The World of Myth Magazine

The library in the corner of the old living room was littered with dust as lack of readers had made it a monument. My father was an avid reader, and he gathered a lot of books. But now they are looking musty.

Have you seen spiders grazing in the mask of black cow in the meadow?

The books were pale and inked on an insular island! At least the cobwebs and termites were giving a lot of evidence. Father earned a lot of money. The money became a bone of contention which lingered for year and yearlong.

But his books were deserted. Nobody was claimant for his library.

Strange! His books canopied termites and his money canopied not only his main progeny but offshoots also. When I was growing up and began to understand books, I made the whole bookcase and books neat and clean. I gave the whole books for rebinding as pages were tattered and peeping out. Father was fond of Kafka, and it irked my curiosity in the modernist author.

I read Metamorphosis and after it Kafka's letters to Milena.

Strange words and strange feelings!

One Day while I was flipping pages I caught Gregor Samsa sleeping beneath the bookmark. Termites were in the periphery in a circle around Samsa. when I was trying to pick out the inserted book out of long columns, few of the termites burnt in black smoke. The smoke weeded out of the pages and spilled above. The black sky of Prague and Vienna reincarnated in the void as smoke has a niche where fuel remains dormant! Just prick your nerves —they began to flare up one by one. Nothing dies.

Kafka writes in Prague and Milena receives letters in Vienna.

One day she asked, " Do you love me?"

Dark modernist was helpless—"this couldn't be answered in a letter."

All he could reply !

And why ?— remain unanswered as the whole world was soon going to burn in the hand of a dictator.

Milenna ended her story in a concentration camp though Kafka was not in her life then. But she kept Kafka's letter.

Both met two times, but Kafka never touched her.

"I don't want to disrupt your sacredness Milenna". ( Did he love her in a platonic way?)

Kafka broke his love affair once he was convinced that Milena was not going to leave her husband.

(Then why did he want to get Milenna to leave her husband if his love was platonic ?)

Wading through the book KAFKA LETTERS TO MILENA all these curiosities came.

I put down the book and tried to sleep.

A big vermin appeared. Perhaps in my hypnagogia.

"He in a human voice—you know she was a fire and whenever I tried to answer her if I loved her or not pages burnt out in black."

I got awake before my other curiosities would have satiated.

A black cat has jumped in my room out of the square hole of the ventilator.

Strangely, the book was not on my bed but reinserted in the library!

Perhaps these curiosities would have also come to my father's mind.

Though father spent his early childhood in the last ledge of the British raj. Kafka was not alive then but his vermin's—he left behind were wiggling— still hidden from the world's eyes. The British raj in India was white and brown or call it hybrid pyramid —upper segment was pointed and white! The middle class and educated Indians looked towards them but for downtrodden they hardly mattered in day to day life. They drank palmyra wine and sang Alha udal. Alha udal was a legendary general of the Chandel king Parmal who showed their bravery and martyrdom in the twelfth century.

They were embellished in balad and descended in their co-caste Ahir's tongue. They were alive in multitudes of sound and song— true legends— grow like that. Local legends live in gene and most of the time their glory is conveyed in the karyotype of caste system.

Grandfather and his chums liked to sing Alha—with a peculiar gesture. The right palm laid on the right ear folding the right elbow while the left hand was straight in the air unfolding the left elbow. The vocal rhythm used to go on in equal pitch for a long time, holding the breath below the vocal cords.

And legends live on in formulated fabric after disappearing their own physical presence!

Grandfather sought amusement in the song of Alha-Udal while little father liked to play marble balls with his tiny hand.

Just strike the other marble ball and yell clamorously— One day I saw my little father —his knuckles were swollen—red hot and pain—rubor,calor and dolor-in medic language. They were inflamed—later I got to know in grandmother's narration that one day he was playing marbles along with his gully chums— which infuriated grandfather to peak. Grandpa at once pulled father's hand and kept it between two round grinder of the flour stony mill.

That grandmother's narration dived in my blood and jerked a trail of long emotions. Emotions are triggers of illusions and delusions—

I felt father's screech turned into steam and ascended to crescendo and it scratched the stony mill. After several years—I was rummaging through the storeroom, I saw the imprint of a puckered palm on the relicked musty stony mill. Imprint was not swollen! There would be no rubor calor dolor in fossils but who knows—sound is an exception as they couldn't be fossilized!

And I still hear the old sounds of dead ones!

"Our ancestors visit us in the mask of birds, so never let them return empty. They come for dues which mundane people owe. Cook extra meals for them and also keep water in the hanging pot in the balcony— mother says."

Birds beak tapping my window glass pane—twitters and churns my subconscious sentiments.

"Yes he has come to meet me, nothing dies, only changes its fabric. Is it not quoted in Geeta? Death is nothing but mere changing of clothes—soul is infinite and immortal !" I think again and again—and mother also reminds me always—so now this belief began to live in a conscious cave!

I can't let them return—I should not let them return without feeding i— he could be my father, perhaps!'

These old injunctions encroached in my subconscious mind in a concrete road baked in black tar. I see black crows emerging out of tar in hordes and diffuse out in the sky. They began to descend upon my roof early this morning. I followed the signal and tried my best to get up in the morning as possible as—at least along with sunrise. A big orange emerged in eastern sky and my parapet was compact in a crowd of crows. I made small pieces of roti and rice grain spread upon the roof. I put aside a medium-size surahi (earthen water jug) filled up with water. Crows descended one by one and swarmed the surrounding with their piercing kraa.

