One in Many: A Collection of Short Stories

By Saligrama K. Aithal

A sequel to Many in One, the volume One in Many portrays characters in a variety of situations, from playful to serious to deeply moving and boundlessly joyful. In place of Madhav taking different roles in the stories in the earlier volume, each of the stories in One in Many has a separate central character. Nearly all of them are made in the mould of Madhav,--humorous, witty, and serious,--and their differences melt away, just as the differences between people of different countries, nations, and religions do. It is, in fact, hard to describe the characters by their nationality. They may possess Indian names, but their nationality and citizenship are another matter. They have relatives and friends in both the continents and their identities transcend national geographical boundaries. The locale of the stories also lacks distinct unity; it extends from one hemisphere to the other, from Washington, DC, to Balgudi, a town in India not, however, to be found on a map. The focus of the stories is not what separates people, one from the other, but what binds them together, rather what can/ should bind them together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491816936

Saligrama K. Aithal

Saligrama K. Aithal has taught English language and literature to diverse groups of students at numerous places in India and the US for over half a century. He lives in a suburb of Washington, DC, and works sporadically as an adjunct professor in local colleges and universities. Currently, he teaches ESL at American National University. One in Many is his second collection of short stories. Besides creative writing, he has published articles on a wide range of authors and books—Indian, British, and American-- in scholarly international journals. He has co-edited Access through English I, II, and III (a set of three college English textbooks). Forthcoming are The Importance of Northrop Frye (a reprint of a collection of essays edited by him on Frye written by different authors) and Toni Morrison, Novelist.

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2013 by Saligrama K. Aithal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/25/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1694-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1693-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917002

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1.   A Wish Come True

2.   Cool Under Fire

3.   The Unkindest Cut

4.   Sweat off the Brow

5.   A Wish Horse

6.   The Gold Necklace

7.   Happy Marriage

8.   Work and Play

9.   A Karmayogi

10.   A Friendly Vigil

11.   Breaking News

12.   The Lost Son

13.   Alberto Makes it to Washington

14.   Train to Maharashtra

15.   A Bicycle Special

16.   At the Heaven’s Gate

17.   A Thumb Fracture

18.   Nil Desperandum!

19.   A Niche Market

20.   A New Dawn

21.   In Eternity’s Sunrise

FOR JYOTSNA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Work and Play first appeared in Work Literary Journal and A Niche Market in Unlikely Stories. I thank the editors for permission to reprint the stories in One in Many.

1

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A Wish Come True

A s he was riding home on the metro after attending an international conference at the World Peace, Inc., in one hemisphere, Keshav wondered what had brought to pass such a deplorable state of affairs in a country in the other hemisphere.

In the country that held a special place in his heart, elections were still months away, but party leaders on both the sides were already on the warpath. Allegations and counter allegations had started flying in all directions. Reputations of individuals were attacked by vicious hit squads and were dragged through the mud. Character assassinations were taking place on a daily basis.

Reviewing the reports from various sources, Keshav was much saddened to read about the denial of respect for individual privacy, and the practice of turning even intimate personal matters into political issues. If, for example, he had some serious differences of opinion with a colleague and wished him dead, he didn’t really mean that the colleague should be sent off to meet his maker, did he? However, this was precisely what the deranged politicians would do to get someone like him into serious trouble and draw political capital out of it, if the person’s private wish accidentally became public.

In the morning, he had read Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Garden of Forking Paths, and, in fear and apprehension, he continued to dwell on the endless possibilities of life in parallel worlds.

However, he didn’t have to really fear anything of the sort. He was safely ensconced in Washington, DC, and continued to command respect at home and abroad among relatives, friends, and acquaintances, if not from all students in the classroom. Whenever people were in a tight spot, they remembered him, and sought his help and guidance.

