Moving to Wordpress

Recently Blogger has been giving me a lot of trouble. The email feed is not working properly and it's connection to Facebook is very unreliable. Under these circumstances, I am moving to Wordpress. The new blog will be a continuation of the old blog. While this blog will remain open for reading, there will be no more posts made here.

The address of the new blog is: http://thenothingist.wordpress.com/

Friend, if you would like to receive emails from the new blog, please sign up there because I couldn't find any email-feed option in Wordpress. The sign-up bar is on the right-hand side of the page. I hope this doesn't cause too much inconvenience.

Wishes.

Satanic Piety

Six
Satanic Piety

Mrs. Rami was washing a sauce-stained shirt of Zaved. An old song seeped out from the kitchen. Its source being the twenty year old cassette player that was a token of love from Mr. Rami. Like the weirdly-bearded, paranormal Professor Humbledoor, Mrs. Rami preserved her memories elsewhere other than her head to keep her aged mind functioning properly, and sometimes, she spent her idle time scrutinizing those memories. Her kitchen utensils, her everyday clothes, her primary-secondary-complimentary-coloured potteries, her jewels were, in paranormal term, her ‘pensieves'. She used to relive those good-old days just by looking at the articles that stored the memory.


For Mrs. Rami, past had been merry and future held merrier prospects but present always turned out to be unexpected and unfortunate. Although it was the same time flowing from past to future going through present, it was perceived in three different appearances in three distinctive stages of its development.


Who should be responsible for it? Was it time or she? Mrs. Rami could never come to a conclusion. If future, in falsifiable word destiny, had everything written, then how can she be held responsible? But since it is said that one's doings influence one's destiny how can destiny be blamed alone? These are matters of discussion for scholars and philosophers who am I to think about all that - Mrs. Rami used to console her curious self. Her wrapping up of such issues was: it is not our job to question what has been given to us; we should go ahead and do what we do. Ironically, she not only did what was given to her but also fretted and fussed over it.


‘An eye for an eye,' said Amurabi, the sovereign of Babypotamia, while dictating his code of law to a six-foot scribe; but is one eye absolutely equal to another? Maybe just like our deoxyribonucleic acid, our eyes are unique. Pray, don't misunderstand Us, We are not talking about the medically bisected ‘eye'; We are discussing the eye, our sense of perception. Let me call this ‘the eye theory' and allow Me to blame it for all the wrongs and rights done today; all the wars and peace achieved; the hatred felt and love made; the anger showed and sympathy given; literally for everything that happens.


Harmony would be the only hymn honouring our harps, if all our eyes had been equal. But the idea that everybody's eyes can be equal sounds insane. The only shortcut left to the world is to destroy the eyes of everybody, to make everybody equally eyeless. In darkness we may find equality; in ignorance we may find bliss.


So, ehm, where were We? Ah, yes, Mrs. Rami and her ‘pensieves'.   


Once on the eve of Exmass, the annually celebrated birthday of a healer, Mrs. Rami was gazing at a flower vase in her kitchen while the cake burned in the oven. The fire kept growing its tentacles and obscuring the kitchen with grey smoke but Mrs. Rami's stare was fixed on that reservoir of painless memories. The vase had been there on her wedding day; it had been present on the day her daughter was born; it had been there when her daughter married and it had been there when her daughter died - BOOM!!! The oven exploded and the plates on top of it were flung away. The unattended, furious fire leapt higher, touching the ceiling. Had Zaved been a little late in arriving, his Grandma would have been a roasted turkey.


Running into the kitchen with a fire extinguisher, Zaved fought the flames. Neighbours came to help. The unconscious Mrs. Rami was rescued.


Surprisingly and unknowingly, a very important thing was done through the accident. When Mrs. Rami awoke, she cheered to realize that the vase now held another new memory - the memory of her being rescued by her grandson from a kitchen-fire.


Zaved grew worried of such accidents occurring again. And so he fixed fire alarms, water sprinklers and many other safety devices in the house. He had to work extra hours for months to pay for those but he loved Mrs. Rami more dearly than he disliked car-washing or garden-cleaning or shop-keeping.


The water flowed from the tap and the old woman kept rubbing the shirt with a dirt scratcher. Zaved came in. He had been to Sakuntala and the disappointing thoughts centering his Grandma were still in his mind. "Some rice is in the kitchen, there's vegetable and chicken in the fridge," Mrs. Rami told her grandson.


She was waiting for his usual hug. But Zaved answered from his room, "Okay."


"Has anything particular happened today?" she asked aloud.


