Gurbhim's Chair - A Short Story Series
Gurbhim's Chair - Part II
"The City of Kejristan"
Gurbhim's Chair - Part I
Gurbhim was the only alchemist
in the city of Kejristan which otherwise was populated only by non-magical
people only, or in more comprehensible terms, the "procedural", or "logical", or "rational" or the "scientific". But Gurbhim’s alchemy was no abracadabraish magic, which is to say, his
alchemy did not produce results exactly according to his every whim and fancy.
For if it had been so, and if such magical field had no intrinsic guiding
spirit or if it was to be completely malleable to the will of the commander,
then there is no telling to what ends must have Gurbhim’s desire been taken to.
Gurbhim nursed notions of virtuosity about himself and was willing to undertake
extra efforts to the point of eventually becoming unmindful of abrasive
pleasantries, which, though produced a halo of niceness around himself, but was
done merely to massage and keep well-oiled the ortho-structures of
magnanimousness that his cherubic soul was busy building inside him. But, how
is sincerity of good-natured will expected to stand upto and against the
reckless freedom provided by the power and ability to undertake unbridled
actions – for the latter lends unto the exerciser an uber-taste of absolute freedom; actions
ungoverned, uncontrolled, and unrestrained guided only by pure momentary
fancies. To Gurbhim, a good-nature required constant exercise and exertion, an
effort and why should a good-nature require effort? Simply, because Gurbhim had
to apply unstated rules to an otherwise vast ocean of free-will so that the
waves of his individual personality, instead of thrashing the shores of social
convention flowed docilely from a faucet designed like well-meaning gentlemanry. Figuring out the unstated rules itself required an economy of mind which he was hesitant to divest with since he wanted to reserve most of it for his focused dedication to alchemy. Besides, calculativeness and chess play strategies, invoked while dealing with
each other, by his city people, whether consciously or unconsciously, and which
Gurbhim also had come to accept consciously after the freak incident of
Chappalpur, chipped away at the air castles of individual freedom and thus the experience of “freedom” in Kejristan was no more than what an anarchist society would let its inhabitants enjoy without
throwing everyone down to the level of internecine brutality. It was not “freedom”
as “freedom”, but only conventionally accepted non-interference by others and
at the boundaries where conversations happen between two or more people, it
used to become something else altogether.
Let’s take the day on which
Gurbhim, during his days of unrelenting pursuit of alchemical secrets, used to
be frequented by Krandugal, who fuelled by his earnest salesmanship, was
hell-bent upon selling unicorn piss to Gurbhim. “This Mannifier is purer than
the water available in this City, for it comes from the serpentine interestines
of the Unicorn. These intestines are not normal intestines because they do not
suck and absorb the life-blood of what is ingested but instead inject seraphic
life-force into things before they find passage out into the world from the
baser orifice. You oughta use this for your potions, mister.” The incredulity
and disgust felt by Gurbhim at those words, would have easily steamed off a
vitriol so pernicious that it would have served as symbolic reminder to future
unsolicited interferences to his busy pre-occupations, but instead, Gurbhim
ended up facetiously inquiring about the product on offer. It sparked a fresh round
of energy equivalent to that of a cracker’s explosion in Krandugal’s spirit and
he went on a professional harangue about the quality filters, distillations,
authentic packaging, excellent storage, and excellent methods of extraction
through which the Mannifier went before ending up in an air-tight globule in
the hands of the salesman. Realising his mistake, Gurbhim replied that he
really was not looking forward to using the Mannifier in any of his
experimentations. Besides, he had heard that Chacha Sehru, the city scientist
had already decried that particular product which further put him away from
favouring Krandugal’s produce.
Krandugal, unconvinced about
Gurbhim’s lack of need of the Mannifier, continued to bolster his persistence
by re-visiting in his mind, Gurbhim’s earlier inquiry which continued to flutter the flag of belief that with a little more cajoling his buyer will eventually come around and so he stood rooted to
his ground. He juggled with different words from same sentences to drive home the point that Gurbhim will greatly benefit his alchemical
aspirations if he became a regular user of the Mannifier. Thus, a simple act of expected politeness robbed Gurbhim of his freedom for an entire day when
Krandugal left at a very darkly hour, not because of Gurbhim’s refusal to purchase, but because
Krandugal eventually got tired since lack of any sales meant his energy was
getting sapped at double the rate as we all know how money can be a more effective stimulant than vacuous liquids touted as energy drinks. Gurbhim realized politeness stood in direct contrast to his ability to enjoy freedom. And verily so, because politeness cannot be exercised in loneliness. No one tells himself alone in a room, "Hello, it is a good day, mister myself. Care to make myself comfortable while I decide what pleasant dish to serve myself with". So on occassions, where politeness could be exercised, presence of others meant an imminent risk of curtailment of freedom. How on earth, could two positive qualities be at conflict with each other?
That incident, coupled with
several other encounters of anecdotal quality and also coupled with the Incident
of Chappalpur, had gradually borne into Gurbhim a sharp understanding of freedom. The notion of "freedom" though was far from clear in his head. What was clear, however, were two things about it. One that the conceptual manifestations of freedom cannot be solved out of mental precepts formed merely from wispy thoughts and adulterous words that function only at atmospheric levels of ambiguity. The other understanding that came to him, thanks to the area of Chappalpur, was that
extremes of freedom were not something to be toyed with, since actions entail
consequences, and while actions can be self-determined, the consequences to
some actions act in a manner of their own and can sometimes behave disjuncted
from individual players that sustain the rainy clouds of consequences upon an
actor, even though consequences never visit without being initiated by some
active conscious players. However, when crowds get involved, the crowds no
longer decide the consequences, but the consequences decide the crowd like an
invisible ring-master. Gurbhim's horse of thoughts lunged back to the Incident at Chappalpur,
whenever the thought of “freedom” pranced about in his mind’s eye like a
half-naked exotic dancer.
Image from here.
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