Shankhadeep Bhattacharya’s “The Hand of the Airship”

Father has returned home after many days. Seeing him, the young girl runs and hugs him. Her eyes gleam and sparkle in joy, her limbs move joyfully. She finally has her father with her after so long.

I observe the girl. It is amazing when children run towards their loved ones in utter delight. Even the most ill-tempered individual, after a troublesome fight, would be moved to smile at such a scene. The heart turns calm, the eyes soften. For a short while the world seems as beautiful as that smile. Surely such sights do not occur just before my eyes? Such smiles bloom in every corner of this world, if only one looks more carefully. Is there any place without children? Children play gleefully everywhere, in Masai Mara, in New York, in Baramulla, in the Santhal Parganas. Everywhere they run towards their mother and father joyfully. And smiles bloom.

Let us, for instance, take the example of a village in Iraq. A bird’s eye view reveals rows of tents congested on two sides of the only motorable road. A kind of large vehicle plies the road at all times. Soldiers armed with semi-automatic rifles are inside these vehicles while refugee children dwell in the tents. These children eat flatbreads at night, some sleep without eating, and few stay awake throughout the night. As soon as morning dawns, they get out to hunt landmines beneath the gravelly hills. This is their work in daylight. A live mine fetches a good price in the market. The refugee children in the Gaza strip of Palestine have been seen to do similar work. Of course, that place does not really have a structure that can form a home. Bomber planes attack and turn every structure to concrete rubble. Abu Mustafa, a nine-year old boy, roams around this debris in scorching heat. He knows that the walls of his beloved home lie broken and fractured, mixed in the dust, somewhere here. He fills his bucket with concrete chips. These yield a high price in the market.

Let us return to the village in Iraq.

Among the children hunting landmines, a boy named Afran does not have a hand. It has been amputated from his shoulder. The cause of this amputation is not known, it probably is due to the war. Firhad does not have a leg. Although the cause in his case is known. He had mistakenly entered a mine field while playing. And lo and behold! The rest of his leg blew away from his knee and lay three feet away. Firhad’s friend Afran is the leader of all refugee children. Everyone admires him. He is a little older than the others in the camp. He allocates the other children work and instructs who should collect mines from which specific location, every morning. After that, the children enthusiastically spread out in different corners of the minefield. The search for mines begins under the bright daylight.    

There is a new face in the camp in the refugee camp. A girl. She can’t have been more than thirteen, just a little younger than Afran. Although she doesn’t have anyone to take care of her, she roams around caring for another child on her back.  A three-year-old boy. The boy looks weird. Whenever he tries to say something, the pupils move round and round in his eyes. He is blind.

At first the girl didn’t talk to Afran at all. She went around with a rough, arrogant face. But only Afran could get her the job of picking mines. He was the leader after all. He introduced himself to the girl of his own accord one day. After a lot of difficulty, he came to know that the girl was called Zara and on her back was Palin. He promised to get her a locket made of a bullet from the market and to take her to see the blue bird in the hills beyond. The blue bird was supposed to bring good fortune. He believed that if the bird looked once in Palin’s direction, his eyesight would be restored. Zara listened to every word attentively but didn’t reply. Her face never had a smile, it seemed as though she was angry at everything all the time. But whenever Afran saw Zara, he somehow felt unsettled, as if under a spell. He stared fascinated while she walked with Palin at her back. He was determined to show Palin the blue bird.

Zara is picking up the mines quietly. She walks towards the hills and fetches a pail of water. While she works, she ties Palin to a tree nearby to protect him from any harm. Palin’s feet are tied by a strong rope that Afran got her. The refugee camp operates a little differently from normal homes. Here the children don’t routinely sit and study in the morning. Nor do they need to gulp Horlicks. The children consult Afran about some things and then disperse to their directed positions and start searching for mines. Even though he is a leader, Afran is deeply loved by the children. Alendi venerates him. He stares in awe when Afran animatedly moves his hands and allocates everyone their positions. Alendi’s eyelids don’t blink. He listens to words falling off of Afran’s mouth like a mute admirer. Afran risked his life to save Alendi once. He had gingerly walked around the minefield and fished the young Alendi out. All of them believed that Afran would be their saviour should the war start again.

That day, without Zara’s permission, Afran took Palin on his back and rode his bicycle very close to the barbed wires. The check-post lay on the other side. Armed with machine-guns, the guards observed the two. He was playing hide and seek with Palin a little beyond their line of sight. Palin had become attached to Afran for some unknown reason. While cycling back, Palin hung his legs on both sides and babbled throughout the ride. He usually sounded this way when he was very happy. He was riding a bicycle for the first time. He caressed Afran’s cheeks lovingly and pulled at his hair. Afran hid himself while Palin walked haphazardly in all directions, his pupils moving round and round. And then he screamed calling him father and ran towards Afran sensing his smell. Afran smiled involuntarily, his eyes softened. And for that brief moment, he found the refugee camp a most fulfilling place. When Palin wanted to climb onto Afran’s embrace, he lifted the child up deftly with one arm and kissed him. Palin giggled. Afran thought earnestly about the blue bird at that moment. And while getting back, he wondered why Zara’s young brother called him father whenever he was with him and that thought made him smile unconsciously.

