Stephen Kelman - Man on Fire

I share my cell with a broken-down kid in a T-shirt that says ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’. He’s coming down from something transformational and the tragedy of his return to earth is scratched into his face like a prayer gone cold. His eyes are empty and restless. He knows how close I came to killing a man. He can feel it coming off me and it’s making him edgy.

I tell the Inspector I have to be somewhere.

‘Where?’

‘I have to go home. I’m dying. I haven’t got much time left. You know I’m innocent. Let us go, we just want to go home.’

The Inspector mumbles something profane to himself and turns the page of his newspaper.

‘You are dying?’ my cellmate asks me.

‘That’s right.’

On hearing this he sways towards me, drawn in. I can smell the fight on his clothes. I know somehow that every day for him is a fight he can’t win. His breath is hot and sweet and I need a drink.

‘I also am dying,’ he says. He looks very young when he says this. There’s confederacy in his tone and it sickens me a little bit.

He puts his arms together as though he’s handcuffed. The inner sides of his forearms are bitten and ravaged. He feels no disgrace in telling me he’s a user of heroin. He says it’s killing him but he can’t stop.

‘I need it too much. I have tried to stop but it is very difficult. My brother died from heroin also. He was nineteen years old. I am twenty-two. I have died twice before but each time I came back. When my brother died I was in college. I was studying to be an engineer. Now I am living on the streets. I steal and I beg. Sometimes I am selling books along the road but it is too much competition, the boys with limbs missing are always making the most sales, the customers are feeling sorry for them. I am just a junkie. They do not feel sorry for me.’

I reach out to touch his shoulder but then I quickly pull back in case he doesn’t want the intrusion. I’m not sure why but it’s important to me that he thinks I’m a good man, sensitive to the needs of others.

‘Life is very hard. God has forgotten me. I know I have disappointed him. This is why he does not listen anymore. There are many other people who need his help before me. They should have it.’

His smile is disarming. He’s as untouched by self-pity as I was enslaved to it.

I tell him God hasn’t forgotten him. I surprise myself by believing it. But then I shouldn’t be surprised, not after everything that’s happened. I believe in you informally, like a recipe handed down. You’re my bread now. Funny how my taste for you has come on like a fire in an airless room.

The kid hugs himself and shakes like a dog coming out of the rain. The boy he was is visible in the little tremors and the stamping of feet.

He asks me for money. Just enough for one night of comfort once he gets out of here. Then tomorrow he’ll buy some more books and go out on the road again. The monsoon is nearly over and many things are washed away. He knows he can’t get them back. Just enough for one night of comfort.

I tell him I can’t help him. I say God is with him and he shouldn’t give up hope.

He lies down on the concrete bench, curls up tight with his back to me. I listen for a warning of a coming rage but within moments his breathing is deep and he’s still. I’ve stopped speculating about the contents of other people’s dreams.

An hour goes by and you sit with me. You tell me that the world you made for me is a beautiful place, and it will still be beautiful long after I’ve left it.

What about earthquakes and volcanoes, I say.

Mostly beautiful, you say. And what horrors there are only pass through so beauty can have a new place to build its ministry. Grass grows from ash and birds from bone.

The horror I made is still fresh, and before I die I hope to be forgiven for it. I let myself smile. I’ll miss India and the rain on my skin.

I achieved maiden World Record at the very first time of asking, at the home of my then employer and great friend Rajesh Battacharjee, who was at this time a local businessman and corporator of high esteem. He was among the four supporters who facilitated along with three of my students, having all landed the job due to their superior determination and belief in shared philosophy. It was quite experimental, as this was a record without precedent, therefore it was my honour to conduct attempt in my own preferred manner — with many thanks to good people from Limca for their kindness and understanding.

I chose the groin kick for my opening record because its danger and high skill level required would guarantee that it would remain intact for many years to come (this has since been proved correct as to this day of writing I remain unmatched in this area). When you are reaching for the heights you must stretch your arms to the furthest limit, this is what I have always believed since I was a youngster. My wife was not convinced but there was no deterring me. I had already my son, Shubham, who was six months old at that time, so my family was complete. Therefore if permanent injury grabbed me it would be no disaster.

During practice period I devised the perfect recipe for success: four supporters kicking me in turn could manage rate of one kick every two seconds or less, and I was sure this would be enough to set a respectable total. Rajesh Battacharjee was leading kicker as he was an important man in the community and also providing venue and refreshments.

‘With your training you are well advantaged,’ he told me. ‘This will be the ideal platform for the skills the almighty has blessed you with.’

His words clicked with me instantly. My deep wish was always to lead the world in a great endeavour, something I alone could do. I had been searching high and low for many years for this outlet. Then on a strange impulse I purchased a copy of the famous Guinness Book of World Records . I found it by chance among the wares of a street seller on Marine Drive during my first lonely months in Mumbai — having arrived in the big city from my native place of Cuttack with high plans to make a name for myself and honour the dear ones I had left behind. I spent every spare hour between its pages trying to find inspiration and release from the toil of my days working as accountant in Rajesh Battacharjee’s Everest Engineering factory producing cooling towers. But all records there seemed to me like a joke. Those captured by my fellow Indians especially. Longest beard. Longest fingernails. Most time sitting on pole. Most snakebites survived. Nothing matched my desire to branch out in new direction. I wished to make a fresh impact and when, some three years into my stint in Mumbai, Rajesh Battacharjee mentioned groin kicking as an untested area of achievement it sounded to me like the perfect example of this goal. I had not been so excited by this discovery since first I outstripped my friends in push-ups back in my native place as a young boy. Then I knew I was destined for great things and the feeling this time was one hundred times stronger. When I closed my eyes to introspect I saw a fantastic fire and emerging from this was BB Nayak with his arms up high in victory and gold medal of the World Record holder hanging from his neck.

‘I will be the world topper in kicks to the groin,’ I declared with great seriousness.