Sultan Erdogan and the Sukhoi 24

It’s again the time when you, the reader, are invited to answer a question:

How would you tell if an armed man in Syria, fighting against the forces of President Assad and his Iranian, Russian and Hizbollah allies, is an Evil ISIS Terrorist or a Freedom Loving Pro-Western Rebel^TM?

Does he, for instance, eat a dead soldier’s heart on video? Or is he photographed with another soldier’s decapitated head, cooking it on a grill? Does he impale a Christian woman on a crucifix in a church in Maloulaa? Has he been photographed playing football with the severed heads of civilians or holding up the severed heads of dead soldiers? 

Was he part of the conspiracy to launch a poison gas attack which would subsequently be blamed on Assad? Does he conduct mass executions on camera? 

Does he yell “Allahu Akbar” as he shoots at a Russian pilot dangling helplessly from a parachute, totally unable to defend himself?

If your answers to any of these questions was “yes”, then you can rest assured that there’s no further need to doubt: the man you are looking at is definitely, without question, a Freedom Loving Pro-Western Rebel^TM.

The latest proof of this, of course, was the Russian Sukhoi 24 strike aircraft shot down by Turkey on 24^th November 2015.

A few weeks ago, I’d written an article in which I’d said that the situation in today’s world reflects, with startling similarity, the worst of the era just prior to the First World War, with its entangling alliances and competition for colonial empires, and the worst of the era just prior to the Second World War, with a rising tide of fascism allied to so-called democracies in the west, as well as resentment against minorities and economic stagnation. In this situation, not only does it only need a spark to set off a war, but with the tensions swirling about, there is no shortage of said sparks. They don’t even need to be very large sparks, or planned at a top level; if the situation is right, almost anything can set off the powder train that leads to war.

Also, in this situation, it’s extremely easy for minor players to practically hold the main actors hostage, by playing on said entangling alliances. Let’s remember that it only needed a Serbian spy chief, almost certainly acting without his own government’s knowledge, to arrange for the killing of an Austrian prince for Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Turkey to go to war against each other a hundred years ago.  

Today, things are on the brink. With two nuclear powers, one – though filled with hubris – in decline, one again rising after a two decade eclipse, on opposite sides, both at the head of alliances, it becomes even more important to try and stave off direct conflict. Because that would mean the end of civilisation as we know it.

Of course, the two alliances aren’t equal. One is a defensive grouping of secular and Shiite Arabs, with the help of Shiite Persians, none of whom have ever conducted aggressive war on anyone in centuries, headed by an Orthodox Christian nation which is not a theocracy and which has no history of aggressive war in living memory. On the other hand is a hyper-aggressive imperialist empire which has been at war for almost the entirety of its existence, heading a grouping including an economic imperialist entity of European powers, with an eighty year long history of alliance with Sunni jihadism. In simple terms, Alliance A can only benefit from peace; Alliance B, on the other hand, wants endless war.

Now, of course, both alliances are headed by nations armed with enough nuclear weapons to wipe out all multicellular life on earth, and it would be logical to conclude that neither one of them actually wants a nuclear war. This opens up plenty of room for the minor players on both sides to do as they wish, in the belief that they can hide behind the skirts of the big nations for protection from the consequences of their actions. In this instance, of course, the last thing Alliance A, which is interested in peace, will do is take part in this kind of brinkmanship. For Alliance B, though, it’s a different thing altogether.

Now, the most important local components of Alliance B are Saudi Barbaria, which at the moment is suffering both from an impending economic disaster (of its own making) at home and is stuck in an unwinnable war (of its own making) in Yemen. It is not, at this point in time, in a position to do much in Syria except run (some) money and weapons to the jihadis. On the other hand, to the north, is Turkey, under a deeply corrupt and totally unscrupulous president, Erdogan, who has, apart from a deeply vindictive streak, extremely strong reasons for making sure the war in Syria continues as long as it possibly can. For one thing, his family is directly involved in profits from oil smuggled from that nation.

