Castaways

I am tempted to start this piece with a disclaimer that goes like this. Any similarity of the characters mentioned here to any living or dead being is purely coincidental. But that might not be true. There is a good possibility that everything mentioned here happened. I have been assured by the two tailed, four headed being that all this is true. "Parent promise man! Its all true. I have seen it all" said zvi. 

Doesn't that last sentence sound cheesy? I mean what the hell is 'parent promise'? Should it not be 'mother promise or father...' No, not father promise.  A father's head is not important enough to make a promises on. So, zv's 'parent promise' is the same as our human 'mother promise'. The next point of cheesiness comes from the use of the terms zvi and zv's. Here again I should say I am not responsible for the cheesiness. The two tailed and four handed being assured me that in zeid land zeo do not have genders and refer to each other and zvi, zv, zeid and zeo instead of he/she, his/her, their or they respectively. To top it, the four tailed and eight legged being threatened to obliterate the whole of humanity if I ever refer to zvr in any other manner. So, to save humanity I have no choice but use these 'z' words. That said, I will keep the usage of these 'z' words to the minimum.

By now, you are probably wondering how many legs, tails, hands, heads does this being have. That is a good point to wonder. I too wonder about it too. Hey man, this being is like an octopus with many projections projecting from its... Kabooom! Earth and humanity destroyed. The END. 

Ha, ha, ha! Just joking. The earth will only be destroyed if the creature finds out that I referred to zvi as it. Till then we are safe.

Anyway, I have no idea how many hand, legs, heads, tails and whatever else the being has. Actually, that is not important. The being's narration is important for it describes the events from our distant past that no one is aware of. But consume all this with a pinch of salt... Well maybe a spoonful of salt for it may all be nonsense - a figment of that being's imagination. But I don't like to believe it. It sound real and I tend to believe that this happened.

With that introduction and the apology of a disclaimer, let us get into the matter that was shared with me. Well! Actually, I don't think it is important to share it. I probably should not share it either. But I have become a person with an insatiable urge to share, to talk, to write. So I share here what I probably should not share. 

According to the being all that I mention below actually happened. Zvi witnessed it firsthand and it is not hearsay. Zvi was there. I asked the being “Were you hiding behind a tree when it happened?” The being, in turn, asked “What is a tree?” I pointed at a tree and said “That’s a tree!” The being responded “Oh! Maram!” At that point, I realized that the being had been talking to me in Malayalam all along. So, I asked the being the next obvious question “Naatillu evideya?”, which in English roughly translates to “Where in Kerala are you from?”. The being responded “O! Ente naadu orupaadu doorathilane”, which roughly translates to “Oh! My place is very far away.” This is becoming painful. I will continue in English but remember that this conversation happened in Malayalam, the language of Gods who originate from the land popularly referred to as God’s own country.

The being mentioned that zvi was around in plain sight but as his body only reflected infrared light, the humans present there could not see zv. Zvi had to only take care to not run into any of the humans present. All the humans present did not move but sat in their designated locations and talked. Note, the use of the word 'designated' in the previous sentence. The being used the Malayalam phrase 'Adhadhu sthanathil' meaning they sat in locations assigned to them, meaning there was an arrangement and the arrangement was like this. They were all sitting on different levels of a tower. At the top, near the centre of the topmost level sat a set of people. They sat on the floor but on one side of this set of people sat another set of people on chairs. They looked similar to the people sitting around the centre. On all four sides of the platform sat other sets of people. They all looked different from each other. It should be noted here that the being described the people in each of these sets vividly but I refrain from reproducing them here as it might not be considered politically and non-politically correct to do so.

Below the platform, there were other platforms with different sets of people sitting at different spots. The being spent many minutes describing each of these sets. I got impatient and said “I get the point, can we move on.” But the being said “No! It is important to describe them. Besides, you have nothing else to do. You are my prisoner, and I am your master.” Those words probably require some explanation, but I refrain from explaining. Maybe I will explain on  some other day. So, me being the prisoner and zi being the master had no choice but to sit and listen to the gory details.

Now, it is important to mention here that these events occurred 12200 years ago, around 10,000 BC/MC/BE/ME/Whatever. So, it happened a long time back and it is possible that some of the events did not happen the way I have mentioned it below. I told the being so. Zvi got offended and said “What! Do you think I am a human being to forget things. No! It happened the way I remember. It happened the way I recount. So here we go. Now shut up and listen. Do not interrupt."

