Paramita Satpathy
{Translated from Odia by Anuradha Sen)
Prelude
The novel Maya Purush being translated into English as ‘Illusion Man’ is a first-person narrative about a protagonist who feels he probably never existed, all that he ever did is an illusion. He lived a life which, if extinguished would not be remembered. Manoj, a young man of 28 years comes to Delhi in search of a job after marrying Reena who vouched her love for him. He stays unemployed. In Delhi he is lured into a con business and lives a dual life. His identity and address are all false. In the process he meets a woman who is the mistress of his boss…What happens to him and his world forms the thematic narrative of the novel.
What follows is the first chapter of the English translation in progress.
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W
ho is he ? Escapist ? What is his address, his whereabouts ? Every definition, every adjective for such a man defies its use, it moves away from me. Illusive, can it be ? He does not pine for a successful luminous position in life, for it does not attract him. He keeps running away from himself, he hibernates his individuality, yet he does not die. A living, throbbing individual he oscillates between life and death. You can call him an Escapist or sorrow personified. The choice is yours. He is neither selfish nor selfless, Neither cruel nor kind, I can tell you confidently. Very often a question haunts him. Is he a man ? In the real sense of the term ? Or do others just call him so ?
His undefinable character and personality is composed out of nihility … of a whiff of air, as if, across a canvas of non-entity. A nobody, he is just a shadow wiped out by the all-powerful time that sinks below the horizon… an apparition of the dark secret night. No. It is not even so. He is an illusion of a shadow.
People chance across him at different intervals. They eye him with curiosity, surprise, but from a distance. At times, they throw a plain inquisitive glance at him. That is the only curiosity he arouses in them. Since when has he been sitting here like this ? What for ? Why?
Oh ! So he has hands, organs, dimensions too, he is visible.
O, he becomes apparent, he emerges, by and by. Does he look like as he was, some ten years back? Or, have the ravages of time made him look like one who has weathered a few cyclones?
May be nothing has really happened, and he is the same twenty year old of yester-years. Worried about employment, seeking jobs in vain.
His shoes, purchased years ago, for job interviews, hurt him today. In his little toe corns have sprouted up. The armpit of his spotless white shirt, with the unmistakable dirty yellow colours is a pointer to the passage of time. He lacks courage to ask his father, for a new shirt. Abashed, ashamed of his own self he sits under a flowering gulmohar tree with quite a heavy load of his once prized certificates.
The pride of his yester-years !!
In the northwest corner of my bedroom, stands erect my steel almirah. With one lock, over another. Inside, in safe custody of the locker there is a small box within a cubic space of one ft, eight inches in length and six inches in width.
This box retains possession of my life-string, woven out of a life of purpose, with sparks of passion adorning it. It is just a thin handy diary of brown leather binding. Apart from it, the whole space is empty. I keep nothing in the almirah.
Many a time, I dream, one dream …….. unfathomable water all around, beneath it layers of mud. Therein lies a shining silver case. In the dense darkness of water and mud, a man with eyes burning like phophorous is searching frantically for the silver case that has locks of golden hair. Where , o where from what depths of mud and turbid water can he unearth the case. He cannot remember how he had lost the silver case, but he remembers well that his life string lies within the case, in the locks of golden hair.
Reena, Ruma, Arun Deshai, Varnali are non-entities. They never existed. After his aspirations for a job dwindled away into a zero, he had torn his certificates into bits and watched the shreds float away in the waters of the river. No one knows since when he has been sitting here, and weaving story after story. Stories of nothingness.
– But why here ?
– What place is this ?
– It can be any place. How does it matter ?
– You are not convinced of his tale ? Aren’t you ?
– Which tale ?
With your index finger please try to dim the thin demarcating line of credibility and non-credibility. Wait and watch how it recedes back, back and finally vanishes to blend the two. Together they become an opaque smear only to disappear, like smoke, then thick smoke-filled air, then a total blank. Nothingness !!
How is he going to live without it. Now, he is searching for it frantically.. groping in the darkness, in the water, in the mud. I try to see the face of that man. But who is this? His face looked just like mine Oh God, just like mine. !! so I am he ? Manoj Sharma, five feet, nine inches, dusky in complexion, medium health. How strange! But I am not he so, who is he then ? Searching the golden docks of hair, inside the silver case, in the depth of dark water ….. I wake up with a jerk.
