The Soul of Truth Read online

  My parents—whom I’d lost in my youth—had also appeared in the dreams, their unfulfilled desires and regrets compounding my vague pains and frustrations, even while awake.

  “Appuetta, please come back. We can manage with what we’ve saved so far. Or you could try for a job here; I am sure you’ll find a good one. Please don’t neglect your health. You are the one most important to me, not money. I can’t imagine something bad happening to you. Please, Appuetta, come home.” Radhika had been begging ever since she knew about the doctor’s concerns, but I’d chosen to ignore her as well.

  Also, truth be told, I was too ensnared in the bewitching enchantments of life in the Gulf. Like a mistress, the Gulf keeps the expatriates who have flocked to her shore tethered close, and even while straining against her, we enjoy her hypnotic warmth.

  I remember the ecstasy when I first arrived in the Gulf.

  Things were getting messy at home. I was unemployed. My love life was in tatters—who would want to get their daughter married to an unemployed loser? Our doomed love story had been the talk of the village.

  It was my good friend, Nooruddin, who had realised my troubles and arranged for the visa to Bahrain. That was always my asset: a few good, loyal friends. He was talented and trained in technology and made good use of it to flourish in the Gulf, and had no hesitation in helping me find a good job. It came as an answer to the heartfelt prayers of my family. It was a turning point in my life.

  I can hear the early morning call to prayer from the mosque. It is also a warning to us—that it is almost time to return to our nothingness during daylight.

  A sandstorm is brewing outside. The intense heat of the desert causes these dust storms. It could also mean a change of weather. Maybe we could hope for an unexpected rain, the harbinger of good times on this parched soil.

  After this, forty more nights. As they run their course, I will probably drown in the tsunami of my memories, a wanderer in the wilderness that was my life. Tumultuous times before I finally depart…

  I feel weaker. A sign that daylight is almost here, the time to be spent in silent entreaty for the return of the night.

  Your days are our nights, and our days are your nights.

  But we are allowed some concessions. We can be present even during the daytime for some rituals. And once gone, we are still allowed one day every year, to return to our loved ones.

  There are some things that are eternal. They remain. They may change form and character, but they exist, indestructible.

  I am the soul. The mind.

  The knowledge, the culture, the essence of life are contained in me, and I exist.

  “Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn.” It is the soul that longs for moksha, not the body.

  “Tat Tvam Asi.” Thou art that. The great enlightenment from the Upanishads. “The Self—in its original, pure, primordial state—is identical with the Ultimate Reality that we call God.” Or rather, God lives in us. And perpetuates life. The soul lives on.

  Keep your thoughts young. It is not the number of years lived that counts, it is how you lived them.

  The cubicle to my right holds a short, dark Arab. His face is mutilated. He died in a road traffic accident.

  To my left is a young Sri Lankan. He fell to his death at a construction site.

  Next to him is another Indian. He doesn’t have any family to speak of and will be buried at the public cemetery. He had committed suicide after a heated argument with his sponsor.

  They say suicide is for cowards, a swift way out from the harsh realities of life. Easy to say, but doesn’t it take extraordinary courage to actually end one’s own life? How desperate must one be to take that final decision and how brave to stick with it to the very end?

  Easy or not, people who commit suicide are judged very harshly. They, who willingly take the life that is not theirs to take, are never accepted into eternal life. Their fate is to wander forever, for they rejected the triumph that is life. The victory of one sperm over millions of others to jumpstart a life is a story of triumph. To extinguish that life is solely the right of the creator, never that of the creation. Unpardonable and unacceptable as per worldly and divine law.

  All the bodies are in deep slumber, never to wake up again. The souls, released from the bodies, are restless as they wait for what’s to come; the unknown is scary, even for immortal souls.

  The cold is unbearable. We prefer warmth, but our mortal bodies now need the cold. So, we stay here in these frozen cubicles with them, numb to discomfort, waiting for the next night.

  The first of my allowed forty-one nights is almost over. I try to stay calm in the rushing torrent of troubled thoughts.

  Till the coming night, let me rest for sometime in peace.

  Here, high above the body of Uthaman.

  I am you, you are me.

  “Dear God, in your hands.”

  The Second Night

  My body, wrapped in white cloth, is now completely frozen. Icicles cling to my hair and chest. I feel the urge to get home as quickly as possible. But the formalities will take time. It might not happen today.

  The legal department of the company must now be involved in urgent discussions and procedures to hasten the process of transfer. There will also be discussions about the amount of money owed to my family. The worth of fifteen years of hard work! It will be a hefty sum, and will surely help in ensuring some financial security to my flailing family.

  The Shariat Court will decide the final sum. It is usually a straightforward process but, sometimes, it can get delayed due to unforeseen reasons.

  In the fifteen years of my expatriate life, this will be my fourth journey back home, and the final one.

  The first was five years after reaching the Gulf. Why did it take me five long years to go back? When I knew that my love was waiting back home? I have no clear answers. I only know that I wanted to feel worthy of her. To prove to one and all that I was successful and eligible to ask for my girl’s hand. And the seductive charms of the Gulf didn’t help. Five years in her luxurious embrace didn’t seem that long. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  How excited I was on that journey! To be back in my beloved home, brimming with dreams of proudly claiming Ruby, my girl, for myself. My love. My wife.

