UNDERNEATH THE BAZA

               

It was the winter of 2003 in the outskirt of Kohima, the capital district of Nagaland. A few months earlier, I had read about the first Indian woman astronaut who died in her spacecraft while returning to Earth from a trip to the space. Her story kept reverberating in my head for months. One night, dressed with almost everything a real astronaut wears, I found myself strapped to a comfortable seat facing towards the sky. It looked like the cockpit of a real space craft with all the buttons and screens just as I saw on a magazine. But I had not a clue what was happening. The whole thing was shaking and it sounded like I was going to be launched up in the horizon. It was exciting but I thought, “Where is that unusual sound of kitchen utensils coming from?” It didn’t seem to be just the sounds of sirens and the countdown. It was so loud and it only seemed to get louder, until I finally got woken up to my father banging the utensils in the kitchen next to my room, which was separated only by a bamboo wall.
“Why is there never any food made in this house!” shouted my furious father from the kitchen. That wasn’t a new thing to me.
I pretended to be asleep. I should be. It was 4 in the morning. I focused on falling asleep and right before I could wholly submerge into it, a really cold breeze shook the warm soul out of my body. It was my father. He had pulled off my blanket to the floor and yelled my name “Jimmy!” He didn’t have to tell me what he wanted. It was obvious: cook for him.
“Poor me” I sighed, “But anyways, it’s yet another beautiful day today”.
I wasn’t a good cook, like you’d expect any 14 year old boy to be. But under tight circumstances like that one, I’d rather cook.for.him.
I had a couple of hours before I got ready for school at 7 AM. And as the usual, father went to sleep. Who wouldn’t be exhausted to a whole night of drinking and loitering around. At least that’s how it looked like to me, everyday.
I made the fire and put the black burned pot on it. That was the rice. I sat on a low wooden seat with my folded arms on my knees and my left cheek resting on the hand. Looking into the burning sticks, I was lost once again in my imagination. I set my mind in resumption of the dream. The countdown had reached ‘4’ and then ‘3’, and before I could calm myself down, I was already heading for the sky. First, it was the blue oceans and then I was covered by white clouds and after a while, by twinkling stars all around me. As my imaginations permit me, I opened a removable panel on my craft roof and I let myself out for a magnificent view of the stars and the planets that came closer to present themselves to my own little virtual reality. Everything was as wonderful as how I had hoped it to be.
“That’s how it should’ve ended”, I patted myself as I awoke once again to my hand covered with what looked like the product of a sincere drool. The fire had begun to die down but the rice was cooked fine. The few potatoes that were there had begun to sprout but that didn’t bother me. I made whatever curry I could make out of it. It was already 7 O’clock by the time I finished cooking. So I took out my little lunchbox and staffed some of the food I had cooked.
I got ready with my neatly washed uniform and shining shoes, and like always, the clock struck exactly 7:45 and I set out for school. “Bye father. Take care”, I said, even if I knew he was asleep. I always felt obligated to announce it.
7:45 AM wasn’t just the right time to head out for school. It was also the exact time I occasionally met Aputsa a few steps after. Aputsa was an old man who lived in a huge old building near my house, separated only by a wide community trench. He always insisted on carrying my school bag when we crossed the long hanging bridge on our way.
Aputsa wasn’t his real name. I just called him that because it means “grandpa” in my dialect. But I never bothered to ask his name and he never bothered to tell me either. He was a very silent old man. We hardly ever spoke. But contrary to his silent nature, there was something very contrasting about his eyes- they were sad and told a lot of stories. I felt like I cared for him a lot. But I never confessed that to him and I just let it go when I reach school and we part our ways.
I didn’t know where he always went to or when he returned back home. But it was always around 8 PM when he opened a small wooden window on the side of the wall that faced my house.
An hour or so later, I always listened closely if he would do that one thing. Most times, he didn’t. But it were those nights when he did that made it worthwhile. He would sit near his window that was by the trench and looking out of it, he would play the most beautiful and melancholic music with his baza, the mouth organ. They were the most soothing to my ears. When he played the music, I would immediately move my bed towards a corner of the room where a small part of the roof could be pulled out. And as I listened to the music, I would lie down and look up in the sky filled with stars and think of my mother, my beautiful mother who died of cancer on 8th December, 2001.
It always felt like it was yesterday when I heard the final words she said to me. She said, “Son, always follow your heart.”
He played a lot of songs and frequented only a handful of them. There was one song that was etched in my heart. I didn’t know which song it was but when he played that music, tears filled up my eyes and my chest felt swollen and heavy. My mother used to hum to the tune of the song when she was alive. If I correctly recall the song today, I think it was “Nearer my God to Thee”.
There were short untimely pauses between the songs as he played, maybe caused by some problems related to his old age. But it didn’t spoil the songs. In fact, it only made me more sympathetic towards the old man and drew me closer to him.