Receiving no answer, she dipped the shirt in the bucket of water and gave it a final rub. She then stood up and took along with her the wet clothes ready to move on to the next level of the laundry process. On her way to the verandah she peeped into Zaved's room and saw him immersed in a book. She went into the verandah and started hanging the clothes one by one on the wire Zaved had fixed her there. "Aren't you hungry Zaved?" she asked.


There was no answer. It felt slightly unusual to Mrs. Rami that her grandson was not answering her. She finished putting up the clothes on the wire. The sun was at its height ready to start baking the linens. Mrs. Rami entered Zaved's room. "What has happened?" she asked again.


Zaved replied, "Nothing, this is too good a book."


Mrs. Rami concluded this was another of those beguiling books which would keep Zaved glued for a few days, away from her. As she turned to go, Zaved asked, "Why did you keep me away from my father?"


This was as unexpected as to Mrs. Rami present always was. She looked at Zaved, tongue-tied with no answer. Zaved looked at her furrowed face and she looked down at the floor, her head bowing down with the weight of the question. "Grandma if it bothers you, then I don't want it answered. It's okay. Let me go and get my food. What vegetable did you cook?" he asked, changing the topic.


Zaved stood up and hugged his grandma. Walking into the dining room, he first drank a glass of water and moved towards the refrigerator. "Who put that in your head?" came Mrs. Rami's question.


"O, no. nobody..."


"Don't lie to me. It must have been your father. I always knew he would start instigating you against me from the day you would meet him. I always knew he was full of wicked intentions. I always knew -"


"Grandma, enough! He DIDN'T say it, okay? Don't blame him. Blame me. I felt it - just felt it," Zaved said.


"O, so he even taught you what to say when I ask you..."


"Grandma, I have said it already - he DIDN'T tell me anything. Don't stretch the matter. If you don't want to say it - fine. Keep it that way. I'll never talk about it again."


"But he will keep pestering you to ask me, won't he?"


Zaved was annoyed and took long steps towards the garden. He aimed to walk out without another word, fearing an argument might make his grandma ill though something in Zaved now told him that there definitely was something wrong with his Grandma.


"Where are you going? To him? To you father?"


Zaved didn't answer. "Ask your good father to tell you about his first marriage and his first child. Ask him to narrate his life with your mother," she spoke louder and there was anger in those words.


Zaved stopped in his tracks. Another marriage? A child? Was she making it up? I need to go and meet Shakuntala first - he thought and stormed out of the house, not wishing to hear anything more from his Grandma.

***
 

Monsoon, the season of dry dreams and wet reality, spread its wings like an ambitious eagle over the mutinous Chapa, aiming to soothe the bleeding wounds with celestial rain, planning to sympathize with the crucified parrot by shedding tear drops from heaven. A poet looked up at the unkempt spongy clouds through his window. To the butcher sitting by the road these clouds appeared like twisted bacons. The bus driver saw the clouds and cursed them. The young girl, in whom hormones bubbled, opened the window and felt the cold wind touch her undeveloped breast. The woman, whose husband was outside, spread her prayer rug and sat down to pray for her husband's safety: Hallah, may Angelfarishtas guard him and reach him home; the mother-in-law in the other room remained unconscious of what was happening - it didn't matter; even if the building submerged, she wouldn't leave the room because this is where she had lived all her life and this is where she would prefer to die whether by drowning or by burning. Umbrellas opened among the passersby on the road. Housewives appeared on top of the roofs. They were taking the hung-out clothes back inside the house - the sun had betrayed them; it was going to rain but the clothes didn't need another bath. Their daughters helped them and their sons teased them - snatching a saree and putting it on the wire again or tickling their sisters. The rickshaw-wallahs hailed the sudden uproar of clouds. If it rained they would earn a few more pennies than on regular days. The poet came away from the window and sat down to write:


I stand in a city
Shedding heavy rain drops
I stand in a town
Sheltering dewy tear drops
To convey its agony and
The infinite injustice done
Raindrops are teardrops
Teardrops its rain

A cawing crow passed by the window of the poet. A tear drop fell from heaven into the mucky alley. The child, on whose eyelid it fell, was startled and then raised his hand for more and uttered unfathomable baby words - tai ang mang. And it rained.  


Qalboishakhi, the queen of storms in her wrath, sped through Chapa. She competed with the hurrying buses and the rocketing cars. She rummaged stations and made impossible for anybody to reach their destinations. The Chappan buildings adamantly stood as obstacles in her way. They had connived to beat her in the race. Qalboishakhi pushed through gaps and avoided hurdles, she struggled to win over man-made wonders. She shook trees and broke branches. She pushed some billboards out of her way. She tore some electric wires and caused a fire. She turned a man's umbrella inside out. She struggled to win but there were so many boulders on her path that she couldn't gather enough momentum to overthrow each. She lost it. She was beaten by structures and mechanics.


