From a Tea Cup to Crow’s Revolution

From a Tea Cup to Crow’s Revolution 

Vijayan, a self-proclaimed hard core Sagavu knew for sure that the life was taking a hard dig at him. The Summer Sun had already burned his brown skin turning its pigments further dark. His concerns extended all the way to Poland, Russia, China etc., except to his life as it remained put in the same old fashion. He loved ‘red’ and praised the colour, for ‘red’ always intoxicated him, drenching him in thoughts of revolutions. He even preferred to use ‘left’ hand though that was odd enough. His thoughts were infested with Marxist ideologies and unremarkably he began and ended the day with the ejaculatory phrase in his mind as, ‘Inquilb Sindhabhad, let the revolution triumph’. The unwavering trust he levied on the power of revolution had already done a great deal of harm to his life, while he considered it as a martyrdom to be honored. He never believed in relationships and commitments, considering them as agents of enslavement. His forced marriage; as he loved to call it, failed miserably, lasting just a week. His partner found a better man and went away bidding him lal salam. Vijayan felt proud of himself for accommodating such ideologies of freedom and self-expression after the ideals of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. What was left with him were few worn out books on Marxist ideologies, some old jubbahs and red flags. He considered his ideologies as his treasures, which neither moth nor rust attacked.

Vijayan felt that the Sun was very uncharitable to him. Thanks to the scorching Sun, his ‘red’ tea as he chose to call the black tea as ‘red’, remained hot even after ten minutes. Milk was an aberration, as its colour white represented capital ideals, so he chose to denounce it while choosing only plain black tea. Half smoked Sadhubeedi puffed into his mouth with thick smock activating his political thoughts on the mundane world he lived in. He was seen lost in his political parties mouth piece, called Dheshabhimani, which was his daily bread. A red-hot beedi in his mouth, an old copper glass of black tea and the newspaper in his hands, resembled him to be a self-made intellectual giant. The patina covered old copper glass alluded to his untidy life style. Suddenly a thought flashed in his mind, a thought questioning the recent extinction of crows. He raised his eyes from the newspaper and scanned through the courtyard of his old house to see if some crows are left around. Vijayan was damn sure that the reason for the extinction of the crows was the work of the capitalists. His memories rode back, reminding him of his childhood days, when he could see several crows at the backyard of his house, the black beauties searching for food.

Vijayan picked up his early lessons of Communism from crows. He observed the crows, who were always tarnished as the dirty bird and a nuisance to the society. His close attachment to those black beauties made him to find a remote allusion to the proletariats who were constantly marginalized and abused by the bourgeois. The crows always threatened the enemy showing their unity.  And this unity of crows always enthralled him and inspired to go ahead with his ideological life as a hardcore communist. Vijayan realized that a flask full of black tea had already run out as he poured the last few drops of the ‘red’ elixir into the copper glass filled with patina all around. As usual his Bengali friend turned up and greeted him with respect.

“Vijayan Setta sugamano?”

Vijayan was immersed in the thoughts of losing his eternal inspiration; the crows. He never heard his Bengali friend’s greetings.

“Settaa” …. The Bengali boy raised his voice a bit to distract Vijayan.

“But where are the crows? Where have they all gone?” .......!

Poor Bengali boy who found it difficult to even calculate 1+1, found Vijayan’s questions as mere blabbering.

Vijayan knew that this is the best time to enquire him of crows. The Bengali might know the place where he could find few crows? But, Bengali boy hearing Vijayan’s question stared at him for a while and left the place in haste.

Hoi…stay back, Vijayan shouted aloud. But the Bengali lad had already sprinted away from the scene. 

Vijayan thought to himself,

“Is this absence troubling only me? Or am I bit old fashioned to think so?”

A mad desire aroused in him to go on an expedition to locate at least few crows and prove the other way that they are not extinct yet. His only resignation was the possible infiltration of the capitalist into the world of crows, which might have forced them to exile from his neighborhoods.

“I must find them,” he exclaimed in determination.

However, loosing someone was not a great deal for Vijayan. Holding firmly the empty tea cup and twisting it with his closed palms Vijayan declared his independence.

“Wife, commitments…all these are explicit forms of heightened slavery.”