For a long time I could turn away from all the struggles I faced at home and live everyday as special as it should be, only because I had the old man in my life making it the way it was. Then, one day, it all stopped. I stopped seeing him when I went to school and the melodious sound of the baza couldn’t be heard anymore. I peeped through a hole towards his window from my house almost every evening but he never came to the window anymore. It was almost a month that I stopped hearing from him and so I decided I should go over to his house and see what had happened to him.
Tears filled up my eyes as I entered his room and saw Aputsa lying unconscious on his bed that looked like a hospital bed with a small tube injected on his hand from a bottle above, while almost surrounded with medicines and medical kits. I cried like he was my own father. My heart was pounding as I waited by the side of his bed for him to wake up so I could ask what had happened. After a minute or so, a short middle aged woman entered the room and she flinched on seeing me.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Nothing ma’am”, I uttered as I wiped the tears from my eyes. “I wanted to know what happened to him. Please tell me what happened to him”.
“There’s nothing to worry, young man. He is just a little sick. He’ll be fine soon...are you a relative of Mr. Kikon?”
“No. I live in the next house. I know him very well”.
“Oh! Don’t worry okay! He’s going to be just fine in a few days” she said, as she smiled at me.
Suddenly she looked like she was thinking of something important. Then she asked, “What’s your name?”
“It’s Jimmy, ma’am”.
“Okay Jimmy. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask for a favour from you” she said.
I nodded, while still looking at her with my moist eyes.
“I’m assigned as his nurse until he gets well. But I come from a place that is a little far from here and I have to be here twice a day- once in the morning for food and medication and once in the evening just for food. So, while I would continue to visit every morning, could you please come here in the evenings to prepare the food for him?”
“But I don’t cook well”, I said.
“Don’t worry. It’s not difficult. You just have to add some hot water to a bowl of oats. The oats is in the container on the kitchen table.”
“Alright. I can do that.”
“Oh, thank you young man”.
I was happy to be of some help to the old man, who had always been there for me knowingly or unknowingly.
Next day, I went to his room and saw him sitting on his bed. He didn’t look surprised to see me. I greeted “Good evening Aputsa”. But then he said, “You don’t have to do this. Go home and study”. I told him that I was happy to volunteer as it was my first time properly helping another person. I didn’t wait for him to respond and went straight to the kitchen to prepare food for him. After everything was done and he had finished eating, I waited for him to fall asleep. But he didn’t.
He instead asked, “Before you go, can you please help me arrange a seat by the window over there?” and pointed at the window where I always waited for him to be. I quickly arranged a chair, placed some cushions over it and helped him sit there. He then asked for a wooden box that was in the drawer of the table. I opened the drawer and saw the most beautifully crafted wooden box I had ever seen in my life. I handed the box to him. And he said, “Go home, son. You have done so much today”. I was overjoyed to hear that from him and I bolted to my room before he started what I knew he was going to do that night.
I arranged my bed to the corner, removed the tin panel off the roof and looked up to my mom as I waited for the music to begin. The melodious sound slowly began and it was the best night I had had in a very long time.
I went again on the next day and made food for him. After he had eaten, I expected he would ask me to arrange the seat again. I really wished he did, because I wanted to see the box again. But he didn’t. He never did for the whole week.
Over the week, I told him a lot of things about the stars, the space, and the planets and offered to show him some of the constellations if he sits by the window again. A smart manoeuvre, I supposed.
By the end of the week, we somehow became really close and he talked to me much more than I ever expected. The more I began to know him, the more I realized how compassionate a person he really was. He spoke the wisest of words and always talked by experience. It was an honour when he once told me, “I have found a good friend in you, young boy”.
A couple of days went by when he finally made the window request once again. I was overjoyed. He said the box was in the cabin that was attached to the wall. I took out the box and asked him if I may open the box for him that day. He thought for a while and approved it.
I was very excited to see how his baza looked like and I didn’t expect it to be any less beautiful than the sound it made.
I opened the box and my eyes grew wide and my jaw dropped. I was astonished, not by the beautiful harmonica that laid there inside the box, but by the newspaper clipping that was underneath. It had a grey picture of young Aputsa leaning on a fighter aircraft wearing full pilot uniform and black sunglasses, and on top of it was written “Naga Fighter Brings Hell upon Enemy”.
“Woooaaahh! Aputsa you were a jet fighter pilot?” I thundered with a shaking voice. I was truly overwhelmed.
“Yes, son. I was” he said with a smile, but his face turned a little gloomy and sad. I could somehow sense some agony from his expression.
But I still wanted to know about it. I was sure he had a lot of very interesting stories to tell. So I insisted that he tells me at least a few things about the picture.
He reluctantly complied.
“I was a Flight Lieutenant in the Indian Air Force. This picture was published by a local newspaper a few days before our war with Pakistan ended in September 1965. It wasn’t a bad day”.
It sounded like an end. But I was curious. I listened closely and I looked at him so intently. I guess it encouraged him to tell me more. He continued:
“That day I shot down two of the Pakistani aircrafts by myself, and helped destroy several turrets on the ground. My jet was damaged and I ran out of fuel mid air. I was meant to die that day. But I suppose God wanted me to live this life a little more. I landed safely without a scratch.”

