The Man Who Sold Buddha
Neeshant Srivastava

 

The Man Who Sold Buddha

Neeshant Srivastava
It was a harsh summer of bruises. The only favour the hills did was to leave him alive. Dustin Christopher Hopes alias Hope Bishnur tattered to pieces by the raging hoi polloi stood firm, tuft of stolidity garnered from his Boy Scout days. The furious turned to the streets, to those narrow bylanes dictated by thin habitation crowding hilly slopes. Hope could no longer see where it hit or whose anger melted like a red hot cauldron on his frail framework. Blows were indiscriminate and constant attacks wouldn�t let him feel the ground. His white shirt was soaked in Christian blood, a proud heritage that led his forefathers to the hallowed gates of deliverance. His white hands turned pale red and bore a nagging twitch, as he lunged in thin air for a piece of himself. His Bhutanese gold glasses lay crushed on the ground shattered to shards of Buddhist faith. His brown hair mingled with red clay and had become a device to grip the rogue. He did protest in wails when he was dragged out of his chair in the office of �Phankot Weekly� like a �One fine day� syndrome They then drowned in blinding clarity like day for riddance of the rogue. Hope hopelessly donned a subdued defiance and succumbed to the motions. He raised his hands in submission, hoping that the onslaught would soon subside. It did in moments only to raise and bar in a fusillade of wholesome blows from soldiers of the land. Passing public on errands halted with hand-shades to stave off the harsh sun and watched with curious eyes to fathom the nothingness of the situation. Perhaps their eyes didn�t catch the culprit who was in the celebrated list of the area and they preferred to evade the crowd in ignorance. Finally Hope and his acerbic entourage reached the gutter covered by a scorching lid. Hope was asked to do the honours and help himself into the dark chambers of hell. Unrelenting yet in total submission he was thrown like a top into the sea of grime and slush and floating creatures yet unknown to man. The lid was secured back and the rampant crowd dispersed.
Dustin Christopher Hopes arrived in Phankot, a hilly paradise somewhere near Bhutan, as a raging traveller seeking redemption. He was absconding from his native Purla in the plains. Running away from home was elementary for someone seeking an identity or to attain greatness, so was his indelible prophecy. His tenure at �Phankot Weekly� as editor would soon rechristen him Hope Bishnur and make him embrace Buddhist faith. How he became the coveted is another tale drowned in conniving manipulation and playing the alien ticket with his white skin and blonde hair. It had been a long and steep climb for someone with an iota of writing prowess. He befriended top officials of the weekly and called on them at their villas after making home in their reaching hearts. He then conveniently ran the cold dagger through their hearts with caustic criticism strewn all around the office premises. The outcome was a significant five days of the week during which his articles were carried by the newspaper. There were two people visibly running the whole show, Hope and the editor while the office wore a deserted look mostly with two entangled aficionados in its helm of affairs. The editor had his eyes fixated to a bigger platform to exercise his expertise from the day he joined Phankot Weekly as editor. He was looking for an opportune moment to slip away from Phankot and join a bigger team maybe in New Delhi. The iron was hot for a little coaxing and Hope was up to the task. Pretty soon Hope occupied the throne of editor, the man behind �Phankot Weekly�. Hope worked in frenzy with his articles featuring regularly on the front page and his musings shifted to the work and times of the honourable minister of Phankot. There was a growing clique constituting the brain behind Phankot Weekly disgruntled by the ways of Hope. Those on higher level of management knew how Hope managed to roll a jackpot amid tactful moves. His diabolic plot was overlooked by Mother Hills and offered a balming respite and warmth. The majestic hills reverberated in an exalted panorama exuding an aura of grandeur in an ocean of green. He swallowed tomes of archived material featuring Feliese Bombata the incumbent chief minister of Phankot. His interest in political history of the state saw him riveted to gazetted information late into the night when no stranger took to the dead streets. Bombata the �Father� of modern Phankot could feel the pulse of the area and the jagged streets of the hills whispering meanderings in hope of the common man carried his name in astounding faith. It was a perfect mingle of the white and fair amid flashing tubes when Hope first shook hands with the Gibraltar of the North East. Hope and his army ran the show upholding principles as old and altruistic as the expansive hills. Hope and his weekly befitted patronage of the rich and wealthy and his connections spread like a map. He sure had kissed the road to greatness ruling teeming hearts in an ensemble of well rounded write-ups that spoke the common language. For a ravaged few Hope was all grasping in a garb of a pseudo messiah with his machinations and unknown schemes like a demon of ambition that was growing out of proportions. He grew jealous of Bombata, the saviour of Phankot in trying times, the name smeared on every grain of soil the land held, nemesis for some. How could one man become a colossus to which all bowed their heads to someone who was the law of the land, a touch of bliss for the hills. Hope dreamt and dreamt of glory touching his feet someday. Hope, the emaciated trooper with paltry height embraced Buddhist faith, a reverberation from previous birth where the Christian faith was just a mirage, an illusion. He managed to put up a facade for many coming through as a humanitarian while a select few knew his true colour. He committed comprehensively to Bombata eulogizing and revealing every nook and cranny of an esteemed life in his writings.
