ISSUE 51

Look, this orange shrub is rather special. It wasn’t budded from a grafted plant.

Years ago, a handful of orange pips were planted with great care and with precise distance maintained between the seeds. Of the lot, only three sprouted. All the rest must have been duds. Two of the seedlings barely survived beyond a few days. The lone one that did survive took its own time to sprout. One leaf, two leaves … growing little by little. It was never in a hurry. Looking at it, no one could make out if it was growing at all. Seemingly meditative in its aspect, the plant often made friends and relatives curious: ‘Hey, what plant is this?’

‘Orange.’

‘Orange? But why is it so stunted?’

‘No, no, it is growing,’ I would say. ‘It was grown from a pip.’

‘Just yank it out and plant a budded plant,’ they would advise. ‘In four or five years, you can have your pick of lush oranges.’

‘But there’s no rush. Let it take its time.’

‘Why? Don’t you fancy eating at least one orange from this before you breathe your last?’

‘No, not at all. Why insist that all the trees we plant should bear fruit in our lifetime?’

‘What’s it to us…’ they would shrug. ‘Your garden, your orange. Wait as much as you please.’

Today, I saw that orange bear fruit. As a slight breeze ruffled the leaves, a tiny green fruit became visible. The very next instant the leaves hid it from view.

It reminded me of Tamhane.

A few years back, I met a man who had worked for several years in a government department which dug up earth to learn about things from antiquity. One Mr Tamhane. His full name was Ganesh Tamhane or something. Or was it Vikas Tamhane? It all happened ten or fifteen years ago.

We were strangers who chanced to spend an entire day travelling together in a bus, seated next to each other. Because of the mountainous terrain, the bus often crawled along. It paused at steep bends, seeming to look askance for a moment, as though wondering whether it should climb at all. Now and then, the vehicle lost itself in tunnels running between mountains and, in the pale light of the valley, it would surface again amidst mustard fields.

Though it had only been a little while since we started, I was worn out with boredom. I cursed myself for getting on a bus that was moving at such a snail’s pace. Not only was it crawling, but it also stopped every so often. It even stopped and waited for passengers spotted at a distance. Damn! Should have just hired a cab. Annoyed with myself, I sat staring into the dreary view outside.

Eventually, the bus entered a tunnel, and an enticing scent of oranges began to drift in from somewhere. It was pitch dark everywhere. Not a sound could be heard in the bus. All the chatter and laughter that had gone on until then seemed to have ceased abruptly. It was as if everyone was gripped by some panic. The panting wheeze of the engine trying to lug itself out of the darkness was the only sound that could be heard. And amidst all this, that scent! Most likely, one of the passengers was eating oranges. Couldn’t make out who it was. It was dark within and without. Though light beams from infrequent vehicles passing by on the opposite side of the road did seem to illumine the bus fleetingly, that was it. Again, everything relapsed into darkness.

As we came out of the tunnel, light returned. And with it came laughter and conversation, booming louder than before. Then, I realised that the person eating oranges was the one seated next to me. But who was this man? I couldn’t recall his presence even once, prior to our entry into the tunnel. Had he really been sitting here all the while? Either way, he seemed unaffected by that jaunt through darkness. He was absorbed in savouring the orange segments that he placed in his mouth one by one. Slowly, ever so slowly. Like chewing on a delicacy difficult to bite into or melt on the tongue. Does it take so much time to eat an orange slice?! The peels and pips from the oranges lay on a handkerchief spread over his lap. The well-washed kerchief had a faded picture of some animal on it, its body now spotted with orange peels and pips.

He sat staring into the distance, scarcely paying attention to anyone. It didn’t look like he was actually seeing anything. He appeared to be lost in thought. Fairly tall, he was of a rather heavy build. Scorched by sun, his face was swarthy. Unruly locks of hair that fell over his forehead were mostly grey. His left palm held a fairly large, half-eaten orange. It appeared as if he was not even aware that he had been eating it.

A while later, his right hand absently resumed parting the segments from the orange. Left open for the segments to find their way in, even his mouth seemed relaxed. It all appeared quite robotic. His mouth opening, closing, and moving with little haste; the sluggish right hand returning – I noticed that the juice was dribbling down through his fingers, despite the meticulous care he took. Perhaps he was unaware of that as well.

