The Lost Buddha

Posted by dizzy on Wednesday July 05, @06:30AM

A 2,894 word story about a buddha statue, a lawyer and a woman who is alleged to have killed her husband. It's not a mystery story.

So there was Tara Patel's son, Fido sitting under the mango tree in a fashion not unlike that of a Buddha. Wrapped in a freshly ironed white bed sheet, he sat with his eyes seemingly closed. And around him sat three other children hardly older than the 10-year-old white clad Fido. An air of dignified calm hovered around him as he sat quietly, maintaining a stoic silence although his disciples were murmuring. Tara Patel and her new found enemy K.D, looked at the spectacle from the latter's third floor balcony, which stood imposingly opposite the tree that served as a poor substitute for the Bodhi Tree.

"You're saying all this is my fault?" K.D asked with a sufficient touch of incredulity in her voice to convey that feeling.

"Then what?" came the prompt query from Tara, who was rumored to have killed her husband in a sudden fit of an unnamed emotion. Further allegations that his doctor wife carefully preserved his skeleton were made by uninformed sources. A particularly well uninformed source who claimed to have looked in through the ajar Patel front door, said she saw the skeleton of Tara's husband lounging on the sofa in front of the Television with a cigar in his skeletal mouth- just as Tara claimed she had last seen him before she left for Paris. "Of course he was alive when I left him," she is said to have claimed. The investigative observer's husband, a leading defence lawyer, was said to have posed a question to his wife that supposedly ran, "But how do you know the skeleton was her husband's?" Many weeks later, a rumor floated around that the lady divorced the defence lawyer because he didn't take her words at face value. The lawyer's plea that it was part of his job fell on diamond studded ears. However, contrary to all legal and moral requirements, they continued to live together. "The divorce has given me freedom, you know," the lady was quoted as saying. "And the presence of a man always discourages anti-social elements from loitering around the residence of a single woman, you know," she added to explain the defence lawyer's continued presence.

Anyway, returning to the matter at hand. K.D. wasn't keen on being answered by a question so she decided not to reply until she received a decent answer from Tara. An extremely tangible silence floated between the two ladies as Fido beckoned one of his disciples to speak. What transpired between guru and disciple was not heard by the two ladies, but what they did hear was the front door opening and banging shut and an owlish hooting from the hall.

"Who? Who? Where Where?" the voice queried. K.D. and Tara, still leaning their elbows on the window sill, half turned and stared patiently at the room door waiting for a human form to claim proprietary rights over the voice. And soon a lady, content to announce herself as a friend of K.D's, arrived.

"Where is it? I just heard about it...it must be charming," she said.

K.D flashed her reputed fake smile with great precision. A popular rumor was that the defence lawyer's partial deafness in the left ear was caused by K.D's slap when he claimed that there were other things she faked better.

Leaving Tara to gaze lovingly at her son. K.D. stood up straight and greeted the new arrival with a warm hello. "You are referring to my new statue no doubt, uh...Mrs...my dear friend."

"A statue?" asked the new arrival with honest disbelief, eyes wide open and all that. And to herself she whispered, "all this tamasha over a statue?"

"Yes, friend," said K.D., as she led the astonished arrival by the elbow to a small shelf with glass doors. "And see," she continued, "it looks beautiful, no?" She pointed with all five fingers. Inside the shelf was a glittering gold statue of a seated Buddha, just over three inches in height. They stared at it for a few minutes in silence, captivated by its stunning beauty.

"But...is it...all?"

"Yes, all gold. My husband pampers me so much. I believe it is a Buddha."

"Hey, K.D.," Tara called out hoarsely from the window.

K.D. looked at her with reproach. "What? Can't you see I am explaining the statue to her?"

"It is your son, he wants you to send some lunch down for Fido."

"Balderdash!" boomed K.D, keen to use the new word she had learnt that day in an appropriate context. She strode down the room to join Tara at the window and looked down at her son who signaled to her that the group needed to be fed.

"Nonsense, Benjy. You come up here and eat. And anyways, you monks are supposed to beg not demand."

She waited for Benjy's answer. He had quickly trotted up to Fido to convey the news. He came back after Fido had whispered something into his ear and repeated the same signals again.

"Oh my God, you fool." K.D, slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand in disgust. "I have made your favorite biryani and salad. Come and eat, I have to go to the club at 5 and Josy hasn't come to clean today. Now come and eat your chicken."

Now for the first time, Benjy spoke...and spoke like a true disciple. "From desire springs sorrow. I don't want your fancy food."

What happened next is shrouded in exaggeration, rumors and half-truths. The new arrival was the only witness to what transpired between Tara and K.D, after the latter shut the window and invited Tara for a talk.

