Kedo Peseyie
Ever since I wrote about my experience with the Kukalims, the wooden race, some readers have been wondering if there will be more stories from the Dzubü valley. My first visit to this enchanting valley has been totally by accident. And personally, this has been a rather painful experience because I have never seen a race more heartbreaking. I’ll tell you why.
When we encounter a grownup and heartless criminal in a miserable condition, we feel very little pity because we feel that he deserves to be so. But when we see a very young boy caught stealing and being beaten for it, we are deeply moved and we want to save him because deep down we all feel that the boy is a victim of social injustice and breakdown of families. What is even more disheartening is that we created this social order ourselves, and this young boy has become one of its victims. The image of this tortured young boy stays on and on until we decide to do something about it.
To me, the Kukalims are like this young boy. They are victims of this social, religious and political order they themselves created. These systems slowly evolved and though they thought it was brilliant and fair, they are discovering today that they have become slaves of these ever evolving unfair and incomplete systems. It disturbed me incessantly. And so I decided to pay them another visit to see how they are faring now.
I walked down the valley through the long winding forest road where I found the Kukalim who guided me in my first visit. After walking awhile, I came upon the drooping gooseberry tree. I will leave out the other details as it is now more pertinent to keep their valley a secret. As I came to their valley I noticed something which was not there during my first visit. Their town was still shabby and dirty, but there was a lot of celebration and music going on. Most of them were drunk; some lying on the streets, some were dancing. But the sober ones looked the same like I have seen them before, except the grievous and agitated look on their faces. Among the sober ones I found Sailow. Sailow was the one who guided me out of the valley the first time I was there and showed me the secret route too. He walked furiously toward me, pushed me behind a tree and whispered, “Why have you come back? You promised not to. There have been a lot of changes and your presence is not safe for us now.”
It did not take me long to find out what he meant. They had just finished another election. As I mentioned in the first account of my visit, the candidate who can tell the most lies with a normal straight face wins the election. In their last election the unthinkable happened. It was a nightmare even for the Kukalims who never really think before they decide on an issue. Only after the election results are out they get time to think and discuss whether the elected candidate is worth his lies or not. This time, a young 8-year-old Kukalim boy and a 7-year-old Kukalim girl were elected to head their Royal family. This was the first time children contested and were elected. “Their lies were just too true and good” Sailow sighed. “Once elected, they have the right to choose the other Royal family members to rule with them, and now they are electing only children from their decaying neighbourhood and from cheap schools! Actually, the real reason for our apprehension is not because they are juveniles, but because their parents belong to the rebel tribe of half-breed Kukalims. Now their parents who hate the original Kukalims will run the show. The Wiseman warned that this would happen someday, but no one took him seriously. Everyone said he decided to become a wise man because he had no money and found no wife. I guess we were wrong about him. But now that this has happened, Kukalims are starting to take his prophecy more seriously.”
“What Prophecy?” I asked.
“Years back he prophesied that a Man—I mean a human like you—would come down and destroy the valley of the Kukalims and sit on the throne of our king. Some of us believe that this Man will deliver us from all these repressive social, religious and political powers we have created in our valley. But the majority, including the children, believe that this Man will be the Devil himself and if he is allowed into the valley, he will completely destroy all Kukalims. They call us the Believers and have accused us of plotting with humans. Now do you see why you are not safe here anymore?”
“But surely I am not that man who will destroy all Kukalims. That’s impossible.”
“We know you are certainly not that Man. You are too fat to fit the description.” Sailow said, “But the Royal family sees every human as a threat and they have ordered that any human seen in our valley be killed. And you are a human. But you are safe here at least for a few days because the children are now busy fighting over who will be the most important member in the Royal office. We are hoping that they will continue fighting and forget about the prophecy and leave us Believers alone to prepare for its fulfilment.”
Throughout my stay there I was confined in Sailow’s house. My only view of their town was through the window of his small apartment built on an alder tree. But the view was enough to get a feel of the turn of events in the valley since the last election. No bells were heard because they had issued an order that all bells be removed from the schools and cathedrals. They had declared their first year as a year of entertainment. All of their resources and energy were being spent in organising entertainments and feasts. There were rumours that a special committee was already set up to organise the celebration of the “Royal Family’s One Year Achievements” at the end of the year. They had even drafted the list of achievements in advance to be published during this celebration. Through their spies, the Believers acquired a copy of the draft and it was read out aloud to few of us gathered in the upper room of Sailow’s apartment. I don’t remember all of it, but some of the items I remember are reproduced below:
1. The declaration of the juvenile game Kick-The-Butt-From-Behind as the national Kukalim sport and pastime.
2. The banning of all books, textbooks and lectures from schools and cathedrals, and the introduction of the new approach to teaching and worship called “Only Sound and Image Method (sans Word).” This has been highly effective in preventing students and worshipers from falling asleep in classrooms and churches.
3. The simplifying of grammar: the removal of the past tense and the future tense. The usage of only the present tense and the elimination of difficult words like “prophecy”, “law”, “integrity”, “conscience”, “diligence”, “just-peace”, “morality”, “democracy”, etc. Life in the valley has become very simple and easy. Now we have more time to play our favourite Crab-Game where the players try to prevent each other from reaching the top of the rock. With the elimination of the singular word “Law”, individuals and unions are now empowered to enforce their own “laws”, thus relieving the old-fashioned “Law enforcers” from their dangerous duty of upholding the old fashioned Law.
4. The redefining of words like “free” and “freedom”. When a child of class 3 says he is free to draw a pig, he does not mean a pig with four legs and one head, but now he means that he is free to draw whatever he likes and call it a pig. This has unlocked the “creative freedom” of the children. One recent example is the drawing by a class 3 student who drew a pig with eleven legs and three heads; because his teacher told him that he is “free” to draw a pig. We warmly welcome the new “freedom” which is highly imaginative and creative with no restrictions or binding rules.
After reading the draft, Sailow suggested that we should go and consult the Wiseman. We waited until the moon came up as it was not safe for me to be out in the daylight. We reached the tall tree under which the Wiseman lived in a small wooden house. There were books and papers all over the place. As we entered, he stood up from his study and said casually, almost making light of the situation, “I knew this was going to happen. But it’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Pigs with eleven legs and three heads, individual laws and union laws, a language without grammar, a grammar without tense! Friends, welcome to the new ‘free’ world—whatever they mean by that. You see, a Kukalim is free to walk, but he is not free to sprout wings and fly. He is free to drink, but he loses his freedom when he becomes drunk. Freedom must have a form, or it is not free. Freedom without a form is chaos.”
The Wiseman sat down again, and as he opened the old book containing the prophecy about the Man who will deliver the Kukalims, he suddenly became serious and solemn. “Friends,” he said, “you don’t understand the Man because you don’t read the book. There is no reason to panic. On the appointed day the Man will come and restore us back to our original flesh and we will shed these wooden bodies. When he sets us free, we will know what freedom is. And as we wait and watch, we will teach our children what it means to be free, to think, to laugh, to value the world, to value the self, to choose right, and value the choice. And we all wait in hope…”
