It is true. Life can often be stranger than fiction. A good writer can transport you to a completely new world, and conjure up superheroes whose impressions stay with you for the rest of your life: Harry Potter, Spiderman, Sherlock Holmes, and in my case, Agatha Christie’s rather buffoonish Belgian ace detective Hercule Poirot.
But up till now no one had managed to come up with an Edward Snowden, the former American spy who is on the run from Uncle Sam, hopping and skipping around the world in search of asylum.[break]
After laying bare the dirty secrets of the US Government, Snowden has been hailed as a hero by civil libertarians at home who are concerned about the state’s increasing encroachment on personal lives. Snowden risked his career and put his life in harm’s way to tell the truth to the world. But there are also plenty of Americans who see him as a traitor, willing to compromise on national security for cheap fame.
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While his legacy will be a matter of debate far into the future, the more immediate plot of his self-imposed exile thickens by the day. Where will Snowden end up? Will the American authorities get him back and keep him from babbling more top secrets? Or will he simply disappear, never to be heard of again?
Just like Rajeev.
I was around 10 when I first met him. His features suggested he was in his late teens or early 20s, no more. Tall and lanky, with a hint of stubble framing his angular visage, we always found him smoking by the chaur where we went to play football after school. If my mind isn’t playing tricks, the few photos of Snowden that have been circulated closely resemble the person I’m talking about.
But Rajeev isn’t his name. We never got his real name.
Whenever he saw us, Rajeev made us sit beside him and listen to his wise words. He was our first lesson on smut, a veritable encyclopedia on human reproduction. Did we know from where we came into this world, and how? Did we have a clue how many women he had slept with? We didn’t, nor did we care. Most of the information he volunteered were utterly disgusting to our juvenile minds. More than what he said, it was our utter fascination with this stranger and his consummate storytelling ability that held us back.
And then one fine day, Rajeev disappeared. Just like that. He didn’t live in our tole and our odd inquiries took us nowhere. After he failed to turn up for more than a couple of months, the most common speculation was that he had been thrown in jail for the legions of ‘immoral’ deeds he confessed to.
Back then I didn’t understand how one person could know about so many things. Rajeev seemed educated on everything under the sun: certainly sexuality, but he could also hold forth with fervor on drugs (hashish, we were told, was the king of drugs), politics, sports, et al. Perhaps, in the end, he knew too much for his own good.
Just like Snowden.
Rajeev was my first encounter with an adult who was willing to talk and behave like an adult with children. But even my budding brain understood that he represented a forbidden frontier. Only in our dreams could we be in the place where he wanted to lead us to.
I can now laugh at some of the outrageous things he made us believe in. Rajeev told us about this Aghori Baba in Chobhar who had supernatural powers. Baba had feasted on dead bodies, but he had also breathed life into many corpses. It was this same Baba who had taught Rajeev how to communicate with the dead, and even most frightening for us children, to read people’s minds.
He could be creepy. After hooking us on lurid tales of his wild escapades, he would threaten us: How could we entertain such dirty thoughts as children barely out of our mother’s wombs? Wait, he would tell our parents on us.
It feels like another lifetime.
I wonder where Rajeev is today. Older and wiser, he might have changed as a person. Or, like his look-alike, he too was a spy and (God forbid) has been removed from the scene by the Big Brother.
Wherever he is, I wish him well. Although he was a part of some of my worst nightmares in childhood, Rajeev was also the first person who made me think beyond the narrow confines of life. He was the one who taught me there was a whole unexplored world out there, something that I could look forward to whenever I was in low spirits.
Snowden’s fate will soon be settled. Most likely, the Americans will get him back by leveraging their formidable diplomatic clout. We will all get to hear what happens to him.
I’m not so certain about Rajeev, though. I might have lost him.
Forever.
The writer is the op-ed editor at Republica.
biswas.baral@gmail.com
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