One day as I was scattering roti bits a big, large crow with—long beaks along with black erosive hairs made a big loop and pecked hard upon my skull. A rugged creature! I escaped out of his further firings but after some days when I was in a relaxed mood—standing upon the roof. The dark demon again snapped me again and that day was a p day for me. The big crow tore up my ears, hackled in my eyes making it in a bubble like blister. The torn ear began to grow in the trunk of an elephant —became too much heavier to bear—I wobbled.

I wanted to enlighten me of my past debts, but this newer peril brought another invention. I saw bit by bit of myself begin to diffuse and I myself felt up and up in the air. I was bubbling step by step and got stagnant in the air. From there I looked down at me.

My mangled, distorted caricature was laid below. Suddenly flocks of crow descended beside my mangled remains and began to trotter. I looked for the particular assailant crow.

It reminded me of my grandmother.

An example of harridan!

An Iron Lady— My Grandmother was a milk seller

A great bargainer sold milk for stories.

Stored them in the mud huts—

I stole stories while she was sleeping

A noon napper—

I don't know or perhaps it could be, you have seen the spectacular scene of liminal dots on litmus paper. I saw them in my chemistry lab where I was a student, doing my chemical experiments in practical class.

And this is a type of metamorphosis—about which Lord Krishna talks in the battle ground of Kurukshetra, to his pupil Arjun.

"Look Arjun, death is nothing but like changing of garments. Soul is eternal and it changes the body just as you change garments. The ignorant mourn it. Lord Krishna said, the people of profundity accept it as a normal phenomenon, you should also behave like that. I read these lines in the pale pages of Geeta which were kept in the upper segment of my father's library. But a strange kind of metamorphosis I saw in my family.

"Have you seen the metamorphosis of bone of bliss into bone of contention? I was scrutinizing how it happened, suddenly I saw Sigmund Freud was articulating that Indian sons are closer to their mother. Perhaps Indians are subjected to the Oedipus complex."

"Are marriages ode to Oedipus complex?"

My mother and aunt were sisters in law, and they lived in a common joint family.

My grandmother was old enough for both of them to be alone and nobody in the family could dare to cross her road. The genie erupted out in red flame whoever tried to open Grandma's coffer box. But it happened sometimes, and then red talks of mother and grandmother made father pale, it persisted for hours, making a makeshift kitchen of two parts.

After it, the topsy turvy condition prevailed as in joint family varied churning wheels remain active undertow, only one disbalance in harmony is sufficient enough to disrupt the whole equilibrium. But the end of battle used to start in hair combing. After a brief cold war, my mother used to groom grandma's hair in two parts leading to unification of the both kitchens.

My father had brought a mango orchard, it was our playground in summer. Token of bliss swept in blisters— after father's death the orchard mutilated in parts according to disruption of joint family. My grandmother was a pickled thread who was connecting all his progenies, but her death changed a lot. Her pyre alighted in the mango orchard. Her face faded in orchard soil, but bones remained boisterous like grandma.

After so many years of father's and grandmother's death, I visited along with my mother in the place of naughty nostalgia. Mango orchard was in a dilapidated state.

"look! here your grandma's pyre was," mother told.

I halted at that spot curiously.

"Give me that shovel" mother yelled!

She began to remove the soil from the pyre place.

Suddenly a clod stumbled out studded in grayish white bony spicules.

That day I thought I would never shake the coffer box which is stored in my mother's cupboard. The trees of my mango orchard are not seasonal crush as their leaves have strange laughter that is mauve colored. They now live in pale brinjals of my mother's vegetable orchard.

I always liked to see heavy rain sitting on the windowsill. It has been quite a habit since my childhood. I used to see people of my past glistening and slipping in white waters. Yes white one, because black death sucks blackness and leaves behind the infinite white. I used to take my hand out of the window letting the pit pat on my palm. The heavy rain always created a pond upon my semicircular palm while my parents were alive, and I was a tiny tot. The tiny fishes swam in my palm while the medium and bigger ones leaped up in the stagnant water of my outer courtyard. In rainy seasons the courtyard collected water.

Nowadays my tiny daughter carves that scenery on paper by tiny coloring crayons.

The fishes were varied. I especially feared and abhorred the singhi (Asian stinging catfish). They used to swarm in my waterlogged yard. They look black and brackish water is their favorite niche. One Day they stung in my palm and whenever I recall it, memory tremors. Some fishes were seasonal one—cold, hot, and warm. I liked fishing cold ones because my fishing rod was made of autumn's wood. I gathered them in a bucket filled with water, always pouring water more and more lest they would die. Though I knew their final destiny was my mother's cauldron and I was a child of the moon. One day I caught about twenty one fish, sufficient for the whole family's dinner. We liked to take nonveg for dinner. I come from northern India. In north and east India fishes are taken along with rice—Machh bhat. Mostly we like to eat fish curry cooked in mustard. My old maid whose wrinkles touched the earth, used to clean the scales and other unwanted parts of the fish. After cleaning she chopped it into moderate pieces. A jovial work was for her as she was quite addicted to the sumptuous dinner of these water breeders!

One day I noticed a red serrated mound which was gathered in the dustbin. In a childish curious whim, I caught my mother for an explanation. Mother nodded "they are wasted products of fish, not should be eaten".

"Are they poisonous, mom?"

This time not mother but father answered, he was standing behind hearing our conversation.

"No, not poisonous, actually they are gills, breathing organs of fish. Fish sucks oxygen out of water through them."

Father's lesson still vibrates my eardrum whenever I see circles in water.

One day I saw my father lying lifeless on the plank. My family members were wailing and smearing clarified butter upon my father's face. I also followed them, and it was the first time I touched a corpse. Father was cold like fishes of the arctic ocean. A bundle of incense sticks were stuck in the four corners of the plank.

My teen mind wanted to ask "Is the soul also red? Is the soul also serrated?"

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