Benyamin: Yellow Lights of Death

There was Jesintha in her earlier form, in a wrinkle-free dress, deadly serious. There were eighteen of my classmates. I went through the faces and tried recalling the names of each one of them. To the left of Sseri sir were Anita and Supriya. To the right of William Hodges were Alexy and Jyoti. Behind them, standing in a row: Vinod, Babu, Senthil, Jesintha, another girl whose name I couldn’t recollect, and Rahim.

Behind them, on the bench: I couldn’t remember the first girl, then Leena, me, the boy next was an African, couldn’t remember his name, Bilal, Seyfu, couldn’t remember the next boy either, little Anita, and at last Daniel D’Silva.

Gopal P.V. was the only one missing in the photo. And from the world. A month before this photo had been taken, he died in a major boat accident, with sixty-three others.

I’d met Jesintha the day before. Here I was, with ambitions to become the first novelist of the Malayalam Diaspora. And where was the rest of the class? Almost everyone of us had been together from Class I to X. We were in Division A, known to have the smartest boys and girls in the school. I’d already forgotten four names out of the nineteen. Would I be able to recognize them if I met them? Anita, Leena and Jyoti were the best not just in the class, but in the school. After them came Senthil, Vinod and Supriya. Seyfu and Babu were the brats of the class, and the best of the worst. Supriya was a good dancer. Anita used to sing and speak well. Vinod was talented in painting, and Rahim in acting. Where were they now? Where had they gone, what had they become, within these short years? We had predicted and dreamt that Anita would become a doctor, Leena a lawyer, Supriya an actress, Daniel D’Silva with his deep voice a radio anchor, and Rahim a stage actor. Had our predictions and dreams come true? If not, who had become what?

The curiosity of the first days turned into a strong desire later on. I had to find out. I had to know where each of them were and what levels they had reached in this short period. It may have been the amazing growth and change in Jesintha that stimulated my search. The rest of my days were spent thinking of a way to find them.

Orkut

ONE WEEK OR a maximum of ten days — I thought I’d find all of them within that time. Such a small place. Walk twice through some four alleys and all of them will be found. That’s how lightly I’d taken it. But I failed to find even one. Finally, I did a search on the social network, Orkut — the most advanced, convenient and simple means available. After an elaborate search, I managed to find just one person: Alexy. He was running an Ayurveda physiotherapy centre at Seychelles. I contacted him. He had no updates on anyone. It was like his life had been wholly transplanted from Garcia to Seychelles. He was that distanced from Garcia.

Even though I knew that only one per cent or so of our friends could be present on such social networks, I started a community there by the name of my school: St. Joseph’s, Seleucia. I waited for days hoping that some of my classmates from some corner of the earth would become its members and thus I could get in touch with them. Many of my juniors in school joined the community, but not a single member from my class. And this was supposed to be the age of such school — college social gatherings. Especially after a movie on it came out in the mainland! Using new technologies, people were finding their oldest friends and arranging gettogethers. I felt deeply disheartened. Why was it that only my classmates were averse to such gatherings? Weren’t they aware of these technological utilities? Didn’t they use them? Had we all become so outdated that we could not figure out the virtual world?

But I didn’t lose hope. I decided to meet Jesintha again. I was sure that through her, I’d be able to find at least one more person. For the next two days, in the hope of meeting her, I went and waited for long hours at the coffee shop in Port Louis. Either she didn’t come on those days or I had missed her. I cursed myself for not asking for her mobile number when I met her last. However, I caught her on the third day, sitting under a tree. She ran towards me, saying, ‘Hi!’ She was with a friend. We ordered coffee, and while we were waiting for it, I casually asked her about our classmates. No idea where they are, she gestured. I shared my curiosity with her. Where will we go to find them — she was puzzled.

We can easily trace someone from a faraway village in a large country, she said, but to find even a single known person in the narrow streets of a town is next to impossible. In a village, every person is ‘marked’. You could go to a particular location to find a particular person. Mostly, from birth to death, their location stays the same. But in a city, anyone can be anywhere. People keep moving all the time. Especially in places where there are temporary migrants and tenants. They come, they go. The whole demographic could change within a year. Go to any church. The ones whom you saw last year won’t be the ones whom you’ll see the next year. Go to any street. The ones who were there last year may not be there the next. Diego, too, has this dynamic character. It will be difficult to find our classmates and arrange a reunion.

I had to accept her hypothesis, sadly.

It was then that an incident happened, about four tables away from us. There was a gunshot. A person shuddered and fell to the ground before my eyes. People who were talking to him till then ran off in random directions. I saw one of them quite clearly. A couple of workers chased them, but none were caught.

Jesintha and I were among the crowd that flocked around the wounded guy. I tried to catch a glimpse of him. He was lying under the table. Some people pulled him up from there. He’d been shot in his chest. There was blood splattered all over his face. The crowd waited for the ambulance to come. Some started leaving the place.

‘They shot a person in the open, in a public place, and fled. No one could catch them despite so many of us being here,’ I said morosely. ‘The Public Security will catch them,’ Jesintha said briskly. By then, the ambulance-boat had reached and he was shifted to it. It was a speedboat. It sailed away within minutes.

In a short while, the place returned to normal, as if nothing had happened. Jesintha returned to her seat and took up her coffee. I went and sat next to her. I no longer felt like drinking coffee. My mind was awash with the terrible incident. To witness someone falling to a bullet! But more than that, what baffled me was how quickly the crowd had overcome the incident. I would have been placid if it had happened in Mumbai or Karachi or Iraq. They were used to it. But here in Diego? To my knowledge, it was the first incident of its kind. Someone getting shot in a street! Had our people become so insensitive as not to get affected by that?

The Public Security officers arrived at the spot and started their investigation. They began by asking the people in the cafe to describe the incident. All of them shied away from it. When I was about to get up, Jesintha stopped me, pulling my hand. ‘You don’t go there and get involved. Let the Public Security do their job. We have not seen the incident. We have come here just now.’

‘But, Jesintha, when such an incident occurs in our island, isn’t it our duty to help the Public Security team? Shouldn’t we give them the information they need?’

She made a face and then smiled. ‘Yeah, right. our island. there is still a huge contest about who owns this land. Our island! Whatever. Anyhow, more than knowing who the killers are, you’ll be stunned to know who the victim is.’

She got up, her bag on her shoulder. ‘In your search for your classmates, the number has been reduced by one. The person who got shot was Senthil from our class.’ She said it nonchalantly and walked away with her friend.