WASABI

The following are excerpts from a yet unpublished Biography on the life of Yasser Arafat, renowned Palestinian leader and Noble Peace Prize recipient (1994). It reveals hitherto unknown and startling facts about his childhood and personal life, presented in articulate first-person phraseology.

Personal comment: Give it some time.. coz it's worth it.. SERIOUSLY!!

PROLOGUE

“It was August I remember..
The August of 1941..

We had just wound up my humble birthday celebrations in my uncle’s home and were cleaning up, when it happened. I remember, it was raining heavily outside; the barren roads of Jerusalem were desolate and I had just turned twelve. I had no idea why or for whom, the British soldiers raided and vandalized our unadorned home. But all I knew was that the weakling whom I called my father was nowhere to be found, in a time I needed him the most.

Next thing I remember is my adolescent self, a thin and scrawny lad, roaming in the dusty roads of Cairo. I remember how my elder sister used to wake me up and get me ready for school, get done with the household chores and then in the evenings tell me stories about my mother: How she used to be adored by the entire village, how people looked upon her as an angel. A selfless woman, a devoted nurse who was never too busy to help and what a staunch humanitarian she was. How she coped with a failure of a husband and a subdued married life. How she never returned after she went searching for her lost child in the great floods, when I was only five years old.

My mother always said that every person has a guardian angel looking upon them, guarding them, nurturing and nourishing them. Mine just happened to be nearer to God than most others…

My father, on the other hand was a spineless, characterless craven. He couldn’t provide for us and his textile business was always in recurrent loss. I remember the day when I was at college and a friend came running to me saying that my father had been shot. He died four days later and his funeral went unattended by his only living son.

It was august I remember,
The august of 1952..”

“I was dead. Three years of detention at Cairo central prison’s crematorium had made me so. My daily routine was unloading dead bodies, mostly rebels and arm-smugglers like me, from a hand-cranked elevator into the pits. I often recognized their faces but I felt nothing, no sorrow, no pain, no emotions, empathy, despair or desertion. All I felt was a void inside me, an inherent emptiness that proliferated with each passing day..

Then one day, I saw my mother. I am not sure it was her, there is no way I can be absolutely certain, but still I’d like to believe it was her. She tenderly touched my head and in a soft but lucid voice told me, “Son.. I’m sending you an angel..”

I woke up astonished and realized that I just had a dream, a beautiful dream. But as is their nature, they are shattered before we can even soak and revel in their warmth, let alone be realized. And this place was such where there could exist no angels, only hunger and fear and travesty and Death..

Two days later, I was walking near the edge of the compound, the sun had just retrieved its fiery blazing claws and a tepid breeze was blowing through the billets, making the air dusty. It was then, that I saw a vague figure in the distance, its form was indistinct but it looked human. It came closer and only when the breeze died down, could I make out that it was a little girl. A girl with golden locks, wearing a frilled white frock…

She was hiding behind an old birch tree, and all I could see from the distance was that she was scared. I called out to her in Hebrew and asked if she had something to eat. She didn’t reply at first, maybe she didn’t hear me, but I couldn’t possibly raise my voice any higher lest I attract the attention of the guards.

I inched ahead, getting closer to the barb-wired fence and was about to repeat myself when she stepped forward. She was lean and gaunt but her eyes… her eyes had magic… they were fearless, they had hope and rapture and in them I saw life.. in them, I saw my mother’s soul..

She took out a loaf of bread and threw it over the fence. I grabbed it and as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow." I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day, when the guards used to change shifts. She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple. We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean death for us both. I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Hebrew. What was her name? Why was she risking her life for me? Was she the angel my mother spoke about?
Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence always gave me some, as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples…

***

Nearly seven months passed, and in course of this unusual correspondence, I started feeling alive again. I experienced joy, exaltation, courage and hope; gratuity and love towards the godsend angel I had come to know..

It was august I remember, and we were informed that the enemy was at the gates and all possible witnesses had to be dealt with quickly. I was to be executed at the break of dawn.

"Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving." I turned towards the stockades and didn't look back, didn't even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl with the bread and apples. But while I was on my way, I heard something, and it was divine. It was the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. It was strange, because somehow, it made me feel strong. I looked back at the girl and she was standing there. Alone. In the darkness and desertion. She was looking at me, I couldn’t see her eyes in the darkness, but I felt it. Her gaze was fixed upon me and I stood there hypnotized by it. And amidst the thunder, I heard a soft snivel, a gasp, a whimper, its nature indiscernible due to the clamor of the storm. But yet I heard it. Then it rained, it rained as if God had decided to vanquish the entire Hell-fire with one swift shower. I soaked in it and reveled in the sublime bliss, drenched by the nectar falling from the heavens...