My covert observation was jolted when it suddenly hit me that he had an additional sixth finger attached to his right hand, a tiny little digit. Something childlike. It dangled listless, from the little finger to which it was adjoined. The orange juice had dribbled down on that finger too. It looked strange. For the first time in my life, I was seeing someone with six digits, and that too at such close quarters. Though it belonged to another body, for some strange reason it kept bothering me. I retracted my gaze. Yet, instinctively, my eyes kept darting back to it again and again. And each time, it felt as if I was committing a sin.

It was hardly a big deal. Just a little finger. Like a child’s. Crisscrossed with faint lines and tiny folds. A tiny little nail. Yet, it wasn’t like the other fingers – it didn’t move at all. Maybe that was the difference. When he raised his hand or tried to peel or eat an orange, that finger alone remained inert. Holding tight to the little finger, it snuggled close, like a sleeping baby. It had orange juice smeared all over.

Suddenly the driver braked. All of us were thrown forward. Right ahead, a bull was crossing the road in a leisurely amble. Jolted out of his ruminations, the man glanced around. Then, he turned to me and smiled. I was struck by embarrassment, wondering if he had caught me studying him surreptitiously. But thankfully, my transgression seemed to have escaped him. He offered me the remaining orange segments. ‘Do have some; it’s the sweet kind,’ he assured me. ‘I forgot to offer it earlier.’

‘No, thanks,’ I declined his offer.

Not that it mattered, yet I worried whether that extra finger would have touched the segments.  He did not insist further. He merely nodded, and promptly went back to gazing afar into the distance. The bus left the plains and began to make a small ascent. The heat had subsided a little. A cold wind was blowing. Eyes closed on their accord; laughter and voices became muted – I do not know how long I dozed off like that. Someone tapped me awake. I woke up to realise that it was my seatmate. The bus was parked near a small junction. Many had got out and were drinking tea from the roadside shops.

‘Forgive me for waking you up,’ he said, ‘you were fast asleep. I was worried that you may oversleep and miss getting off at your stop.’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said sleepily. ‘Anyway, it’s good that you woke me up. Now I can enjoy the view outside.’ The orange had disappeared from his hand. The bits of peel on the handkerchief on his lap had grown into a small heap.

From the nameboard on one of the shops outside, I read the name of the locality. It was obvious that we had not travelled far at all.

‘Isn’t this vehicle really slow?’ I asked. ‘It’s stopping everywhere.’

He did not reply.

‘Tamhane. Ullas Tamhane,’ he introduced himself, extending his hand. Though I smiled at him, I did not offer my hand. His sixth finger had sprung to my mind. A reluctance to touch it. Perhaps the finger had touched me when he woke me up. It was of little significance, yet a vague concern refused to let go of me.

‘Usually, I am not in the habit of waking up people,’ Tamhane said. ‘To tell you the truth, it has become my habit not to rouse people. To watch them without disturbing their sleep is my occupation.’

‘Are you a watchman or something?’ I asked.

‘Are you suggesting that guards don’t rouse anyone?’ He smiled and continued. ‘That’s not true. Often, watchmen’s jobs also involve waking up others.’

The bus driver and conductor, who had gone for a cup of tea, returned. The bus took off.

At this point, only a few passengers were left on board.

‘I was involved in the kind of job where I accompanied people who dig to learn about bygone eras. You must know about that.’ Tamhane laughed. ‘Anyway, I retired yesterday. Now I’m a pensioner. All that’s over, and  I’m on my way back home.’

‘Oh, retired? Going by your appearance, no one would take you for a pensioner.’ I said.

Eyes shut, he seemed to be doing some mental calculations, counting unhurriedly with the fingers on his right hand. The sixth finger still refused to oblige.

‘Thirty-nine years,’ he reminisced. ‘Have been in the same job for about thirty-nine years.’

For the first seven years, he was an employee on contract. Eventually, he was confirmed in his job, thanks to the goodwill of a superior officer. ‘Nothing but digging up pits!’ he laughed, his dry throat rasping. ‘But in this case, the pits were dug not to bury corpses but to recover them.’

