M.
Mathews Sajit
Grey fields. To the
edges of what he knows to be the world. Grey fields spread across the
breadth and width of his world. Grey fields were all he could see.
And of course, rising dust pulling together all it could, forming a
pillar of wasted fabric. It well represented the predicament of the
story teller. A pillar of waste, held against the background of grey
fields. His writing pad and paper would say the same. He hadn't
written anything for the last two years!
He couldn't bear it
anymore. From his window on the first floor, he could see the wasted
village. A village full of people with no dreams left! How inspiring
is it? From his writer's chair, he could see almost everything in the
village- the deserted church, the once-lively market, closely built
houses, the village school... all covered in dust. But he could not
see a single bit of inspiration for him to write.
For once, he felt
that his career as a writer has come to an end. May be, like the life
of a man, the life of a writer also has to come to an end. He has
written about everything in the village. By the time he was on the
peak of fame as the village story teller, he had exhausted all the
realistic themes and had already started treading the fantastic world
of philosophy and the
transcendental. Using symbols and images, he wrote epics about the
life of the village. Everyone identified themselves in the stories of
the story-teller. He could relate his letters to the lives, dreams,
disappointments and despair of the villagers. What they were and what
they couldn't be appeared in the story-teller's themes. They loved
him, and he wrote about them in return.
It was since two years that he began to feel this dryness. He
couldn't write a word. He looked into the village through the window
of his house day and night. But he couldn't spot anything that he
hadn't written about. He had exhausted everything. When he realized
this, he wanted to jump off the village's highest hill and kill
himself. He felt that meaning had escaped his being. He couldn't
think of living without meaning! Meaning was all he searched for in
all his writings. “And now, see what has happened to me?” wailed
the story-teller.
This
was a standstill. He couldn't bear becoming a character in his own
writing. He remembered writing the story of a man who sold the
meaning of his own life just to buy food. That was a story that won
him much acclaim. Writing that story was a great struggle for him.
How could one sell one's own life's meaning to buy bread! For days,
he couldn't eat or sleep because he couldn't understand the meaning
of what he was writing. He denied the meaning of what he was writing.
Yet he couldn't stop writing. Long after writing, he gave it to one
of his priced readers- the village cobbler. He was wonder-struck by
the simplicity and transparency of the story. He found himself in the
story and believed that all could find themselves in it. It was he
who popularized this story and won him great fame.
Now, sitting at his window, with the empty writing pad, he realized
that his own character was taking life in himself. May be this
happens to every writer he has heard of a few other famous writers
who died as they imagined their characters would die. He no longer
was able to write meaningful stories. “Does that mean that I am
selling the meaning of my own life? Am I taking my own essence into
the stall of this dilapidated village market?” He couldn't bear the
thought.
Taking a stroll across the room, the story-teller took a sip of his
favourite wine from the red bottle. That was the last one left in his
house; may be in the whole village. That wine has given him
inspiration to author many stories. Now even that wine is finished.
The stroll with the wine, instead of consoling his doubts about his
existence, deepened his anxiety. The image of his empty red wine
bottle, along with the dusty grey village was enough to put him to
greater despair.
He stopped at the window, struck by surprise. “What am I looking
at? How did this...”
Suddenly, he was full of new sprouts, shoots and green leaves. He
looked like a spring-bound tree adorned with the joy of hopefulness.
He felt like getting new ideas. They perched onto him like birds on a
fine spring day. He stared through the window and slowly sat at his
writing desk, grabbing his old pen. He began with a heading- 'Lost in
the Grey Clouds'.
He never looked up from his paper. He began writing a story. It was
the story of a village. In the story the village lost all its glory
and joy when time sprayed dust over it, slowly through the years. No
one bothered to dust their houses or books or faces. No one swept
their courtyards or backyards. Gradually over the years, everything
turned grey. Houses, books, faces, courtyards, backyards, …
everything turned grey.
Strange things began happening in their village. First, animals
started dying together. Birds disappeared from the village. Water in
the wells and the stream tasted and looked different. Some of them
found it difficult to open their eyes because eyelids stuck due to
dust. They lost track of time since all their clocks stopped working.
Some woke up in the evening and some went to bed in the morning.
Since sky was grey, they couldn't tell when was day!
Villagers
did not realize anything until one fine morning when the priest's
daughter died of no reason. When the village apothecary cut her open
on the postmortem desk, he was shocked. Her blood was grey. He had
never seen a thing like that. So he cut her heart to know why. It was
also grey. Her lungs, kidneys, intestines, bowels, and everything was
grey in colour!
The news about village priest's daughter's grey inside spread like
wild fire. Soon, the village gathered in the Churchyard to discuss
the issue. Most of them kept quiet as they didn't know what to or how
to discuss. The apothecary explained what he saw. He also explained
that he could not explain what he saw. The priest was asked whether
his daughter had turned a witch. The priest replied saying he had
never seen a quieter and more virtuous girl than his own daughter in
ages.
The village wondered why the priest's daughter turned grey, not
realizing that all of them had turned grey long back. That not only
the body, their minds were also grey.
It was then that the blacksmith's son tripped into the forgotten pool
in the churchyard. The blacksmith jumped into the pool to save his
child. While everyone was looking, he emerged with his child. “oooh”,
exclaimed everyone simultaneously. The blacksmith and child looked
different. Uh, clean so to say. They looked fair and glowing.. and..
clean! Everyone looked at themselves and again at the blacksmith and
his kid. They touched themselves and saw that they are covered in
dust. They began dusting themselves. Some jumped into the pool to
clean themselves. In a few moments, dust rose from the churchyard,
like from a race course.
“My
little daughter! What has befallen you...” wailed the priest. It
was then that they realized why his daughter died.
It was then that they realized why birds had fled the village, why
animals were dying, why water tasted and looked different. It was all
because of dust! By the time they decided to clean their houses,
books, faces, courtyards and backyards, the priest was already
dusting the church.
For the next two days, sun did not rise in the village. The sky was
covered with clouds of dust and they could 'see' the wind. On the
third day, there was great rejoicing at day break, because sun rose
and there was clear blue sky. The priest wept and prayed in the
church remembering his dead daughter. Others came to the church with
thanksgiving.
The
village was restored to its original joy. From that day onwards, the
dust became part of the book of legends of the village. Grannys began
telling their little ones, the story of the days of dust- how they
were all covered in dust, how the priest's daughter opened their
eyes, how they restored life in the village, etc. In some versions of
the story, the priest's daughter was an angel, sent by god to save
the village. But in all the versions, the priest's daughter still
visited the village on cloudy days. She would appear in the form of a
grey, dusty cloud and look down into the village with a sad smile.
After all, she was lost in the grey clouds.
The story-teller stopped writing and looked up through the window
into the village. He saw what he wrote. A village covered in dust. He
looked at himself. He too was covered in dust. He rubbed his hand to
see if it was a hallucination. No it wasn't. Dust rose from his hand.
He jumped up in fright. He tried to wake up as if he was in a dream.
Suddenly he stopped and looked at what he wrote. There on his writing
pad was the story, “Lost in the Grey Clouds”. Pages fluttered in
the wind and showed him two words- 'priest's daughter'. With a
shudder, he realized what the story meant. He looked at the sky
through the window and imagined his face in a dusty grey cloud. And
in the memory and imagination of a hundred generations of grandmother
stories. He lied down on his bed and fell asleep. Clouds were already
taking his shape. And of course, grey colour.
