A False Kingdom
- Part 1 -

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

Through the dust, between the prematurely dilapidated buildings, some grazed, many pulled down to carve space for a prospective highway, the vehicle moved. I sat in the back seat of an auto rickshaw gurgling its ways from Leisha Canal to Kangla Canal. The valley hadn't been that hot and now with the dust and the increasing heat it resembled a flat dusty frying pan from where its inhabitants would soon flee. It was such a valley where the mornings and nights were concealed by thick mist and days were veiled by thickening dust, which most people didn't think unprecedented any more.

The path along the canal was swept and it was fenced marking the area of the sacred land of the state. The sacred piece of land had long been the regional headquarter of Indian army, denying access to the natives of the land to worship their ancestors. I had seen pictures of the place and I was taken in by someone who intensely believed I ought to feel the sacredness, but I wasn't able to feel so as I was, then, going through a formless emotional crisis and I wasn't sure whether I could put up with the rituals.

This time ,again, I was running away from another problem only to run into another, leaving behind a false world on another hemisphere. But this time I felt it wasn't that vague as I was able to picture the person who I would be meeting. Although I knew I was going to meet Jamimah I wasn't that sure whether she would fit the character I had been carrying in my mind for sometimes. And I wanted to match the character in my mind with the character who I had met years ago during my wasted times in some city of the subcontinent.

The voluptuous lady with a contagious smile and the knowledge of her enthralling presence was something sufficient enough to a man to overlook every important aspect in his life. Knowing I was returning to the subcontinent after years she said I should come and visit her in some remote city. I hadn't paid much attention to it as my arrival I had no plans, I thought it was an escape, escaping from something inexplicable and vague yet rendering life a hopeless wanderer. For the same inexplicable and vague reason I was on another hemisphere chasing the same thing which I could only feel and nagging me every now and then and yet never letting me know its original or concrete form.

Thinking I should catch tomorrow's bus I walked towards the place around the end of the canal to get a bus ticket. The wide road running along the canal was wide enough for motorists to carry out their mischief; they honked to one another for no reason. I thought it was more a habitual act of them expressing their happiness on being a wide road. But the noise became unbearable the moment I sighted a crowd at an oil pump. The state's supplies of essential goods and medicines had been blocked for months by some so-called civil rights groups protesting against the government's decision to hold elections in the hill districts, saying it was against the wishes of the people in the hills.

For this they had blocked everything and consequently now people had to pay few thousands for an LPG cylinder, few dollars for a kilo of rice and the same amount for a litre of petrol. The government had to ration everything, requiring people to stand in long queues for hours. Those who got their rations after queuing for hours went home happily while those who didn't rowed and created scenes but it was always under control as the security forces around were empowered with Armed Forces Special Power Act, meaning they could shoot any individual on the ground of suspicion and the state was obliged to provide immunity to the concerned security personnel.

Everybody fears death and in this part of the world death was the line they knew. This situation had prolonged and the largest democracy in the world empowered with nuclear power backed up by one of the largest standing army in the world hadn't acted to ensure the fundamental rights of its citizens. Perhaps democracy is only effective during election times and after the elections nothing effective and helpful should be expected, so, people should sit and suffer for another five years thinking the next one might be better. Perhaps it was the democratic right of the state to fail its people and to let them die of starvation when they actually could afford.

The sighted crowd had gathered to get rationed petrol and diesel since it was reported in the local dailies. Those to whom the news had been leaked out before the sunrise were standing in the front. As I neared the crowd I noticed it had swollen and the ubiquitous state commandos had arrived to man the crowd. Their dreadful presence was more than enough to calm the turmoil in the crowd. Knowing the reason behind the gathered crowd I, who always took interest in observing people, hastened my steps.

After having walked past the crowd the thought that I was going into the area where the so-called civil right leaders had instigated communal sentiments among the people resulting to economic blockades, I began to wonder whether I could travel safe and would my stay in the supposedly hostile area would be comfortable. When that internal wrestling with worry inconclusively ended my emotional turmoil, the turmoil which had transported me to this hemisphere, became active.

After the oil pump the path was of brick and around the end of it I found myself in front of a high-rise building manned by stern-looking men in blue uniform. It was a star hotel, the state's only presentable hotel. The front part was clean and it stood as a strange building which had been left there by accident. A little further from the hotel was my destination; the main bus terminal. It was like a medieval bazaar crowd with people milling about indicating no proper direction.

The road was occupied and through the milling crowd honking vehicles, small and big, pierced their ways through. Among the aimless crowd were the passengers buses, their windshields shattered, and near each bus was a small booth manned by few men. The men looked busy with their mobile phones glued to their ears. The place appeared impregnable and the doubtful desire to stay away from it stirred my mind. There on the edge of the crowd I stood not fearing the crowd and doubting the courage to plunge in it. I felt in my pocket for the soft Marlboro packet.

It was there in my pocket slightly crumpled but not damaged. With a straightened Marlboro cigarette between my parched and dust-coated lips, slightly parted exposing my teeth I stood without employing any effort to light it up. I bit on the cigarette butt and stood with my hands on my hips, then a hand took me by the right elbow, frightening me. I swore to the man, but he didn't leave me, he stood there staring at me with a smile saying "bus tickets you take now. I'll give you good price. Come, come."

