It was just a dream after all, just a dream. But why was it so vividly clear and so tantalisingly real? And besides, it had started to recur recently—twice already in a week. He made up his mind to ask his Uncle Hari about it. It was Uncle Hari he had gone to when he had first felt he was in love. A girl had joined his class and very soon gained the reputation of being intelligent and smart. She had recently moved with her family to the city from a nearby hill station. He had asked Uncle Hari if he thought love was selfish because he only remembered the girl and longed to be with her when he felt low and lonely like when his mother scolded him or when he failed his tests, but he never missed the girl when he was happy like when he was celebrating his birthday with his family or when he was riding the new bicycle that grandfather had gifted him. Uncle Hari had explained to him quite patiently the characteristics of love; also telling him how to differentiate love, affection and infatuation from one another. Anyway the girl had moved out of town a couple of years later, and he no longer remembered her.
He had not talked to Uncle Hari for a while now. On February 13, 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) began a movement with an aim to overthrow monarchy and establish a federal system of government in the country. After being unemployed for fairly long span of time, Uncle Hari had joined the Maoist movement in 1998. Grandfather had been furious over his decision. “As if we could not feed him; he had to join those bloody goons!” he had said. Grandfather never approved of the Maoists and their ideologies but Saraswati auntie had been really supportive of her husband’s decision. “He is fighting for his country”, she had said. “At least he is not sitting at home and complaining about the country’s problems. These Maoists are good people. They have principles and they have plans for our country. These Kings and political parties have done no good to our country since the Ranas. Do you know how much power is vested in the King of Nepal? The Royal family can do just about anything and they won’t be questioned in the court”, she would say and grandfather would simply grumble something vague in return. Grandma never took part in the discussion. She just sat in the corner and kept crying with grandfather trying in vain to silence her. Uncle Hari would return once in a while; at times in a few weeks and sometimes in a few months. Every time he came back, he would bring something for everyone. While grandfather refused to accept anything bought with “blood money”, Saraswati auntie would happily accept the gifts of new sarees and jewellery.
Once, Uncle Hari was gone for a very long time. Over a year and a half had passed but there was still no sign of him. Some said a series of fierce battle was going on between the army and the Maoists. A long absence followed by a series of vague and bad news began to worry family members. Saraswati auntie was growing impatient and after waiting for Uncle Hari a few more months she could wait no longer and eloped with a guy much younger than she from the neighbourhood. The guy she eloped with had been working in Dubai for some time and had come back on a holiday. He would spend his entire day sitting at a tea shop across our house listening to Hindi songs on a foreign made radio. The very next day of her elopement, grandfather took her things out in the yard and burned them while grandma sat on the veranda and cursed Saraswati auntie saying “such an impatient girl, couldn’t even wait for her husband”. The entire show had been an attempt to save the honour of the family—a spectacle intended for the neighbourhood to show how much we resented the elopement.
In February of 2005, something materialised Saraswati auntie’s fears into reality. Abusing the immense power vested in him the then King Gyanendra seized power by dissolving the government and banned all means of communication resulting in a state of Emergency. It was a very important move in the history of Nepal because his decision rendered into reality something which, in Saraswati auntie’s words, should have happened long before. All the political parties joined hands with the Maoists and started a revolution against monarchy. Finally on 24 December 2007, bowing to internal and international pressure, King Gyanendra released power and Democracy was restored in Nepal.
A few months later, Uncle Hari returned. Not with any gifts; not the way he had come last time, not on his feet, but on a wheel chair. His right leg had been amputated just above the knee. Grandfather was furious and refused to talk to him for days while Grandma cried and cursed everyone from the ex-king to the Nepali army to the Maoists. With only one leg working, Uncle Hari didn’t do anything much except sit on his wheelchair feeding pigeons in the garden. At times people from the neighbourhood would gather around him asking him to share with them his experience of the war. In 2008, with the promise of a ‘New Nepal’ and a new constitution the Maoists won the largest seat in parliament in the general election. But people’s hopes were dashed; things remained the same. “New Nepal” still mirrored the misery of ‘Old Nepal’.
He had maintained his distance from Uncle Hari since the war. But now he had a question to ask, a mystery to solve. So he went to Uncle Hari and told him about his dream.
“In my dream, I am on an island; well, if you can call it an island. It’s actually a small piece of land jutting out in the middle of an ocean. It’s so small I can see it disappearing in the ocean from where I am sitting. Around me is a circle of naked people dancing and rejoicing. There is something very strange about them—they all look the same; from the hair on their head to their toe-nails, they are all same. Gradually the dance starts becoming more animated and exuberant.
In the middle of the celebration, one of them slips and sinks into the ocean. The celebration stops; all tare into the deep blue in awe. A few minutes later, the person emerges out of the ocean transformed and in some way looking better than the rest.
Before I can comprehend what had just happened, the rest of the island people start jumping, one after the other, into the ocean and emerging looking better than before but again similar to one another. They have discovered that the more they bathe in the ocean water, the better looking they become. Soon enough, there comes a time when I am the only one sitting on the island. Everyone else is in the ocean, busy transforming themselves. When they finally come out of the ocean, they are transformed alright; not into better looking versions of themselves, but into skeletons. They have reached the ultimate stage of transformation and cannot be transformed into anything more. So they once again join hands and start dancing and rejoicing. That’s where I wake up.”
Uncle Hari didn’t say anything much; he just looked deep into my eyes and said, “You saw the truth son, something that took me years to realise.”
- Prashant Das
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