The Dreamer from Beyond

I

I woke slowly. Two things were very clear- I was barely alive, wrapped in a hospital blanket. I could see the men in strange uniforms walking about in the corridors. The language they spoke was something I thought I knew, yet I could not make out. The air smelt of ether and of people crying, whimpering in low voices. Sleep was welcome, but my arms seemed locked somehow…

Once in a while a sterile figure in white walked in and looked at me and said something- I could see that she never understood me at all! She held my wrist high, and I saw the tube… and she made a brief note after sometime and faded out of my sight. I dreamt of a manhunt!

The prey was faceless- he had a mission, and he had erred while returning- he was wounded, crawling and thirsty for two days, caked with blood, wounds festering and dirty. The sporadic rain saved him from the tell tale smells of the hounds- but they were never far away! A hell as hell can be! Hills with very sharp sunrises and sunsets… these were the Pir Panjal Ranges! The hills had vegetation that could hide or betray at will, it depended which way the sun was shining. At night, the animals let off tell-tale noises of the alien. Barely sixty meters from the LOC, they saw him, and fired upon him- his own people! Return was difficult- these were his own countrymen, but they did not know he was there! Each time he tried to enter the forward defended lines, they let off a salvo, lit flares and brought down mortar shells too close for his comfort. Then one stray shell exploded near him with a blinding flash! And when he came to, he knew he had to get help! He turned back- for one last time, and then saw the Ranger Patrol… they had a dog!

There was no border, and there was no way he could go on indefinitely in his present state- he barely managed to be conscious- until he did go under, almost fatally!

The Rangers were in doubt. This man, wounded was coming towards them when they saw him. They lost him… and found him two hundred feet below- he had rolled down and bruised, incoherent and was calling out to someone- sounded like Fareeda! No not an Indian spy at least… but who knows!

Asleep, adrift, unmoored miles below the surface called consciousness, lay the poet in the dreamer’s mind… which way was up?

Coming Back Soon!
The musk

Had me pinned

It just called me in

I slept

Cradled

As you looked on

For eons!

To languor done

Dreamless

By the songs

Of sobs and wails

Sedated

As your eyes

Keep guard

I dream

Of caresses

Autumn leaves

Words

Echoes afloat,

A row boat and the oars

Drawing lines on my chest...

Millennia pass

The layers of crepe

Stripped offI hear

The muezzin

The clergy

I smell ether

Cleansing the scars

Of gunshots

I feel

The medicos

Fussing

And the merciful eyes

Wet

HopingI am not dead!

The beeps fade-

Another day

I know

I shall awake

Resurrected

From the stake!

The man on the bed was restless. Dr MKZ had been cautioned to keep this man alive for interrogations… there was an unaccounted for Indian intrusion some one month back- the same time when this man was brought in. The Ranger Captain had brought him in and dumped him, but the “other ones” were too curious about this handsome one, a twenty-six year old, obviously a soldier, lying semi-paralyzed in the bed- though the vital signs were good, and there was no other sign of permanent damage- severe concussion, perhaps ill treatment at the hands of his captors may have caused this condition. The two bullets that were recovered were evidence, kept in a locker somewhere. His shattered fibula was now well set. The loss of blood suffered was tremendous- they had put in three units of blood, and he wondered how at all he survived. He was certainly strong. The man’s breathing was disturbed, the monitors showed distress… Dr MKZ gathered his thoughts- he decide against enhancement of analgesic. Move him towards the southern window- let him soak in that glorious sunshine, and may be recovery would be better!

II

I saw myself lying on this hospital bed on and off… I knew I had been operated after I was caught- but why was I caught? I remember the pain- dragging myself, breathing hard, that abysmal pain in my leg… and I was put on a ventilator. Did I have chest injuries? But no, my chest felt whole… where exactly was my wound then? Why had they tied me up?

Signs

Gunshot Echoes!

My coma leads me

Through phases of dark and light

Amnesia

And drugged delight-

Battling for life

Docked like a submarine

To the oxygen machine

A stark roof

Limits me

When I am high!
The pips

Echo and measure

My heart,

Sometimes

When I die,

They call me back

From my friend-

Gabriel

He walks along in my dream,

And smiles!
The sounds of clinking bangles

Terrified squeaks

Of a woman at the bed side

Sobbing

Premonition speaks

Through her tears

I wonder why...

It is hard to leave

Love and hope carved

With the surgeon’s knife!

Wither?

Adrift in the twilight zone-

I wait-

For the road sign, alone!

Memories flooded in, still without a hint of who was I, where I am now, and why I was here. I feel a little hostility towards me when I see the people visiting they want to ask, and it is strange I cannot speak in the language they ask me- I have my own. They say some word for me- Baluchistan, yet I am not sure I know what it means!

III

The handsome patient, as they called him was now coming back from his long comatose sleep sessions. He smiled once in a while, moaned sometimes, and never spoke. There was something wrong with his EKG- it seemed he had amnesia too, he could not reply to any questions about himself so far. Nervous deficit was there in his back, yet there were involuntary movements in his lower limbs- was it a temporary thing. Dr MKZ thought, rather hoped that this man would recover enough to walk. One thing was sure, he was a fighter. And Dr MKZ knew he had no tattoos on his body, nothing that could tell who this patient was!