“These social constructs are to be broken down; they manifest in Capitalist forms to subjugate the poor”.

“I must not let this happen to me anymore”.

These were his internal talks as he lost his wife. Probably the internal cry of the feeble and emotional man in him which was pressed down hastily, fearing the upraise of emotions over his ideologies. For Vijayan, emotions did not have any role in his life, he found all of them as pseudo constructs which would force one to ignore the real ideological thought processes. He constantly found fault with the way of the world. He would randomly think about the wild possibility of curbing all the petty carnal pleasures and emotions incessantly. God, Religion, Love etc. were already unheard in his life. He feared them of depriving him from embracing the Marxist ideologies. However, the lust often played a spoilsport and ended him up in self-pleasuring acts. A couple of times he bowed to his heterosexual desires while finding solace in professional prostitutes who unleashed his dormant lust. But the guilt conquered him with its whips of nagging thoughts. Vijayan feared it, and the fear of guilt kept him away from seeking carnal pleasures. He found it relieving to ideologize the feelings to bury them alive forever. But for no surprise occasionally he failed miserably!  

Beep…Beep… Loud honking sound woke him up from deep thoughts. The screams of the passing vehicles filled the atmosphere in distress. The rush of the towns has extended to the villages too. But Vijayan fell back to his thoughts and failed to notice the movements around. His mind was like a mad horse racing with no bridles to halt it, for the aimless rush continued for a while. He was damn sure that his thoughts were reckless and uncanny. His mind was used to these types of inattentive thoughts, which were rather part of his mundane ideologies. Nevertheless, Vijayan found something strange happening to him, no matter how strong he tried to stop the creepy thoughts of his past, he ended up miserably stumbling before it.

Vijayan got into a state of hibernation, monologuing to himself while his eyes were wide opened. Reclining on the broken armed chair with that patina filled copper glass with no drop of black tea in it, he fell back again in to his gruesome past. The past began taking a toll at him, as he regretted some of his decisions like; leaving his job, wife, status in the society and all for ideologies sake. Revolution, tea, newspaper and the beedi had been his intimate companions for long now.

“Vanity…everything is lost in vanity…”, he mumbled in despair!

There was no sense of aim in his life and that unfortunately caused in him occasional panic attacks and breakdowns. Though Communism propagated communion of the marginalized, Vijayan had a different take on it. He believed that comradeship and communion are detrimental for being a refined Communist. His mind came to an abrupt halt at a cross road.

“Have I misjudged my life under the intoxication of Communist ideologies?”

The power of the mind seemed constantly nagging him to find a proper solution, whether to continue in following the principles of Communism or shy away from following, while finding it obsolete. As his mind began gearing up for a gala of thoughts rallying up, the hot sun gradually moved towards his chair to embrace him with his rays. Unaware of the advent of the sun rays Vijayan dived deep into the chasm of muddled thoughts. Occasional murmurings proved him alive, though inactive as usual in the early wake of the day. Time crawled past and the world rallied together to stare at this sagavu with conspicuous eyes. Overwhelmed with emotional instabilities Vijayan began producing unparliamentary sounds which was indeed odd and strange. He attempted hard to name the mixture of emotions hitting him hard uncharitably.

“Guilty, pity, pride, fear, lust”, and the list seemed to stretch long.

Suddenly, a wild honk of a passing vehicle woke him up from the anonymous thoughts. The atmosphere was noisy and humid so also his mind. Leaving behind his besties; black tea, newspaper, beedi and thoughts on revolutions, Vijayan got out of his broken lounger.

Caw caw…...his eardrums were bothered by the sound of crows!

Vijayan came back to his senses after a long expedition through his frustrated past. And to his surprise the crows turned his senses on again.

“Yes, my mind was preoccupied with mere desperation to find the reason for the extinction of crows; my inspiration”.

“Well, can they be found again?”

He was badly in need of that spurts of inspirations to go on with his ideologies, somewhere down the line the ‘emotions’ seemed to catch up with his mind, altering his stands a bit.

Vijayan decided to tread past all the distressing thoughts and go on to find the crows. Not minding to alter his stinking pajama he set out for the mission, in search of his sole inspiration; the crows. Scanty leaves on the trees let the sun rays straight on to the bare road burning it like a charcoal. Intermittent heatwaves worsened the pedestrians’ movements cutting it down to snail pace. Vijayan tried hard to catch up with his pace, while he closely rifled through the trees, bushes and electric posts along the way.    