My mother used to say, that God was in the rain, and that the fragrant whiff of the impending rains, is actually the scent of God. I guess she was right, because the tears of this angel were compelling enough to make even the heavens weep..

I stood there enraptured, thinking that in a few hours, I was to be reunited with my mother, crying tears of elation in the rains, when one mighty thunderous bolt of lightning struck the giant Iron Gate and flung it open. The inmates seized the opportunity and fled for their lives.

That day I understood one very important thing.. that there is no certainty, only opportunity.”

“What might be your good name young lass?”
“Suha, Suha Tawil. I’m a nurse at the..”
“Tawil? You’re a Palestinian?”
“Yes.. but we moved out of Jerusalem long back during the wars, and settled in..”
“So, why are you interested in joining the liberation front?”
“My mother always said that no good deed goes unnoticed and no bad deed goes unpunished. My aim is to serve justice..”

Those words hit me hard. It was as if a ghost from the past had suddenly come alive. She had a reminiscent expression on her face but I just couldn’t recollect where I had seen it.. even her eyes looked familiar, too familiar..

“Where was it exactly that your family moved to?”
“Oh yes.. we moved to a small cattle farm near Cairo. My father ran a flour mill and my mother used to work at a bakery. I was only a child then but even now, I can clearly recollect the horrible condition of our people locked up in the prisons. It was then that I had resolved to always work for the betterment of humankind and..”

Her words were eluding me as my senses ceased to function.. my heart was heavy and my eyes doused with tears. I couldn’t believe it, I just couldn’t. After so many years I had finally stumbled upon my guardian angel, in this alien land. I stood up and hugged her, kissed her forehead as she sprang back, astonished at my unwelcome display of affection.

“Are you all right, Sir?” she asked, rather flustered.

I tried to compose myself to the best of my abilities, but I just couldn’t. And with a heavily choked up throat, replied: “You may not remember me, but for me you are no less than an angel.. and I thought I had lost you forever, but I promise, from the very depth of my heart I promise, I will never let go of you again.. never..”

“The Israeli militants had found us. We were organizing a PLO meeting and the hall was filled with Palestinians. They quarantined me and took her away. I feared the worst. In all probability she was dead and even if she wasn’t, it wasn’t long before she would be lynched…

I felt vacuous, vapid, my head dizzy with neurotic throbbing tending to annihilate it to smithereens. But even then, with whatever sense that remained, the only thing I thought about, was her.. I could feel her, sense her, smell her, hear her but only I couldn’t see her.. it was as if my mind was ready to surrender to the inescapable truth but my heart fervidly refused..

It was like the feeling you have, in those few anxious seconds, when you just see your little child fall down from a staircase or a bicycle..

You know she’s hurt, you know she’s dazed and torpid and benumbed, lying lifelessly on the turf and probably is going through the worst misery of her little life but then, an inch of you believes that she’s just fine, that God rested his mighty and caring hand on her shoulders and saved her from the inevitable peril that awaited her..

It was three hours of absolute agony and anguish before the rescuers found me and that was when the lights went out..

I woke up as if in a fugue, without any sense of where I was or what time or day it was.

They told me I had been gone for four days, and that all attempts to find her had failed, revealing only lacunas.

It was six in the evening and I could hear distant rumbling, resonating in the air. I asked the nurse whether any bombs had gone off lately. She very nonchalantly and in a tone bestowed only upon seasoned nurses, said that it was about to rain, like it had incessantly, for the past four days..

And I don’t know why, it’s not as if I believe in weather forecasts, but I instantly turned the TV on and put on the news. They were not showing weather maps or cloud formations. Instead they were showing how an unidentified woman had freed herself from the mob and had jumped out of their jeep en route the A39, near North Cornwall. All they showed was a blurred scathed face, its color incomprehensible due to the grayscale imagery. I couldn’t make out whether it was her, I couldn’t make out whether she was Jew or British, I couldn’t make out whether she was white or black, I couldn’t even make out whether she was coming through or dying… all that I could make out, was that she was crying…

And that night… it rained, like it had never before on the gleaming streets of London…”

~***~

This passionate and heart touching memoir, to be shortly published by Orient Publications, has been aptly titled:

“How to make someone read your blog while keeping them under the impression that it’s a nifty and inspirational biographical account of a Nobel laureate’s life, when actually it’s just another random and outlandish creation of your demented mind!!”