A Short Yarn

                                        MIRAGE







            "Damn , this thing ain't working... ".





            "Still not answering , Saheb ?? ".





            "Nope...... Godforsaken rat sh**t ; where are those bu**ers ... ?? . Are they fishing in these sunken sands ??. Tell them this fu**king radio has to be kept abreast always. Not when they poop...";





Rage radiating from him spooked the young cortege . He cursed his father for senting him with the man in front of him ; taut, well-cut , fair man whose silver goggles glistened in the noon Sun.



  'God damn night pilferers...' ; the cortege mused....





Scorching heat dried his eyes and throat . They were at least 3 miles away from their tent and it was almost out of sight. His current master ; a freelance photographer from Mumbai ; slouched in the car like a lion , pretending a catnap to pounce on his prey. The beautiful wrangler jeep had no diesel left in it and served only as a shade from  the Sun. Those covert thieves might have emptied the tank , the previous night. Adding insult to the 'ass-injury' ,their wireless remained unanswered for the past 8 attempts. He knew, remaining abandoned for a long time called in queer dacoits , ceding physical harm in these barren havens. Initiation waited for his prod..





          "Saheb , I'll go to the tent and get some help. Its not safe to wait a reply.. ".





          "Hell... then why didn't you blurt it earlier, idiot?? ..  Move you're carcass fast. We ain't 3 miles away from you're shith**le tent.. ".





  'Insolent marathhi..' , he clutched his teeth.



         



          "Pls get me a gulp of water. I won't survive it with my dry throat ".





The Mumbaikar squinted that young lad with a despicable grimace in his arid lips. Like a person lending his vests to a panhandler, he gave his waterbag.



          " Don't drink full.. ".





Nodding head in utmost reverence; the cortege took a voracious gulp and started his return journey.





  'Poor lad.... But he deserves it. ' .





Sitting in the jeep, he didn't stop trying the walkie-talkie , but none answered. ...  It was his third and the last day in the outskirts of Rajasthan. His assignment on the vegetation and fauna of India's hottest hotspot would be completed with its credentials by that day. Apart from his assignments at Silent-valley in Kerala and at Sunderbans; the year had so far been  pathetically dry. The top grossing tabloids and journals; overwhelmed with their own snapshooters didn't valuably welcome his talents ; and those guesstimating contests inside the inner pages of peer magazines and eye-swelling exhibitions embedding the suburban nights tallied him to somewhere away from the hitlist. All his hopes relied on the THAR project ; which was his last contributor to a lukewarm professional year.But..





  'Here I'm ..... in middle of the-Great-nowhere-thar....  waiting for the service of a bunch of creepos..'





            He raked the backseat for a packet of cashew nut . Keeping his bare feet immersed in the sand he focussed his 42x optical zoom Nikon Coolpix P510 , and fidgeted his knuckles across the moving sand dunes . The sand was hot, but not scalding. Wind made the clouds meander in vortex; forming aberrant figures . At once he felt he was benched at Juhu beach ; in an afternoon sea breeze, the repercussions of air tooling through his ears.. and the exotic solitude inside the eddies of boisterous wind...



Moving the lens in a browbeating motion, his mind hovered in unison with the wind. He felt the encapsulation of all terrains on the world as one; anointing its significance in each and every corpuscle.







          In his engrossing stare, he saw something, shaking vigorously. Tremors unseated the surrounding sand in commotion ; a feeble sound with it. The horizon of small sand mounts hindered his LOS view.





  'What is it ?'





Eagerness is the best attribute of a successful lensman ; he knew that , but deep in his heart he felt trepid . Frivolous sands seemed to him as a formidable bait as he longed to take a snap of whatever that phenomenon was. Hopping on the bonnet of Wrangler, he zoomed at the maximum resolution. Still he couldn't get a pellucid image; ... toing and froing at his steps, he could fathom it was a man.., the phenomenon.. His squiggles professed clearly an enduring...,  the man was enduring severe pain and agony...





            Photographers of his kidney never craved for a dying man's final vitruvian snap and make the path-breaker moment; like those journalist accomplices.But the situation was different. Loosening his eyes from the lens, he marvelled in confusion. He looked around in a circle to find any trace of a living tissue; but all of it secluded to two souls.He tried the wireless again, just to hear the oblivious sound.



It occured to him pointless to careen his face away until that slight swiftly motion got over; but he felt more futile to rescue that person while himself was castaway.



In his lens, the person was , now , completely visible ; in his standing posture... but just for a jiffy... The next moment he fell like a bashed goat...  He couldn't choose between his imagination and senses..; his scruples prodded him to move. Snatching his camera, water-bag and the walkie-talkie, he ran on to him..





            As he got closer, feeble moans came audible. The man's overcoat was lying beside; his water-bag unbosomed. He prayed God this was not a bait from bandits, who would pounce all on a sudden on reaching that man. Those sand hills around that man might house more than one dacoit with double barrels. Optimistic; he reached an echelon shallow to which the man was prostrated.



The non-stop swagger made him perished and stale. Moving closer to the man, he started opening his water-bag to gulp a dollop,, when he first heard from him.





            "Water.............. water............ " ; his lips didn't seem moving.





He jerked fast to the man and gave the leftover 'wreckage' in his water-bag.





            "What happened ???"





