An account of Dr. Phantom

By Dr. Saliya Kularathne

Translated by Ranga Chandrarathne

Dr. Indranatha Wanshapura, Head of the Asian Unit of the American Research Centre at the University of Osmania in Andra Pradesh in India, thought of idling away that Saturday’s morning. Still in a sleepy mood, he got up and disconnected the telephone. He also cut off the electricity to the computer room with multiple media access. He lay down again putting the mobile phone by the side, only to answer the calls that might generate from his family members in Sri Lanka. Soon he fell into deep slumber and saw a strange scene in a dream.

Indranatha saw what he had just done as if playing a video cassette. He saw in the dream, how he had been disconnecting different operational items in his laboratory. He could see three screens projecting simultaneously, the past, present and the future as if in a film editing studio. One scene recorded Indranatha in a sleepy state walking towards the laboratory. On the other screen, he was disconnecting the media accesses while the third screen, the future scene was projecting something of interest. After awhile, where Indranatha slept on the bed, his right hand stretched out unintentionally knocking at the mobile phone. The mobile phone got switched off by knocking a finger at it. With this, the room where Indranatha slept got caught up in a rapid change of time and space frame and drifted away into centuries. At that moment, Indranatha woke up and looked around to find that his finger was about to touch on the mobile phone as in the dream. Indranatha understood that he had experienced a shadow of a deep fundamental concept of time and space though in a dream.

From Indranatha’s laboratory to his bedroom were the orderly kept diverse physical models, plans, change of architecture, remarks by different personalities and information gathered from books about the concept of Multi Universe on which Indranatha carried out research work for a considerable period of time. The concept of Multi Universe is the idea that there could be many planets similar to the earth on this infinite universe spread in diverse galaxies.

Our individual history is spent in one earth while future will be spent in another earth and it is clear from the Quantum Mechanism that these things take place as an illusion of the transformation of power beyond the black hole nearest to the universe. Suddenly Indranatha knocked hard against something as if electrified.

This laboratory was designed in accordance with the subtle networks of connections in Quantum Mechanism. Accordingly, if all the present equipment are switched off, a shift of time is to take place due to the sophisticated functionalities of the laboratory. If that happens, the mobile phone should also to be switched off. Indranatha exactly did this stubborn act. Light waves rose and descended like waves in an ocean. His body was paralysed temporarily. Eyes were shut off and again opened. Indranatha could no longer live in a world of thoughts. He heard a taxi being stopped at the backyard of the house. Indranatha heard one’s hand being knocked against the door. He opened the door. His uncle from the village appeared before him.

After a couple of hours, Indranatha returned to Sri Lanka with his uncle. Strangely, he could remember all the journeys to Andra Pradesh in India from Sri Lanka but had completely forgotten his journey to Sri Lanka with his uncle.

The reason could have been that Indranatha had intensely concentrated on the amazing incident said to have occurred in his village. Banda of the village of Musnawa in Kurunegala had now subjected to a mysterious change. Nobody in the village could describe this mysterious situation. For doctors, it was a mystery. “The only person who can find out this is our son, Indranatha” some villagers said.

For some time, Banda had been suffering from epilepsy. When he develop a fit, he would crawl down on the ground and struggle violently. It was the common habit of the villagers to give him a nail at such occurrences knowing that it would bring the patient back to normality. But, this time, when Banda developed epilepsy, nobody was around and when a neighbour saw him, he was stunned by the scene. A youth with an iron box like head fell on the ground. The neighbour bent down as if in fear to see oozing white liquid from the bottom of the iron box around the head. His body was shivering in the same manner as Banda shivered when he got epilepsy. Strangely, the iron box seemed to have merged with the body on the surface. Though some said that Banda’s head got stuck in an empty kerosene barrel thrown into the bush when he struggled during a fit, others who knew the fact said that this was a mysterious creature with an iron box like head and that the creature was still alive.

Against this backdrop, Indranatha was the only specialist who knew about this, had to return to Sri Lanka. Indranatha examined the creature. When he turned the patient, he saw a glass plate on a side of the iron head. On further examination, he found two plug-points by the side of the iron head. Indranatha brought his laptop and fixed an extended connection to two plug-points on the iron head. To the amazement of those who were watching, a black smudge appeared on the screen. Indranatha realised that a blurred image that appeared on the screen was trying to express something. Listening intensely, Indranatha understood that the image spoke in English.

“I am Dr. Multi Goal”, at last a clear voice said.

Dr. Multi Goal who died recently due to his head being dashed into a computer as a result of a technical defect at a Seminar organised by a multinational organisation in America, had been a hot topic of the town. The creature’s life account was being expressed in English through Indranatha’s lap top.

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Yamara Bhiruka Matige was born in the Hiriyala Pattuwa of Sathkorale four decades ago. Matige could remember as if in a dream how his father was proud of the surname ‘Yamara Bhiruka’. “Son, long time ago, a great grandfather had made arrows for the king Vathhimi Bandara. One day when the king hid behind the fire, a hot arrow was about to fall on him. Grandfather caught it up before being fell on the king. Remembering the heroic deed, the king honoured him with the title ‘Yakada Mara Abhiruka’ ” . Yakada Mara later became Yamara. The present name was made by deleting the letter ‘aa’ in Abiruka.

