Anand - Book of Destruction

The five first-rounders were carrying him around on their shoulders and he continued to wave and cheer in response to the crowd, which seemed to be closing in on him. I grew apprehensive and unknowingly raised my hand and then immediately let it fall.

Then everything happened very fast. As the formalities got over, some of the people cleared the table which had held the drinks, brought it closer to the fire and arranged it like an improvised altar. They brought a long iron grill and placed it on the table. Instantly the bearers lowered the tailor and placed him over the grill. Did he struggle? Did they apply force? I couldn’t say. The five people, two men and three women, appeared to hold his head, hands and legs down.

To the accompaniment of the rhythmic clapping of the flock, or perhaps I should say mob, the master of ceremonies appeared with a long knife and slashed it through the neck of the tailor. The body went into violent convulsions, but the helpers held it tight and massaged it from feet upward, as if to squeeze all the blood from the body while the others swiftly held a vessel like the Holy Grail underneath the neck to collect every last drop.

The tailor’s body became still, so did the skilful fingers that had cut and stitched plain cloth and shaped it into dresses that no longer appeared beautiful to me. The flock, which had been created by his dresses, lifted the body of their father-artist along with the grill to hang it from the hooks of the barbecue. The blazing flames instantly leapt up and began licking at it.

The bowl with the blood remained on the altar, and the whole assembly lined up before it to dip their spoons in it, partaking in a form of sacrament. They all joined in a prayer: ‘Bread is he to us, wine is he to us. Sacrifices are great. The greatest of all sacrifices is the holy sacrifice.’

The atmosphere gradually relaxed. The assembly scattered and several filled their glasses with regular drinks, as I now thought of it, once again served from the table. This time they drank it casually without pouring it into the fire. There was little noise and talking till the master of ceremonies cleared his throat and again addressed the gathering. He announced the date for the next party and named the person who would act as the next master of ceremonies. The assembly greeted it with subdued applause. It appeared they had returned to their automaton selves. He then invited the members to the barbecue. Picking up plates, knives and forks they lined up for dinner.

I stood looking at that silent society gathering around the body of the tailor and cutting chunks of cooked flesh from it. I wouldn’t say I was stunned because to me it now seemed the natural conclusion of the chain of events I had been following. I had been travelling from character to character, story to story, experience to experience, and the area that could be marked as unbelievable was shrinking more and more in my mind. The scene before me was becoming quieter and no one in the gathering was speaking. There were just the clinks and clatter of knives and forks to be heard. Devoid of emotions and humour, closing the doors of communication, a society was restricting itself to the simple act of eating and that too mechanically. When the fat from the body would melt and fall on the burning wood, the fire would splutter and flames would shoot up and the diners would step back. When the flames would subside, they would close in once again.

I told myself that I must go now. There was nothing more for me here. I did not belong, my clothes were different and the night had advanced considerably. I turned towards the gate.

It was then that my eyes fell on a book neatly and ceremoniously placed on a table near the gate, like a visitors’ book. It was none other than the one I had seen in the tailor’s shop: The Book of Cutting and Tailoring. There were coat-hooks on the wall behind the table and the tailor’s coat, which may now serve as a holy shroud, was hanging from one of them.

A hand touched my left shoulder and I jerked around. The master of ceremonies stood before me, the man whom I had seen sinking his knife into the tailor’s neck. We stood face-to-face. I grew pale as his teeth bared in a broad smile.

‘Do not be afraid,’ he said, shifting his hand from my left shoulder to the right, as I turned towards him. ‘The rule is that exiting from here requires permission. But since you are a visitor it need not worry you.’

His words did not reassure me. His hand was still on my shoulder and its weight pressed down so that my right shoulder dipped lower than the left.

He withdrew it seeing that I was uncomfortable, and summoned another broad smile. My shoulder was still lopsided and he noticed that too. In a poetical tone — reminding me of the tailor — he continued, ‘Our society is certainly a small one, but it is not esoteric. We have our beliefs and discipline, but we do not hide them. No one stopped you at the gates, as you may have noticed. When the declarations of conflicts and wars and calls for sacrifice resound from every rooftop, where is the place for secrecy? Everything becomes open. Everything should be open. “Our own places” will expand into “our places” and thereafter to all places. The daylight of openness will bring everything out of the darkness. Nothing will remain hidden from man. All the doors will be opened and all mankind will be brought under one roof … This garden welcomes all, and it is spring.’

That declaration about daylight only increased the feeling of heaviness within me. Unable to even lift my drooping shoulder, I stood frozen. I, however, managed to squeeze out two words: ‘The tailor.’ I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, but that was all that I could bring out.

‘There are tailors and tailors ,’ he retorted in a stony voice, the smile vanishing from his face. He too, like the tailor, assumed the voice of a prophet. ‘Some measure the bodies of clients and make coats for them,’ he continued. ‘They are just workers of the trade, who are not able to see beyond the bodies. Others see the souls of people. They break the bodies of the clients and design new ones to suit the souls, and make dresses for them. They are the artists, the creators of society. Strange is this world of clothes, as strange as the world itself.’

I listened in awe at how easily he shifted from the theories of sacrifice and conflict to the ideology of creation. I could not bear these exercises any more. I lifted my sagging shoulder and gathered courage to frame a full sentence. ‘You killed him,’ I said.

‘Sacrifice is not killing, it is worship,’ came his swift reply. ‘There are only devotees in this temple, no killers. Some devotees offer sacrifices during their worship. Some go beyond and offer themselves as a sacrifice. But the sacrifice of all sacrifices is the sacrifice of the God.’

Futile is this argument, I told myself. Gathering my strength I cautiously walked backwards till my back touched the gate. It opened by itself. The man did not try to stop me. I thought hopefully that perhaps it was not allowed for him to cross the gate of ‘our own place’.

I turned around and walked quickly across the gates of ‘our own place’ and then of ‘our place’.

Outside, the darkness had thickened, as had the cold. Amber traffic lights blinked idly at the traffic junctions and street lights struggled to illuminate the streets in the enveloping fog. Rapidly walking through the darkness and the cold and turning corners one after another, I reached the main road. The roads were all deserted and shutters were down at every shop. I didn’t see any of those homeless, directionless and so-called fragmented people out. Right or wrong, everyone appeared to have reached home. The night is not for journeys but for home and hearth. And yes, for worship and sacrifice.