Turkey, for those who don’t know, is a genuine terrorist-sponsoring state, one which for some reason seems to avoid the attention of almost everyone who points to Saudi Barbaria as the source of all jihadist terror. If it's Barbaria with its petrodollars, its poisonous Wahhabism, and its desire to rule the Muslim world, which provides the ideological fount of world jihad, it is the much more civilised-appearing Turks, with their business suits and resorts with bikini-clad women, their ancient architecture and their European Union aspirations, who are its enablers. Simply put, without Turkey’s active cooperation and encouragement, no matter what Saudi Barbaria, Qatar or the Imperialist States of Amerikastan did, there would have been no jihad in Syria and no Islamic State.

The government of Turkey has, since 2011, thrown open its southern border with Syria to jihadists. The flight from Istanbul to Gaziantep, on the Syrian border, is called the “jihad express” because it is loaded with young men clearly on their way to fight. It poured, and pours, in money and weapons (a lot of which was shipped from Libya by the CIA) to the jihadis, treated, and treats, their wounded in its hospitals, has repeatedly bombed the anti-jihadi Kurds, and continues to insist on Assad’s overthrow. In return, it has looted the factories and architectural treasures of Northern Syria and Iraq; it buys looted Syrian oil at a pittance and passes it on at a huge markup to EU markets; it, in fact, is probably the only real beneficiary of the Syrian war on either side, if you leave out the Islamic State.

Turkey also has a habit of “protecting” Turks elsewhere by military invasion. It attacked and divided Cyprus, setting up a so-called Turkish republic in the north of the island. It has repeatedly looked for an excuse to intervene directly in Syria too, on one occasion planning a false flag attack to justify an invasion. In 2013 it deliberately connived in a false flag gas attack in Ghouta which was blamed on Assad and which it expected, wrongly, would inevitably trigger an Amerikastani invasion. It has watched with increasing dismay in the past few weeks as Russian planes and Iranian and Hizbollah troops have helped the Syrians smash the Freedom Loving Pro-Western Rebel^TMs as well as ISIS, and advance rapidly back towards the north of the country, where the border with Turkey lies.

Once the border is secure, there goes the only open route to supply the Freedom Loving Pro-Western Rebel^TMs. There go the profits from oil and antiquities smuggling. There go, too, the premise on which Erdogan has spent so much time and effort – to recreate Turkey’s historical hold over the territories of Northern Syria. And, too, there goes the Great Big Syrian Rebellion. Any terrorists trying to sneak into Syria after that would have to cross the open desert from Jordan, and be bombed to fragments; or sneak in across the heavily fortified border to the south with the Zionist entity, and more likely than not suffer the same fate. So, to Erdogan’s mind, the Russian bombing campaign – the single most important factor in this reversal of fortunes – had to be stopped.

And that, precisely, is why the Russian Sukhoi 24 was ambushed and shot down. To try and stop the Russian bombing campaign.

Yes, of course it was an ambush. There can be absolutely no doubt about that at all. Even according to the Turkish account, the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace for (an oddly specific) “seventeen seconds”. Let’s see what would have to be done within those seventeen seconds:

1. The Turks would have to warn the Russian plane, which they said they did “ten times”. The Russian pilot who survived said, much more believably, that there had been no warning at all.

2. They would have to determine that a border violation had occurred. By a plane flying at high speed at most a few hundred metres across a border line.

3. Having confirmed the violation, which could not possibly be done by a fighter plane following the Russian aircraft on its radar alone, but would require triangulation from ground radars and plotting on a computer map, they would have to order the fighter pilot to shoot down the Russian plane.

4. The fighter pilot, even if he had been tracking the Russian plane on his radar, and had locked on it with his fire control radar in anticipation that it just might cross the border, and even if his finger had been on the firing button (an insanely dangerous thing to do, like walking along with your finger on the trigger of a gun with the safety catch off, and pointing at someone) would have to press that button, and the missile would then have to go and explode in close enough proximity to the Russian plane to have shot it down before it got back over its own side of the border. Which, even according to the US, didn't happen: the Russian plane, Alliance B admits, was hit in Syrian airspace.

All in the space of seventeen seconds.