My eyes turn straight to the steel almirah at the north-east corner of my room. The almirah is not there. The thud in my heart resounds from every nook and corner of the room I look again, this time wiping my eyes to get a clear view. No, it is not there. Instead, a dense darkness has enveloped its place. I sit up straight. The thud thud in my heart echoed from all around. My pulse racing, I tried to penetrate the darkness by squinting my eyes, trying to figure out all the while, the almirah. By and by my eyes, having mingled with the darkness see clearly and the almirah appears, tall & solid in front of my eyes, in its own place, I put my head down on the pillow with a deep sigh, hoping to catch up with sleep, but as it happens sleep always alludes me. Often did I think of shifting the position of the almirah, or in some other room. Perhaps that would help me get some sleep, perhaps then it would not keep coming back into my thoughts, to disturb me. But, I immediately remember the sadhu. The saintly person had advised me, about the colour and position of the almirah. According to the ‘Vastu Shastras’ the position ought to be where it stands today, so with the same colour. Sir was present, he too had agreed, I only carried out the instructions.
– My life –string and the Vastu Shastra.
– Is there a link ? What is the link ?
Admonitions from my wife were quite a few
— What is there, in that almirah ?
— Keep something in it, may be your own clothes. The house is so small, not enough space. We need storage racks to pile up Ruma’s belongings. Now that she is going to school, a chair and a table will have to be set in, somewhere within this small capacity, for her. She needs a bicycle too.
–This tricycle, oh ! it is stacked in the living room. If your clothes rack is emptied, it can be of use, we can carve out some place. … So on and on, it goes.
I stifle the obvious replies that come rushing, replies that are so down to earth but, I restrain myself. The almirah, has always been and still is the bone of contention. In this city of Noida, close to Delhi, the capital of Republic India, in this multistoreed building, the two Bhk, flat no-B-5/1 where we stay, ….. the maroon Met-2 car in which the three of us, you, Rema and I go for joy rides, this LED TV on the wall of the living room, expensive sofa, dining table, air conditioners, our I-phones the pair of diamond ear rings that I gave you on our wedding anniversary, all of these, yes every single thing I owe to this steel almirah. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the almirah is useless and so can be discarded. We can never do so….. I mutter under my breath – Don’t you know dear how capable was your husband? Have you forgotton everything? So soon? The way we were driven out from the house, how we were forced to stay in the slums….. the way I had to crawl into the room for fear of a jolting collision with the low roof and then how I collapsed on the creaking bed ? In that room five feet in height we dared not stand straight. The dark circles under your eyes that deepened with the passage of time, haunted me, remember how anemic you had become and how you fainted quite a few times? All, all these to say the least, happened during those six, seven years.
Today, we stand here, dignified, proud, happy, in this busy metropolis, you and I !
This miraculous change, so astonishing, is the miracle of the steel almirah, its colour and position. At times, I look out of the window adjacent to the almirah, and see the hustle and bustle of the ever busy capital. Vehicles of different shapes, sizes, colours speed on the highway round the clock. On the other side spread over a fairly large area, is a thick cluster of Babool trees. My visible life resembles that busy life on the highway. My mysterious self with its different hues and shades of green punctuated by fruits and flowers is exactly like that cluster of Babool trees.
In the centre stands the steel almirah.
The closed almirah faces the highway of emotional gratification.
I open the almirah and step into the mystery of the Babuls.
Glossary Vastu-sastra – A traditional system to describe principles of design, layout, space arrangement, position etc. Babul tree – Commonly known as thorn mimosa a native to Africa and Indian sub continent.
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Paramita Satpathy writes prose fiction and poetry in Odia and nonfiction in Odia and English. Around twenty story collections, novels, collection of novellas and poetry collections have been published in Odia, English, Hindi and other Indian languages. Her recent novel Abhipreta Kala in Odia is a historical fiction set between 1920-47, the last phase of India’s freedom struggle in Odisha. She has represented Indian literature at many literary forums across the country and abroad. Paramita received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 2016 for her book Prapti ( A collection of novellas). Besides she has been awarded by Odisha Sahitya Akademi, received Bhartiya Bhasha Parishad Yuva Puraskar, Kolkata, Assam Sahitya Sabha Samman, Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award and many others. She joined Indian Revenue Service in 1989 and is presently working as Principal Commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi. She can be reached at: paramita_345@yahoo.co.in.
Anuradha Sen retired as Professor of English from a college in Kolkata where she currently lives.
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