Thousands of miles away Himaloy, the mountainous elder brother, stood waiting for his hasty sister to arrive. But nobody came. Qalboishakhi had died during the journey. Chapa couldn't offer her much place to flow through. Chapa had strangled her. Chapa had choked her to death. Qalboishakhi was buried in the streets of Chapa under the shrill din of whistles, the hubbub of the markets, the clamour of the machines and the hullaballoo of the offspring.


But... yes... for one last time, gathering her courage and might Qalboishakhi rose from her grave.


She pushed a car and threw a rickshaw away. She spiraled into the sky forming a vortex of clouds. The dark clouds blanketing Chapa started gathering around Qalboishakhi. The furious Qalboishakhi in her attempt for revenge used all her strength to unify the clouds and a tunnel, from hell to Chapa, was formed. She then fell to the street, sinking into death waiting to be resurrected with better powers. The panicky clouds holding tight onto each other looked surprised. The onlookers below looked at them amazed. With the great white sky was in the backdrop, the black clouds had formed an immeasurable pipe. People were clicking pictures. A moment's pause, then, in a swift show and in a swishy style through the winding channel zoomed out... Shoytan.


The mass terrified by his gait and horrified by his stature ran helter-skelter. Bang - he split open a car, Swush - he flung a bike, Wham - he punched a building. The woman in the car broke her neck and the man on the bike lost his head. The building came crumbling down, tumbling over a stream of frightened people. Shoytan turned into a moth and then into a dragonfly. Not satisfied with the size he transformed himself into a fly and flew away from the spot.


The guilty clouds fled too and the sun appeared grim. The news channels reported that Qalboishakhi had caused this havoc. A few said they saw a hideous man punching and banging cars and buildings. But those witnesses weren't taken seriously. It was suggested that they visit the paramedic and then the psychologist asap.


Relatives of the dead arrived. Owners of the billboards arrived. Gloom scarred every mind. Prime Minister Gout told the press, "This is just another natural disaster. I am glad it wasn't like Qatrina, the empress of Qalboishakhi which ruined Pampamerica some days ago."

***

The yellow bar-striped fly hovered on a lonely ground. It was away from the commotion. There was nobody around. Slowly, its hands grew, its legs grew, its head bulged out. The fresh weight brought it down to the green grassed floor. It writhed and wriggled until it gained its intended features. It was a man again. It was Shoytan in one of his manifold manifestations.


There was no light in his eyes. The sockets were hollow - preserving darkness. His ear was short and had no lobe. The crooked nose protruded out of the face like a fishing hook. The colour of his lips was pale yellow and he had no tongue. Every word he uttered sounded like words coming out of a deep cave in echoes. His teeth were sharp and pointed. On his hip he carried bottles full of sap from the tree of diabolical knowledge. His hair, like Gireek monsters, was awful - thin, crawly snakes covered his head, dangling down. He took one step, checking if the transformation had worked correctly. Yes, it had worked perfectly. Genius! He started walking in his elegant style. When he walked out of the field, he hadn't realized that he had left a trail behind him. His steps were the dark marks on the grass. Wherever he had stepped he had murdered. After going a few more yards, he abruptly turned and looked for foot prints. But his foot made no mark on the concrete floor. He beamed and then walked back to the field. He saw a boy bending down and checking his dark foot-print - the burnt grass. Shoytan stared at the boy intently and that did the trick.


Suddenly the boy looked up and checked his pockets. Remembering that he was supposed to beat a boy for stealing his toy, he ran. Shoytan with a wave of his hand burnt the whole field. He then opened his zip with a zap and stood there urinating on the blackened grass. In a couple of minutes the field would become infertile and would lose even the capacity of growing grass anymore...


I am darkness. I am hopelessness. I am evil. I am well known because no religion has disowned me - I am Lucysfur for some, Shoytan for some and Rakhos for others. But personally, I prefer Satan because it sounds sophisticated and can convey my sneaky, deceptive attitude through its disyllabic pronunciation.


Names aside, I have been accomplishing impossible missions since the creation of Adom, the foremost clay doll. I mean, come on, it was definitely more than a knight's valour to stand up and say, I was superior to Adom, that I would not bow to what is baser than me, though these challenging missions have churned and wrenched my heart out of my body. And I have become a heartless, empty rib-caged beast who can be easily overlooked.