Not only does this beggar belief, it’s not even something that anyone ever does. Extremely short duration border airspace violations aren’t unknown; even Erdogan himself in 2012 protested loudly when a Turkish F4 was shot down (deep inside Syrian territory) off the coast of Latakia, saying that planes should not be shot down because of this. Turkey, in any case, has probably the world's highest incidence of border violations, and has been bombing the Kurds in Iraq for decades - as it has now been doing in Syria as well. This was an excuse that didn’t wash even with some people in NATO, with the former vice chief of the US Air Force calling it a “very bad mistake”. And the Prime Minister of Turkey, Erdogan’s partner in crime Ahmed Davotoglu, claimed that he’d given the order days ago to shoot the plane down.

But there’s no need even for all this analysis to know it was all a set up, a planned ambush. When did you ever see so many video cameras all set to photograph a plane being shot down? Either someone knew it was going to happen, when and where...or they got so lucky I’d like to know why they don’t go to the nearest casino and break the bank.

Even the choice of the plane targeted was far from random. It was a Sukhoi 24, an aging pure strike aircraft, unable to fight back against an aerial attacker, not one of the far more modern and far more potent SU 30 or 34 Russia also has in action over Syria. It had no escort, and was flying alone, with no wingman; adequate for a strike operation against an enemy on the ground but a sitting duck for an aerial ambush from across the safety of an international border.

If, as is surpassingly likely, the plan was to get the Russians to back down, it was another bit of evidence of Erdogan’s hubris and ignorance of history. Of course the Russians didn’t back down. They’ve rather increased their bombing campaign, and extended it right to the border crossing, within metres, literally, of Turkish territory. Erdogan, who had said the plane was shot down to “protect his Turkmen brothers”, can only watch as said Turkmen are barbecued in the smashed wrecks of their vehicles. There’s nothing he can do now, and he knows it. Russia is looking to even the score, and has said as much; any Turkish plane which even paints a Russian bomber with its radar is likely to be blown into scrap metal before the pilot can turn into position to open fire.

And this is what convinces me that in this instance, Erdogan and his cronies acted alone. They did not take NATO’s permission, and in fact must have alarmed and infuriated the war criminals in Warshington. Because, by this act, not only did they bring NATO into a position of confrontation with Russia they didn’t want – Wall Street can’t make a profit once it’s turned into radioactive ash – but in one stroke they made a no fly zone a reality. 

Only, it’s not the long desired NATO no fly zone over northern Syria; it’s a de facto no fly zone over...southern Turkey. It’s made the defeat of the Freedom Loving Pro-Western Rebel^TMs much more likely, not less.

Behind the ritual expressions of support for Turkey at NATO, there must have been incensed back room excoriations of Erdogan's idiocy.

Not that the Turkmen did themselves any favours by shooting one of the Russian pilots as he dangled from his parachute, and shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they did so. It’s fortunate that the other pilot was rescued by the Syrian Army, or he’d likely have suffered the same fate. That the same Turkmen hit the helicopter trying to reach the shoot down site (which was several kilometres inside Syria) with an American-supplied anti-tank missile, killing another Russian serviceman, was simply pouring more fuel on the fire. Russia now has a real, personal grudge against the Turkmens.

And, as the Chechen terrorists discovered after Beslan, when Russia has a grudge against anyone, they don’t tend to live very long. Erdogan could have asked Shamil Basayev, Salman Raduyev, Doku Umarov, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, or the Saudi terrorist Khattab about that. But he can’t, because they’re all dead.

Sultan Erdogan, for all his fuming, will only be able to watch helplessly as his grand plans come undone. Unless, of course, NATO thinks the risk of the Third World War is worth taking, and gets stuck into the war fully.

In which case we are all done for, anyway.     


Update: Apparently Erdogan was told in no uncertain terms by his masters that he was alone on this one. He's already started the process of damage control.

On the Future of the Islamic State

A few days ago, I had a sudden realisation.

The West, I understood, had changed tack after Russia’s intervention in Syria.

All these days  - circa  2012 to a couple of months ago –  the plan had been to use ISIS as a tool to destroy Syria and Iraq, two potential bulwarks of resistance to Western hegemony as well as pipeline routes to Europe bypassing Russia. But when Russia’s intervention against ISIS and the blood soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama’s pet moderate cannibal headhunters began showing major successes almost at once, the plan seems to have changed.