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“Wow Aputsa. I don’t understand why you were so reluctant to share such a heroic tale. You should be proud”, I said, but deep inside I thought I knew he was remorseful because he took several lives during those times.
“But this has become the last thing I would take pride in” he mumbled.
I didn’t respond with any word on that. I checked what else was left in the box and there were two more sheets of brown folded papers. I picked up the first one. It was beautifully sealed with a red sealing wax. It had never been opened.
“What is this, Aputsa? Can I please open it?” I asked.
He stared at me intently with his naturally sad eyes for what felt like ages. And just when I thought he didn’t want me to, he smiled at me and said with a low and reassuring voice, “Sure son. You can”.
I broke the seal open and slowly unfolded the paper to a vast array of words that was beautifully handwritten.
Aputsa asked if I could read it out aloud for him to hear, and so I read:
Dear Elika,
I hope you are as perfectly fine as I pray for you to be. I thank God for protecting me every day for with the end of each day, I get closer to getting a chance to see you again.
The activities over here have simmered down for a few days now and there’s nothing for you to worry about. Though I was caught in a difficult position the other day, God was kind to me. And for the rest of my days here I hope He will remain unchanged.
I knew you feared something might happen to me in this cruel excuse of a war. But until this point when I joyfully write to you, a long time since we parted in flesh, I’m alive and I know I’m coming back to you. The promise that I made to you before I came here wasn’t just another promise without devotion, and it also serves to help me hold on to this life. I’d like to think that the promise is for me as I am for the promise.
When I come back to you, I’ll come back to be with you forever. I have ceased to endure even a thought of living away from you one more time. We will fulfil all the dreams that we had together. Yes, I still remember everything, darling. They sing as lullabies as I sleep on my concrete bed in this place.
Don’t ever give up on me, my love. I promise, as devotedly as before, that we will see each other again in a while. But if, God forbid, anything must happen to me, know that I always loved you and my last thoughts were of you.
With love,
Me

 As I finished reading the letter, I felt such bewildering mix of emotions swirling through my mind that I had never felt before. I had thousands of questions running through my mind. But then, I was certain it will be rough on Aputsa to answer my questions- I could see Elika no more with him.