Since a long time now, I have been carrying out missions that have nothing to do with me and in no way profitable to me. What have these tough missions of showing arrogance and proclaiming superiority given me? Nothing. Nothing except ill-fame, ill-popularity and ill reputation.


Distressed as I am, there is no vent for my pent up emotions. Whom should I visit to ventilate my constrained anger and frustration? And on the other hand who has been actually profited by my misconduct? Who has been actually praised for my misdemeanor? Gawd, yes Gawd. For all the bad that I do, people seek His shelter. I have increased His popularity. Because I am bad, they can draw a line of difference and call Gawd good. As more people flood the temples, mosques and churches, my power diminishes. Nowadays, even my follower curses me as I trick him into following my orders. This never used to happen before. They had a well organized religion some years ago, which worshipped me for my service to Gawd. Aye, I serve Gawd for I am still His creation and He kept me alive. But now the number of my followers decreases each day. Little groups here and there still pray to me. But what can I do? I am a good-power-less, bad-power-full gawd.


No good ever comes out of me. That's just the way I am. My followers pray to me so that I keep them in good health. They follow my constitution so that they can lead a good life. But I end up giving them a bad life, whereas they find serenity of heart and sanity of mind when they pray to Gawd. Maybe this is why my followers are slowly floating away from me. And yet this is a part of my service to Gawd.


Curse my luck! I am just another unlucky creation, destined to destroy what Gawd builds and ironically end up helping him create more. Shame on myself! How have I become the guinea pig of experiments for Gawd? Doesn't it appear to you that I materialize in every religion with the same attributes? Don't you think then, that I am the archenemy of every gawd who is believed to be ruling the universe?


Fools, all of you are fools. I have one master and one enemy and it is the same one. The world has just one Gawd, my one foe, my one ruler, named differently. Stupid mortals!


The difference in the name has been created for me so that I can make use of my venomous tongue to poison your conscience and influence you. Gawd inspires but I, the great Satan, manipulate.


Today, I come as a man, tomorrow I shall be a child and the day after you shall find me nowhere - I am that illusive. I can whisper lies into your ear and you will feel no presence of a mouth. I can show you believable signs of Gawd but you will find no difference. If I had no purpose at all would I grow such powers?


And what am I here for? What does Chapa need me for? They need a little of my cunning to make things better as Qalboishakhi had rightfully told me. Now she is dead, and no one is a witness to her act of summoning me. But who has killed her?


Let's not walk further on the fringes of the mysterious nucleus, Gawd. Let's just say I came to have things done in a different way than what people expect. I am come all the way from the kingdom called Pampamerica in my cloud chariot. I have come in the form of a delegate from Pampamerica. 

Destructive Construction

Five
Destructive Construction

Long, long time ago, in a far, far away kingdom, when women were generously endowed with the grey matter and men lacked it, there were a king and a queen. The king had his self-defined method of imparting justice which was exceptionally unjust in nature, that is, for him the plaintiff and the defendant stood on the same ground. Although it may sound fair and square to anybody now, when the execution of this fair judgment is witnessed, thatbody may have to rethink the issue. So this king, in accord to his belief, reasoned that the plaintiff and the defendant were equally responsible for the case that was being contested. He, therefore, bestowed his justice on both sides which, by virtue of the rotten luck of the plaintiff and the defendant, turned out to be death all the time.


Anybody who visited the king's court for justice received a death sentence the next day via e-mail. And the computer in front would burst, bursting the death sentence holder to pieces. Nothing to be puzzled about; computers and laptops at that point of time meant magic mirrors.


Justice used to be delivered thus - swiftly and safely without the need for an executioner with a black mask. And this use of magic mirrors was one major reason why Merlin, the technological wizard with his Ageold Goofy Policies and Verbosely Gabbing Ability, was a favourite of this unjustly just king.


The subjects of the king were scared of his judgment and trembled like meowing pussy cats even at the soft mention of his majesty's name. Thereafter, not surprisingly, the complaints decreased. The kingdom was becoming complaint-less, problem-less, plaintiff-less. Nobody went to the court begging for justice because the price was death only. The man who was robbed never said a word about it. What would happen if he went to the king? The next day he would become chunks of cold meat. So he rather tried to find a sporty pleasure in being robbed and sometimes the thrill of being punched on the nose or being manhandled at private places, as a perk. After all, a few muggings a month wouldn't take his life. It won't even create an economic burden if he saved up the donations that are to be given to the poor and in its stead gave it to the muggers. Besides, if he just allowed those brutish dacoits to rob him, they wouldn't beat him or kill him, whereas the king was definite to legally murder him.