Let’s say this right away, because it bears keeping in mind: the West, or, in other words, the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, has only one real target: the Russian-Chinese alliance. All the rest is mere window dressing. The primary purpose of all the ISA’s activities has been to surround and ultimately destroy Russia and China. That this is an endeavour that can’t succeed isn’t something that even enters into the ISA’s calculations; after all, this is the nation which believes that it’s “an empire...which create(s) (its) own reality”, as well as an “exceptional nation” to which normal rules do not apply.

So, when Russia’s entry made it abundantly clear that the project for a Libya-style total destruction of Syria wasn’t going to be possible, with Assad lynched, the minorities all dead or fled, and the corpse of the country fought over between squabbling rival groups, the ISA hurriedly promulgated a Plan B. In this, some sort of vivisection of Syria was to be achieved, with the majority Sunni areas in the east chopped away to form a jihadistan joined to a similar rump Sunni state in Iraq. That area, of course, comprises what is today called the Islamic State, or ISIS, or whatever the hell you want to call it.

In order to achieve this jihadistan, though, some things would be necessary.

First, the Russian offensive, since it couldn’t be defeated, had at least to be limited in area. In order to do this, the farcical “bombing campaign” which had so signally failed to harm ISIS in any way, was stepped up and extended into Syria. After all, if ISA bombers are hitting someplace, just in order to avoid accidental clashes that might swiftly escalate to a world war, Russian planes are likely to avoid the same place. And in order to make sure that these strikes still avoided harming ISIS in any way the ISA...dropped leaflets telling the headchoppers to evacuate well before they were bombed.

Along with this was the plan to put US Special Forces “on the ground” in Syriraq...as though they weren’t there already, dressed as ISIS and fighting against Assad. The only logical reason to put these forces on the ground – in numbers far too small to do any actual damage to ISIS – is to serve as “human shields” against Russian airstrikes, since the last thing Moscow would want is to create yet another international incident by blowing away American troops (for the purpose of this article, “American” includes British vassal forces, since Britain, as an ISA colony, has no independent foreign policy anyway).

If we take these factors into account, there is only one logical conclusion – the ISA has decided on some kind of long term recognition of ISIS as a legitimate political entity. Is this not believable? All you have to do is look at the narcomafia pseudostate of “Kosovo” and the Nazi rump state of Ukraine, which both rely on ISA protection, and the corpse of Libya, to see that the Imperialist States is more than happy to accommodate jihadism, as long as the jihadis know their place in the order of things.

To this end, NATO member Turkey is vital. It is the only source of direct supply of cash and armament to the Islamic State in Syriraq, and, as Russian President Putin said, it is a terrorist state whose alliance with ISIS is now undeniable. Turkey and ISIS, after all, share two enemies – Assad and the Kurds – completely, and in increasing amounts, a third enemy in Russia. That the Turkish spy chief allegedly said (it has been “denied” by the government of Turkey, which, of course, is noted for its regard for truth) that it was time to open diplomatic relations with ISIS is very significant. An ISIS government in exile in Turkey, protected by Ankara’s NATO membership, would remain a permanent threat even if the group could be, unlikely as it is, totally exterminated in Syriraq. The ex-ISIStan would have to be permanently garrisoned, in force, and at ruinous cost, in order to prevent the movement making a comeback. Eventually, of course, it would.

At the same time, efforts would be made to convince the common Westerners that perhaps ISIS isn’t so bad after all. This will not be difficult, keeping in mind two things:

First, the average ISA citizen has a nanosecond attention span, something sedulously created by a culture based around the television set, where real knowledge is looked at with suspicion and facts dropped into the “memory hole” as soon as no longer convenient. After all, the average Westerner becomes an expert on a topic after watching a two minute “news” video on CNN or Fox, and the last thing he or she wants is to be confused by the facts. That might require thinking, and thought is reserved for more precious things, like American “””””””football””””” scores or Starbucks cup logos.

Secondly, said ISA citizen has been systematically conditioned to hate Russia, Putin, Syria and Assad, by mega doses of propaganda, personally peddled by the blood soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama. To people with neither the brain power nor the inclination to perform the analysis a bedbug might be capable of, anyone opposed to Russia/Putin/Syria/Assad=The Good Guys. That al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al Nusra, is now routinely passed off as “moderate pro-Western rebels”, only a couple of months after the ISA admitted that there were only four or five remaining “moderate pro-Western rebels”, and that the average ISian swallows this hook, line and sinker, proves exactly what I’m talking about.