‘Remaining in the same occupation for too long, we became unfamiliar with much of the world’s ways,’ he mused. ‘For example, didn’t you say that this bus was going too slow or something. I could not make sense of that at all. As far as I’m concerned, it feels that this is already going too fast.’

‘But I was making a true observation,’ I said. ‘It’s already two hours since we left now, and we have only managed to cover ten to fifteen kilometres. Maybe it’s because we have been climbing inclines.’

As if overhearing our conversation, trees, shops, and houses outside the bus began to recede quicker. The bus  was gaining speed, as if in a bit of hurry. Tamhane’s gaze wandered outside again. I noticed that his face was growing darker.

‘Perhaps it is the nature of my work,’ he mused, withdrawing his glance from the view outside. ‘Do you know how slowly we dig, as we go deeper? Every inch, every blow, is aimed at removing layers of soil so carefully, so that none of it can hurt the earth. Slowly. Excruciatingly so. At the beginning, that was the biggest problem. One was young then. In strapping good health, and strong to boot. The urge was to dig as quickly as one would in normal circumstances. ‘Don’t!’ the experienced ones would caution. Each layer had to be detached and separated with trowels. With utmost care. After days and months of patient work, if one was fortunate, a coin, a jewel, a utensil, or a weapon could emerge, revealing itself. It is like making a foray into an ancient era. We wander around everywhere, taking care not to awaken those who are in deep slumber. Little by little, dormant thoroughfares materialise from the fog. Sometimes big cities. Rivers that dried up through summers that lasted for years. Animal bones. The thirst still lingering in their dry throats.

‘When you go down into the ground, inch by inch, foot by foot, you can perceive that it is not minutes and hours, but centuries that you are crossing. How many centuries in each step! Maybe that’s why I can’t get used to the speed of the outside world.’

Having worked thus for quite a while, they had him promoted to the Supervisor’s post. Ten or twenty workers began to work under him. He used to explain to them: ‘We need not hurry at all. It doesn’t matter if we are late. Because whatever we are looking for will remain right there. Our job is to disturb nothing.’ Tamhane paused, temporarily lost in thought, till he continued, ‘I would say: compassion is what’s necessary in this work, not strength or speed. You need to have a kind of attentiveness towards the past, not unlike the kind you display towards your lover Otherwise, the world we are looking for will rebel and collapse into dust.’

‘I am guessing that your job demands haste and alacrity,’ said Tamhane, after a brief interval of silence. ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Often, time becomes insufficient. There are targets to be met.’

‘We have no demands of that sort.’ Tamhane laughed. ‘Can anyone insist that this many skeletons should be dug up?’ He laughed, relishing his own joke. ‘Imagine you are entering an old fort full of cobwebs. You are walking through the chambers inside. Through open doorways. Can you move through so gently that not even a single cobweb is grazed or harmed? If you can, you are a winner. My profession is like that. It is the art of treading quietly through someone’s sleep, without disturbing their dreams. At the same time, their dreams must not stick on your body like those cobwebs. That too has to be kept in mind.’

After remaining silent for a while, Tamhane murmured, ‘But how is that to be accomplished? It’s not easy, not at all easy.’ Then he rubbed his right palm across his face, as if he was trying to erase something. For some reason, I kept watching that sixth finger. It was in torpor, oblivious of time’s passing. Or else, like a dream, it had adhered itself to the other fingers. However, this time he knew that I was looking particularly at that finger.

Tamhane looked at me and smiled in a peculiar manner. I didn’t understand why he smiled. For a while, silence continued between us.

‘Initially, I too was weary of the slow pace of this work. Though I appreciated the job for its steady income, it also carried within it something that mocked our youth and health. I felt that I myself was impeding the thundering flow of youth. I wanted to crack into the earth with the shovel and stride rapidly.

Not only that, we were stuck in the same place for months together. Camping in deserted areas, human beings continued to work, driven by some remote hope. Most of the time, there would be no finds at all. What comes to naught in the end, is the effort of so many people and their hard work extended over so many months. From one tent to the next one, like in a new age circus. The only difference is that we don’t attract spectators.’

