Anand - Book of Destruction

‘Just a few clarifications; I know you are all but drowning in the questions. Though you must have noticed a couple of facts by now. One, I did not die in the July seventh blast. Two, I, Hasan Ibn al Sabbah, am a hashishin.

‘I was present in Welcome Hotel on that fateful day. Moments before the explosion a man called me out of the bar to tell me something. As we were talking, the building exploded and then collapsed around us.

‘I personally did not know Zainul, also a hashishin. Each of us is a small link in the chain. We are connected by other links. The person who called me out was one such link. In fact everyone is a link, including you. Some know it and some don’t. Those who know are the actors and those who do not, the victims. Destruction is the act which brings everyone together — gods, devotees and victims. Seshadri told you that a victim turns into a devotee in the ultimate sense. A devotee turns into God when his own altar demands him as sacrifice. It is in sacrifice, in all senses of the word, that all the three freely move into each other’s roles. Who designs the costume and decides what is to be worn by whom and at what point of time? Who is that tailor? God? No, in the ultimate sense, there is no God separate from the devotee and the victim. What remains is tailoring, the art of cutting and stitching and making garments, outfitting each to play his role. Thus, destruction becomes an art, do you see now? Tailoring is, for that matter, an exceptional art, and it is a pity that no one has written a history of it. Why don’t you try your hand?

‘This does not mean that whatever I told you about the hotels was false. The disappearance of the old hotel from my memory, the transplantation of my things in another room, the package with your address that appeared in the new room, all that was true. Grand designs. Tailor-made, you might say! If I was destined to escape, why was my room hijacked? If the hotel was destined to collapse, why was the packet meant for you planted in it? Was the packet even meant for you? All these questions are irrelevant. All questions, in fact. There is a reason that stitches together all the apparent irrationalities, that reason is destruction. The seventh day of the seventh month was a big day for Zainul. For the newspapers, it was just a box among their columns.

‘I mentioned earlier the letter Ameer Ali wrote to me about you. It is the writer’s job to uphold moral issues and point out injustice. And it is the professor’s job to study it all. Though a historian devoid of literary knowledge, he had to carry out the duties entrusted to him. He was a Reader at the university for a long time. Imagine the situation when a character turns into a reader. Fate assigns different tasks to each of us. For Ameer Ali, writing the article. For me, this letter. One link opens only to the next link. The grand design includes a chain of information as well as secrets. But once the plan has been executed, the rules demand public acknowledgement. To the extent of naming the organization involved and the person who carried it out. You have to admit, we are open.

‘“Honest! Vandals, that’s what you are,” I can almost hear you scoffing. But you refuse to see the vandalism perpetrated by those around you, those you think are on your side. Philosophical vandalism. Morality, compassion, empathy, none of these has any rational support, said Bertrand Russell. There is no argument in science or philosophy that can explain why the enjoyment of cruelty is wrong. Wittgenstein says that in the eyes of rationality one man stealing the wallet of another is merely the movement of an object from one place to another. Logical positivists, linguistic analysts, postmodernists, deconstructionists, all those who came after him, have only helped in the further leakage of reason and logic from the mind of man. But we collected it from their porous hands, especially the concept of one reason, which holds together all kinds of irrationalities — destruction. Our flock grew. Hashishins, thugs, the old criminal tribes, the new ethnicists, revolutionaries, political parties, the underworld, religious extremists, the new class of thinkers — our flock encircles you from all sides. Did you know, my dear friend, that the number of scientists engaged in oiling the machinery of destruction today is four times the number employed in finding ways to keep you alive? Knowing fully well that when that machine is operated they themselves will have to turn fedayeen.

‘I saw you among the audience at the Performing Arts Auditorium during the National Music Festival last month. I was sitting in the row just behind yours, two seats to your right. I remember you looked back twice. You did not recognize me. Since I was on duty I did not attempt to speak to you. Huge auditorium, milling multitude, me a human bomb counting down seconds. At the last second I had to shut the timer off on the instructions of the grandmaster.

‘Don’t panic. I am not on your train today. I have to be somewhere else, on this twelfth day of the twelfth month.

‘I could not deliver the book to you. The gigantic earth movers of Zainul Abidin’s company carried it away to the landfill, among the debris of Welcome Hotel. Books are like that. Their destruction is as profound and poetic as their creation. Ptolemy’s library was more famous for its catalogue prepared by Apollonius than for the collection itself. The catalogue too vanished eventually. Under the weight of the stones of the Alamut Fort razed to the ground by Hulegu lay crushed and confined the catalogue-less documents of the hashishins. The book of thugs, Thuganama , does not exist any more; only a reference remains, in Bhavya’s Tarkajwala. Tarkajwala itself remains only in the form of a Tibetan translation, now made inaccessible by the tanks of Mao. This, in the words of a Tibetan lama who now lives in Delhi’s Majnu Ka Tila. He had heard of it from his grandfather.

‘Sublimation, the change from solid to gas is real, though uncommon. So is the change from gas to solid state, deposition. Hashishins made destruction profound and poetic. Its journey towards still higher levels of aesthetic ecstasy continues. A journey that will continue for a while, I promise you.’

And there, Hasan bid me goodbye.

Was there a sadness in those parting words? Who knows. Who knows, he could have been carrying a bomb on his person each time I travelled with him on the train. (Now I understand, his train journeys do not need a financial explanation.) Each one of those journeys was potentially a farewell journey for him. But the truth is that his farewell does not ever become a farewell. Just as the death of Hasan Ibn al Sabbah in 1124 was never a death for the Hasans. Just as the fictionality of Ameer Ali is not a fiction.

For a moment I feared I was caught in a psychotic fantasy. I gripped my seat to make contact with reality. Tried to make conversation with the passengers sitting next to me. No one was interested.

The train was racing at a hundred kilometres an hour. According to the attendant we were still two hours behind schedule. It was noon by the time we reached Calcutta. I had six more hours on the road from Calcutta. After letting my hosts know I would be late, I set out in the car they had arranged for me.

If we accept that no answer is the final one, then all answers become right. If we acknowledge that no destination is final, then all destinations are right.

Midway through our drive, we were greeted by an untimely downpour. It gathered strength as we advanced, accompanied by lightning and thunder. The driver eased his foot off the accelerator in the reduced visibility. Finally, the car gave up and broke down.

The darkening Bengal countryside stretched in all directions, no houses or even a light broke the monotony. One side of the dirt road bordered the fields and the other, mango orchards. Sandwiched between the two stood the driver, his assistant, I and the motionless car. The driver declared that there was nothing seriously wrong with the car, except that he needed the services of a workshop to get it back on the road. But where were we to find a workshop in this centre of nothingness!