The face

THE FACELESS EVENING
(Short story)

PROF. GANGADHAR GADGIL
(Translated by the author from the original in Marathi)

It was one of those dull, listless evenings of Bombay. The fading sunlight lay on it like a layer of dust. There was nothing particular about it. It had no face at all. A faceless evening! Rather shocking if one comes to think of it. But nobody seemed to give a damn. Nor did I for that matter. I was walking home­wards with my legs moving forward and ward mechanically. Cores of other legs moved the same way. A concert of moving legs. Rather silly. I would say. But nobody seemed to think so.

A horsedrawn Victoria, remnant of the British era, creaked and jolted past me. The horses’ hoof hit a stone “A spark streaked off it at a sharp angle. It was bright and alive for an instant and then ceased to exist. An atom of energy and an atom of time – a momentary existence, an accidental equation. A thrilling coincidence, that thrilled nobody.

Huge letters, burnt into the sky, standing astride a tall building. Brashly assertive, insistent. Trying to wipe out conscious­ness everything else and filling it with a Cola. Succeeding by sheer size and brightness.

A child in its mother’s arms staring wide eyed at the in­decipherable scribble of objects, colours, movements and clutching in its tiny fist its mother’s saree. Mother gives it a bright nickel coin to hold. The child’s eyes fix on it with a jerk. It closes its fingers around it to feel it. The coin vanishes from view. The child is astounded, confused. Its fingers open and the coin reappears shining and very much there. The child closes its fingers and opens them again. It does that once again and again. A flicker of com­prehension. Child’s face splits wide open in a big smile. The eyes sink and are lost in a surge of chubby wrinkles. Its head loses balance and falls . The child opens its eyes and finds itself staring at a huge poster of a screen goddess. The child gapes awestruck at that apparition in garish colours. Its smile vanishes. The screen goddess huge and impervious keeps on smiling her famous million - rupee smile.

A cacophony sounds! dominated by the screaming insistent horns of automobiles. A hundred drills being driven into the ears. Faces staring out of window screens. Uniformed drivers, women with faces as smooth as plastic and blood-red lips, stone-faced Govern­ment officers, exuding authority, go-better executives, reckless young men, mild-mannered prosperous hankers. All wearing the informal faces drained of expression. “Get out of the way, damn you!” They barked wordlessly.

If they had spoken, each would have said it differently in a different voice of his own. But all the different things they had to say were translated into a primal language of sound – a mechanical scream, brash, rude, demanding.

A frightening transformation, if one came to think of it. But nobody bothered, nobody was scared.

Way down the street, a loudspeaker jutting out of a shop vomited film music. It had no face, only an obscenely large funnel of a mouth. It vomited the song without a movement of lips, an intake of breath, or movements in the throat. Three minutes of devotional music, three minutes of love. A small crowd stood around the loudspeaker drinking in the music.

Further down a hawker blithely announced in a stentorian voice, “Auction! Gigantic auction! A company gone broke. Goods on sale! Dirt cheap! Rush and pick what you want A lucky chance of a life - time! A company gone phut! Rush brothers, rush.”

A crowd quickly gathered around him eyeing his wares greedily. Nobody bothered to ask about the company that had gone broke. Could it be the Universal Enterprise Ltd.?

Suddenly a deafening sound drowned all others. A van with posters hung around it slowly approached from one end of the street. It had loudspeakers mounted on top like cannons on a tank. A stream of slogans burst out of the loudspeakers.

“Peace in Korea! We demand Peace! Peace in Korea! Peace! Peace! Peace!”

The slogans smashed into the ears and exploded in the head. They stunned. They were meant to stun.

I ran into a man I knew while I walked along the street. He smiled. So did I! He moved his lips. I heard nothing. He moved his lips again. I heard nothing. Our words had vanished, crowded out of the universe of sound. Possibly it was a beginning of the final banishment of what people had to say to each other. We both laughed soundlessly and went our way.

“Peace! Peace! Peace!” barked the loudspeakers out of their big permanently-open mouths.

It took quite some time for the deafening demand for peace to get out of my earshot. My raped and stunned ears slowly regained their ability to hear. My eyes once again began to perceive things. I began to notice again the endless stream of humanity walking past me like products on a conveyor belt. They all looked so alike! one had the comic feeling that they were all identical coins spewing from a gigantic mint round the corner. They all looked alike, pale imitations of the film gods and goddesses, who loomed large over their heads astride the posters in garish colours. The shrug, the slouch, the wiggle of the hips and the smiles! Myriad imitations of the million rupee smiles.