The rehabilitation of ISIS, however, won’t start from the ISA itself. Its Wall Street corporatocracy realises, more than anyone else there does, that anything the Imperialist States proposes has become tainted by association now. That is why it uses proxies like the European Union, as it did in the invasion of Libya or the Nazi coup in Ukraine. In the case of ISIS, it will use a compliant “liberal” puppet like Trudeau of Canada – in fact, it will almost certainly be Trudeau of Canada – to open the gates to Western acceptance of ISIS. The average mindless “liberal” will fall over his or her nonexistent brain to lap up whatever bilge is given as justification – probably that the brave ISIS fighters are combating the Evil Gay-Hating Russian Menace and the Evil Assad Dictatorship – to give full support to the idea, precisely as he or she did the Nazis in Kiev. There seems to be no amount of idiocy these “liberals” are incapable of committing as long as their favourite politician doles out the lies. Once ISIS is a recognised entity in Canada – and Britain, with its well known history of sheltering and protecting Chechen terrorists, will at once fall into line – the Caliphate will increasingly become a recognised entity, at least in the West.

Will this actually happen? Remember that the ISA is now in a de facto alliance with al Qaeda and a formal alliance has been suggested by the blood soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama’s former CIA chief David Petraeus. Remember that the Imperialist States has always, invariably, sided with Sunni jihadis against Russia and secular Muslim governments and societies.

I thought, at first, this ISIS entity would take five years to come about. Now I realise I was mistaken.

The process is already happening, even as I write this.

You’re welcome.

The Cage

“Calling all dentists,” the email said. “This is the first national dental conference to be held since the Liberation. All of you are invited to make the event a major success with your presence. Welcome!”

I didn’t hesitate long. I needed a break anyway. The way my life was going, I couldn’t last much longer without falling apart if I didn’t take a break. The person I’d hoped to spend my life with had dumped me out of the blue, the patients had suddenly deserted my practice while the latest currency devaluation had sent equipment costs through the roof, my rent had been raised again, and just a few days ago a neighbour’s wall had collapsed on my house, demolishing half of it. The thing was going to end up in the courts, I could already see that.

If I could have taken a vacation, I would gladly have done so; but a vacation was no longer something that I could even think of without a sigh of nostalgia. I’d no particular desire to attend the conference, but there was one thing that it could offer me that a vacation never would: as the email confirmed, it was a legitimate business expense and so was fully tax deductible.

Two days later I was on a train rattling south west towards the new capital, Indraprastha, named after the abode of the gods. Flying was both too expensive, and, after the events of the Liberation, still far too uncertain. The train was hot and stuffy, the AC was on the blink, and the toilets were backed up. Still, it was moving, and only a few hours late. That, so soon after the Liberation, was something to be grateful for anyway.

Outside the train’s tinted window, the flat countryside slid by, fields stretching on and on towards an impossibly far horizon, marked only by the dots of a few distant trees. Except for an occasional dusty red tractor, the fields were deserted. The farmers were almost all gone, forced off the land by drought and debt, crowding the slums of the cities. The new national patriotic media had announced that they would be given jobs in industry, and that a new renaissance was at hand. I’d shrugged and decided I’d wait and see for myself.

I soon tired of looking out of the window at the empty fields and the dusty little stations, which were exactly the same as they’d always been except that they now flew the new triangular saffron national flag with the Aum emblem, and took out a book. I’d barely opened it before a voice came from the seat opposite. “Hey, you.”

I looked up. It was someone who’d got on at the last station, a man with a thin face and ashes and sandalwood paste smeared across his balding forehead. “Yes?”

“That,” he pointed at the object in my hands, “is a foreign book. Why are you reading it?”

I shrugged. “It’s a book on Chinese history. What’s wrong with it?”

It seemed to be the equivalent of the metaphorical red rag to a bull. “Why don’t you read our history? The new books, written by the patriotic historians? Everyone should read those. Not foreign trash.”

“I’ll do that,” I said, “as soon as I’ve finished this one, thanks.” He subsided, muttering, but I could feel the waves of disapproval coming off him for the next couple of hundred kilometres until he got off  again.

