A False Kingdom
- Part 2 -

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

The fresh chill air blowing in through the open window was making me feel life was going to yearn to live anew and in that state one could easily slide into eternal bliss. In fact, I was drowned in it and I surrendered to it, only when the bus began shaking in a violent manner I realized the eternal seeming bliss, which had entered through the window, had left me.

The vehicle was ascending on the steep winding road, because of its narrowness it had to drive upwards with one side rubbing against the steep wall of the mountain road. Shaking, scratching and jolting in both directions it rumbled and strove its way up and when it began descending the narrow road was empty till the foot of it, where it had to halt since a culvert had broken and sunk leaving only few feet passable.

The bare-chested workers there had been struggling with tree trunks and boulders to fill up the large pit crossable. The bare chests were spattered with mud which had dried a bit and the whiteness revealed. Few metres away from the area ,where they were laboring to make the road crossable, was a tent covered with green tarpaulin and through the gaps white smoke rose, rising high and disappearing in the thick mist.

These were the disconnected but hard working people of the land, who were born in unknown families, grew up untainted and left untouched with this kind of work in the remotest corners of the world. From a remote place like this they would move to another working place for the distant families which they had left behind in the valley or on top of some mountains claimed by white clouds.

In their faces the concern for the people in the bus was seen and with this their effort became more intense and due to their intensity in labour the bus was able to cross over the laid down tree trunks. When the bus had crossed and began another descend the one among the two ladies spoke "Don't they go home? Did you look? They had no shirts, may be they had no homes to go to."

And the other lady commented "Oh! May be they had become the hill tribes. They can't even speak our language now. And they live just like the hill tribe." The driver nodded his head and he said " Pass on a strong-tobacco pan, ladies." Both the ladies dug in their handbags and brought out the best strong-tobacco pan. He took both, put one in his mouth and placed another in front of the steering wheel.

In the distance between the mountains the sinking sun could be seen and it was thinly veiled by the passing clouds, the picture suggesting the mighty sun could easily be suppressed by mightier-like clouds.

After several bends, jolting the people from one side to another, it stood on the periphery of the capital city of Revealed Land. The houses, which looked minute, set into the mountains from the bottoms to the tops, were a spectacular view. Looking from the top the whole landscape below the veils of sheets of white clouds resembled some perfect kingdom, which I had imagined before I had started the journey. Then my mind wandered off to the thought of Jamimah among the tiny-looking houses set into the mountains.

She did say she would be waiting for me here, so she must be among them, and she must be walking between the sheets of white clouds, her beauty concealed by them as a solitary figure. But Jamimah couldn't be that untainted charm I had known back then, I discovered big words in her e-mails and in her text messages sounding like those corporate people to whom big meaningless words always mean something to prove how they stand in societies.

In my mind I didn't want to imagine Jamimah like that I wanted to shove aside the unwanted she had associated herself with and I wanted to see her and interact with her as the curious but innocent person who was always considerate. Even if she tried to force in the new-found verbose personality I would resist and make her know I was there for that innocent and untainted Jamimah. But would she understand what I had been looking for? Would my want put us in a confrontational situation?

And would that make this whole trip a complete disaster? Would I go back with the same old feeling I had experienced several years ago in another continent? I had too many unanswerable questions but I didn't want to try hard to grope for the answers in an exhausted state. I just wanted to plunge in without the suffocating and dreadful fear I had experienced at the bus terminal in another state. Love couldn't be that conditional and rigid.

The bus inched towards the city, where the tiny winding road appeared to have been just swept and the walls besides just-scrubbed after a long time. In many areas the marks left by broomsticks were untouched, may be the place had been under special protection for sometimes. Inching inwards the city a bit every ten minutes we were in the virtual heart of the city, where mini cars parked in one line and in them there were people in suits and children wearing nice clothes and in most of their hands there were balloons.

The place wore an obvious festive mood in an odd time, on tops of the hazy mountains. The moods, the manner in which most people had dressed up, when few kilometers away from the place children were seen running bare-feet and half naked, and the insistent flamboyance, tickled the curiosity about the place.