Phankot had an unblemished flow as a model unit under Bombata with a burgeoning proletariat and carefree capitalists. Poor saved a penny for rainy days with free education for their children whose tender shoulders carried a different kind of weight.
Hope�s extensive research on a rich man�s deals took him to Intex project which had a huge budget running into millions, buried in the past as a success story. This would introduce computers, internet into the area for the first time. Government organizations were targeted and made digital in the lap of a hi-tech world. Computer literacy was the new buzz word siphoned off into the intellect of its growing populace. Trendy workstations replaced dank paper that saw the town descend into the gabble and ride on jazzy fliers of what this dream machine could achieve. The auditor who was regarded as the final word of wisdom in a sensitive trade never raised his eyes in doubt as he skimmed through balance sheets and accounts with utmost confidence. A man of literary classics he stopped by at Bombata�s for a drink in the evening. He confessed that he rather be blown away to pieces by strong winds caressing the hilly slopes than indulge in formalities like checking up on the architect of Phankot. The �Emperor� bowed in appreciation in a delectable witticism.
��Shine on your temple is my concern, do you carry a handkerchief?� the duo guffawed into oblivion.
The day of the downfall had a quizzical tag in the headline, doubting the man himself. Intex one claimed was Bombata�s own parakeet who could utter his own words, the way he wanted. Article claimed Bombata�s amassing wealth would see him erect an empire out of a tethered tent. Expensive cars, a bungalow, daughter in the US for higher education were seen as a direct outcome of contorting figures of government expenditure. Hope had documentary proof manufactured in his factories and endorsed per se. This was the result of Hopes deep insight into Intex while the whole world slept over it. He printed escaping number of sets of documents and laid them out on the table.
Hope dreamt of a garland welcome by Phankot that day indulging in morning reveries and his cup of tea. Phankot woke up that morning while Bombata lazily skimmed over the headlines and headed for a game of golf with the boys. The accuser was dragged out of his hiding place and given his due. Hope�s slender hand reached out for the table but was dragged in the opposite direction by a tight harness on his neck.
Hope headed for Purla after his dereliction and his resurrection in the dead of night by Bombata himself.
�Get some treatment son, and your home needs you, good bye� an honest Bombata reminded the flirting dabbler.
Helped by Bombata out of the gutter, Hope was ravaged, broken to the tee, legs simmering like hot lava let loose on cluttered bones. He dreamt of days spent under star spangled skies with the neurotic dabbler, Leer on the banjo. They say he was one with Leer on lonesome nights dazzled by fine wine of the countryside. He struggled to recollect the last time his eyes lashes clung together in sleep. Face smeared with black muck, tattered clothes hanging over protruding bones, he looked like someone out of a Nigerian jail. He took to a touring bus like an ostracized delinquent hiding behind bars and from eyes gazing at the spectacle. Purla was three hours away with a bathe under some cantankerous tap swamped by flowing water through a hole in eternity, ideal for strangers too good for the loo, in the interim. For one, a perfect gentleman in Hope had never witnessed the heavens in his usual exotic ablutions. There he hid himself completely under water while the bus took a breather. Like a prisoner of war in a Hollywood flick he shut his eyes hard and heard the cool guzzling sounds. Skin turned from pale ash to smiting white. His brown locks shone like gold harvest in the July sun crowning a magic temple. There was a semblance of dignity for the famished traveller even in the eyes of little children. They giggled with reaching hands for a stranger in the shoes of a self proclaimed martyr.
Father�s curious eyes peeped in, glad that old Dusty was still alive.
�You glide by night and fly by day, but you will always remind me of the Dusty I have known, forever unerring, someone who would not pee in his pants while other kids had their fill. You know how to play the game, don�t you? Glad to know you�re back."
He found his ladder of hope in Prof. Duncan whom he met at the University carnival hosted by its alumni. Ex-students strewn by time with receding hairlines to secure corners of the globe jumped in to witness the place they once knew and cherished. Hope was one of them who felt true freedom the day he graduated. He liked the spontaneity of Duncan and his rich reservoir of thoughts reflecting a deteriorating world order to cataclysmic aberrations. Astounded by his rich intellect trespassing on subjects far flung from psychology, Duncan�s mainstay, he stood shelled and dumbfounded. Duncan wore no pretensions and spoke the heart of the matter in fine rhythm. His repertoire hid a glimpse of compassion for Kashmiri pundits or the circumstances that led to the collapse of Berlin wall and its reprcussions on the East we laid down vividly from a calligraphic memory. Meetings ensued at Duncan�s or at the local coffee shop. Duncan was totally blind to Hope�s torrid past and saw in him a blend of youth and promise. Hope was ushered back in silence, senses holding utter disbelief to Duncan�s words while taking his leave one day.