  But when I got home the news that greeted me was shattering:—the shocking realisation that Ruby was no more mine. That she was now the wife of a stranger.

  My world changed overnight. Stifling. I couldn’t bear to face friends or foes. The sympathy or the sniggers. I hid myself in my room, numb with disbelief. My glazed eyes wandering over to the wooden trunk in the corner, full of her love letters, quietly admonishing my callousness in abandoning her for so long.

  Ruby and I belonged to each other, and only to each other. It was that confidence which made me evade the realities of life. The petite beauty who floored me in the eighth grade. The love that lasted so long through our childhood and youth that it blurred the lines between dreams and real life.

  The love that walked moonlit gardens, embraced the thrill of chilly nights, shared the laughter of classrooms, wandered the corridors of the college campus and, finally, has reached this frozen moment in time.

  How I loved her. Her simple beauty. A sprig of tulsi at the end of her long, lush hair—that was all the adornment she allowed herself. The elegance of her beautiful mind. She had brought beauty and brightness into my life.

  My everlasting Spring. In my mind, the paths we walked were laden with flowers, the sky was always blue, the air filled with birdsong.

  The beauty of nature appealed to her simple mind. Once when I plucked some flowers for her hair, she scolded me. “Why, Appu? They belong to the plants and that is where I love to see them.”

  “They look prettier on you. Can’t you see them smiling?” I joked. “Though for sure, no flower can match the beauty of your smile.” The way she blushed. . . .

  The remainder of that much awaited vacation became unbea
rable. Everything appeared strange and distressing. I couldn’t bear to walk along the lanes we had walked together. The paths looked unfamiliar. Ugly. Barren. No more smiling flowers to greet me.

  My village too had changed, and I could no longer recognise its new face. The hillocks were flattened, and monstrous blocks of apartments had risen from their remains. I hoped to find solace on the golden sands of the river. But she too was dying, choked by the plastic and garbage thrown into her by a callous generation. Her tinkling laugh was replaced by gasping moans.

  My childhood and youth were spent on those beautiful banks. Day-long cricket matches. Swimming with my friends. Eyes always flying to the temple steps, to check if Ruby was there, praying. She truly was a divine vision—long, damp hair knotted at the end, the sandal paste on her forehead, her big, twinkling eyes playing hide-and-seek with mine.

  Her home was right across the temple. An old, proud house with two spreading Golden Rain trees in front, with open fields behind. The Periyar flowed by its side. After the monsoons, sometimes the river flooded. Shaking the tree blossoms into the roaring waters was a favourite pastime of ours.

  Ruby’s letters! How did I miss the anguish in them? Her pleading not to abandon her to an uncertain future? I had everything planned—a job, and then our marriage; I just got the timing wrong. How could I forget the glistening eyes lighting up with desperate hope when she bade me goodbye? Why did I wait so long to return to her?

  The riverbank was abandoned. A few cattle were grazing in the distance.

  Sitting on the broken steps by the river, I searched for answers.

  We had loved with such abandon.

  Our love knew no limits. She was mine. I was hers. How could so much love be betrayed?

  Looking back, it seemed unpardonable that I had expected Ruby to stand up to her father for five long years, waiting for a dream. But in my mind, we could never be separated, and for me, those five years had gone in a flash.

  The torment she must have gone through when she bowed her head for the mangalasutra as another man claimed her for himself, as she walked beside that stranger in her green wedding sari!

  My poor Ruby. You knew only to love and trust. How you must have suffered.

  She was the one who taught me to dream. Now, all the dreams lie in tatters! It was my fault. Only mine!

  My elder sister had attended the wedding, although I did not need her description to picture Ruby in her green sari. Green was her favourite colour. Once when I had presented her with a traditional Kerala sari with a green border, she had hugged it to herself and whispered, “My wedding sari.”

  Ruby belonged to a Nair family that had seen better days. Her father was a rebel Communist who had eloped with her Christian mother. There were always snide rumours about her family, and Ruby suffered much due to that. But I was her rock, shielding her from the gossipmongers. I was also a friend and mentor to her younger brother, Robin, now matured into a promising young man and a principled activist himself. When we met, Robin tried to smile, a dead, watery smile.

  “Appuettan! When did you arrive?”

  “Two days back.”

  “How long will you be here?”

  “Three weeks.”

  After an awkward silence, he blurted: “Ruby Chechi still talks about you. She tried her best to resist my father’s attempts to get her married to another man. But with our financial problems and past history, he wasn’t ready to wait so long for you to come back. She had no other option but to obey him. Please don’t hate her.”

  Robin took both my hands in his, weeping silently. I couldn’t say anything. How could I? When it was my own callousness that had caused all this heartache?

  When Robin walked away dejectedly, my mind was in a whirl. The reality that I had lost Ruby forever hit me like a hard punch.

  To love and lose is a pain forever.

  Poets sing of the tomb hidden under fallen memories of every lover. It is true! I am the silent guardian of the monument to my love.