The handsome one was sleeping too much, one could see the smile on his face…

When!

When-

I awake and stare at the blue light above

I wonder from whence came the dust on my robe-

And why the birds that sang flew, the white feathers

Drew a boat afloat with my blood-

As I lay on a leaf bed,

Faces stared, was I dead?

When- I see you sit and face the West

And pray, I know I almost died to get your love,

And you are here today, don’t say

I just know, what all there is to know worth

My Gods live in the North!

When- I surface, every day,

The inquisitor waits- would I confess?

When- the chestnut hair touches the ground

As you rest on the chair, I know

How far it is from the barbed wire fence!

IV

The Diaries
I prayed silently- the only prayer I knew! Mother of God and Virgin, hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast given birth to the Savior of our souls.

I was walking at last- the limp would go soon too… where is my memory?

The handsome one was walking- they had to let him go. But he did know where to go after the hospital phase ended. The police had come here too, and they seemed to have no interest in him anymore! The field security people from the Cantonment too had visited him, and taken his photographs and left. In fact it was they who had kept a few guards outside till yesterday- the 93rd day of the patient’s stay here! Dr MKZ hoped he could talk.

The Diary: 11 November 2003

When I heard the news, I was shocked… I am going to be discharged in about two weeks, perhaps into prison- where they keep spies, and other dirt! I do not know what I am hiding… they think I am from Baluchistan or from Sind! For God's sake, I crossed over for her, let’s call her FJH, and I find myself in a lot of shit!

FJH notes everything I say in my mind! The nurses hate her- I think for they must be aware that trans-border love is bad! She is also a bit tired! She cries a lot! It’s all in my mind, and my diary is unreal too… Fareeda, how far can you be, and how near too- I am hallucinating still I guess!

This place is difficult!

When I wrote this post in my diary, the world as I know today was not created! I am alive, and will tell you my story, somehow! FJH won't mind!

Lucidity

Lucidity-

comes in puffs of hashish,

when I lie alone,

praying for the satanic streams to pass,

and for Divine bliss!

I moan-

awash with thread-less wisps of thoughts,

dreaming of what not, weary.

Is this my forever fate?

V

Diary Entry: 04 Feb 2004

Somewhere deep within,

I know, this too will pass somehow,

The miracles and the broken shackles,

Something lies ahead in store!

There are layers and more-

Like my bedsores,

But the voices have gone,

I lie in a stone room with a cobbled floor.

The old crone comes every day-

She smiles and stokes the fireI hate her,

I ask where is Fareeda,

And where is this place…

She says Zannat,

And your houri is long dead!

When you sponge me Crone-Maid,

I hurt, and your smile, I hate!

I am not Zia- nor Noor Mohammad-

I am not Ansar, a shame

Who knows... my name?

Tomorrow, I want hashish,

And the viper on my lips,

And when I sleep,

Bless me God,

With the kiss of death!

Diary 7 Feb 2004

I dream from time to time- I have subconscious awakenings, and I am scared too.

Who am I? I wonder! Why do I have the thoughts that I feel are a sacrament? This century knows terror- it comes ready- a packaged environment friendly RDX with the grinning kamikaze… a young bomber, cuddling his guardian- the M36 grenade!

Orgies begin when the cowards call their slaves lashed in dread, parade and the AQ yells fuck you all!

I remember my village- walk along the village streets I see- Caucasoid and Mongolian mixed bred kids with golden hair, green eyes… the brats, they talk like locals, born of lies in captives, and I wonder how came babies suckle the oozing milk in local breasts!

The canons of decreed faith preached by radicals harvest death! Yes? This is politically incorrect, a slip, now face the whip!

Badtameez, kafer! As the rifle butts hit, I lie on the ground!

The flies feeding on caked blood, orchestrate my thoughts now! “Kill and propagate the Faith!” says God, Benevolent, Merciful, We bring the century of peace, wrapped in the Sacrament, Covenant of the Satan… Oh, how dare I?

So yelp, hear us, you have committed sacrilege!

Fareeda is here- just beyond the invisible line of control, so much a part of our lives- we were born with it dividing the village in the middle, and the soldiers watching over us like vultures! Do I dare?

Beyond The Fence

Eyes stare through the veil,

New one, where from do I hail?

Query the quarry-

The rabbit on the run,

Trudging the strange soil

The black band,

Toting the machine gun

Nothing new

But they know it is futile

When I trudge the last mile,

A bit weary,

But the unhurried steps

Disarm the inquest!

The gunfire begins,

The man knows trouble for sure

Lie low

Don't tempt fate

More wounds to endure…

He awaits the sunset,

Trailing the Rangers

And their counterforce

For the gap or the gate,

Past midnight,

The last of the moonlight gone

A fox slithers below

And calls its mate,

The rabbit wades

Home…
Something pings against my shin bone-

I am engulfed in a sea of fire…

Soldiers…

Walking me with hands tied,

This side knowsI crossed, not why,

I await the trial that may free me

From the shackles

Or like the terror merchants

Just throw me across,

To die!

Thus began my beginning… or my end! Incomplete yet!
From Poems in Captivity: A Book of Plastic Verse