When the Yellow Line train he was riding drew close to the L’Enfant Plaza station, he received an urgent call on his cell phone from someone who introduced himself as his great admirer. After exchange of courtesies and greetings, Keshav was asked his reaction to a plan to expose a major opposing political party as a party of thugs and criminals. The plan involved a murder. For the execution of the task, the party had identified a member of the opposition who would be approached circuitously by appropriate individuals secretly to persuade him to offer, in return for support for his re-election, a criminal gang leader a huge government contract and a tidy sum of money for an unspecified national service, details of which to be revealed in due course of time. When the murder was committed, the killers as well as the rich sponsor would be quickly arrested and their affiliation with the opposition party exposed to the great chagrin of the party, guaranteeing the ruling party success in the election and another term in office.

At this point, Keshav stopped the voluble speaker and asked for some clarifications. Since the assassins wouldn’t know who was actually paying them for the job, wasn’t it possible that under torture by the hard-worked and wearied police they might name anyone the police wanted them? What happens if some innocent person or persons were named, arrested, incarcerated? In continuation of his earlier musings, he also made a quick check whether he had wished any of his former colleagues dead apprehending the possibility of his being treated as a suspect in the murder.

The speaker replied that the scheme under consideration did provide for such developments, however unfortunate it was. [On hearing this, Keshav’s cell phone slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, but he quickly picked it up.] Assuming that it would please Keshav to hear it, the speaker added that one thing was, of course, ruled out. Nobody could point to the moving spirit behind the scheme. The party had documents of all kinds to deflect the attention of the public away from the creator. After all, someone else might be planning the same act at that very moment [Was he hearing the speaker right? Didn’t it sound like Borges? ] and it was humanly impossible to pin down the supreme creator, who would remain formless, nameless, timeless, near yet far, mysterious, and inscrutable, beyond the feeble powers of human comprehension. There would be talk of international conspiracy to toss the needle of truth in a mountain of hay. Coming to the purpose of the call, the speaker wanted to know if the plan met with Keshav’s approval and if he had any suggestions for improvement, refinement.

No! Keshav responded loudly and angrily, forgetting that he was riding a crowded metro train. Lowering the pitch of his voice, he switched over to Tinglish, a postmodern language used in many countries of the world outside the English speaking nations, May I know the names of the hired killers and the one going to be killed? The confidentiality clause between the attorney and the client doesn’t protect me if a crime is involved, and I am legally bound to disclose this intended crime to law-administering authorities, promptly [approximate English translation]. Living in Washington, DC, he had picked up the local jargon of criminal law.

Well, . . . please don’t be upset, pleaded the speaker at the other end. "You know it is only a plan among many plans in parallel worlds [My Goodness! Is it possible that somebody is studying Borges across the continents and over the seas?] We won’t proceed further if you are against it. We are going to call it off now that you strongly disapprove of it. Thank you for your sagely advice."

Engrossed in this conversation, Keshav passed, without realizing it, L’Enfant Plaza station where he had to change from Yellow Line to Orange Line to reach home. He disembarked the train at Pentagon station and rode back to L’Enfant Plaza. As he was waiting for the Orange Line train, his cell phone rang again.

The call was from a member of the opposition party this time, who introduced himself as Keshav’s friend of a friend. With Borges’ story fresh in his mind, Keshav was not surprised to learn that the opposition party was also planning a murder and hiring members with associations with the ruling party to do it. Certainly, somebody’s wish for his pest’s death had become widely known! You know we greatly value your opinion. Please let us know what you think about it, the speaker asked earnestly.

Hurriedly boarding the train before him, Keshav repeated what he had told the previous caller. With profuse appreciation for his opinion, the speaker hung up. When the train reached Pentagon station again after traveling for nearly half an hour, he realized he had got on to a Blue Line train at L’Enfant Plaza junction so he had to take a train back to L’Enfant Plaza again to catch his Orange Line train.

As he was waiting on the L’Enfant Plaza platform for the Orange Line train, he received a call from the first speaker. Keshav, we are terribly sorry. Before we could issue necessary orders, our chosen man is murdered, in a temple, of all places. The killers have also gone into hiding and the police cannot find them. We are, therefore, forced to deal with the problem how we know it best. We just want you to know we did mean to abandon the plan. Don’t you worry. Our Party is going strong.