A caw... caw sound, a flapping black wing around, aimlessly he marched towards his unknown destination; only to trace back his primordial inspiration. After a while Vijayan realized that the heat of the sun had reduced considerably. Sun had been following him for a long way, may be a fellow traveler to his destination. The trees around welcomed him flipping the leaves around. The lane ahead is curved and, in many cases, split up. Vijayan was literally caught up in the cross roads; finding no means to find the right way he decided to give up his search. However, the thought of going back was not ideal for a man of principles; Vijayan convinced himself repeatedly.  There was only one wish in all of it; that a crow must to spotted.

After a while Vijayan saw in the distance something like a small forest, with thick reeds overgrown all over the trees. His heart beats doubled and the steps gained enough length to reach there soon. As he got rather close, he realized to his surprise that it was an old building. The building resembled like a haunted house surrounded by small trees and shrubs. There was no sign of any activities from trespassers anywhere near past. The dead silence instilled fear in the heart of Vijayan, as he gradually slowed down his steps towards the building.

“What must be in there?”

Gaining a wild courage Vijayan called out in loud voice, “Is anyone in there?”

No voice came back, except the mysterious silence engulfing the surroundings, and his voice died out soon.

For a while it seemed like a place where no one bothered to come or rather refused to turn up due to some strange reasons. Vijayan realized that it was an abandoned building. He found worn out fish plates and rusted railway lines peeping out of the dried leaves and grass, so he made sure that the building in the distance was an abandoned railway station. Rail lines were seen stretching to the middle of the demolished platform. Grasses were invariably taller than the platform. Smashed cement benches were seen scattered throughout the platform. Shattered asbestos roofs and abandoned rail bogies reminded him of some scenes he had earlier seen from the English horror films. As he trampled down on the leaves, they produced a strange fearsome noise. His forward movement started to get worsened. And the thorny struts crossing the pajamas drove into his feet and spilled blood all around.

Quiet atmosphere, there were no sounds of beetles or chirping of birds except the crushing sound of the dried leaved under his feet. But as he went a little further, he heard a growl as if from a moderate distance a kind of clamour of some creatures.

“Crows! Aren’t they crow’s caws?”

But how come they are in this place? They should be in human habitat,

Or ‘Am I hallucinating with the constant thoughts about the crows?’

“Not at all, these are crows,” he reaffirmed with conviction,

“But I can’t guess where these sounds are coming from”.

From a little distance a few isolated bogies caught his sight. Walking towards them, it seemed to get closer to the sound. It took a considerable time to get to the bogies covered with wild creepers and flowers. As he got closer, to his wonder he heard clearly the cries of the crows. He could see clearly the white colour of the crow’s droppings on every leaf surrounding the bogies. The strong stench emitted from these droppings was intolerable. Drawing aside all the reeds, he managed to get into the bogie. He realized that his feet and hands were all bruised and swollen. The sound of thousands of crows and pitch darkness inside the bogie caused in him a rush of adrenaline and eventually causing panic and fear.

As he entered into the bogie from the light outside, the bogie looked blinding him further, and his eyes were weighed down. The screams of the crows dashed against his eardrums with force. The awful odour emitted from the bogie almost made him unconscious. His senses turned numb, refusing to respond to the external stimuli any further. It took a while to cope with the reality he was confronted by, while gradually ambiguous forms began to be evident to his naked eyes.

Crows…. on the seats, the windows, the luggage berths, the fans and all over the ruined bogie….

Hundreds, thousands or even more? Crows!

All the crows in the country had gathered together in the empty bogie.

Incredible! His eyes were wide open with awe and the view was clear to him now. The crows were staring at his face in suspicion. Black glittering eyes, wide opened beaks revealing crimson red tongues…. the sight was horrifying. An omen of fear shot up in Vijayan’s nerves, he remained put there for a while staring at the sight, and he realized that the fear had already begun slowly spreading to the rest of his body. Abruptly the crows stopped the loud cries as if someone had switched it off. Deadly silence struck the bogie, Vijayan’s heart began pounding faster like a sprinter desperately gasping for the breath. He could clearly listen to the echo of his heart beats resonating all around. He slowly marched ahead with trembling feet, droplets of sweat rolled out of his forehead drenching his shabby beard. No…someone rather led him ahead.