The film stars cannot really give birth to so many of their copies. Yet this has been accomplished. The scientists too are at work, achieving what at one time was inconceivable. A woman can now conceive without copulation and bear the child of a man whom she has not known or even seen. Marie sperms can be preserved for years. Hitler or Stalin can be the father of a child born fifty years later. The scientists may be able eventually to give new personalities to people. One could then buy a personality over a counter. “New Delhi, 29th December 1999:

The Prime Minister today inaugurated a gleaming, high tech factory for manufacture of children. The first child produced by the factory was presented to the Prime Minister amidst flashing bulbs of cameras. On the suggestion of the Prime Minister the child has been designed to be intensely patriotic. The Prime Minister in his inaugural speech lauded the achievement of Indian scientists and said, “This is a giant step forward in the progress of our country. This factory will remove the major obstacle in the path of planned development of this country.”

Our special correspondent reports that the scientists have succeeded in manufacturing pills that would enable a person to have the kind of dreams he likes. These pills are likely to be produced on a commercial scale in the near future. Marketing experts predict that there is likely to be a heavy demand for nightmares, adventures and sexual fantasies!

Wonderful! Isn’t it?

“Life is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing,” says Shakespeare. Stupid, isn’t it?
Did the faceless evening smile wanly. Or was it a sob?

A girl stopped in front and threw a smile at me! Faceless was she? No, No, baby - faced.

“You are not seeing things. Where is your mind wandering?”, she asked with another baby - faced smile.

She opened her purse with an automatic movement, took out a tiny handkerchief, closed the purse, wiped her face and opened the purse....

“Sorry, I was thinking of something,” I said.

“Thinking, were you? Of whom?” She quickly closed and opened her eyes mischievously. I  had seen that pretty gesture in a film.

She played with the pallav of her saree and wiggled her legs.

I smiled vacuously. She responded with a pretty smile.

“Did you see that Shashi Kapoor movie which is a big hit?” she asked.

She looked at me and delicately dropped her eyelids for no reason at all. It was another gesture. I had seen inevitably in a movie. She had not yet perfected it. This was a practice session. I could think of nothing to say. I said, “The big cricket match tomorrow. Are you going to watch it?”

She arched her brows, stroked her lips delicately with her fingers, “mm...! I might, if I am in the mood.”

So we spoke for a while and bade good bye to each other. A three - minute record of gestures and talk had been played. After a little while she may play it over again ... open her purse, take out kerchief, close the purse and throw a smile.

A record being played in thousands of homes.

“Bring me a trumpet, I will blow it with such passion ...” said a poet. What next? Nothing, the needle is stuck, the same lines over and over again.

A violent screech of brakes. A blood - curdling scream. A wild rush, a stampede. A milling crowd greedily swallowed the scene of the accident. A man lay dead. The crowd stared at him, at the car. Blood! Death! A severed leg! Initial fright! of death of unknown! Behind it lurked an itch for the sensational, for gore and violence. The itch got the better of the fight. Itch and mindless curiosity.

The people in the crowd were not inherently cruel. Had the man been alive they would have rushed to help, given him a glass of water, called an ambulance. But the itch was also very much there and so was curiosity, mindless, indifferent! Itch and curiosity of a crowd! The waves of responses. Chaotic unstructured! That crowd could have been moved to tears by the broken heart of a lovelorn movie heroine. It could have started a riot after hearing the incendiary harangue of a demagogue. It would have stampeded in panic in the face of a posse of club-wielding policemen. It could have viciously pursued and belaboured to death a petty thief caught in the act. It could have burst into raucous laughter on hearing an obscenity or … It could have done anything at all and quite unpredictably.

A pool of blood. A trickle slowly began to flow out of it. They all watched its halting progress half-afraid and half-expecting that it would flow towards them. The trickle found a slope and began to flow in that direction. The people standing there screamed and fell in confusion. A chap fell fiat on his . The crowd burst into laughter.

I shuddered when I heard the laughter. That crowd of living people frightened me more than the death that was on public view. Equally frightening was the solemnity with which they picked up the shoes of the dead man and placed them neatly by his side. They were so driven by contradictory impulses, so contrary at times and always so unpredictable.

That fear was matched by the awe-inspired by scientists delving deep into the secrets of life itself and developing techniques of manipulation and control.

A scientist might walk into the crowd, pick up the severed leg and with a magic chemical attach it to the body making it whole. He could with an injection or electrical stimulus bring him to life. The man would then get up, put on his shoes and say to the driver who killed him, “Thanks an awful lot. Death was a thrilling experience. I enjoyed the terror of it all.”

The driver may offer to do it for him once again. They may then part company with a warm handshake.