Despite the reality being such, the pompous king lived a proud life under the delusion that his subjects were leading happy-ever-after lives and that he was the most judicious king in the history of fairytales. The queen, nonetheless, sitting quietly in her garden, worried that her counterpart lacked what she had in abundance; she knew all too well and lamented all too much over the fact that the king lacked the grey matter or the pink stuff or for that matter, whatever name you call it.


Enthused by the responsible royal blood that flowed through her arteries, the queen secretly arranged for an underground court and attended the hearings of multi-hued cases: sexual harassment cases, assassination cases, physical abuse cases, shop-lifting cases, raid cases, embryocide cases, business backstabbing cases, husband-wife cock-fight cases and so on. Seated on the throne of people's hearts, the queen imparted justice based on facts and figures and reason and was hailed as the wisest person alive in the kingdom. Her underground police, whom she named ‘DarkKnights' carried out her judgments; when need arose death sentences were carried out at the dead of the night and convicts were transported out of the country inside wine barrels and exiled for as long as days and nights endure.


The happy-go-lucky king, returning everyday from his empty court room, found his queen busy like a bumble-bee with old and thick books of law, as if she were sucking the juiciest nectar out of those books. The king was hardly attended anymore. When the queen was confronted, she answered, "Honey, I am enlightening myself reading those books."


The suspicious king remained quiet but assigned Merlin to snoop around and uncover the secrets behind the queen's sudden urge for enlightenment. Merlin found out about the hush-hush court by hacking the queen's laptop one night. He went through all the case files and produced HandmadePaper printouts of them in the court the next day. With his suspicion confirmed, the king was utterly upset. How could his love carry out this clandestine judgment without his approval? How dare she betray his trust?


Not long after, the court physician, during a daily-diagnosis of the king, found out that struck by anxiety, the king's risk of a heart attack was now higher than ever. Immediately, the king was prescribed to go for a vacation. The prescription written on a papyrus-parchment was received with kind consideration and the patient kingly travelled to Undaman, an island with some stereotypically romantic coconut trees but without any cartoony chirpy crabs.


The depressed king relaxed and reflected on what had happened. Amidst the sitar, ektara and apish hips-hops dancers, he immersed in thoughts of his queen. The king loved his queen. He couldn't imagine his chestnut bed without her wild stare. He couldn't imagine his candlelit bedroom without her velvet hair. But then again, he needed to impart justice. He needed to punish the queen for betraying him.


How can I punish her? - the king underwent schizophrenia - Am I not responsible as well? Don't the plaintiff and the defendant stand on the same ground? Don't I deserve to be punished too? On the verge of a philosophicallyemotional meltdown, the king decided that those thick grim-covered books were responsible for the queen's treachery. Enlightened women, he hypothesized, were springs of disappointment.


So on returning from Undaman the king wiped out the queen's library with Merlin's help and warned the weeping queen never to try fooling him again. Merlin brought the king disastrous news the following day. Merlin had hacked into some foreign magic mirrors with his newly learnt skill and had discovered that the neighbouring nations were following those impertinent books in their courts to give out justice as well. The king was infuriated. He couldn't believe his eyes as he read through the HandmadePaper printouts. I am going to kill them all - erupted a loud vow.


War after war was raised against nations that had done the king no wrong. Missiles after missiles were launched against people whom the king didn't know. The king had become a battle machine, sparked by the books of law to create lawlessness. It went on. There was nothing that could stand in his way. At such a dire time, the peace-loving queen developed an idea - indeed a very astute one.


She invited the king to her palace, the magnificent Batashmahal with thousands of windows allowing the trespassing of the winds of the unhygienic holy river Gayanges. His war-lusty majesty couldn't deny the queen's ardent invitation for love that had become so strange to him in those faraway lands where he just fought and fought, toiled and boiled in the heat of blood and bodies.


The king came one evening with his ruby encrusted sword and decorated horse. Desire for war exalted in his eyes and ravaged were his arms. The queen kissed him and the soft touch of those fleshy petals seemed to calm the beast within. The king felt he was a warrior and this was his gift.


Drinks from highlands, Chappan dishes fluttered in the room, in the hands of several colourfully-robbed slaves. Dosas, Samosas, Pakoras, ChickenTanduri, Beefhari-kari, palang-paneer, pulao, farcee-biryani, mutton-paneer, mator-paneer, delphi ka laddu, sandesh, payesh, sehwai, paratha, chapatti, dahi, anda-bhaji, gazar ka halwa, puri, jalaybi, cham-cham, amitti, chicken roast, kalia, kofta, rezala, korma, kebab, chughlai, dopayaza, fish fry, hilsha, rui, jorda, firni, kheer, malaikari, mussallam, pitha... it was an exhaustive menu.