“She loved me until she could no more” Aputsa said with a wavering voice.
It caught me by surprise and I looked at him. He was gazing at his hands that were caressing each other. I put my little hands on his lap but couldn’t say a word- I didn’t know what to. Then he looked out of the window and into the night sky, and he said,
“I met her in the fall of 1954. She was a school teacher. I was a mechanic with a miserable life. She had the kind of beauty any man would dream about. All the men in the town flocked around to ask her hand. Some were wealthy land owners, some were rich businessmen, some were diplomats, and some... some were us. I didn’t stand a chance. But she chose me. Wow! I still can’t believe she chose me. Perhaps, it was an accident, the good kind of accident” he let out a short breath coupled with a slight grin, “I’d like to say it was a conspiracy of all elements of love in this world. We were so madly in love with each other. We married by the spring of ’55. We became richer and richer, not because we had much money with us but because we had something money could never buy- contentment. But... it’s sad we couldn’t bear any children. She wanted to have a big family but several years had gone by and it was still just the two of us. Adoption wasn’t an option as she wanted something that was only born out of us”.
By this time, I was going through a farrago of emotions. But this time I think I know what they were- overwhelming joy, because he must never have shared these stories to anyone and I must have been very special to be listening to it; confusion, because thousands of unanswered questions were running through my mind; and sadness, because I could sense grief even in the ecstatic part of his story.
“But as wonderful and unfailing wife as she was, she picked herself up and suppressed all her sorrows for my sake. And soon, we found love again.
Not so long after that, I joined the armed force. And everything changed. I had always imposed myself with a patriotic nature in my being. But she didn’t want to stay away from me. She wanted to have me all for herself. But, I left. I stayed away for months and months. I forced myself not to return too often because I was afraid I might lose the heart to come back.
I remember the day I received a letter from my dear wife just before the tension between the two countries shot off the roof. She told me she was sick and that it would really help if I stayed with her. But I...” he couldn’t speak anymore, and he couldn’t look up into the sky. He just closed his eyes.
“What happened, Aputsa?” I asked, as I held the cloth around his lap tighter.

“I put her behind everything else. It was first my duty, then it was my fellow comrades, then it was my life, and only then it was her.
I wrote her one letter, the letter you read earlier. Few weeks after, I returned home just to find an empty desolated house. The letter I wrote to my dear wife had been slipped into the front door, lying there waiting to be picked up by her to read. I ran around the deserted house calling out her name, but it only echoed my voice. I went over to my neighbour’s and she only said, ‘I’d rather have you check your mailbox, sir. I couldn’t tell you enough’, and she said, ‘I’m Sorry Mr.Kikon’.

Indeed, there was a letter in my mailbox. I tore the envelop open. Among the many lines of hatred and repugnance in the letter, I picked up one. It said, ‘She always waited for you by the front porch. She said she knew you were coming back to her. And she chose to take her last breathe in that grievous house you forsook her’.
Son, true love transcends all generations. It can replace a lot of things but nothing can replace it. If you find one, hold on to it and never let go. It may sound selfish to some to put your beloved wife before anything and anyone. But once the two of you take the vow, your life is no more yours alone.
I know you would love to be an astronaut when you grow up. You sound obsessed with it. I could wonder what must knit it to your thoughts. But that in itself is a true love. Once you believe you can achieve it, you can break all chains to receive it. And as you grow up, and find the one true love in a woman, don’t make the mistake I made. I am sure I could have found another way.”

Aputsa died later that year. It was sad to see nobody came to say goodbye, even after he had put his everything on a wheelbarrow to trade them with his services for the country.

Today, as I write this story on the 22nd of April, 2019, I am commemorating the 15th death anniversary of Aputsa and celebrating my 150th day on the International Space Station. Maybe it’s destiny’s way of saying I was blessed by the brightest star in the sky, who lived to experience true love for a duty and a truer love for a person.
                                        ~Motsuthung Yanthan