Dreams came rolling down

Artwork by Apurba

Akbar was by nature a quiet and modest man. He spoke softly, went about quietly. He had passed his intermediate exams in science, had quietly withstood his father's death, and equally quietly began to work as a clerk. He spoke so seldom that oftentimes it seemed as if he had no mind to speak of, no thoughts of his own; and yet when one realizes that every waking moment a human being usually is thinking of something or the other, then to look upon him was to feel surprise.

His family was small--his mother, he and one younger brother. The brother was too young to converse with; on the other hand his mother was too old to talk to. Perhaps this was the reason for his silence, and maybe he would have gone on like this forever had not suddenly dreams started to stream through his mind.

So many lives every day were turned upside down by the tumult of war. Though Akbar's household was unaffected by it, nevertheless they felt its jolts. Three human beings--relatives by some distant connection--from Burma came to live with him. One was Akbar's uncle, the other his aunt and the third their daughter. They asked for shelter, a request that really was more of a demand, a demand that had no validity, and though Akbar in his quiet way acceded and gave them shelter, who knows what went on in his heart?

Well, good then! They were in desperate straits and giving them shelter was the right thing to do. A few days went by. Quietly. And doubtless would have continued on in the same way had not suddenly dreams started to cascade through Akbar's mind.

One morning Akbar was reading the newspaper when after some time he put down the pages and began to stare out of the window. A glittering sunlight fell on the inner courtyard, and it was there that his gaze first went. Then, all of a sudden, he saw the girl--his uncle's daughter--trying to hang her wash on the bamboo rail up above. The pole was fairly high up and though she kept flinging up the sari in her hand, she couldn't make it catch the rail. All these days Akbar hadn't seen the girl clearly--but now he did; in other words, today he saw her because he wanted to see her. He hadn't really noticed her before, had only glimpsed her inside in the shadows. Today he got a really good look at her, in bright sunlight, in need of help. Previously, she hadn't seemed wholly human and alive to him, just some thing, and today in the bright sunlight his gaze took in her slim body, her hands and feet, which were moving--moving in the service of work, a work at which she was being repeatedly unsuccessful.

Though at last the sari did hook itself on the pole, as did the bedsheet, after which she disappeared from his view. Akbar continued to stare out of the window, then after a while realized with a start that the sunlit courtyard was now empty. It was as if something had been present that till now had succeeded in hiding the whole scene from his gaze, and now the mind kept going back to that thing-that-was-no-longer-there.

When a storm comes it does so without warning. The girl's name was Rabeya and now this name began to drift inside him like some huge, gaudy billboard. And escaping free from that name and his body, his mind like something indistinct and hazy began to spread smokily upward.

It was a Sunday--he had always liked Sundays. In fact, he liked all other days, too--even workdays, even days when leisure time was stifled. But today he began to feel empty and listless. He sat in his room reading the newspaper for a long time, then laid silently on his bed; laid there all right but soon his mind began to yearn for something, as if it would feel good if somebody came near, but that somebody wouldn't come, wouldn't come near at all. Finally, he got up, and aimlessly paced through the two rooms. In the adjoining room--the room occupied by his mother, aunt and Rabeya--he saw the girl's orange-coloured sari draped on a rope, and nothing else. His uncle had gone out to meet some gentleman who had also just fled from Burma, and the other three were in the kitchen, from where snatches of their murmured conversation came floating through the air to him.

Again, quietly, he returned to his room and laid down again. Though outwardly he was his usual calm self, inside he suddenly reeled from the impact of some unknown force. Without any warning his insides roared out and struck its tail against the ground like furious snakes. So much anger pent up inside him? He had had no idea that he had this much anger hoarded inside him.

He felt depressed. He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep, and indeed after a while sleep did come. But that sleep was broken by the raucous cawing of crows. The whole day, he raged to himself, you can be awake, and not once would you hear a crow's or an eagle's screech, but fall asleep for a moment and right then that scream would pierce your eardrum.

Eventually, he did rage out loud. Directing his voice in the direction of the kitchen, he yelled out: 'It's two-thirty now. Mother, the cooking's not yet done?'

Again, everything fell silent. So silent, in fact, that Akbar had an overwhelming desire to jump up, run over to the cat that was walking by and kick it so hard that it would be flung into the distance and its bones smashed to pieces. And Rabeya? Suddenly he was reminded of Rabeya's thin body, how fragile it had seemed.

Then he ate. And later slept, too.

Waking up from sleep the first sound he heard was the shrill cry of an eagle soaring far up in the sky. At a great distance high up above--perhaps almost out of sight--and yet like a sharp spear its scream flew through the sea of silence. So, beyond this curtain of silence amid the open air there were still more horizons!

Dreams flowed through into his mind, through and down into his mind. The whole house was silent, perhaps they were all asleep. Who knew where was Rabeya? After a while Akbar stood up, walked out to the other room. Yes, they were all asleep--but Rabeya was not there. Where was she? That she was not sleeping, this thought suddenly struck him and filled him with pleasure.

Rabeya was standing beneath the guava tree in the little garden at the back of the house, looking up at it while chewing something in her mouth. She was holding a guava in her hand, and had gathered a bunch of them in the loose end of her sari. In that silent garden in the still noon Rabeya's mind was so absorbed in working along the groove of her task (an absorption usually not possible in the presence of others) that when Akbar spoke to her from behind ('Eating a guava, eh?') she gave such a violent start that all her guavas tumbled onto the ground from her sari end.

'Oh my! Look, all your guavas have fallen on the ground.'

Though Rabeya did look down at them she made no attempt to retrieve them. Akbar did not say anything else and remained silent. Then suddenly he laughed and said, 'Will you give me one of your guavas?'

Rabeya did not say anything, just stood there looking confused. There was a reason for this. She had known Akbar to be a man of few words, solemn and quiet. While she had acknowledged the reality of his presence her mind not gone beyond it. It had said: this man is like a photograph hanging on a wall, doesn't talk, doesn't laugh. And now when that person came into this garden and began to talk and laugh with her, it seemed unreal to her, as if the photograph on the wall had suddenly climbed down and transformed itself in a flesh-and-blood creature that had begun to talk. A strange sight, and she could not fit the two halves together.

But dreams were coursing through Akbar's mind, and that too with some speed. Which was why he suddenly grabbed her by the hand and asked: 'Won't you really give me a guava? Won't you?'

Rabeya was transfixed. But the stream within Akbar began to flow even faster. And suddenly he drew her near to him by tugging on her hand and cried out: 'I love you, I love you dearly.'

A bewildered Rabeya's eyes turned red with embarrassment and she cast her eyes down momentarily before lifting them to look directly into Akbar's eyes. In a trembling voice that yet had the authority that truth lends, she said 'Oh, how can you be this low?'

She then turned and went inside, the guavas still scattered on the ground.

Akbar again became quiet inside. The flow of dreams stopped, and lay in a heap on the peaks of his mind.

And so dreams sometimes roll down through men's minds. And sometimes bear fruit, and sometimes do not. Sometimes they see that below there is no sea which they can flow into, and sometimes they catch sight of an infinite, unbounded ocean. In the first instance the dream-flow fades away, but those over whom fate has a hand their insides become so cold that their flow freezes and becomes still to later flow again. But the others find themselves destroyed: dreams keep rolling through, flowing down, and then slowly die out, and all is finished.

This is the norm, because the dreamless man is a man without meaning.

Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star.