice grew in volume, as his head turned our way. Unfettered by steel and wood, this new song carried the old man’s emotion across the air, the timbre of his voice, the vibration, affecting me powerfully, as it did for others, holding us spellbound if only but for a minute.

“Within the dream we were exchanging thoughts

When the eyes opened there was neither any gain or any loss”

Time slowed down for me, as he stretched his begging bowl across the air, towards me, towards the passengers. A few new coins clinked into the bowl, settling with the old. The old man did not linger, but began to shuffle forward again, perhaps having heard this clink.  And as he moved forward, his voice began to grow fainter and fainter, until it was gone.

“Through love I tasted the spirit of life

Curing one pain, it yielded another incurable one.”

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