Matige roamed in the hamlet of Hiriyala wearing only a loincloth. His mother was a village woman who earned her living by working on land and paddy fields. Matige had a younger brother and a sister. His father was a stranger to the village. Maha Matige (father of Kuda Matige) married a girl from the village and later, he returned to the village to settle down for good. After she bore children, Maha Matige did not look at her with lustful eyes because of her emaciated body that withstood scorching sunlight, winds and harsh weather was no longer appealing. But Maha Matige was not a person who would reconcile with listening to sermons of the Buddhist monk on the impermanency of life. He would dip two pieces of cotton in scent brought from the city and would go to work. When his wife asked; “What it is this nonsense?”, Maha Matige held the wife by hair and bashed her head against the wall. It was rumoured that Maha Matige visiting a house by Sandagala tank every evening. A villager with a foul mouth had told Kuda Matige, “Your father sleeps with a young woman”. Scratching his head, he soured his face like the mask of Mahakola ( The Devil Sanni) and he had neither strong attachments with his father nor resentment against him. But he knew something bad was happening.

One day, Matige had roamed the village throughout the day and sat on the stone near Sandagala tank in the evening. At the dust, he saw Maha Matige entering the cottage by the tank, carrying a bag with one hand and a bag of vegetables with the other hand. On a sudden impulse, he entered the cottage through the backyard removing the curtain of reed and saw a beautiful woman sleeping on mat which was put on wooden bed. Beside her was a twelve year old girl crawled in. Maha Matige arrived inside and pat on the woman’s buttocks and jumped on her and she cried in passion. The pretty girls who say this turned the other way around.

Matige had an unruly impulse and sat in the next room in semi-darkness. Matige saw father coming out of the house and walking along the embankment. Despite mosquito bites, Matige waited on his indecent impulse and saw that the beautiful girl coming out of the backyard and began to relieve herself tucking up her dirty gown. Matige stealthily came up to the girl and covered her mouth with a hand as if he had experienced previously. The girl made a noise and cried. “Don’t be afraid that was my father who slept with your mother.”

“I like you, Turn this way and pull her hands. The girl in a sleepy state walked into the darkness.

“Why?” she inquired.

He pulled her down and lay on top of her. But they were too small to have anything other than sweet touching.

“ I am going…are you angry with me? “ , he asked.

“ No, I am not” , she said.

A Kirala bird cry from a distance, Matige who had a kind of happiness following the experience in the dark, developed desolate feelings in the next moment.

At the sight of huge buildings in the university and lecturers who delivered lectures proudly carrying a large numbers of voluminous books and girls and boys in their prime of youth roaming in, Matige thought of his journey to the university which reminded him of episodes from W.A Silva’s novel ‘Hingana Kolla’ (Beggar boy). Though his body was similar to others, his mind was like a queer thing from the outer space. Matige considered his mind and body as a hybrid of two different animals. He did not forgive the destiny which deprived him of fatherly love and protection as a youngster and suffered endlessly from it. Matige recalled with hatred and sense of abandonment how mother got to know of the affair and often quarrelled with father over it and how he had disappeared leaving Matige, his brothers and sisters with mother. Matige left that terrible resentment at the bottom of his heart. But he could not forget the immature sexual gratification that he experienced in semi-darkness from thin pretty girl. Whenever, Matige tried to meet the girl, he saw someone else in the house. At last, when he went to the backyard, he was stunned at the sight of she was having sex with a young man in semi-darkness. From that day on, his heart was like that of tiger but looked like that of a tamed dog.

Meanwhile he attended enlightening lecturers as well as confusing lecturers. For no reason, he was hit with fear attending the lecture on Buddhist Philosophy. In the Pereta vastu story, (Discourse on spirits and phantoms), it was said that men and women consumed with hatred, jealousy and hypocrisy would be born dirty spirits. Matige did not know why he refused these teachings with disgust; he resented specially the part which practically relevant to the lives of villagers, system of beliefs and the environment he was born in.

Therefore, in the second year, he opted for Comparative Literatures and Literary Theory and courses in mass media. He often spoke about authors such as Washington Ervin, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Geoffrey Crayon. He tried to maintain privacy and to find academic reasons to justify it. He liked Geoffrey’s anthology of short stories “The Sketch Book”. It was about a Dutch man who slept twenty years after being hypnotized in Catskill mountain range and returned to his village to find out that most of contemporaries had died by then. Matige hoped to eliminate the primordial society in which he lived as an innocent, men and women and the Buddhism with the teaching of cause and effect. He argued about justice from a strange and nonsensical perspective. At that time, incidents of LTTE terrorists’ attacking the villagers in Eastern province and hacking them to death were reported. At all those instances, Matige used to say “If Government doesn’t ready to grant their rights, they are trying to convince it by other means”. He often cited Nathanial Hawthrone’s novel ‘Moby-Dick” in arguments on justice.

