By Rajarshi Banerjee
“…the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations…saw that that vast map was Useless…”
— Jorge Luis Borges, “On Exactitude in Science”
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What is the promise of a story? That it will end!
There might not be a closure. It might be far from completion. But a story ends nonetheless.
A story may conclude, and be sealed off, at an end. Or, it may continue in and as another story. It may, at times, give birth to a new one. Or, perchance, you may want to coax or drag an end to an invariable termination, as and when you wish. Often, a story meets another; and then of course it is hard to determine which one ends where, and which moves ahead. That is, if you absolutely need to separate the inseparable. Practically anything is possible on either side of an end. A story can be awesome or awful, famous or blasphemous, fascinating or fastidious. But no expectation other than an end is part of the promise. Interestingly, the beginning of this story, like any other story, is preoccupied and preconditioned by an impending end.
Our story is of a story titled, Tix. Like any other story, it was a simple ordinary one, punctuated by ordinary complications. Like any other story, the rich aroma of coffee idealised it, while the futile pledge to quit smoking actualised it. Like any other story, it did not remember its birth, but was ever haunted by the ordinary perplexity of death – sometimes scared, often nonchalant, but never looking forward to it. And like any other story, it dreamt; dreamt of somehow becoming an extraordinary plot. Tix knew that the moment of its birth was an inception, and an exposition too, condemning it with a conflict. Unless, it can transcend the ordinary.
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In its adolescent pursuit of uniqueness, Tix began following the footsteps of other plots which had achieved singularity. But before long, it matured into the realisation that by merely being influenced by the greats – some popular, some unpredictable, some tedious, some controversial – it would never be out of the ordinary. Rather, it had to internalise the inspiration and strive for originality. That, and only that, would set it apart.
Like all other ordinary tales, Tix ran into others. Some common characters or their look-alikes would often mark their meetings. Sometimes, the experience of similar events triggered the meetings. However, what Tix had yearned for the most was the rare meeting when it would just happen to be in a setting, spatially and temporally, with another text – whence the two strands would be woven intimately into a seamless fabric. One such meet cute plaited Tix with another story. When it recovered from the rupture, it patiently gathered its torn pieces through a litany of cyclic passages and monotonous chapters, and promised never to let go of itself before the climax of its quest – for originality.
Blinded with its obsession, Tix never considered the plausibility of being original. How can it ever be, when it is always plotted on the matrix in relation to others’ coordinates? Tix, itself, has intersected so many. It has frequently advanced parallel to some, tangential to others, circumscribing the rest. Catalysed by a few stories, it has been sometimes reluctantly precipitated, or vehemently fused – or confused – with yet another. How would it come even remotely close to being original, when it is merely a reflection of others, or, at the most, a minor refraction? It stayed ignorant of the fact that it can never be unique, but can only remain typical of its species, or evolve – genetically and generically.
The closer it proceeded towards its climax, stronger grew its addiction which had long transformed from a dream. And without warning, it happened. Like in most stories, suddenly. Unexpectedly. Chasing its fixation, Tix was caught quite off guard, when out of the blue it met Rara. Like Tix, which is to say, like any other ordinary story, Rara had its own complicated history – its own reminiscent dreams, and its own scars. And it loved the smell of books.
Within the intricate fabric, the two interlaced strings continued as one. Their sighing creases were readily stitched into harmonised pleats. The new texture, titled Tix and Rara, was a fine blend of two cognates – corporeal knots interlocked, splicing vital bights, congruently rolled into a pleasant recognition. This climactic re-cognition was named, The Chestnut Tree.
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The Chestnut Tree is another story, an interludian dream sequence to Tix and Rara. Like any other ordinary dream, it is an allusion to an allusion. It is a finely brewed amalgam of book and coffee. The Chestnut Tree is a book café…
The first time the two tiny bells jingle on the door, Rara’s face lights up from one of the bookshelves and from behind the counter, Tix steals a glance at its warm smile. At night, while they lock the doors, Tix stares at the sign – The Chestnut Tree – and wonders if this happiness is real, or still a dream…
The sign is a promise that it indeed is The Chestnut Tree. And like any other promise, the very act of promising makes it what it is. But the promise, like a story, makes sense as long as their dream – the café – continues. While the sign presents the café, the café presents the sign, mutually interlocked in a dream of re-presentation. The exact sign is the café itself – not the promising signboard; nothing external…
Marveling at its own musings on the exactitude in signs, Tix becomes aware of its blindness – the very blindness that led it to superimpose ‘extraordinariness’ with ‘originality’. It realises that no original element is necessarily required to be extraordinary. An ordinary pipe yoked with an ordinary phrase becomes enigmatic; an ordinary set of cans painted alongside similar others makes history; ordinary drips made to overlap on canvas become extraordinary…
Tix understands there need not be anything extra in the extraordinary, because it is the interaction and the interconnectivity that produce something unique. Every invention is a discovery after all – a discovery of the potential of the ordinary to be extraordinary. An ordinary story, like Tix, turns into an extraordinary plot only when it seeks, not outwards but, inwards – when it becomes aware of itself…
Tix identifies how blind it has been to confuse originality with being extraordinary. Here, at the much awaited climax, it realises that no climax is required after all. That realisation makes it choose this anticlimax over a climactic leap towards the unattainable. Originality matters only in the way a story perceives itself – how it can reflect on its ordinary self – and choose to be extraordinary. Tix discovers that its birth was an exposition, and an inception too, blessing it with an individuality. Until it did transcend itself, merging into Tix and Rara…
And that was – what it had never been conscious of earlier – simply extraordinary…
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So what happens to our story? Did Tix become an extraordinary plot? If not, it is okay; as clarified at the onset, it is never a part of a story’s promise. Did the search for originality end? The Chestnut Tree was a dream anyway – that too, an interlude to Tix and Rara, not to Tix itself. Was the dream fulfilled? Were there new dreams? New beginnings? Well, that’s up to you to conclude (if you must). Either way, here, this story ends as promised at the beginning.
