“Can we begin our journey from nowhere?” he asked and I
pretended oblivious of his sudden inquisitiveness. Will he repeat that stupid
question? I looked sidelong at him and saw that he was serious. He was staring
straight into my face as if to catch any slight movement and I felt like a
fumbling school kid.
Do we ever begin our journey? Why he should bother about a
starting point when there’s no start at all? Journey belongs to someone else or
something else. How should I know who or what? A direct answer would be
dangerous, as it would lead to more questions. I am tired of these doubts and
speculations. The other day I had dreamt sitting amidst a group of strange
people in a faraway land - men, women and children, may be a Red Indian
village, in a vast compound marred by shrubs and dome-shaped wigwam homes.
Nobody said anything. We just sat there, not moving a muscle for hours. The
weathered faces and queer headgears had turned brighter in the moonlight, which
lay motionless on an equally motionless terrain. Our journey seemed to have no
beginning nor any end, but it went on for ages. When I woke up, I had a strange
feeling that I was already dead and gone.
“Are you deaf or am I speaking to a dead man?” He was still
staring, this time his eyebrows a bit raised. I saw his eyebrows had some grey
hairs, poking fun at the very question he was asking. All these years I had
been giving him straight answers for whatever vague or ambiguous questions he
had. And he had become more demanding these days.
“What was that you were asking?”
“Our journey…can it
start from nowhere?”
“But I thought you were asking whether I am deaf or dead.”
“That was my second one.”
“Should I answer the first or the second first?”
He smiled and moved a little closer. “I know what you are up
to. See, this time I do not want a clear-cut or convincing answer from you. But
you have to listen to what I have got to say…” the smile disappeared from his
face and his lips twitched. Something was coming. A wave of nausea swept over
me.
“I do not know whether this happened yesterday or the day
before. I am not sure whether it ever happened. But I know it should be
happening at some point of time in anyone’s life.” He lingered for a moment as
if searching for the right words. The room was unpleasantly cold and quiet. I
could hear him breathing hard.
“How long I had been asleep, I am not sure. It was quite
dark when I got up, day or night, I didn’t know. Some strange thoughts led me straight
outside and I was in the middle of a desert, not a soul around. I felt very
lonely and wanted to walk thinking that I would bump into something, an
encounter that would shake me up from the very roots. You know, I walked and
walked, dragging my bare feet through the silky sands, climbing up and down the
dunes. Nothing happened. The sky above me remained blank, no sun, no moon, no
stars, no clouds and no colours. But there wasn’t darkness or any light, just
the sky above and the sands beneath me. Me…? Suddenly I couldn’t feel myself. I
had disappeared. I tried to feel my face, my hands, legs…what could I feel them
with? There was nothing…not even the sky or the sands. All had evaporated into some
void…” he stopped and was panting.
“You…who are you?” I could hardly speak. But he wasn’t
listening to me anyway.
“You see, I am nowhere now. And I think I can begin my
journey, fresh from here.” He grinned and remained still.
I felt my right hand groping on the table and it found
something round, hard and cold. It felt like a paper weight and I threw it at
him with whatever strength I could muster. And I heard the glass breaking. It
was all around me, lying scattered, the bits and pieces of glass. I had broken the
mirror on the wall and he had just vanished.
The journey had already begun.