Indraprastha was far more congested than I’d anticipated, the station platform crammed with people. I couldn’t decide if they’d just arrived or were waiting for a train out. Armed guards were everywhere, in their black uniforms with saffron headbands. A couple of them glared at me suspiciously, and I could feel them trying to decide if I might be a Christian or a Muslim. But they let me go by, without even asking to see my identity card. Maybe they’d just wanted to make me sweat.

I took a cab. The driver was a thin man with a thick moustache who seemed to take a while deciding whether to take me where I wanted to go. Eventually he nodded. “Get in.” And as soon as I was inside, he began playing devotional music over the speakers, loud enough to drown out anything I might say.

I wasn’t in the mood for conversation anyway,

The venue of the conference was a “model village” on the outskirts, a strikingly rustic looking retreat with low, quite thickly wooded hills and thatched-roofed cottages set around a meandering little stream flowing between red earth banks. Apart from the inevitable cows, there were swans and even a section set apart for a small herd of elephants. It was really quite charming, and one would never have guessed that just on the other side of a high wall was the edge of the city, with a broad road lined by shops and thick with traffic.

As I was registering at the office, a woman with the kind of face that fell naturally into a smile came up to me. “You’re the first one from your part of the country to turn up,” she said. “We didn’t really have a lot of response from the east.”

It felt almost like an accusation. I shrugged. “Well...it’s a long way.”

“Yes, isn’t it.” She grinned and offered me her hand, realised at the last moment what she was doing, and snatched it back hurriedly. There was a brief moment of mutual embarrassment, which she broke with another grin. “I’m Savitri Moomphali. Dr Savitri Moomphali.”

It sounded familiar, and then I remembered. “I saw your name on the list of organisers.” It had struck me mostly because it was the only woman’s name on the list. I’d been faintly surprised even to find the one; post-Liberation, women were now officially “encouraged” to stay at home and raise families, not to work. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice of you to say so.” She was older than I’d thought at first, probably around my own age, her hair shot through with threads of silver. “I’m in charge of the delegates’ accommodation, so if you have any problems, you’re welcome to contact me.”

“I will, thanks.” I looked at her curiously. She was dressed rather anachronistically for the post-Liberation era, in black jeans and jacket over a dark red T shirt. Maybe she thought it was making a statement. I just hoped it wouldn’t get her into trouble. “I think I read a paper by you in the Journal of Hindustani Dentistry. About the incidence of oral cancers in the village communities of Hastinapur and their correlation with tendu leaf chewing, wasn’t that so?”

She smiled. “Yes, I’m the district community dentist there. It’s a great opportunity for research.” She reached for a small card and checked off my name. “You’ll want to freshen up after your journey. Someone will show you to your room.”

My room had wooden walls and floor, and a large open window giving on to a balcony buttressed by thick bamboo posts, which overlooked the river. There were two beds. I’d just finished unpacking my things when my roommate entered.

“Hi,” he said, friendlily enough. “I’m Krishan Nariyal. You’re planning to stay all the six days of the conference?”

“That’s right.” I introduced myself. “Not that I’m planning to present any papers or anything. I’m here to learn, not to teach.”

“Ah, there’s plenty to learn.” He was a tall individual with a toothbrush moustache and green eyes which almost vanished when he smiled. “I’m presenting a paper on the therapeutic effects of cowdung-based toothpaste. It’s really quite amazing how effective it is.”

He was obviously highly enthusiastic on the topic – as other things, going by the little trident badge on his chest – so I just sat back and listened to him talk. When he finally paused for breath I took the opportunity to change the subject. “Is this your first time here?”

“Oh, no. I come here at least a couple of times a month. I’ve had a lot of work with the government after the Liberation.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “I’m a stranger in town, myself.”

“I’ll show you around if you want,” he said. “I love this city. It’s more like my home than my real home is.”

The conference was to begin the next morning, so we went down to lunch. It was in a large open air space with tables scattered around among trees, whose leaves were rustled by cool breezes. The whole effect was very charming, and only spoilt by a few television sets on stands which had been set up so that there was always one in view no matter which way you faced.

I met Savitri Moomphali, who was coming away from the buffet with her plate filled with food. “Liking it here?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s nice so far.”

“It grows on you a bit,” she said. “How’s your part of the country? I’m told it’s beautiful.”