The being continued thus. “I was sleeping and was woken up by the sound of drums. I walked towards the sound and soon found all these humans sitting at different levels of a multitiered tower. Actually, it is better to refer to them as men as there were no women there. Soon the beating of the drums ceased and the man sitting at the centre of the top platform got up and started talking. Hmm, why is your hand up? I thought I mentioned that I did not want to be interrupted.”

“You did. But I have a question.”

“Can’t you hold on to the questions till the end?”

“Some I can but a few need an immediate response.”

“Ask!”

“Where were you?”

“Come on! How is that important?”

“That will help me in understanding the perspective.”

“What perspective?”

“Well! If you were outside the crowd, and not in the tower at all, you would have the perspective of a member of the audience. You will have the view of the people around, their expressions, their interest or lack of interest, their involvement and so on. This would mean that your perspective would be broad. But if you were a part of the people in the tower itself your perspective would be limited to your location. Your perspective would be influenced by the people who surround you and that impacts your perspective”

“Hmmm! That’s interesting. I did not think of it in that manner. I was right at the top. As the drum were being beaten, I made my way to the top of the tower. I knew the humans could not see me. So, I only had to make sure that I did not run into them. Anyway, getting back to the events. The man at the centre announced loudly. ‘It is time! The time has come! It has become important for us to name ourselves. There are too many of us with many differences existing between many of us. Some of us have a lot of similarities but many of us are too dissimilar. If we do not separate ourselves based on our similarities, these will disappear, and soon we will all be the same. That should not happen because some of the dissimilarities are important, and we should not dilute them by intermixing. For that reason, we have separated people according to the importance of their qualities and made them sit at different levels of this marvelous tower. Please don’t think of these qualities as good or bad. No! That is not the point. We are only considering the relative importance of these qualities to our society.’

It would not be wrong to say that on hearing these words I nearly fell off the platform. These were the most nonsensical words that I have heard in my life and mind you I was not young at that point and I had heard a lot of words, even nonsensical ones by then. But these were worst I had heard till that point of time, that is. Since then I have heard worse words. But it was never my business to interfere. So I continued to listen quietly. The man continued.

‘We are people right at the top and we are higher than the remaining. So we will call ourselves Higher.’ Hearing this a man from another group sitting on the top platform got up and announced ‘We are not only higher but we have beautiful names and so we will be referred to as Namebeauties.’ I sniggered for it sounded ridiculous but the ridiculousness of the name was lost on the men present. They aw-ed and wowed and someone in the crowd mentioned ‘Not only are their names beautiful, they themselves are Namebeauties. Wow! Waah! Aah!’ Soon, a man sitting on a chair got up and said ‘We sit on a chair at all times, it is our car and so we shall call ourselves Highercars’."

"What! Why are you raising your hand now?”

“I thought you spoke and understood only Malayalam, but this is all in English. Also, more disturbing is the fact that English was not spoken in this land at that time. So, this does not make sense!”

“Are you saying that I am lying?”

“No, no. That is not what I meant. I am only saying that it does not make sense.”

“You are being very literal. Get to the next plane, prisoner. Language is a tool used to communicate. It is used to express one’s thoughts effectively. Depending on the intent and need one can change the language used to communicate a thought. I don’t think you understand the intent of my narration and that is why you are objecting to the use of language. You are being too literal.”

“Hmmm! Ok! Nevermind, continue.”

“I will not explain this further. I am continuing with the narration. Another man whose upper body was covered with a cloth announced 'We always wear shirts and so we will call ourselves Shirtma.' Another said 'We have shirts but have no idea where they are and so we will call ourselves Wherema.' Yet another said 'We are gods who can't hep but chatter all the time and so we will call ourselves ChatterGs.' From a corner a man jumped up and shouted ‘We are near the top and so we will call ourselves Nears.’ Another man sitting on a chair in a group besides the Nears got up and said ‘… and we Nearcars’. Not to be outdone by other, a person sitting in a group close by announced 'We are near the top and do all the work. So we shall be referred to as Neardos”

Well, zvi continued in this manner for many hours. Naming and giving the reasons for the names. It was excruciatingly painful to sit through the whole narration, and it is worse to write it all down here. So, I will not go into the remaining details. I am sure everyone understands how the process continued. But I would like to mention one final point that the being mentioned about the process.

“As the naming process reached the groups in the lower platforms, the men sitting on the higher platforms lost interest and started talking to each other. One of them mentioned, ‘It is not like we will ever interact with those fellows. So, why should we know their names? We will simply refer to them as ‘Hey you’. Instead of listening to them, let us talk about other important matters.’ This meant that no one listened to the naming process of the groups on the lower platforms. When these groups realized that no one was listening and that their own voices were drowned in the noise created by others, they stopped the naming process. They decided to remain nameless and became voice-less.”