The bus was heading around the slope of a cliff. The mellow light of the four o’clock sun had begun to blend with the yellow of the ubiquitous mustard fields.

‘Once, we were camping on the slope of a mountain. The expedition had already extended over many months. Sheer tedium it was. But finally, an incident occurred.’ Tamhane looked at me. His eyes radiated a mischievous brightness.

‘Everyone was steeped in despair. Despite slogging for such a long period, there was nothing to be found. The soil became less and less solid as we went deeper and seemed to shroud no secrets whatsoever. Perhaps, the place was never ever inhabited. But our chief had informed us that the footprints of a dry river did once stretch up to the area. In fact, that had been the starting point of the research. Usually, he was never wrong about such matters. With his experience, he could point to a valley and surmise that it was the site of some ancient civilisation. But where on earth was the course of that river? And the people and the city that may have resided on its shores? No matter how hard we tried, nothing could be found. Everyone began to pack up, preparing to abandon the place. The workers and supervisors were secretly elated. Everyone was tired of that long and isolated stint and the boring job. Two days before we were scheduled to leave, the boss called me in the evening. We walked to one end of the excavated ground. Having worked together in various places previously, we shared a mutual rapport and trust.

Following the directions marked out by plastic ropes stretched tight around posts driven into earth, we walked through the tracks cut in the ground. That vast area of excavation  bore an appearance of a forgotten period. Maybe because he was preoccupied by impending plans to leave the area soon, the chief did not speak. Neither did I. We had already moved far from the tents and were a long way off from everyone else. The light was also fading. At the spot where we finally came to a halt, the ground seemed to have caved in a little. All around, layers of loose earth lay scattered. The middle part seemed to have collapsed into a circular ditch. We certainly hadn’t seen any hole while digging earlier. Perhaps it had taken shape over the past couple of days. What exactly could have happened? I was curious to know, but didn’t dare say anything.

‘Tamhane, you stay here,’ the chief instructed. Then he handed me his black coat. ‘I am going down these steps. Perhaps I may not come across anything. But my mind tells me to make sure and rule it out once for all. You have to stay put and be here when I call out.’

He descended the steps, and bent down to enter that big hole into which his body disappeared slowly. I stood on guard, as he had directed me to.

Some time passed. I pricked up my ears. Anything to be heard? Nothing whatsoever. There was no indication that there was anyone besides me there. Would anyone know that he had gone through that hole? I had no evidence, except for the coat in my hand. Time kept ticking by. Absolute silence. I started getting scared. Wrapping the coat around my shoulders, I cupped my palms over my mouth and called out loudly. No reply. Then I called him by his name. No answer to that either. Not even an echo. I stood there clueless, neither knowing what had happened nor what was to be done? Where did he vanish to? To which epoch? He had insisted that I stay at the spot. At the same time, I felt it was wiser to seek other people in the event of any misfortune. Even so, I continued to stand there for a long while. Then I began to walk back, thinking of ushering along someone else to search for him.

As soon as I covered a few strides, his voice rang out from behind, ‘Tamhane, Tamhane!’ I ran back to him. ‘Give me a hand, Tamhane!’ he said. He was standing below the steps, looking somewhat exhausted. His clothes were soiled. His hair totally dishevelled. Face ashen. Eyes fatigued.

On our way back, the chief said, ‘I had a hunch. It felt as if I was to discover something unfamiliar lying underneath. Why else did the earth cave in? So, walking through the circular entryway, I went down a passage. It was high enough for a man to walk. At certain points, I had to sit on the ground and thrust myself forward. After I moved quite a distance, it felt as if a breeze was blowing. A sound reminiscent of a river in flow. But it wasn’t possible to make out where it was coming from. Neither was it possible to move forward. I was up against a massive, rock wall. I sat down on the floor.’