I thought about the empty clinic and my house, half-buried under rubble. “Not really, no. I’m rather thinking of moving. Do you know of any jobs around?”

She smiled tightly. “If there were, I can assure you there would be ten candidates already lined up. But if I ever hear anything I’ll let you know.” 

I got some food and sat beside Nariyal, who was already half way through his lunch. The man ate with amazing speed. “I see you were talking to our ex-Christian.”

“Ex-Christian?”

He jerked his head. “The Moomphali woman. Everyone knows she was a Christian who converted just before the Liberation. Just like them, isn’t it, to run over to the winning side to save their skins?”

I didn’t say anything. The food was bland but not bad, plantain and boiled rice and a few other vegetarian dishes on the side. Long before I’d got through it, Nariyal had gone for a second helping, and finished it off too.

“Want to come out to the town later?” he asked, stretching. “Lots of places to see.”

“Might as well,” I said.

We walked out through the gate and into the city. Nearby there was a high enclosure with a head-high concrete wall surmounted by thick iron rods. I’d noticed it earlier when the cab was driving in and asked Nariyal about it now.

“You’ll probably find out,” he said drily. “It’s used a time or two every week, anyway.”

I took another look. It looked like an open topped cage. On one side was a curved horseshoe of concrete, rising in a terrace like a stadium. It was for some kind of game, I supposed. I detested sports, and hoped I wouldn’t be forced to attend.

“It’s a nice spectacle,” Nariyal said. “Very compelling. You’ll like it.”

There was a gate on one side, very tall, and a couple of workers were welding a section of it, supervised by a man in a white cap and white T shirt. He noticed me watching, frowned, and waved me away. He looked like an irritable type anyway, with a reddish face and deep-sunken eyes. His moustache was like a bar between his nose and upper lip.

We took an autorickshaw and drove around town while Nariyal showed me its wonders. It wasn’t anything like as special as he seemed to think. I’d visited better, both abroad, before the Liberation, when I could still afford to travel and there were no restrictions on which countries one could visit, and even here. But then I wasn’t seeing it through his eyes.

“Look,” he said enthusiastically, pointing to a temple, a towering structure of spires and gateways, surmounted by saffron flags. “There was a mosque here once, and now we’ve taken back what was ours. Now at last our people have risen again!”

For an instant I looked away, and saw the autorickshaw driver watching us in the rear view mirror, and at that moment I knew, with absolute certainty, that he was a Muslim or a Christian, camouflaged for his own safety. He noticed me looking back, glanced away quickly, and accelerated. At that moment he was probably praying fervently to Allah or Mother Mary or someone that I hadn’t realised what he was and wouldn’t give him away.

I shrugged inwardly. It was no affair of mine anyway. As an atheist, I was almost at as much risk as he was. Not as much, but almost.

We came back to the village when the evening was shading towards night, just in time for supper. The television sets were on, and they were all turned to the same channel.

An elderly white woman in a nun’s wimple was speaking. A subtitle identified her as Sister Dana. She was saying something about a church being desecrated. “They destroyed everything,” she said as we arrived. “And what they couldn’t destroy, they burned.”

A few people cheered. “And tomorrow we’ll burn you too, witch!”

The scene cut to a government office, where a bearded man in saffron robes looked solemnly at the camera. “We had already revoked Sister Dana’s visa,” he said. “She has been staying on illegally in this country and will be deported by the end of the week. We’ll investigate how she was permitted to stay on for so long.”

Supper was even blander than lunch. And afterwards Nariyal offered me some of his cowdung toothpaste.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll stick to the one I use. Thanks anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “Pretty soon all the other brands will be made illegal, and then you won’t have a choice. The file’s just waiting for the minister’s signature.”

And that night I discovered that Nariyal snored. Shrilly.

The next morning there was alarm and excitement. Some woman had been attacked in the city, gang-raped and murdered. The perpetrators were known, the TV said. They included three Christians. 

“Please remain calm,” the government spokesman said on the TV sets. “The criminals will be tracked down. We know why they did it – it’s in revenge for the government deporting the nun Dana. They’ll be captured, very soon, and suffer the consequences.”

