Free The Storyteller by Adib Khan

of remembrance? Memory is one of the mind’s storytellers. It gurgles and splutters, forever awake…
    ‘Barey, you should have had more sense!’
    ‘Baji?’
    ‘You should have chosen with more care! When I asked for a helper, I didn’t mean this…this…What have you sent me? Ay larka! How long does it take you to fetch me a tumbler of water? Hai kismet! When I ask him to do something, he blinks and grins! How coarse and gnarled are his hands! Like the roots of a dead plant. He refuses to wash. His breath is sour and his stories…ugly! Ugly! He is meant to entertain me, but he destroys all that I imagine to be beautiful. I have no need for him here.’
    ‘If you wish I can…’
    ‘No!’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Repulsive as he is, Vamana has a place among us. He is a freak. An accident. A hellish creature transported to this life by mistake. His body is the Devil’s work. His mind is an inferno. He spends his hours burning in his own fire. See how he grins! He shelters demons inside him. Use him in some way.’
    Harsh words that had no effect on me. Baji was utterly frustrated by my incompetence in domestic chores. I broke plates and could not fold clothes. Even after I had swept the verandah floor, the dirt was visible. I forgot instructions and could not count money. I teased the other hijras and ate their food. How was I to explain that I was handcuffed to my imagination? Had someone even whispered that dreaming was a self-destructive vocation, I might have considered disengaging myself from the shadows of a weeping moon and emerged as a responsible being.
    The mind is an uncharted land, a habitat for the improbable and the fantastic. The sordid and the perverse. It hums with sounds and teems with images. Light and shade. Anything is possible. I can copulate with princesses on the back of a serpent. Be strong, tall, good-looking. There are monsters and bhoots lurking in the recesses. Creatures that resemble humans. I am entirely normal by comparison. It is my mission to describe, to create forms and breathe life into them with the magical aid of words. And what are words but sharp knives that create entrances into dimly perceived worlds inside us? Noises and scribbles that give shape and colour to the terrifying flux of chaos. Here, there are no norms or conventions. Nothing surprises. An abode without walls or laws. A selfrenewing life without shame and not blighted by time. There is no need for pretensions of sanity or false modesty. I drift through the streets crowded with naked people who do not know how to hide their thoughts. Among them I am a hero.A judge. A vigilant god wary of hypocritical Adams. It is a haven never to be surrendered to the insidious forces of cause and effect.
    I am a creator of life. Meanings. Of seeds that germinate and flame into the trees of possibilities. I do not seek to shape perfection. I am comfortable with flaws. I embrace what is grotesque. My mind is like Ali Baba’s cave. Open Sesame! Behold! A galaxy of illusions that create fear. My words give birth to terror. Universes collapse. Even as I create, lives end. I crack open the earth and lacerate it with crevices. My worlds are smeared with shadows. Ships sink and mountains dissolve. The aged fuck to celebrate the shedding of beauty. The young are chaste and cold. Women cry and children shiver. The howl of wolves and the laughter of demons are stored in the darkness of my imagination. It is all inside, lurking in caves and murky chambers. But I must play the buffoon to survive.
    After my meeting with the eunuchs, I was taken to the bustee at night, blindfolded and carried inside a sack. In the godown I was told that the shackles and chain were necessary to prevent me from wandering outside the vicinity of the slum. A cautionary measure. The police might be out looking for me. Barey Bhai was not entirely convinced by my explanation about the life of an orphan who lived in the streets.
    ‘Someone who lives in the