The queen sat opposite the king, seeing him eat hungrily. After the dessert had been served, there came a long train of acrobats who entertained the king with their perilous fireworks and meandering bellies. As the king puffed at hookah, they finished their boogie-woogie. The king stood up and was about to leave. But the queen detained him saying, "Something big is in store for you, sweetheart."


As the queen's three successive claps rang through the hall, at last, the purpose of the invitation - the real gift came, which was to change the tides of time; this very gift was the queen's thought-out clever plan. The red muslin, covering it, was pulled away and thirty-two pieces of crystal pawns, kings, queens, bishops, knights and castles standing on a black and white checkered board, appeared in front of the king. "What are these trifling toys for?" the king asked in surprise.


"These are not as silly as other toys are. They abide by certain laws," the queen answered.


The mention of law made the king angry. "Are you playing pranks with me again? Is there another secret court being held somewhere?" he asked.


"Nay, my king, I haven't been to any court - neither yours nor mine. Where can I find solutions when my books have been burnt?"


"Aye, it was burnt for good reason. Now explain me, what is this play thing?" the king said, throwing a breath of relief.


"These, your majesty, are soldiers, queens, kings, knights, bishops and castles," she answered.


"Is it a game?" the king questioned.


"Yes, yes it is a game."


"Explain me how you play this," the king ordered and sat down in front of the board.


The regal features had snatched his attention and he was in love with the beauty of those pieces curved by the best craftsman in the kingdom. The diverse stones inside the crystal pieces emitted a magical aura, as if precious stones had been trapped in ice.


The queen started, "The board, your honour, is the world which has been divided into two kingdoms -one for the white skin and one for the black skin; the West and the East. You have to choose a side and defeat the opposition, fighting valiant battles of mind. You can't crush any of these pieces by breaking the laws, but by working within the lawful world of this board you have to beat them. You have to trap them in the loopholes of laws. In this game, your majesty, law will be beaten by law; justice shall kill justice.


Out there, under the sun, you have destroyed several kingdoms but could you destroy the idea of law from the minds of the people? They still dream of a lawful ruler reigning over them someday. It is unworldly to think that law can be washed away by annihilating people who dream of it. It is a lie that you can clean out law by being outside it; law has to be corrupted from within and when law fails to satisfy the people, they shall forget it. This, my dear king, is a game that will teach you how to use law against law, how to be corrupt lawfully and how to make law your weapon in constructing a lawless world."


Excited by the idea the king smiled and said, "Teach me, teach me this game."


"The queen is the most powerful piece and can move in any direction, any number of steps. Her movement is like the rays of a star. The castle is second in power and can move only horizontally in any direction, any number of steps. His movement is like the cross. Then there's the bishop who can only move diagonally in any direction, any number of steps. His movement is like an arrow. The knight can move two steps horizontally to any direction and then one step to the right or left horizontally. His movement is like L. The pawn which is the weakest in the beginning but strongest in the end, can move only one step forward at a time.


Each of these pieces can kill the opponent by moving over to the opponent's position but you must be careful otherwise you may be killed in the next move. And there is one exception: while every other piece kills on their respective paths, the pawn kills diagonally. Lastly, the king, which is you your honour, can move one step in any direction. He too has movement like a star but a star that spreads shorter rays."


Did the queen intentionally keep me so feeble? Did she intentionally keep herself so strong? Did her womanly self-centeredness and superiority complex act behind making me a less bright star? Did the ignorant, arrogant puppy think that I am too foolish to realize her indirect insult? The king's muscles clenched. But soon he was carried away by the next volley of the queen's words, "Your majesty, you must be worrying about your powers. But don't you see you are the one controlling all of them? And more importantly why should you join the battle? You should keep ordering and shielding yourself from attacks by smartly using the other pieces."


"You make me look like a coward and a loser," the king retorted.


"Nay, my king, I keep you safe. You will never be killed in this game. You will be checked by the opposition but never killed. When you have been checked and you have nowhere to go, the game will end but you will not die. Every piece is mortal here but you, my honour, is the immortal star."


The queen had planned it in the most cunning way. She knew about the king's weaknesses like she knew the designs of her ornaments. And her obsequious tone flattered the king, tempted him of immortality.


She then declared, "And this game came unto me while staring at a piece of impeccably white and hole-dotted cheese and so I present to you this game of CHESSsss," her voice trailed away.


The king surrendered to the rules of the game, accepted it as it was. "Will we play right now?" he asked, energized like a neighing pony ready to go to battle.


"Yes, sure, if you wish to," the answer came.


