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Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 17, April 11, 2009

A Story of the Bees—A Fable for Our Times

Sunday 12 April 2009, by Sagari Chhabra

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The following, published in the Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature (November-December 2008), is being reproduced with due acknowledgement and the author’s permission.

Once there was a woman who knew a story, but she kept it to herself. She never ever told anyone about it. One day the story got tired of growing and growing within her, he clamoured to be heard; but the woman would not let him out. “My lips are sealed,” she would say grimly to anyone who asked her about herself and her face took on a set, dead-pan look.

One hot summer afternoon, when she lay asleep, snoring with her mouth wide open, the story, tired of incubating within, climbed out. He leapt onto the incense stick which spluttered into a flame, alive with the story. And the aura of the now incensed story spread for miles around. The neighbour, smelling the fabulous fragrance, came and begged the woman to light her incense stick. As soon as the stick was lit, the story transferred onto her and she was all agog to tell her story. This spread for miles—incense sticks with spluttering flames, spread stories of joy and passion and soon the entire village was abuzz with stories. The women were whispering stories into the ears of their lovers and the flames were igniting secret passions. There were a season of marriages: Muslims marrying Hindus, Jews marrying Catholics, Jains intermingling with the Sikhs, the Buddhists the Parsis—the village became a feast of festivities and children of mixed blood, known for their fabled, sculpted beauty, were born. They came to be known as the ‘love stories’ of the village.

¨

The story of the village spread far and wide. Not too far away there lived a group that was hierarchical and obedient. The group believed that being true to their own faith meant enforcing strict segregation of caste, class and religious groups. They did not like rollicking women making love in the presence of spluttering flames. The regiment always did everything in unison and obeyed authority. They set up a bee-keeping unit in which work was based on cadres. Everyone set to his or her own work. One man’s job was to get the bees, the other was to build the hives, the third saw to it that the bees swarmed out and then returned at the appointed time.

The people from the other village thought bee-keeping was an industrious activity and hoped that some day their neighbours would share some honey with them. After many months of hard work the regiment released the bees in a huge cloud. But what was this? The villagers gasped, the cloud that headed towards their village was a cloud of orange. A closer look revealed it to be a mass of swarming, angry wasps, intent on stinging everyone on their way. Everyone was in a spin; they had been so busy celebrating the many inter-faith marriages that they never thought that they would be attacked by a stinging brigade. The wasps flew in three parallel lines: one wasp at the tip, then the others followed in single file, converging at the back in a U shape and then again, a long line followed from the middle, almost like a forked spear.

Then one of the women pregnant with a story, rose and ran to the prayer room. Everyone thought she had gone to seek salvation for the lives of the entire village and they fell into a silent prayer, fearing the orange onslaught. The woman emerged with an incensed stick, burning with rage at what was happening. Soon she lit a fire with the other flames that crackled as they spoke, indeed roared to each other. The fire rose to a crescendo—a spiralling smoke unfurled from the flames and as the wasps encircled and then entered the village, it singed them till they turned, upsetting the carefully orchestrated, three-tiered design.

Soon the flames started speaking; “the sting of a wasp spreads its toxin far into the body,” warned the blue to the red flame. But the red flame, swirling playfully, ignited by the turn of events, sang joyfully: “don’t let the smoke get into your eyes.” Now, the news of the happening spread like wildfire. Every one spoke of the talking flames that had singed the stinging wasps, causing them to retreat. The news reached the ears of the secretary to the government. He was a large, officious looking man who had a hearing problem. His large ears turned hard of hearing when it came to the poor and the marginalised. He deputed one of his underlings with an order: “Go and find out, what these damn good-for-nothing villagers are up to.” The civil servant was not exactly new to his task, he had visited the village during drought when their food supplies had withered, and then again during a major flood when their dreams had been washed away. He hated the thought of a bumpy village ride and was fantasising about a single malt at a pub, when his dreams were disrupted with “sahib, chai to piyoge?”—“Sir you will have tea, won’t you?” “No, no, young chap,” the civil servant had responded testily. “No tea, just tell me” and he drew closer to the uncouth lad, faintly smelling of the earth and fresh cow dung, “What’s this about village harmony” and he coughed as he felt almost silly now, “these rumours of…… of……” and he faltered “this talk about the flames?”

But the villager, although young, was wise; he knew that they had told their story about the pain of selling cattle in times of drought and the trauma of seeing their household goods being washed away during the flood. The civil servant had heard them and done nothing. A story once told should be felt. So the villager kept the story to himself. The civil servant was no fool. He realised the villagers were keeping something to themselves, so he marked the file ‘Top Secret’ with a sub-text: ‘Village to be kept under surveillance for suspicious activities’.

The flames spoke to one another: “I almost never made it!”

“Whatever for?” asked the red flame curiously.

“They took away the eldest boy of the house for questioning; the mother was heart-broken so she didn’t light a fire in the kitchen for a week!” said the blue flame.

“Tough,” said the red flame. “You almost didn’t come alive! But just what did they want to know?”

“Oh, they just wanted a story out of him, but what does the poor boy know!”

The red flame flickered just a bit in sympathy. Soon more and more men were taken away and the village women were feeling isolated and lonely. Out tumbled stories of their first love and growing up, womanhood and now this baffling isolation. The air was filled with nostalgia and there was a wistful, misty smoke in everyone’s eyes as the stories filled the room, curling into corners, filling empty spaces. The village was filled with a heady, almost overpowering, fragrance. The regiment could sense the fragrance of the village grow in correspondence to the men emptying out and they were filled with an uneasy anxiety.

¨

One night a mysterious fire raged; the sacred space in which inter-faith marriages were performed was burnt down. The courtyard, the dome, the pew were reduced to ashes, while the air had an odious smell. Everyone was filled with fear, but no one knew who in the village would do something so profane—turn a sacred site into cinder. Soon fingers were pointed at one another and the civil servant blandly noted in his file: ‘Village tension mounting’.

In the morning the new bride of the village awoke and went to the kitchen to make breakfast for her husband. As she poured the oil, the flame spluttered:

‘What goes into the pan

Is part of the plan.’

The bride lay awake all night—newlyweds normally do. She heard muffled voices and ventured out. She saw masked men walking towards another sacred site. She followed them on tip-toe and saw them pouring petrol onto the sacred spot. Then one of them tossed a match and the whole place was ablaze. Amidst the scramble of feet, the squelching of pipes, pitched voices, both the talking and the odious flames got extinguished. But the bride told everyone what she had seen. The regiment saw their plan had been exposed and decided to lie low, so that they could re-group. The civil servant noted in his file, drearily: “Women’s empowerment prog-rammes have been found to be successful in the village.”

But now that you know the story, you will tell it to someone, won’t you?

The author is a film director and writer.

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