Our arrival at the very heart of the festive city was made known by the moss-grown colonial buildings standing with majestic air as though they were a gift from the colonial masters and the natives of the land hadn't dared to renovate the remnants. One among them a grand Victorian building recently whitewashed its corrugated iron roof freshly painted dark green for an important ceremony stood as an intimidating architectural work.

Its wide French windows and the big round pillars appeared unique and they couldn't be a match with the tiny dilapidated unfinished buildings nearby. They looked belittled and indicated to one that they would never rise from that state. In this lack of self-confidence and ignorance the natives of the land forgotten everything about the pre-faith world and the powerful figures wouldn't encourage their people to dwell in that. Even if they had tried it would have stirred their minds since it had been pushed aside for centuries and now it lay buried and the natives of the land didn't know where it was buried.

But people should have an identity like someone with a name and when they thought of the identity they had to look at the grand colonial buildings and then at the dilapidated unfinished buildings of theirs, and naturally like any ordinary people they had picked the colonial leftovers and to push forward their convenient identity they had resolved to capitalize on it. In due course of time, after few generations, almost everybody began to feel it was really theirs and they wanted to wander off to show that. That desire, however, had remained so far within their world, in their new-found kingdom.

The vice-president, an appointed ceremonial figure, was in town to inaugurate "world's mushroom day." One passenger who stood up and shouted ,he wanted to get off, said repeatedly in an audible tone " VVIP, VVIP, VVIP in town, you know!" feeling quite proud of the place. But he couldn't get off where he wanted as the entire city had surrendered to the safety of the "VVIP." Knowing the restriction he stopped his "VVIP" and stood at the close door fuming, his head swinging to both sides revealing the angry and helpless eyes, as though he was unable to hold it he yelled at the driver " I said stop here! You heard me!" I could see the fury in the exhausted driver's face but it didn't arrest the speed of the bus and in a matching tone he yelled back "You want me get locked up with the bus for few days? Although we pay tax here after every metre we are as vulnerable as a mouse. So, shut up and wait till I pull up!" The standing man swallowed up his fury and in silence he waited for the stop.

The whole city had been ringed with paramilitary forces, commandos, personnel from reserved battalions, regular army from various regiments and more stick-wielding state police personnel. The distance between one manned spot to another must have been few metres and each spot was manned by a stick-wielding betel-but chewing policeman, who had come out in clean uniform after a long time, a young commando personnel whose rolling eyes below the helmeted head was the only exposed part and a hardened-looking regular soldier in camouflage from some prestigious regiment in the country.

So much had been done and so many had been troubled by the arrival of a ceremonial figure for the "world's mushroom festival" Everything had been painted, almost every ugly-looking thing had been swept, pushed down or pushed in the hope of impressing the man. The man from Delhi, New Delhi. The banners bearing the "VVIP's"pictures stood along the narrow crammed road, some doing the useful work of concealing the forgotten rubbish and irremovable stains.

I got off at the stop where the fuming man jumped down with fury. I didn't know where I really was but I knew it was the city where I could locate her. Then the notion that I had no map with me and I wouldn't know in what direction I should move dawned upon. The guide book didn't give any detail, so I had to find out the name of the place from the people around. Someone pronounced the name to me, it was a Sanskrit name and I wondered why such a name had marked the heart of a city where the natives of the land had been striving to oppose any stains of Indus valley civilization. I sent a text message informing her of my arrival, while waiting for her text message I stood with my pack in the melee of downtown.

I was in front of a Bihari restaurant, looking at the front of the restaurant I couldn't think that it would be such an important landmark; the signboard flecked, the wall, which was certainly white at some point, had been spat on with betel-nut juice and the steps cracked and sank. She called and asked where I was and when I told her the name of the place and to be precise I mentioned the name of the restaurant, which she easily recognized. I wanted to ask her more, then I lost her voice. Very soon she sent a text message saying " bin buzy, helluva. Deluxe Hotel nt fr 4rm whr u r..call ask..no..032888. c u."

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 10 2011.