As he sat there for a while, he felt as if he was struggling to breathe. As if he was inhaling some vapour, dense and venomous. There was not a hint of light anywhere. Initially, he panicked, wondering if he would ever get out of the darkness. When he tried to retrace his path, he was waylaid by rocks. He turned around. When he tried to call out for help, his voice wouldn’t aid him. Struggling to breathe and not knowing where he was headed for, the chief plodded through the dark. After he stumbled along for a while, he felt that a pipe of light was advancing towards him. ‘And that’s how I reached here,’ he beamed, delighted like a reincarnated soul. At that moment, it occurred to me that he was not my old chief, but another man who was many centuries old.

‘Anyway, one thing is for sure, Tamhane,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more to look for in this area. Maybe, the river finally came to a standstill here, right in this place. But there is no way we will find what we came in search of. One must assume that no one ever lived here in the ancient past. It doesn’t matter. Come to think of it, this is also part of research. Ruling out once for all that there is no such possibility – wrong assumptions or mere conjectures.’

He took the coat from my hand and slipped it on. Without saying anything more, we headed back to the tents.

I felt disturbed. That night, as I lay sleepless in my tent, I kept going over and over what he had experienced. The place that he reached as he went down, that circular hole made by the collapsing soil, the sound that suggested the flowing river and breeze. My thoughts were stuck on them. Like something unfamiliar touching and beckoning. Someone’s voice. I felt compelled to go there, to hear those sounds, even if it would prove difficult. That night, I did not sleep a wink.

Early next morning, I headed for the site. This time, I was on my own. If I were to even mention such an excursion, all the workers in the group would have cursed and turned against me. Didn’t I mention that they were already weary? Their plan was to return as early as possible. I didn’t want to be the one to upset that. And, if I were to tell my boss, most probably he would forbid me. Firstly, there was the danger involved. Besides, he had very clearly stated that there was nothing worth exploring inside. Wouldn’t going there again indicate that I did not believe him? Was that something a superior officer would forgive? I reached the spot, stripped off my clothes, and hung them on a rod which I pushed down into the mud. I put on my blue work overalls and cap. I took a small torch in my hand. Slowly, I went down the steps. With care, I bent my body to ease it through the circular entrance. Immediately, darkness engulfed me. Things were just as he had described. At first, the roof was high enough for a person to walk. Gradually, the height began to reduce. A breeze seemed to be blowing in from somewhere. A cool drift. But no sound of the river or its flow could be discerned. Despite attuning my ears to catch the faintest sound emanating from any direction, I heard nothing. Perhaps what he had experienced was only a delusion. Finally, the torch light led me to a solid mud wall. The chief was right.

I coughed once.

It was just one cough. But it created an extraordinary echo. I was petrified. It was as if it was resounding from a huge drum. Dhum, dhum … it went on and on. Someone was reiterating my cough in booming reverberations.

I decided to return. I retraced two steps.

All of a sudden, I felt the earth splitting apart beneath me. From where I was standing, I was pulled down into a cavernous depth. A few clods of earth fell on my head. I felt that I had reached the end of my story. How was I to climb out of this depth? The torch was lost. There was no other light.

As he was narrating this, I noticed that Tamhane’s eyes were gripped by fear. He was trembling.

‘I lay there for a while. Then, carefully, I pulled myself up. I was able to stand erect. Somehow, I had to climb out of this sodden pit. Only then would it be possible to go back. But how? Lifting my arms, I swung them around. My hand hit something. I was enveloped by a booming sound rather like the one I had heard before. It was like a mud pot being hit. When my eyes got acquainted with the darkness, I saw a huge earthenware pot, as tall as a human being. Black colour had invaded its sides. The lower part of the urn was firmly entrenched in the ground. Even in the thick of that crisis, I felt like shouting with joy. The thing that we had been searching for so long was hiding there, right before me. But what was it? I did not try to check or open it. Though it was difficult to hold on to its firmer side and scramble up, I kept on trying until I finally managed to climb out of the pit. I started walking in the opposite direction. After walking a long distance, the pipe of light that my boss had spoken about advanced towards me. I went up to it, I climbed the stairs and ran until I reached the camp.’ Narrating the incident, Tamhane sat there for a long while, submerged in his memories.