Apparently they traded charges on who had caused this current situation. Tara claimed that K.D's statue had influenced Fido and caused him to take the path of a monk long before he was due. K.D vehemently asserted, (often times spitting and hissing like a disgruntled cobra that suddenly finds its hitherto dead mouse prey suddenly spring to life and bound away), that Fido had been psychologically affected when he saw his mother make more space in the living room by doing away with his father for good. Following this accusation, Tara, who is like a pot of poison layered with creamy milk, screamed poetically (proving that anger was an inspiring emotion), "that's not true, he died of flu!" At this critical and volatile juncture, the hitherto unobtrusive new arrival, glid out of a corner and suggested in a calm tone, with an intention to pacify Tara "It is okay, Tara, everyone has skeletons in their closet." Tara's face became purple and she almost reached for the fruit knife on the table. "You shut up. You have no clue what I'll do to you if you continue," Tara said, definitely inspired. She looked up and down at the new arrival trying to find something to insult her about. Quite frighteningly suddenly, Tara slapped K.D's forehead and gasped in disbelief. "K.D. look at what slippers she is wearing. Different colors." The new arrival looked down at her feet in scared incredulity. She then regained her composure and asserted that had Tara seen the latest fashion magazines she might not have made such an ignorant statement. However, to this day the new arrival contends that the rumor about her being color blind was started by Tara. It is also widely believed that precisely because Tara took out some of her anger on the new arrival, the latter might have been biased while reporting what actually transpired between K.D, and Tara.

A few weeks of great excitement followed. Word had spread that Tara and K.D, were at each other's throat because of what Fido was doing. Though he came home at night and slept well in his cosy bed, he spent most of his summer holiday afternoons, under the mango tree. Benjy often climbed the tree and got some mangoes for the group. And some of the more gullible ladies of the building actually thought Fido was cute and fed him well. Such activities fueled whispers that Tara was not only a bad wife but also a horrible and negligent mother. The particularly well uninformed source summarized succinctly: "what sane child will be influenced by a Buddha statue and what sane mother will assert this actually happened? This Tara...she's a goner." Her ex-husband, the defence lawyer, wore a disapproving expression behind the newspaper.

*****

The statue had a strange impact on many other people besides Fido and Benjy. A calming blanket of general well being seemed to have been wrapped around the inmates of the building. Punctual migraines never arrived, sick goats recovered amazingly quickly, computer viruses inexplicably disappeared and there existed a feeling of geniality amongst all- even to small extent between K.D and Tara. Such was the mysterious power of the Buddha statue.

So it was no wonder that the strange sightings started soon after the theft of the statue. A dumbfounded K.D was on the verge of tears when she discovered the loss. She asked the defence lawyer to inform the police, hearing which the lawyer sprung back like a cobra that had stepped on a hot stove. "The police?" he asked. "What do you want them for...especially when," and he nudged the mourning K.D in the ribs. "Are you really sure you want the cops?" Quickly K.D realized what the lawyer was getting at. This prompted rumors that the statue might have actually been smuggled.

The strange sightings drew more attention than the actual theft for obvious reasons. The twenty-something, good for everything rock star who lived in the terrace was the first one to report it. According to him he was waiting for the lift on the fifth floor; the lift whirred down from the tenth floor, and in a most undignified way continued its downward plunge without picking him up. The rock star swore under his breath as well as above it, that he had seen a gleaming Buddha statue inside the lift. This would have normally been dismissed as LSD induced exploits. But the same day four others reported the same sighting in the lift, and the Buddha in the lift became a part of many strange occurrences, which included the arrival of Sheikh the goat at the ajar front door of the butcher when he and his family were dining merrily on the very same goat. The butcher swore that it was the same goat he had eaten that came to his house. And perhaps the most disturbing of all: K.D heard the rickety-clickety sound of a walking skeleton which was soon followed by a skeleton walking nonchalantly across her living room with a cigar in it's skeletal mouth. "Patel!" she gasped before fainting.

Quite naturally Tara was suspected of the theft. She seemed to have a very clear motive; the means and opportunities were never outside her capabilities. Ever since school had reopened Fido had stopped being a Buddha. He was back to his usual self, which surprised even his mother. Consequently, all this only strengthened the case against Tara. "But mother," explained Fido, "it had nothing to do with the statue. I had nothing else to do in the summer and..."

"Really?" asked the defence lawyer who was loitering outside the ajar Patel front door. He ambled in slowly, "you mean the statue didn't have any effect on you?"

"Oh, lawyer saab," greeted Tara warmly. "And I thought all this happened because of the stupid statue." Fido snickered and ran outside, leaving Tara and the defence lawyer alone.

