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Makers of History

Fiction

When Sumit put up one of his old snaps on his Facebook timeline, he was only relishing nostalgia for a moment. Or maybe, he wanted a few likes from his virtual friends. Political writing was ignored by people these days like the plague. Politics in the  country had become kind of plague. 

He tagged David to the pic. In fact, David had clicked that photo and Sumit wanted to give him the credit. Or maybe, Sumit wanted at least one person, the tagged one, to take note of the pic. 

David was too quick to distance himself from the tag. "Did I click that picture? I don't remember. I was never so close to you," he texted in Whatsapp. 

"Don't you remember?" Sumit asked in disbelief. How can he forget it? It was the day when Sharmila Chakraborty, their classmate, had spent a whole day in David's rented room whose door remained closed all the while they were together. 

Sumit and David lived in nearby rooms both of which were rented from one Hiren Barua whose main job was to construct cubicles in his little plot of land on the outskirts of Guwahati and give them on rent to students and migrant labourers. "Only one person per room," that was his only commandment. 

"Saala, why do you mention Sharmila? She came for a combined study. Remember it was just a couple of days before our final exams?" David asked. "The door was closed because we didn't want Hiren Barua to question us with his single occupant commandment."

Well, it could never be as innocent as that, Sumit was sure. David had boasted many times, while the two of them shared a few drinks on weekends, about his varied sexual conquests. David worked in a small town in Meghalaya as a teacher for a year or two before he decided to do B.Ed. so that he would be professionally qualified for the job. "I have tried girls from all the tribes available there," he told Sumit on one of those wild evenings. "Each one has a unique flavour, a unique style of doing it." After adding some salacious details he said, "I want to taste a Bengali girl next. I'm sure the Bengali women are tigresses when it comes to the real game." That was just a week or so before Sumit saw Sharmila Chakraborty, their classmate, walk into David's room whose door closed behind her in absolute surrender to Hiren Barua's commandment.

All that was long ago. Those were days when the state of Assam had just confronted the monstrous visage of nationalism by killing more than two thousand migrant Bangladeshi Muslims to whom Indira Gandhi had decided to give voting rights. Now Narendra Modi was repeating Indira's history with a twist: he would legalise all immigrants in Assam except the Muslims. 

There's some poetic justice even in the repetition of history, mused Sumit. 

Sumit and David had parted ways after their B.Ed. David married a Goan Catholic whom he first met on a train and settled down in Bombay which eventually became Mumbai in one of the umpteen comic twists in the country's history.  Sumit returned to his home state of Kerala and found a job in one of the government-aided schools by paying a huge bribe to the management. 

Facebook brought them together after many, many years. A lot of history was written and rewritten in those years. A lot of people were killed as part of those writings and rewritings. A lot of migration and miscegenation took place. The children born to husbands and wives belonging to different regions and religions looked and behaved like any other normal children. 

Yet the new leader wanted a new history. He stepped into a mired pool he called nationalism. He riled its waters. He fished in those riled waters. But he was a vegetarian. He claimed so at least. He knew how to make new histories.

Donald Trump was claiming historicity for his visit to India when Sumit sat in the waiting room of Cochin Airport. Trump said that ten million Indians would be there to welcome him in Ahmedabad. "That's what Mr Modi has promised me. This is a historic event." Didn't Mr Trump know that Mr Modi creates new histories? He could have at least googled the population of Ahmedabad. 

"Hi, aren't you Sumit?"

Sumit looked at the interrogator once again. "Sharmila Chakraborty?"

"Glad to be recognized." She sat next to Sumit. 

Memories were brought alive. Were they the truths? How much of your own life do you remember accurately? Doesn't time add colours and patterns to memories? 

How reliable is history? 

"David once told me about how the two of you visited a brothel in Ulubari," said Sharmila.

Sumit felt a tremor run down his spine. 

"He was testing you, that's what David told me," Sharmila carried on. "He wanted to know whether you were as righteous as you pretended to be. He just sat there outside smoking a cigarette while you had your fling inside."

Another history? Why did he have to tell you all that anyway, Sharmila? 

Sumit didn't have the guts to ask that, however. 

"I don't trust him but," Sharmila was saying. "The cunning little bastard. He called me to his room once to explain Bloom's taxonomy and ended up discovering the taxonomy of my organs." And she laughed.

Narendra Modi was hugging Donald Trump on the TV screen in front of them. 

"Isn't there something artificial about their smiles?" Sumit asked.

"They're making a new history, aren't they?" Sharmila laughed again. 

"You want to know what happened with me in that brothel that evening?" Sumit asked.

She stopped laughing. 

"Nothing. Because I had an erectile dysfunction." 

Sharmila hesitated between an apology and a laughter.  

"It's okay but..." Sumit fumbled. "I mean it was a temporary problem, one of the infinite lacunae in history."

Sharmila stared at him for a moment before bursting out into another ringing laughter. "History's lacunae are more interesting, Sumit. The actual truths lie there."


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