He was the kind of man who was accustomed to being yelled at and also kind of man who was always on the move to prey on uninformed people. I let him finish his lines and asked him several questions. He answered and after each answer he repeated his habitual lines. He repeating his lines and I ,pretending, was listening to his lines we stopped in front of a booth manned by a man, quite unlike others. His rustic face behind broad eyeglasses was dull. He must have been a man in his early forties; he looked resigned and probably had little self-respect. Noticing me stop by, he disengaged his pressing elbows from the surface of the booth and asked in a drowsy voice " you want bus ticket?

Three hundred for ordinary buses, four hundred for Winger." Winger? He explained, " Oh, new mini-van. They go fast, a bit faster than the ordinary buses. I guess the extra hundred is the speculation fare." I resolved to buy the ticket from that man, and may be the man with the lines had already noticed this and he wasn't to be seen when I turned around.

More people poured in and the medieval bazaar-like crowd swelled as though the entire people from the valley had converged here. I came here for the opposite of what I was in. The rising dust kicked up by human feet and the noise of honking vehicles aggressively trying to punch their ways through, and the loud trivial talks of people, I felt I would very soon be suffocated and faint in front of the booth. I escaped after having grabbed the bus ticket and distanced myself from the crowd, but the thought that the following morning I would be returning to this medieval bazaar-like was rather unnerving, but I had to put up with it.

In one of the auto rickshaws I returned to the place quite early in the morning. The mist in the place hadn't lifted and it seemed it intended to stay for a while. I put down my pack near the booth and smoked a cigarette. The man who had issued my ticket came up and announced "we are leaving soon." Thinking I should make some use of my long-abandoned camera I asked him if he could get me a front seat, next to the driver. Smiling and nodding his head he said "you photographers always like that,eh?"

It was a crammed box for two persons, the driver's seat and one for a passenger. I hauled up my pack and occupied the front seat next to the driver. The driver was seen with his head below a grey cap bobbing up and down at the window, then his hand was on the door and he jumped up. One side of his mouth seemed to have a large boil because of the pan in and the lips stained with the juice, he starred at the wheel and then turned his head over the left shoulder, looked at me for a while, then at the passengers behind us, who had been eagerly waiting for him to drive.

The engine was started and he started driving rejoicing the moods of the passengers, but my excitement short-lived as he pulled up the bus in front of a small church behind a pond filled with green water. He pulled up the bus for two middle-aged ladies who were sitting between some eucalyptus trees and they had sacks, large sacks behind them.

They rose and rushed towards the bus and the driver kicked open the door as some action hero would do and jumped down to grab the sacks. The middle-aged ladies giggled and they kept on saying "brother Chaoba, brother Chaoba." Some were loaded in the back and few were brought up and dumped in the aisle provoking the passengers' anger, but they didn't explode.

He jumped in and started driving and the ladies with the large sacks stood leaning against the partition as though they were asking him to find them place to sit. They didn't say directly what they wanted but it was in their talks "we thought a man like him would guarantee us comfort." The driver smiled but his eyes were on the road ahead, then another lady inserted " when he visits our place we let him have the bed and we roll over the mat" after this her partner giggled aloud awakening everyone.

They didn't mind and the driver 's smile was wider and he was unable to keep his eyes on the road, so swung his head and stared at the lady, his eyes rested at them. They were not attractive but they were quite coquettish and they were able to present the best the little presentable they possessed. Their faces were slightly lined and the bosom sagged but their skills in talk layered over the lines and the sagged parts and that made them irresistible to the man at the wheel.

When his eyes were disengaged they rested for a while on the edge of my seat and he spoke " brother, could you share the seat with them, please?" Instead of verbally lashing at him I smiled and pressed myself quite hard against the wall and offered the edge of seat to them. Surprisingly they moved in and one among them tried to sit. She sat and then she slid and her palms landed against the floor.

This induced the friend to smile and she produced some crumpled newspapers which were smoothened with her hands and put them down on the few-foot long floor between my seat and the driver's. Their legs stretched out, the hem of the sarongs over the shins and, the feet on the engine cover , the painted but cracked toes wriggling, their hands on their laps, fingers working hard on sunflower seeds. The sound of cracking audible and every now and then one among them rising from their place to put some seeds in the driver's mouth, they turned the place a wonderland for desire.

Away from the dusty city of aimless crowds now the bus ran between the sprawling green paddy fields ,their ends were marked by the forested mountains, the tops capped by gathering white clouds. The scattered farmers below their conical hats walking in the paddy fields expressed the extreme solitude one could dream of and yet in that harmonious solitude they looked so much at ease with nature. The white clouds capping the forested mountains looked like they were paying a visit and decided to linger around to flirt but they were expected home soon and the mountains were displaying their freshness in excitement, and it seemed the freshness had been passed down to the sprawling paddy fields.

To be continued.....

Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

* Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei, a resident of Bangkok, contributes to e-pao.net regularly.
The writer can be contacted at bobomeitei(at)hotmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on January 06 2011.