Which mortal would hold the elixir of life and still refuse to drink it?


The king, led by his greed for power, desire for immortality and lust for war, started playing. His opposition was a white man from a neighbouring white-land, ruling and ordering the white pieces. Day and night the king played. But he won not a single battle.


More players were brought from the white lands. When one player became tired another came. The white players played in shifts. But the king was tireless and kept waging war after war against the whites. He never went to a physical, gun-ship-canon-sword battle again. He was too consumed in chess. The words of his queen had bewitched him - law is corrupted from within; law can be defeated from within. Even when his death drew near, the king played on till his last breath. But his score remained zero till the end of his life; the queen had made sure of it by creating a shrewd law for the white players:  the white player had the right to play first. And moreover, the men of that age lacked the pink stuff.


Outside the board of chess, the queen was made the official head of the kingdom and she ruled it brilliantly like her logical predecessors while her husband kept racking his brain in some yellowish tent flagging a scarlet banner. The amiable nations sent the queen a new set of law books. Merlin was hanged to death for his impudent magic mirror works. Led by stubbornness the king played chess all his life and left the mortal planet dissatisfied; his thirst for victory was never quenched. When the king died, the citizens felt relieved. But the queen in grief of her lover's death, died too.


She was buried in a magnificent tomb in Blanka, another island beside Undaman. At her feet lies the king's tomb.

THAT is the extravagantly exaggerated history of the origin of chess stated by the famed photographer plus archeologist plus scientist plus historian plus mathematician plus writer plus many other things, Rajesh De Chapa Rashid, in his bestseller, phenomenal book, Origin of Species of Games in South-Chapa. He became a heartthrob overnight causing devastating heart attacks throughout the length and breadth of the country. Grandmasters of chess killed themselves in shame and their wives wailed over their dead bodies. These wives could come up with no clever plan to stop the suicidal attempts of their husbands since times had changed; now women lacked the pink stuff while men had it in abundance.

As for Rashid, he even went to the limit of naming the king - Rayvana, a demigawd and the queen - Rayvana's wife. What an attention-seeking, clever crow!

People who adored Rayvana jumped into the Bay of Chapa and drowned themselves. They had never imagined that the truth would be as deathly bitter as this. Women who worshipped Rayvana hanged themselves on banana trees and landed uninjured. Rashid appeared on the television and announced that his narration of this figment of history was an assumption only; anybody could choose to disbelieve it and form an acceptable version. But who listened; anything published by the mass media is bound to be the truth, that's what the people believed. So they cried and died; so some priests, members of the Rayvanaism religion, declared death penalty against the hiding Rashid; so the hiding Rashid went into deeper hiding and at a point left the country, after having arranged the exit ticket by sending a free copy of his book to Chief Advisor Gout.

Blinded by power Gout failed to see that his legitimate position was of an advisor and not of a person taking care of chased authors and that his duty was not in doing anything besides granting a safe passage for a new leader in the country. Gout, indeed, preferred to act more like the prime minster of Chapa because he had never been and never would be sitting on this powerful position ever again.  

***

Chief advisor, sorry, Prime Minister Gout gazed at the cover illustration of the book Rashid had gifted him. It was a cartoon sketch. A Meeklymouse with a human head and the head was of Rashid's. Strangely, this Meeklymouse had many hands like Makalo, another of those countless Gawddesses, and on each hand it carried instruments of different games - bat, ball, racket... In fact, maybe it was pointless to call this cartoon Meeklymouse because it hardly resembled any of Meeklymouse's features.

"I don't understand why Rashid had to name the king Rayvana. There are thousands of other names. Why couldn't he just choose another name? It could have been Hubuchondro, Indronil or even Gopalchondro," Gout sighed to himself.

One of Gout's subordinate advisors, beg-your-pardon, ministers by the name Arthritis rushed into the room. Arthritis was one of those nine wise ministers who helped Prime Minister Gout make decisions. Economy and commerce of Chapa were dealt with by Arthritis, a vampire, not a human being.

In the words of his contemporaries, Arthritis was a refined vampire because he didn't suck blood out of people's body; he sucked money out of people's blood. He coldly taxed the citizens in every way possible. From a toilet paper to a toothpick - nothing was tax free. But once when questions arose as to what happened to the taxes taxed, Arthritis had taken refuge in darkness. He retreated into his shadow land. And the brave man who had asked the question had turned up dead after a few days with marks of two canines on his neck.

Arthritis, the vampire, invested the collected taxes on his own luxurious apartment and aerodynamic cars. He used it to buy hot women with hotter blood and then suck the juice out of them after midnight. These dead bodies were never discovered. And Arthritis was known as a harmless, half-human vampire.