            "Snake.... at my foot . . . "; he pointed to his left thumb that bore two deep pinhole crevices surrounded by a flush aura. The shin visible under his turquoise green shortts had gone bluish. His legs had almost.. died...





            "You've more water ? "  , he pleaded hopefully.





            "No.. that's all i had.. ".  The man was twinging desperately.





Keeping on trying the wireless, he remained cautious on the surroundings ; the snake wouldn't have gone far..



  ' Damn sand boas '..





            "You alone?? " ; he asked moving closed to him





The man was trying to concentrate his pang, that feigned in alleviating the pain. His hands remained inside the shorts ; probably sufficing heat , and he kept his eyes closed.. , breathing moderately..





            "Can you save me ??.. "





The query left him dumbstruck. That really was too sheepish a question. in the middle of a sea of sand... ;





  'How can i save you.. ' , he stuttered for words..





            "I... You know, i got stuck here.. my jeep's out there.., and it's outta fuel .., and this damn wireless ain't sh*t answering.. My cortege is  on his.. "





            " Can you save me friend.. ??? " ; this time, his plead was heartrending.. affirmative...



The wireless fell from his hand; he squatted beside him sighing helplessly..





            " I don't know........ I ..,, I think.. No......... . No, I can't save you.. " .





He knew that man demanded a straight reply ; and he seemed contended now, , lying in surety of his imminence. Affixing the walkie-talkie to his belt, he sat near him. He wanted to ask why he came to the THAR ; if he was alone ; a tourist or an expeditioner like him ; and if he should notify someone about him....



But he felt it insolent to make that dying man speak...



  'Get him company.. some heat ' ,  that was his ultimateness. 





An uneasy silence ghosted around them. All those untied sands of liberty sedimented in heaps. They both , sinked deeper, like in a crater. He feared if his cortege wouldn't find him .. , but his decision was to stay calm. A reprise of events on that day bungled him in bafflement. He hired one of those costly jeeps to manoeuvre across the desert and he was now , left barren with that big-ticket contraption muddled in brown dreck. He had his purse stuffed with both, foreign and native currency ; he couldn't take that person to medics but let him die, inch-by-inch ....The atheist in him believed Nature is God ; and now he was almost sure; Satan is God's avatar of impertinence....





Only movement left in the man was his head-shakes and nystagmus. His open mouth invited all motes and chaffs .





            "..Cold... cold... " ; he murmured..





Moving the camera to his in a dangling position , he tried to rub his foot but in a trice he recoiled. The foot felt like a glob of bloodless meat , stiff like ceramic. The man didn't show any sign of stimulus. He still shook his dome, preventing his nerves from chilling. He placed the overcoat around his torso and chafed his forehead. The windless milieu sweated it, pegging heat.





            "My..... purse.... " ,the man mumbled in gibber.





Searching his short's back-pocket , he found a leather purse .





            " F..... Photo .... " , his eyes went dingy and pale like corpse.



Juts of sand slowly started rising around them killing the ghastly silence. Surfing the inner stack, he found a photo...... . his wife and daughter smiled in it..



The man motioned to bring it close.... to kiss the photograph.. , , to see his priceless possessionsfor one last time... ; to bid them adieu..



.... . . . .





Wiping the photograph off dust, he brought it to his face, but..........



.........  a strong wind blew around them , sweeping the photograph with it...



...,, the dying man let out a grievous cry in a choked voice. . .



Putting his sunglasses on ; he went along the wind. The man's sobs screeched his ears ; he felt an uttering guilt to give away that photograph. .



Wind glided queer enough to show its sordidness against a godforsaken soul..



The loud cry went distant and fading, but he never stopped nor turned back.. ; he focussed on that 2x4 inch equiangles. Wind drove him erratically away from that man... and now he no longer heard his sob.



  'Am i that far ?? ' .





At once, when the air clutched slow , he hastily springed in a breeze to grab that photograph. He fell beside a heap , and the sand hurriedly penetrated over legs , sinking them beneath it.



Clenching the picture hard , he hopped up and happily turned to him



           



            " I got it !!!!!! " ; ......................................... . . . . . . . . . .



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................





Desert . . . . . . ..... an expanse of sand that mollycoddled the winds flowing over it.. ,  ; a yellow roadbed of adaptive radiation teaching the lessons of agony . . . ;  a barony of Nature heaving fruitless yields ........... Desert .............





.....................  And the progenies of desert had engulfed that man. He was nowhere seen.. ; his overcoat , his water-bag, nothing... The screaming winds of fury annihilated the last vestiges of that life ; before battering it to the pectorals .





All heaps looked the same ; a reckon of his penultimate rendezvous was impossible. Unable to maintain poise he sat down , hands propping the body . . .





Circling in a haphazard corroboree , the wind smirked at him callously ... He could hallucinate those ruddy teeth savouring the uncouth happiness of killing . It even dessicated his eyes.. from shedding tears for that transient friendship ..He prayed that man was just a mirage.....





His walkie-talkie creaked gibberish .





            "Saheb ... are you there ?? .. I'm Fal-Ul-Rahiman .. You're guide... Saheb ??? " ;





            "Come fast.. " ;  he said in a low voice.



He looked at the pic.. ; it was the best photograph he ever had... the one, he never shot ....................















                                                                                                    LAMA SIGNING OUT...