The bus stopped at a medium-sized town station. All of us got down for tea. The shop was very busy. There was no place to sit. As I stepped out after drinking tea, two elderly beggars held out their hands towards me. Their hands held walking sticks taller than their bodies. Every now and then, they tried to attract attention by banging the sticks on the ground. I gave them all the coins that I had in my purse. But Tamhane did not pay them any attention. The beggars stared at him for a while and murmured something and turned away. The sound of the walking sticks hitting the ground could be heard for a while more.

On my way back to the bus, I justified giving them money, ‘After all they are old men.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ Tamhane guffawed. ‘In my view, not a single soul living on earth today merits being called old.’

We got back on the bus.

Across the street, we saw a big earth moving machine attacking a multi-storeyed building. People lounged around, waiting for the building to collapse. After casting a glance at that spectacle, Tamhane quickly withdrew his eyes. He pooled something into the napkin and tied it with unhurried movements.

‘Orange pips,’ he explained. ‘I’m thinking of growing them.’

‘Won’t it be difficult for them to take root?’ I asked. ‘Even if they germinate, it will take ten to fifteen years for them to grow. It would be best to plant a budded plant. That will only take four or five years.’

‘Why hurry?’ Tamhane laughed softly. ‘Time is a problem for those who feel they only live on the earth for a short span of time. The worries of those who run short distances. Just suppose that the race is a continuation, or that you are falling and someone else continues running from the spot you fell. With that, all anxieties will disappear,’ he said.

‘I am never in a hurry. Maybe it’s because I am involved in a job which ensures that things retrieved from the bowels of earth are shielded from cracking or shattering into dust. Perhaps it is for that reason we ourselves have become outdated on this earth. Even our pace has slowed down. Like in the case of old earthen vessels, care is taken to ensure that nothing is broken. Do you know how lightly I hug my wife! It’s as if I’m scared that she’ll crumple.’ Tamhane laughed his silent laugh.

I wanted to hear the rest of Tamhane’s story. What was the treasure he discovered in that pot? But he appeared to have forgotten it.

‘Tamhane-ji, you didn’t tell the rest of the story. Did you ever go back to the site?’ I asked.

‘The story? Which site?’ Tamhane’s gaze was uncomprehending. ‘Oh! That? Of course. But mind you, that is not a story. Those things actually happened.’

The bus began to move again. The dust and the loose soil from the building that the earth mover had demolished seemed to cloak the city and the evening.

‘There was not much there. A person was buried in that huge clay urn.’ Tamhane said. ‘In a seated position. It was a miracle, wasn’t it? Perhaps not just one, but two wonders.’

‘But what’s the surprise in that?’ I asked. ‘Haven’t we heard of the discovery of many burial urns in which bodies were interred? I’ve also read about how corpses were buried in seated postures.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But here, extensive searches over such a large area, managed to unearth the remains of only one man. Only one man! Who could have brought him to such a desolate place, to be buried in an urn? That was the miracle.’

‘He might have been their king,’ I guessed.

‘If so, where did all his people go? Relatives, other kings. Not one was found. There were no skulls anywhere. Not even a single piece of bone was left behind. What kind of death could it have been to beget such great loneliness? We did not receive any answer. Many people came to analyse it. They studied. Disputed. Engaged with negotiations. To what purpose? It all ended in speculations. Or else, they still continue in the same manner.’

We fell silent. The prolonged loneliness of a dead life encompassed the rest of the journey.

‘I’ll be getting off at the next stop.’ Tamhane said, his eyes still trained on the view outside the window. Then with measured and unhurried movements, he began to gather together various boxes and bags that he retrieved from the overhead luggage rack and from underneath his seat. There were four or five bundles as well. I guessed that he had so many things piled up because he was going home for good after his retirement. When he finally got up to leave, I too got up.

‘I can carry some of the boxes and help you unload,’ I said.

‘Thank you very much. That’ll be a great help,’ Tamhane agreed. ‘Once I get off, you can hand them down.’

The bus was driving through the plains. In the distance, the shadowy outline of the mountains was visible. A cool breeze blew from them. Outside, it was getting dark. Suddenly I recalled that he had mentioned a pair of miracles. I was curious to hear the rest of the story.