Entering the office, Arthritis said, "Good morning, Gout."

"Bad morning! I have a headache. Tell my PA to cancel all the appointments," nagged the fat-bottomed Prime Minister, bobbing his head sideways.

"Headache? At such a time? Come on, you know the country is in a turmoil. Democracy has failed them and some journalists have taken the liberty to call this situation Democrazy. Angry mobs are destroying police stations. Conspirators are conspiring to run cross through our hearts. And you say you have a headache? Listen, we all have headaches. Let's get over with it together," Arthritis said, sympathizing.

"Arthritis I can't bear this any more. We are not supposed to be ruling the country. We are supposed to babysit the country for a short period of time before it is handed over to its rightful father or mother. Babysitters can't be parents. We have become puppets. We have lost our selves and individuality. Had we been in the place of those unfortunate citizens, we would know how it feels," Gout gave up.

"How does it feel?" Arthritis asked.

"Definitely not as good as we are feeling. I mean, say for an example, what are they giving the tax for? The free schooling that they get is the worst. They get no free medicine. They don't get any assurance of their future. When they grow old they just have to live on the road if their children don't shelter them. People who meet accidents on road are not even given the basic first aid for free. Even if we argue about the present there's no good being done with the tax. Only you know what you do with it..."

Arthritis's pride and dignity was offended. "You have forgotten to drink the juice from the tree of knowledge that the Pampamerican delegate sent us."

Producing a bottle from the robe, Arthritis gave it to Gout. "Drink."

Gout drank and as the juice ran down his throat and into his stomach, his stature straightened. He became erect and the strict jaw was back in place. His dark eyeballs reflected anything other than goodness.

"What have I been rambling about? Let's get down to business," Gout declared.

Satisfied with the result of the juice Arthritis sat down in front of Gout. "The case we had filed against a man and his house - remember - okay, so that man has challenged us in the court," Arthritis said.

"Which house? Is it the building which you labeled the monument of corruption?" Gout asked.

Arthritis smirked, "Yeah that thing, standing on our way to create a broad road - at least that's what we are saying to the public."

"So, what do you plan to do?"

"I suggest we call a meeting and discuss it. But personally, I think we should forcibly order a notice to destroy it, otherwise we will never win the case; that son of a dog has all the legal documents."

Consciousness seemed to float back to Gout and he posed, "But what are we actually going to construct after bringing down this building. We don't have any plan for a road. I believe you understand that a huge loss will fall upon the owner."

Arthritis looked at the bottle again, "Maybe you should drink a little more," he pushed the bottle towards Gout and continued, "First of all, this owner slapped you once, remember? Don't you want to punish him? Retribution - that's the first thing we are doing here. Besides, Gout, we are trying to construct a lawful country and it is only possible in the way we are doing it. Sometimes, lawlessness preserves a lawful state and that's what we are doing. Don't worry, we are right. Just drink from the bottle when such dilemmas arise in you."

"Okay, I'll call everybody right now and fix the time for the conference," Gout bobbed his head.

With a furtive smile Arthritis covered his head with his dark robe. His body diminished into dark dust as it flew out of the window and disappeared.

***

The nine advisors with Prime Minister Gout as its head sat in the conference room for a round table talk. Well, round table was first introduced in Pampamerica by King Areyouthere, and the head of the pious preachers of that time felt insulted when he was asked to sit at a round table with King Areyouthere's knights as if they were equals. But to Areyouthere, the mighty, strategic, judicious, fictitious king, everyone was an equal and he stood adamantly by his logic.

However, Prime Minister Gout was no King Areyouthere and his advisors were no knights. And although the building sheltering them was egg-white in colour, its dwellers had charred hearts. Outside the conference room journalists stood, pressing their ears to the sound-proof door in hope that they would hear some secrets. Their hopes turned into impatience, then into desperation and then vanished. The meeting lasted for more than three hours.

The most active minister was Arthritis who kept bringing up topics of discussion and noted down the solutions they planned. Gout kept shifting to his confused self occasionally but he was helped by the others. Some things were decided and some remained untouched. At the end of it, Arthritis addressed the table, "So what do all of you have to say about the building we promised we would bring down?"

The others talked among themselves in whispers and whistles. Arthritis and Gout exchanged looks of approval. Then one of the ministers said, "We have already publicized that we are going to pull down that marble-concrete structure. If we don't, then we will be considered weaklings who can be stopped by the court and legal documents. Let it not be so. Let us bring it down by hook or by crook and show the country that, we are the boss, the valiant soldiers of justice."