  Years have passed. But she remains, always, with me. I can’t forget her. My village and school and river and college and temple and everything about my past remind me of her. Her face. Her words. Her smile. She was an inseparable part of me.

  Love is grief. Dripping with sweetness, it can smother you with its intensity. A bittersweet, painful ecstasy. An unsolvable puzzle.

  It started raining suddenly. I stumbled along in that rain, thankful that my tears washed away with the water. I passed her house. The emptiness filled me with dread. I couldn’t stay in my village any longer. I cancelled the rest of my leave and returned to Bahrain the very next day. A journey I would rather forget.

  The second homecoming was for my wedding to Radhika. Our families had arranged everything. She was from my own village.

  I vaguely remembered her as a sweet little kid in school uniform.

  On our wedding day, when she stepped up to my side, I saw that she had grown into a real beauty.

  But even that stunning beauty couldn’t stop my mind from wandering in search of the only person I had ever imagined by my side on this day. The buzz and excitement of the wedding seemed separate from me; inside I was like a withered flower. Longing for what couldn’t be, guilty about what was.

  The days that followed were my faltering steps into married life, my attempts at being the semblance of a good husband to the innocent girl who had come into my life, with nothing but love and hope. And in that, I succeeded. Or so I thought. Radhika appeared happy. Radhika was happy.

  Until yesterday.

  My wife. My partner in joy and sorrow, in gains and ills. Now plunged into despair.

  The shrill ringing of a mobile phone. Incongruous in the frozen hush.

  The two morgue attendants come running.

  It is from the pile of clothes that belonged to the Bangladeshi man whose body was being prepared for transport. The call must be from one of his acquaintances, not yet aware of his death.

  No one from the company has come today. It must not be deliberate. My colleagues must be busy trying to hasten the process of transportation of my body. They all know how difficult the delay must be for those waiting at home. This return is painful. Not like the jubilant arrival in this dreamland.

  A man walks in. Haneef. My dear friend.

  He looks shattered. As if he hasn’t slept in days. He was my best friend in the Gulf. He must be struggling to come to terms with my sudden demise.

  He moves towards my body and bows his head in prayer, tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. When he turns to leave, I feel a stab of pain, as if I am being torn apart. I long to talk to him—one final time. To say goodbye. To tell him not to worry. To convince him that I am not gone, that I will always be the soft whisper that will soothe his troubles.

  The body of the Bangladeshi is now safely ensconced in the wooden box, embalmed with a generous dose of perfumes: a final courtesy of the mortuary staff, hoping to stave off the fetor of death as his body is received at its destination.

  The person accompanying his corpse looks nervous. Who wouldn’t be? He’d drawn the short straw; to be the companion on the final leg of another life’s journey.

  The morning call from the mosque filters through the quiet air.

  The pendulum swinging relentlessly on its slanted axis. The time rolling along without a pause.

  Another night now behind me.

  The Third Night

  Swirling memories.

  Monsoons.

  My third homecoming. The news that I was now a father had filled me with a tremendous longing to rush home, to be with Radhika and the baby, but it was sometime before I could arrange the vacation. By then, it was the holiday season. Flight tickets were scarce and costly as airline companies shamelessly looted their helpless passengers, and the authorities turned a blind eye.

  It was Ravi, from the Finance Department, who finally managed to secure my ticket through his contacts. Last year, he also departed on his final journey home from
this very same mortuary—the one journey where you do not have to buy your own ticket.

  It was a medical error at the hospital where he had gone seeking help for a minor ailment. A wrong drug was administered. Ravi didn’t get to spend even one night in the new house in Kerala into which he had sunk all his savings.

  Fate. Cruel fate.

  The plane touched down in a raging downpour. By the time I cleared Customs and Immigration, it was almost dark. I climbed into a taxi quickly, hoping to get home before it was too late but by the time we got to our boat jetty, from where I had to take the boat to cross the Periyar, to get home on the opposite shore, it was night, and the boatman was already gone.

  The Periyar was in full flow, her babbling now more like a roar. The rain kept lashing down.

  “It’s been this way for a month now, sir. The land is being swallowed up by the water.” The voice of the taxi driver cut into my thoughts.

  There was a time when I used to swim across the Periyar, especially if Ruby was watching. I would have done anything to impress her. Sometimes, it made her mad; I loved her even more for that.

  Radhika must be waiting anxiously, with all my favourite dishes for dinner. But how can I get across? I rued the fact that we still did not have a bridge across the river. Before leaving for the Gulf, I was actively involved in the public agitation demanding the bridge. But the bureaucracy is too corrupt and too slow. Years later, we still depended on our boatman to get us across the river.

  I couldn’t hide my frustration. My mind was already with Radhika and the baby.

  “There is no point waiting here, sir. Should we head back to town?” Again, the voice of the taxi driver.

  Radhika had called me after the plane had landed. “Appuetta, it is raining hard. And the boatman leaves as soon as it gets dark. Please stay at a hotel in town if it’s too late by the time you get here. I can’t wait to see you, but please, don’t take any risks.”