‘Oh, that!’ Tamhane’s laughter rang aloud for the first time. ‘When I think back, that was indeed the only marvel,’ he said. ‘Perhaps only that. As you said, the rest of it all was quite commonplace. In the olden days, men buried their corpses in large urns. The urns were kept anchored amid rocks. That’s right. At the same time, the other thing was indeed a mystery.’ I gazed intently at him.

‘When the skeleton was taken out carefully from the urn, it was found that its right hand had six digits,’ Tamhane laughed.

‘Six fingers!’ I said out loud.

‘Yes,’ Tamhane smiled. ‘That sixth extra finger.’

Tamhane said: ‘You must forgive me, but why else would I take pains to tell you such a long-drawn-out story? I saw you look at the little finger on my hand. You must have found it strange. Or perhaps it scared you. Probably you hesitated to eat that orange, because it could have been touched by that finger, right?’

I didn’t reply.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ said Tamhane. ‘That’s something I’m used to. The fear. Or recoil. No one likes it. Even my wife doesn’t like to be touched by that finger. People always abhor anything which is different, isn’t it? They keep the other afar. Those days, I too used to hide this finger from everyone. Why was that? Was anything wrong with me because of this finger? Never! It was only to not offend others. To adapt to the world. Or to compromise with existing habits. Often our lives are not lived for ourselves, but for other’s eyes.’

‘After my encounter with that ancient man, I wiped out all such discomfitures. I realised that one can choose to be different. It became evident that it was possible to live an isolated life or to even have a lonely death.’

‘So astounding, isn’t it?’ he marvelled as the bus slowed down at the stop. ‘That man with six fingers had remained there in silence for several centuries. Eventually, when my boss, with his rich experience, drew so close to him, the dead man hid himself. Or else, he asphyxiated his guest and sent him back. Come to think of it, he seemed to have been waiting for me. Waiting, all alone, until a man who shared the totem of his clan went in search of him…’

Tamhane didn’t say anything after that. Only the monotonous sound of the bus reverberated.

When the bus stopped, I picked up the boxes and bundles and handed them over to him. The place was lit only by a dim streetlight. He thanked me again. As the bus was leaving, I waved. I saw him wave back. Seen against the darkness, Tamhane’s right hand which he had held up to wave back, appeared to have six bony phalanges instead of fingers. As in an X-ray image of darkness, the flesh had fallen off from the bones.

When I got back to my seat, I saw that he had forgotten the handkerchief in which the orange pips were safely tied. I picked it up and put it in my bag. I don’t know why, but I never mentioned Tamhane or anything about him either to my wife or any of my friends. The reason could be that each time I remember him, that extra finger comes to mind. It evokes a circular door of memory that he crossed to reach that dark place, with its lonely skeleton in a man-high burial urn. With the memory of Tamhane comes the vision of six phalanges illuminated through the X-ray of darkness. With the flesh fallen off the fingers, only bones remaining.

After an interval of time, I quit my busy marketing job. Thereafter, targets and timelines failed to bother me. Whenever I happened to drive through the mountainous road that I had once travelled with Tamhane, I began to be mindful of my surroundings. I stopped being bothered by either the slow-moving vehicles or the extended time that the vehicle got stuck in the traffic congestion en route. As Tamhane pointed out, time is a problem only for those who feel they have a short lifespan on earth. The anxieties of those who run short distances. Look at those who run long distances. They only care about surpassing themselves. Those who run past them are none of their concern.

Like this orange tree.

The oranges that blossomed and yielded fruits at a much younger age, did neither frighten nor entice it. It grew at its own pace, unruffled. And blossomed, taking its time.

Look here, through the window of foliage which the wind keeps blowing open and slamming shut an orange peeps out for an instant. Just one. Green in colour. One that sprouted from a seed.

An orange. An eternity.

This story, titled ‘Narakangalude Upama’ in the original Malayalam, was first published in the November 18-25, 2018 release of Mathrubhumi Weekly. It was later the title story in a collection published by DC Books in 2019. Its first translation was into Tamil by A K Riyaz Muhammed and appeared in January 2022 in the magazine Viyookam that is published from Srilanka. The Kannada translation by Sunaif appeared in the June 25, 2023 edition of Prajavani. The Hindi and Telugu translations are forthcoming.*