“There’s already been some consequences,” someone said, audibly. “I hear some Christians and Muslims have been caught and taught a lesson.” He laughed. “They seem to need lessons every now and then, don’t they?”

The conference opened shortly afterwards. The inauguration was of course entirely religious, with priests chanting over a sacred fire. Nariyal then took the centre stage and spent the entire morning on his cowdung toothpaste. He spent more time quoting ancient texts than modern laboratory work, and that too was entirely in accordance with government guidelines. After that he came over to me.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Great,” I said. “You’ll have them all brushing with it in no time.”

“I do hope the neem stick crowd don’t throw a wrench in the works,” he said, looking at the afternoon’s schedule. “They’re demanding that we all abandon toothpaste completely and use neem chew-sticks instead.”

“You have science on your side,” I told him.

“True,” he said gloomily. “But they have tradition, and they can quote scriptural references, and that’s all that matters.”

As the conference closed for the day there was a brief flutter of excitement. “Come along,” Nariyal told me. “There’s something you have to see.”

“Come along where?”

“To the gate. If we hurry, we can still get front row seats.”

There was already a crowd gathering when we arrived, with a number of black-clad security men watching. Inside the cage, I saw, were ten or fifteen young men. Some of them looked as though they were from the far north of the country, with slanted eyes and high-cheekboned faces. All but one of them were gathered in a knot in the centre, looking around nervously.

“Christians,” Nariyal said. “They were caught in the town today. The rapists might even be among them.”

“What?” I asked. “If you aren’t even sure that they’re the rapists, what –”

“Don’t you understand? We’ve got to make an example.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“You’ll see.”

I noticed the one man who was not part of the group, and who seemed to be trying desperately to climb up the iron rods. He seemed familiar, and suddenly I recognised him. It was the man in the white cap who had been supervising the welding of the gate the previous day. “What about him?”

“Oh, him. I think one of the rapists has been identified as a relative of his. It’ll be a deterrent.”

A hush suddenly fell over the crowd, which had grown so large by now that it had overflowed the stands and was pressing us against the concrete wall. I had to rise on tiptoe to look over it.

The huge gates at the far end had opened, and when I saw what was coming in through there, I realised why everyone had fallen silent.

I turned my head away as the men in the cage, screaming, made a rush for the wall. A hand clutched at the rod next to my head and was abruptly snatched away. There was a shrill, infuriated trumpeting.

“Don’t look away,” Nariyal said in my ear. “If you’re caught not watching, you’ll draw suspicion and you might end up there yourself.”

Later, when it was over, Nariyal took me to a stall where green coconuts were on sale. “You look like you need one,” he said, as the vendor chopped off the top and put in a straw. “The first time’s always the worst, but you’ll get used to it, never fear.”

“True,” the coconut vendor said. “Each time there’s one of these, my business does much better.”

I watched as the three elephants were led out of the cage. Their tusks were smeared with blood. One of them raised its trunk and trumpeted in my direction.

“They only kill when ordered to,” the coconut vendor said, laughing. “So you don’t have to worry at all, master.”

Later, after I’d packed my bags and began my trek down to the gate, I passed the dining area. There was only one person there. I recognised Savitri Moomphali, who was sitting over a small plate of food. She waved and I walked over.

“What’s this?” she asked. “You’re leaving us already?”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Something’s come up, an emergency at home. I’ve to get back right away.”

“That’s sad,” she said. “We were hoping to have you for the full duration.”

“Maybe I’ll be back next time,” I said.

“Yeah, I hope so.” She smiled, rather wanly. “Hey – you were talking about a job, weren’t you? I think I might be able to get you one.”

“Is that so?” I asked. “Where?”

“Hastinapur,” she said. “There’s an opening for a dentist in charge of the district.”

“Hastinapur?” I repeated. “But isn’t there where you...” There seemed to be something wrong about her, and I suddenly realised what. She was awkwardly spooning food up with her left hand. And now I saw her right arm was swinging uselessly by her side. She saw me looking.

“Yes, well,” she said. “They weren’t to know. They believed this rumour that I was a Christian, you see.”

Copyright B Purkayastha 2015

Note to reader: This is an almost exact account of a dream I had on the night of 23^rd/24^th November 2015, changed only to leave out a few of the usual dream inconsistencies and to fit it into a narrative framework.