Keshav didn’t know what to say and bade the speaker goodbye. He waited for the call from the other party member, which came within minutes. The speaker was very apologetic. He said that, before he could reach the hired goons, they had, according to radio news, gone to the place of their targeted victim to find their task already performed by someone else. They were reported to have been quickly arrested by the police, and, in confusion, they were said to have owned up to the crime and were naming their sponsors. The speaker wanted Keshav to know that his team was not involved in the actual murder. He cursed the dumb members of the ruling party.

Standing on the platform of L’Enfant plaza station, Keshav had prophetic visions of the tragic events to come.

As he stood and stared vacantly into the future, the Orange Line train arrived at the station and left, not once, but twice. He was all concentration when the next train arrived at the station. Before responding to the conductor’s warm Welcome Aboard, he checked and rechecked the train to make sure that it was a train on the Orange Line and he was not taking a wrong parallel train again. However, this time he overshot his destination point, and went all the way to Vienna, the last station on the Orange Line. As he wished to take no more chances with metro rail, he hired a cab to get back home. After crisscrossing Washington, DC, he reached home late that night, his head spinning—a long yarn unraveling the vision of one in many.

2

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Cool Under Fire

D espite his reputation as a scholar in the outside world, Gopal found it hard to command respect from his own students, just as the Bible memorably puts it, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. In a way, he felt like a soldier in combat zone deployment and had to struggle hard to stay cool when he came under fire in the classroom.

One morning, for example, nearly half the number of students were absent at the beginning of the class. As the class discussion was in progress, a few more walked in, one by one, leisurely, unconcerned by their lateness. As if the teacher did not exist at all, Jeremy entered with a smile on his face, greeting the entire class and shaking hands with a few of his friends, as he pushed aside the empty chairs and wended his way diagonally from the door to the far corner of the room. Gopal noticed that Darrell was carrying neither his textbook nor a notebook. Probably, he didn’t have even a pen. Ignoring the indirect slight, and dodging, as it were, the hurl of shrapnel, Gopal continued to explain how successful enthymemes, the main underlying structure of arguments, depended both on what the arguer said and what the audience had already in mind.

Next, Ron walked in with Cheryl by his side. He dragged two chairs and placed them front and center of the class and the two seated themselves side by side. Gopal saw a roadside bomb, ready to explode.

Hardly had they settled down, Cheryl raised her hand. Professor, what are we discussing today? She spoke in a confident voice, as if to assert her presence in the classroom, if anyone had ignored to take notice of it.

Before Gopal could respond, Ron asked, When is the next assignment due?

On the blackboard, Gopal had, as usual, written at the beginning of class the topics of discussion for the day and the prompt for the next essay assignment and also the due date. He simply pointed his finger at the blackboard, without interrupting the class discussion.

The couple bristled with anger at Gopal’s cool behavior. As if to register their protest, Cheryl’s cell phone rang. Immediately, she grabbed the phone and started talking on the phone. She tried to include Ron in the conversation.

Annoyed, Gopal stopped the class discussion and asked Cheryl to hang up. When he spoke the third time in a firm voice, she screamed, Don’t yell at me! Stop yelling at me!

At this time, someone else’s cell phone rang. Darrell apologized and turned off the ringer with alacrity before Gopal could utter a word of displeasure.

Cheryl stood up from her chair and screamed, Why aren’t you saying a thing to Darrell? Apologize to me for yelling at me! I demand you apologize!

Usually, Gopal ignored minor incendiary attacks, but there was no way he could be nonchalant about it when Cheryl stood in front of the class and bombarded him relentlessly like a determined insurgent.

Sorry, class, I want to attend to Cheryl’s pressing demand, if you don’t mind, Gopal said, interrupting his lecture. "Cheryl, if it makes you feel proud to extract an apology from your teacher, I will offer