...
All things come to an end. Whether good or bad, they come to an end.
But a never ending ocean. Ever seen that?
The sea of questions.
We ask many.
Get answers for a few.
The rest? We forget.
But the question remains.
What is the question?
One...
Watering the unwanted plants with the liquid in the glass, he briskly walked away to occupy his place again. The liquid had a name. The jailers called it chai. However, Ismail Ansari strongly disagreed. Dirty water cannot replace chai by any means.
He sat on his own mat, the one given to him. In his own corner, the one taken by him.
And it was solely his territory. His inmates knew that. He paid no heed to his cellmates. Their chattering was just a distant buzz in his ears. They were expected to sit idle all day.
A man with empty thoughts accompanied by no company was an open portal for the question of sanity to tumble into.
And in his case, sanity was at the brink of that gateway.
Closing his eyes, he leaned against the cold wall. He felt light, unusually light. At the same time, he felt heavy, unusually heavy. He wanted to think about something, anything in fact. But nothing was reaching him at the moment. He had no clue what was happening in the world outside.
He had no clue who had won the elections. No clue what was happening in the nation. No clue which film is blasting in the box office. No clue who was captaining the national cricket team. No clue what date it was today. No clue which month was going on.
Heck. He did not remember the name of the woman he had killed.
Or at least, the one he supposedly killed.
He had not killed her. He was sure he had not. Or was he? Was he sure that he did not kill her? Did he actually finish her off and could not remember?
He did not know. He did not know anything anymore!
"I don't know how to do th—"
"You'll learn fast. Now get going!"
And he did. He had learned fast. And that was the only work he knew how to do. Pouring it out into the right machines, checking if the procedure was correct, packing it up, sneakily sending away the crates with the truck drivers, managing the officials smoothly. This was a job he was excellent at.
"Sahib won't be happy if we get caught. What to do? Sorry, brother, I can't help you this time."
He had not lied.
No. He had not lied.
He worked in a factory. It got him decent pay at the cost of few scratches here and there. Working with machines without any safety equipment was the only way they could increase their profit. And a few incidents and accidents forced him to spend unnecessarily on those gloves. The topi-wallah was generous to some extent. The only problem was, he had to send most of the money home. And that's why he was left with nothing.
He could have easily asked one of his co-workers to be a witness for him. One fine day, he had even called one of them using the public phone booth. But the Englishman would not have been pleased.
What is the point of a witness when he could escape from the prison but would be dead anyway? His Sahib was an influential man and he knew that. Selling him out would not keep him alive, he knew that.
For had he actually spoke the truth, had he denied the accusations place on him, had he given the exact details then he would not be sitting there, rotting in peace. His revelation would have created an uproar in the nation.
Initially, even he had the same thoughts as others. What was the big deal about it?
After all, it was just poppies.
It took him years to understand its worth, money, and value in the market. Illegal trading, that is what it was, illegal trading.
It was not a mere factory.
It was an opium factory.
An illegal, non-authorized opium factory. The biggest one in their city. Hidden from the inhabitants. Even the city herself overlooked that small part of hers.
She gasped. Disgusted, she was disgusted with herself.
As for Ismail, he was empty.
Angry, he wanted to be angry. But at who? Guilty, he wanted to be guilty. But for what? Happy, he wanted to be happy. But how?
He knew nothing—saw nothing—felt nothing.
A person who felt no emotions, at last, gave out a sob.
"Ammi."
He whispered, voice cracking. His shoulders shaking, he knocked himself back and forth, all by himself.
To feel or to not feel,
That is the question.
Whose answers did not ease the ordeal,
Pity as feelings were not his possession.
~ End of 'Two: To Feel Or To Not Feel'.
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