"Well, I came here to tell you that I am here to help you legally should you require it. I just heard that K.D might be taking legal action after all. You don't have to worry though; I can't imagine what her case will be...no evidence, and everything is so circumstantial. "

"Really?" Tara looked pensive inspite of the lawyer's assurances, and then slowly she smiled. "But, like you say, why should I be worried, when you are here." The lawyer beamed modestly. "Yes, yes, you don't have to worry when I am here. Remember last time? There you were on the stand, your blood on the body, on the fruit knife, no alibi, a dying declaration from the deceased accusing you and still I got you out." Tara laughed loudly. "Yes yes, and the judge, he just sat there in his chair, looking totally drugged." The lawyer nodded proudly, "yes drugged." And for a second her eyes locked on his. "You didn't," she asked, her eyes widening in disbelief. The defence lawyer looked like a young cobra that had been caught by it's mother while dipping it's forked tongue into the cookie jar. "But justice was done!" he asserted vehemently. "Yes, justice was done," echoed Tara, with a far away look in her eyes. A few minutes of silence followed, during which time, the defence lawyer had moved towards the Patel bookshelf.

"There's something else I have to tell you," he said looking at Sartre's `Of Being and Nothingness.'

"Ah, yes, yes," said Tara like her physics teacher in school would.

"The statue- I took it," confessed the lawyer at a leisurely pace of two words a minute. He eased the above-mentioned book out of the shelf and from the darkness beyond, retrieved the golden Buddha. Tara drew her breath sharply. "But you scou...what is it doing here?" The defence lawyer hastened to pacify her. "I did it all for Fido's sake. I thought he would be okay if the statue was gone. I swear I did it for you and him." Tara mulled over this for a minute, during which time the well uninformed source, walked past the ajar Patel front door and saw her ex-husband caught in the wiles of Tara.

"But why hide it here?" Tara asked understandably agitated. "Why can't you keep your dirty work inside your own house?" The lawyer looked around, as his paranoia seized him once again. In a frightened hush, he whispered, "I.T raid, dammit."

"But what if I had seen it?"

"Right," he said with enough sarcasm to assure Tara that he was being sarcastic. "Come on, Tara, I was sure you wouldn’t reach for a book on existentialism. You are as much an existentialist as a cobra is a sewing machine." continued the defence lawyer, whose father (a snake charmer) was rumored to have fallen in love with a tailor's daughter. It was believed that he won her heart with the innuendo, "you can stitch anytime, but not after nine." Strangely though, the defence lawyer seemed to know more about Tara's reading habits than his own.

"Ach so!" muttered Tara betraying her German ancestry.

"I'm glad you understand. I swear I did it all for you and Fido."

"Well, now what?" she asked, totally unflattered.

"Since, Fido was never really affected by it, I guess we have to return it."

"You have to return it," said Tara.

"Well, it has to be returned," said the lawyer dipping his right hand into his trouser pocket. When he removed it, betwixt his index and middle finger was an amazing gold ring, thick and expensive. Even Tara, who once claimed, "all I have can be sold, for I value love over gold," shivered a little. "Mein God! Where did you get that, defence lawyer, saab?" she whispered. The lawyer was content to smile suggestively and looked alternatingly at the Buddha statue and the ring. "No!" protested Tara, wonderstruck by the new level the lawyer had sunk to. She looked at the statue and posed a query with her eyes. "Clay," replied the defence lawyer. Tara was amazed. Here was somebody to match her total lack of morals and ethics. He smiled. "How long are you going to be alone, Tara?" he started, "the ring is yours..."

The defence lawyer spent the rest of his life passionately maintaining that the sudden disappearance of his eyebrows was one amongst the numerous strange things the theft of the statue caused, and that, as the butcher who had strolled past the ajar Patel front door claimed, it had nothing to do with Tara and a fruit knife.

K.D shrieked so loudly when the statue was returned to her that eighty year old Tomas, the resident gravedigger thought he had buried someone alive and he almost set out with his shovel. K.D showered the defence lawyer with praises and blessings. The lawyer thought this was the most opportune moment and he started to insist that exactly because K.D's husband was away at sea, she ought to accept his wonderful new golden ring.

"You lawyer sawyer fool, this is the fourth time you are asking me."

"Well, that's because you said no the last three times," retorted the lawyer not to be outdone.

When Benjy, who had overheard the conversation while standing outside the ajar K.D front door, narrated it to Tara, she gave vent to a disgusted "Pah!" just like her physics teacher in school would.

And the people in the building couldn't quite understand why they continued to see a Buddha in the lift even though the statue had been found. It was rumored that Tomas might have brought home some of his graveyard friends.

*****