He could sense each crow keeping a close watch as he moved further. As he marched forward, he realized that their numbers were much more than he ever imagined. Along the way there were crows of extraordinary size. There were also crows guarding their eggs which were due for hatching. Some little one’s looked through the wings of their mothers. He reached near a hall like place right in the center of the bogie. At the end of the bogie there was a large crow sitting on a broken seat and gawked at him with its burning eyes. The glace was so glaring that he stopped moving any further. Its large beaks opened as if to swallow the uninvited guest to their abode. A terrible clamor came out of the crow, as it continued all the other crows joined with its scream. He turned around and began running back, desperately wanting to escape that hell. He made his way through the crowded racks while slashing all the crows those came on his way with a plank and ran towards the door. Suddenly he stumbled up on an iron sheet and was thrown hitting his head on the iron seat. 

After a while as he regained his consciousness there was complete silence. It was futile to open his eyes wide for the darkness had already engulfed there.

“Did I die? Is it called death?”

As he pinched his cheek hard to make sure that he was alive, his fingers experienced some slippery liquid on his cheeks. He felt excruciating pain in his forehead and neck.

“I am not dead; the crows haven’t killed me!”

He felt something creepy on his head, possibly ants. Struggling to stand up on his legs he looked for his mobile in his trousers’ pocket. For his good luck the phone was intact in his pocket. With a lot of struggle, he sat up. Switched on the mobile-torch and found that he was on the same bogie where he had trespassed into. He tried to recollect whatever had happened to him. The attack of the crows and his desperate attempt to escape, the unexpected retaliation and the fall, everything rallied back to his mind. Though he tried best to stand on his two legs he found it incapable of doing so. He noticed with wonder that none of the crows were found around, no noise except some fallen feathers scattered all around. Regaining courage, he walked back to the place where he saw the crow’s leader.

“Are they waiting in hiding to unleash attacks on me?’ Hey No! ‘They could easily do it while I was down unconscious”.

With the strength of this thought he began moving towards the place where he found that huge crow. The sight before him was pathetic; many crows are dead with broken necks and heads, some had their stomach split opened, dead bodies of crows everywhere. Their broken eggs are scattered around and the small one’s trampled underfoot.

“Who did this cruelty to them? Damn!”

“When I was unconscious, they faced some form of attack”, Vijayan slurred in anger. 

It was then that he noticed a feeble sigh from a corner. A crow dreadfully crawling to the corner, with no room to retreat the crow began flapping its bruised wings. That was an old crow with broken wings and legs, the feathers had already dropped off. Vijayan turned around to avoid that piercing look of the wounded crow, and suddenly there heard a voice.

“Isn’t enough for you?”

He was shocked. The old crow began talking to him in human voice. He heard it as if in a dream.

“You felled Jackfruit trees and mango trees instead planted acacia and eucalyptus. The earth is filled with cement and tar, that in turn killed the frogs and fish, water is contaminated and air is polluted. The result was the extinction several organisms”.

“The poor crows, my comrades; who had no ability to resist these reckless acts of men forced us to choose this hideout.”

The old crow repeatedly cursed him with its burning glows, the wicked human managed to find out even our last resort; the hideout. With a loud cry the crow fell down dead.    

Vijayan turned back and walked away with a heavy heart, forgetting all his physical pains. He walked out of the dark into the dark. There was no more fire in the crow’s eyes, but relief of having left this world of suffering. The cries of the crows were not for revolution but for escape. Those dead crows and broken eggs were the result of his attempt to escape the scene. He knew for sure that the cries of the crows that have lost their last resting place have the power to wipe out all mankind. He walked away with a heavy heart and swollen heels, limping across the corpses of the dead crows. As he walked back, he was caught up in a series of dilemma, whether to quit his ideological life or to get into the role of a conservationist. He decided to become a conservationist, however, it was at the cost of the killing of his primeval inspiration; the crows. 

“I wish the world may not witness anymore revolution”. Vijayan muffled in silence!