�I know Sam, chief editor of Purla Daily, my dear buddy from college days; he can sure do something for you.�
Sam took to Hope like fish to water.
He sure impressed all and like a man under oath, true to faith, Hope never missed a beat in playing dirty politics deliberating an ouster of the kith and kin of the daily. Duncan did not lose his cool and back tracked one night attune to vociferous banter at Sam�s, streaming through the purple window, ridiculed and banished as a creepy fag from their coterie. Duncan�s insightful articles that once occupied the �must read� section of the daily now carried the weight of the waste basket. Hope clung like termite to upholstery of a popular daily, Purla�s incessant eyes. How he could crop the world to resurrect his Garden of Eden is a mystery held back in mist of ages.
The story doesn�t end there. Hope never changed a wink working for Purla daily and played games albeit his warnings by the people of Phankot. He became a counsellor, preacher of Buddhist faith. Editors were small fish for him for someone who had rummaged the small town of Phankot for his pound of flesh and locked horns with bigwigs of the land. But now they looked up to him for direction and in urgency. There emanated the same old story of the hunter and the hunted. They say that treachery also needs practice.
He trampled paper dreams written on soggy foreheads and feisty eyes proudly serving the daily. His immaculate English and a western etiquette sunk right into sensibilities of spin doctors and architects of a popular newspaper.
Hope was determined to find a Heaven in Hell. He traversed the opposite path negating popular belief that it takes two to make a clanging noise. His experiments would find him live a meagre life with barely enough to keep him going. Cleanliness was his motto with load of books to keep him awake late into nights. He remembered that dusk in Phankot when he was riding along the countryside in his four stroke. Suddenly a young boy appeared on his path and froze in the heat of the moment. Hope was enraged perhaps a Bombata repercussion who was rising in stature and declared the Last Emperor of Phankot. Hope in his wrath drove over the boy�s ribs.The boy collapsed, gasping in pain and an indifferent Hope rode on. His experiments made him muse as someone who got away with felony and corrupt practices in the hope of finding Buddha.
 Hope opened a welfare organization for the purpose of social work where all attendees were declared sick. Lack of self confidence and esteem with an extreme case of dwarfed mindset would see them doomed. They were treated to the Buddhist dictum where silence holds the key to salvation. He had reams of scriptures planted in his brain and he let out each, in a room drowned in smoke of incense. He was called the �White Baba�. He believed in meditation and would often sleep naked with his disciples especially young children.
Purla anointed Hope as the Holy one, resurrected, and a hermit by his conscience. He now had stepped into the shoes of greatness. His life had come round a full circle
They say that some dark night the �Baba� attained �Samadhi� on his way to enlightenment.
Did he really go that far is still doubtful for a list of people who thought otherwise. Hope was like an insect with poison in its veins that found peace the deeper it sunk into earth into rigorous oblivion. This was not a desire but an urgent necessity to hide its wings lest it clips to the whirring winds.
It did turn out that way. Hope was thrown in his hideout, snuggled in an unknown corner only known to his pompous self. His flighty steps never kissed the path he once took with �lan while protruding deeper in to the psyche of the esteemed. The hills held him for the longest spell until the final hour as compared to Purla where he was written off before he could spell �disaster�. The learned editor of Purla daily was put off by Hope�s latest tricks and subsequently urged the casual delinquent with utmost respect to retreat to his den, no clarification sought or given. His world was shrinking fast like on a mission to save itself from stagnation and perpetual doom. Time knocked on his doors and he struggled for an answer.
His brown boots had lost its colour from neglect. Tattered leather in sea of fungus in notches and grooves had seen better days wallowing in sunshine. Now in a dilapidated countenance the shoes wore a rabbit hole. His pale flesh hung loose under his arms and neck. His mouth was slightly open humming words unintelligible and unforeseen by himself and the general public. His august company comprised of fatalist gurus swallowing the umbrage of destiny written over their crumbling bones and body. They lived on alms and pity in a fight to satiate hunger. Hope in his bedraggled dentures gazed constantly at his swollen empty canister clanging against firm ground. Barely clad with wrinkles hugging his deformed body he was a fifty two year old man in the garb of a little child. He was a man who never gave up on his journey to perdition. The man who set out to conquer Buddha was banned from all quarters of human existence and reduced to beggary. He was a slave to his ego that took him from burgeoning environs to dismal ruins. Hope carved his own destitution as he waited hopelessly for the final hour.
There unfolds a mindless carnage,
In a silhouette of abandoned virtue,
Stupefy in games of yore,
Crush the prudish legion,
Of the lofty hills lilting in a lap of bliss,
With numbing thought in fiendish bent,
The man who walked too proud,
And when the day arrived,
Smatter and stutter to eke out his name,
Of a man who stole Buddha,
A man who sold Buddha.

 

 

Copyright © 2012 Neeshant Srivastava
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"