Page 216 - Musings 2020

40

Zakhir the Purist, Company to the Dead

Pranav Dinesh Kumar 2017A4PS0121P and Roshan Roy 2017A7PS1172P

“I’m a purist, you imbeciles, a hapless purist, and I adore Rabindranath Tagore!”

This was all Zakhir ever said in response to people’s sneers and jibes. It had gone on for long
enough, and so the camp residents had decided to give him a special title – “Zakhir the
Purist”. Nobody really liked him, so whenever I saw Zakhir the Purist returning to camp on a
road frequented by other people, I’d holler out loud, “Hey Zakhir, people will hurt you if you
don’t get off this road right away!”

Zakhir was in no mood to fight unnecessarily, and so he found his own routes back to his
house in the camp. This placated the other residents, for as long as he wasn’t in their sight,
they’d put up with having him around. If by a turn of fate, an unlucky resident happened to
lose his way and meander along with one of Zakhir’s paths, he would warn the resident out
loud, “Hey, who is this boy? I am Zakhir the Purist, Company to the Dead, and this is my
path alone. Buzz off before I catch you!”. This was his way to avoid the disgust and fear of
people towards him.

Sometimes, either because of pure negligence, or because of a desire to have some harmless
fun, Zakhir would sneak up behind people or walk on their path. Unsurprisingly this would
cause an uproar. The poor, innocent and frightened people would scream, shout and curse at
him and then chase him away with sticks and stones.

This raised a serious issue. People were roaming around the streets scared out of their wits,
like a walking and talking threat loomed large around them without a care in the world.
Should they make peace with Zakhir to keep him from mutilating their family’s corpses?
Should they complain to the police? People had no idea what to do! After all, nobody knew
exactly what Zakhir did, when he was working. Zakhir was the only one who washed corpses
at the local hospital and they had no idea what he did with their next of kin. All sorts of
rumours started floating around. Did he steal parts from them? Did he spit on them, slap
them, play games, stab them for fun? Whatever the case, Zakhir left people to the mercy of
their imagination.

These horrible stories revolving around Zakhir had started when a young man, working in the
hospital, came out terrified and shouting, “I saw him carrying a human head! Run for your
lives! He’s a freak!”
“You saw him with your own eyes?”
“I swear!”

A few days later, the story had spread like wildfire across the camp. To make things
decidedly worse, Zakhir the Purist boarded a local bus with an opaque plastic bag full of
unidentified objects slung over his shoulder. Of course, nobody knew what was in the bag,
and of course, the rumour mill brewed long and hard that day. On that bus, there was a
passenger who had apparently seen a large head in the bag. How he saw the head in an
opaque bag, your guess is as good as mine. As soon as the said passenger saw Zakhir, the

216