This village by the hills looks different under the night sky, as though a few of the stars of the night sky have hurried to the ground. The dim lights of the tent in the inky blackness gleam steadily like stars. Palin’s pale face is scarcely visible in that dim light. Some of that light also shines on another family nearby who sleep huddled together. Zara’s eyes know no sleep. She turns restlessly, staring at Palin’s face, unblinking. Her face taught and muscles tense, her eyes hold anger. Meanwhile Palin plays in his mind and claps his hand as if he wants to hug the humid air of the camp like a loved one. Zara does not like these things. She feels revolted, her ears burn red. She gets up and slaps Palin a few times. Palin weeps and blood oozes from his cut lips. A few days back, Zara wanted to leave him at the minefield. The blind child would step onto a mine and that would release her. These thoughts struck her while walking past the minefield the other day with Palin on her back when he suddenly called her mother. He did the same today. Zara immediately hugged Palin to her and kissed his cheeks, head and chest.

Afran’s house is at some distance from Zara’s, within a defunct tank. The people in the village have made arrangements for his living. He helps the villagers whenever he can. He brings them news about wars occurring near and far, does odd jobs and repairs stuff. After a day of work, he disappears within the tank’s gaping stomach. Looking at the night sky from the yawning mouth of the tank, he thinks about the blue bird and wants to fly like the bird from one hill to the next, across the river and through the jungle. He resolves to remind Zara about the blue bird the next day.

As soon as day breaks, Afran gathers all the children and speaks to them. He stands on the tank and speaks of the war. He had a dream the last night, a dream that war would arrive at their doorsteps soon. All the people in the village, including Afran himself, believe his dreams portend truths. Many airships would rush onto their settlement from across the sea and drop bombs on the village.

As soon as the discussion is over, Afran takes Firhad and Alendi to the nearby city. Their goal is the weapons market. Haggling and bargaining, they sell fifteen live landmines and rent a machinegun for three months with their earnings and get a few rounds of cartridges. The seller asks them to get fresh cartridge supplies should they fall short and promised he would charge them comparatively less the next time. Afran buys a bullet-locket for Zara, away from Firhad and Alendi’s eyes. As soon as he returns, Afran meets Zara and tells her about the war and the bomber planes. Zara, however, is nonplussed. She listens to his words nonchalantly and asks Afran about the blue bird instead. Afran said that the blue bird could be viewed only from a great height at the hill. Zara wants to see that place today itself. He is delighted she has finally asked him for something.

They walk for a long time and reach quite a great height on the hill. They edge close to the precipice. A little beneath them, tucked in a crevice, is a brown tree with yellow leaves. Afran says the blue birds gather all around this particular tree at the crack of dawn. Zara looks down. A layer of white fog still hangs loose beneath the tree. Everything is blurry and they sense that the crags below them are quite deep. Afran takes the bullet necklace from his pocket and gives it to Zara. She quietly takes the locket and walks towards the tent. This is enough to make him happy. He watches Zara’s retreating figure with all his heart, and smiles. He has a lot of work today and needs to inform the villagers about the war.

Palin is sleeping. His feet are tied with a rope. Zara keeps looking at him. He would be able to see her, his mother, if the blue bird glances at him. She picks him up on her back at the slightest hint of dawn. She moves towards the point on the hill where the blue birds gather. Palin holds on to her neck tightly and she begins to feel revolted again, her ears burn recalling her past how the tanks thundered, how their house was turned to dust in the blink of an eye. She still does not know what befell her father. The men sliced her mother’s tongue off, broke her spine and killed her, and then they had chased her. She tried to escape her fate much like a chicken tries to escape a butcher. She failed. They skinned her as though she were a carcass and took turns in invading her body. In a few months as she saw her stomach expand steadily, she came to know herself and the world around her anew. Today, standing at the edge of that precipice and peering down, all she wants is freedom. The fog now is denser than it was yesterday. Zara has tied Palin’s mouth with a piece of cloth, so he can’t call her mother. The pupils in his eyes move faster than usual as though sensing danger.

Meanwhile, Firhad and Alendi gather round the children as Afran had instructed them to. They will be trained in the use of the machine gun today. Everyone is present except Zara. They have searched for her in the tent, in the village. Alendi and Firhad have searched every nook and corner of the village but failed to locate her. Afran becomes still for a few moments as he hears that. The fingers in his only hand begin to twitch. He looks at the ground deep in thought and then races to the hills where the blue birds gather. He stands close to the precipice and spots Zara’s and Palin’s shoes there, one on top of the other. He looks down at the gorge and howls Zara’s and Palin’s names. He doesn’t get a reply. He keeps calling out their names. His voice breaks, it doesn’t yield any sound. He breaks down crying. After a while he tires of crying. He goes down on his knees and picks the shoes as if he were collecting mines. He looks at the sky and watches an airship fly. He takes in its wings and looks at his missing hand. He wonders how airships on this earth have a hand in most things, while he doesn’t have wings. He turns his face away from sky and looks down the crevice at the brown tree. For some reason two blue birds sit on its branches today. 

An earlier version of translation was published in Redolent Rush, Hawakal Publishers, pp 165-171, February 2023, ISBN: 978-93-91431-91-4

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