Al Ngullie
Had a great night. Even the dream I had was quite something, though a bit strange. In the dream, my elder brother Joe stood in the middle of the flyover bridge. He was bruised and bloody. He was leaning on the palisade and his palms shading his eyes, was squinting over the horizon. Behind him thronged a sea of people making their way through heaps of mechanical wreck, broken glass and puddles of petrol everywhere. Anyway today’s going to be really exciting. Reporting for two events. No pleasure like writing.
The function lasted for hours. After a bout of drowsiness induced from the combination of silent guests and whirling fans overhead in the main hall of Hotel Saramati, the mood leapt to life as Wati took the stage to belt out numbers from his debut album. Being a journalist gets you all over fun places. And don’t forget to interview the man himself, I reminded myself.
For someone who’s always been happy sending frightened parents under their beds with aggressive slabs of heavy metal, Wati seemed so strangely mellowed with his slow rock originals -a far cry from the screaming, snarling Wati of Squadron, one of the Naga bands that put Nagaland squarely on India’s ‘pub’ rock bands. The others were Lystra, (a Christian metal outfit with the really cool Khetosher, vocals, burning up the stage with his charisma) and Abiogenesis, the first NE rockers to net a record contract with the then Magnasound label. And talking of Abiogenesis, Arenla, the lead singer of the band herself, sat with her husband Moa, the guitarist, at the reception as Wati tore on his emotions. So the who’s who of the local rock scene had gathered to lend support to one of their comrade-in-rock!
While other artistes took the stage during Wati’s break, a fair flood of beer did rounds expectedly putting an extra length of smile on many of the guests’ lips. Then suddenly some of the smileys faded to give room to embarrassment and discomfiture. You see, the beer-trip fog gradually cleared to the realization that the musicians on stage were singing, hold your breath, gospel songs! While Beer and gospel songs can be a heady subject for any cocktail debate, the most noticeably ironic aspect of the whole thing was, second-time hold your breath, the beer-guzzlers had begun tapping to the gospel numbers, with bubbling mugs of beer in each hand! Maybe the Bible verse stated in the book of Proverbs, “a little wine is good for your stomach” is responsible for the revelers cocktailing gospel with whisky. No big wonder beer can make one feel a lot Heavenly.
Anyway high-flying philosophies apart, I decided to leave before the night got too late. My Mom must be having goggled-eyes worrying, I muttered. I rang up my brother to come and pick me up and waited for hours on end but he didn’t turn up. And of all the miseries in this happy world, BSNL should figure in to make matters even worse! The more I tried to get through to my brother’s Cell phone, the more frequent the ‘Net-work Busy’ peeps got. My colleagues had left and I was still there - struggling to get through to my brother. What’s taking him this long? After hours of waiting I started wondering if the Hotel’s steps would be a good place to sleep. And where are all the autos? It’s 10:56 PM, dude, I heard myself mutter. Anyway, one of my buddies, a Photographer from another paper, drove me home. May his Tribe increase!
Later I called up my brother why he didn’t turn up. He’d come he said. Coming. Just as he took a curve at the Flyover Bridge, a speeding Bolero, without a dipper, had hit him. His car was completely smashed, but he escaped, thankfully, with only minor bruises. And then I realized with horror that the collision, ironically had taken place just a stone’s throw away from where I had stood last night after the function, waiting impatiently for the car to pick me up.
And I believed in the things we don’t know yet. As we talked about the accident, slow images began to converge in my memory. I realized the place I had stood on last night waiting for him to pick me up, was exactly the place from where I’d witnessed my brother, bruised and bloody, leaning on the palisade as a sea of people made their way through heaps of mechanical wreck, broken glass and puddles of blood and petrol everywhere, in my dream the night before the accident happened.