That could start a craze to get killed. Multimillion rupee companies may be floated to offer people: various kinds of thrilling deaths. People would buy shares and invest in such. companies. The companies may vie with each other to import latest techno­logies from U.S.A. and Japan. All existing laws, attitudes and philosophical speculations about death would be irrelevant and obsolete. A smart kick administered by science would change life, society, everything. While humanity is coping with this gigantic earthquake, science would administer yet another kick. Man may perish in this flood of scientific achievement. Then perhaps a new civilization of bees would grow on this earth. The possibilities were mind- boggling. They inspired a terror of life and man himself.

Human life is a mammoth fair. Its main attraction is a merry-­go-round that goes faster and still faster until excitement and thrill get transformed into terror, orange, red black. The, visit to the temple costs a copper paisa, as offering to God. A ride in the merry-go-round also costs a paisa. One closes one’s eyes with reverence in the presence of God. When one rides the merry-go-round the eyes are closed automatically through fright. In either case one has to grope in the dark. One comes in this world with a copper paisa of awareness and what it ultimately fetches is this.

Why not spend the copper paisa on a sticky chewy sweet? One can chew on it endlessly. But that option is not open. One gets sucked in the vortex of the merry-go-round. One has to live in terror.

Terror! Terror in the shape of big, black headlines in news­papers. Each letter aspiring to fill the page, the entire consciousness. A multitude of diverse terrors. Terror of knowledge! Terror of ignorance! Terror of bondage and of boundless freedom too. Terror of others and terror of oneself!

Mammoth serpents of terror! And mammoth ladders too. One climbs high on the ladders and pierces the sky. One is swallowed by the serpents and falls into the depths of darkness. One holds one’s destiny in the dice in one’s little fist. A shake and a throw and where does it take us?

That evening in Bombay I was tired and dull. My legs moved mechanically like the blades of a pair of scissors to take me home.

A tiny flutter of breeze! A kite fluttered too and soared in the sky. Young little leaves on tree flickred. A little boy raised his arm high, gave a joyous shout and ran nowhere in particular, for no reason at all. The lad at the counter of the grocer’s shop picked up a piece of jaggery and dropped it in his mouth. The dust on the street was lifted and travelled a little with the breeze and settled down somewhere else.

I broke out of my reverie, the thoughts got shuffled like a pack of cards. Somebody gave me just five cards and asked me to call the trump!

It was a gamble, a leap in the dark. I caught the spirit of it and said, “The last card I get that will be my trump!”

The cards continued to be dealt out and the deal never seemed to end. No last card! No trump! A nudge by an unseen hand and a card dealt out to me flicked and fell open. It was the queen of hearts.

Who gave the nudge? Why was I so thrilled at the site of the queen of hearts? Why had my fancy suddenly taken flight? I knew it. She had done it. Who was she? I didn’t know. I had seen her. Where? Oh somewhere, anywhere! That did not matter. All that mattered was that she was there just a few steps away from me. There she stood facing away from me talking to somebody earnestly with her chin raised just a wee bit. A little woman, slightly plump, as very young girls are. But she was not very young, just young. Her delicate arms swayed a little. Her ears were small and delicate and waves of light shimmered over her dark, lustrous hair. She lifted her chin a little more, the rounded lustrous bun of her hair rested on her and was lifted just a little. The red rose in her hair tilted and looked at me teasingly. The pallav of her sari draped over her arm, slipped and fell languorously on her hips. With a slight movement, she shifted her weight to one side. Her hips changed posture just a little. But that was enough to send my heart fluttering all around her.

A strange magic was at work. I stood there transfixed, trans­ported into a fairyland fragrant with flowers. I wanted to be close to her. I wanted her to talk to me in a sweet whisper and illuminate everything with a smile.

Whence this magic? Why had it enchanted me? I did not know. It may not happen when I see her again or it might. Perhaps she was like the girl I met in the street – the girl with a three - minute record of personality. The magic spell might be broken any moment and the fairy - tale would end without even having begun.

Love stories! Oh, I have half a dozen of them. Here is one about calf love and here is a medieval romance and a third one is full of sex and violence. They all cost around three rupees. Do you want it to read on a train journey or give it as a present at a wedding?

I ignored that babble.

“It is really a bio-chemical process.…” observed a scientist employed in the factory for manufacturing babies.

A psychologist said something with so much jargon in it, that it conveyed no meaning at all.

I ignored them all, left my fluttering heart at her feet and walked away. Totally unaware of it, she stepped on the fluttering heart as she continued her earnest conversation. The heart lay crushed and bleeding under her foot. Yet it was deliriously happy and it was happiness and not blood that spurted out of the crushed heart.

I walked along the street cutting distance with my feet like a pair of scissors. My heart lay at her feet and that did not bother me at all. What had happened was something tremendous, miraculous and frightening too. But somehow I was totally uncon­cerned, or rather indifferent. I wanted to have a smoke and relax.

That evening in Bombay was listless and tired. Its hair was unkempt and dusty and it so happened, that had no face at all.