The whale Moby-Dick lives according to its whims and fancies. It does not care for traditions and morality and does respect elders, parents and traditional taboos. In sex, it does not listen to the advices of respected elder. It was Captain Ahab who went to whale hunting. Matige always sided with the Whale saying “These old hackers should keep away from youngsters’ business”. Matige gave vent to his feelings through poetry, short stories and mass media. Once a famous poet highly appreciated Matige’s work and expressed his willingness to help him by all means. After the incident, Matige frequented the poet’s residence. The poet considered Matige as a son. Soon, Matige became his confidante. The poet had a beautiful daughter with tender and ivory white hands which can be compared to the ivory Millangoda tusker. Whenever, he saw that girl, it reminded him of immature experience he had in semi-darkness in Hiriyala with a young girl twenty years ago. The poet’s daughter smiled shyly with him in offering drinks and exchanged a couple of words. One day when Matige visited the house, the front door was closed and he saw a woman’s dress hung on a string in the backyard. On seeing it, he got that indecent impulse, reminding him of waiting near Sandagala tank for the girl. He tiptoed into the backyard and walked up to the toilet. Matige was on an elevated position so as to see the girl in the toilet. He saw girl’s white thighs and could hardly control mounting desires. Matige caught the girl and after a little struggle, she yielded in. Later the girl cried bitterly.

“Sister, I have done something wrong. We all are humans but I will not forget you”, he said. The girl accepted his false promise and did not reveal the incident to her father.

With disturbed mind, Dr.Indranatha listened to the life story of the creature with a boxed head. Now, that creature began to change rapidly. The villagers, who thought the creature was Banda, were stunned when Banda came to the scene.

“Oh, my god, this is either a devil or a dirty spirit”, a villager shrieked. The creature’s hands and legs took a wired form and began to struggle like snakes. Smoke began to emanate from hands and legs as if body was burning inside.

“You get away from it. It seems that creature is from the Mars”, villager shouted.

Dr. Indranatha who researched on invisible world, reminded of the content of the book “You have been here before” by Dr. Edith Fiore. The Atlantis Civilization which was destroyed in 10,000 BC was a highly developed technological society. The society was destroyed because of spiritual decay. The scientists of that era who died with glass sharpens and machinery fell on them and suffering a lot, have been depicted in animation films as spirits in the space and in the bottom of sea with strange bodies with parts of machinery. Dr. Indranatha recalled that details of them had been presented in “Atlantis the Lost World” by Ignatius Donnelly.

Yamara Bhiruka Matige, who won a Fulbright scholarship to study at University of California, had changed his name to “Yeoman Brunette Multigoal” as he knew that his links to Sri Lankan society was only by this obsolete Sinhalese name. As soon as he changed the name, those who know Matige had criticised him on different points; some said that he had changed the name as he suffered from inferiority complex, some others said that he had a right to do so. Dr. Multgoal befriended uninvited with many in foreign soil and he also gave up friendship suddenly. If his friend would call the following day “How are you Multi”, Multi would say “Hi” and quickly walked out of the place. But he was eyeing for beautiful white women and would wait even a long time to befriend with them. But his face would turn dark remembering the deserted poet’s daughter after he won a Fulbright scholarship to study in the US.

On the insistence of his mother and sister who still lived in the village, Multigoal agreed to marry a Sri Lankan girl. He used the strategy employed by king Kusa in Kusa Jatakaya. He sent mother a beautiful picture of an American girl. “I will only marry a girl similar to the one in the photograph”. On the day of his wedding, he was flashed with the memory of poet’s daughter exposing her exquisite thighs and having sex with her in the toilet.

Soon Multigoal qualified in IT in addition to the subject he mastered. He was attracted to IT because of the fact that he wanted to generate thoughts faster than human mind. He wanted to do something at high speed and to forget it as quickly as possible, so there would not be gaps between streams of thinking reminding him of his miserable past; he would be haunted with the hysterical laughs of poet’s beautiful daughter with ivory white hands. He had to forget it as king Ajasatta forgot his father’s killing. But king Ajasatte realised his wrongdoing and take refuge of the Buddha. King Sitavaka who committed the same crime embraced Brahmanism. Multigoal’s position was equal to that of king Sitavaka. He flew from the USA to Japan, Norway and Ghana. At restaurants, Multigoal tasted diverse dishes pursuing exotic tastes. He liked to have fish whose body was roasted while the head was still alive as it was on cotton with ice cubes. As the eyes of the fish were giggling, he derived strange happiness from it. At the same time, he hallucinated of his head being turned into a computer and it heated up in mess of circuitry and wires. To avoid that thought he sought the comfort of a woman. Every time the sex worker comes, Multigoal would say something and she would go to the toilet and when she comes out he would grab her and have sex.

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That international conference was attended by a large number of multinational conglomerates and Multigoal was among the key note speakers. He had made arrangement to deliver his speck through a special computer. When Multigoal addressed the conference, huge computer was fixed on to a screen above him. The bottom of the computer was hollow and cameras and other equipments fixed on to it. The computer projected diverse images of Multigoal on to the screen. At once, that huge computer came down and hide Multigoal’s head in its hollow. Soon Multigoal was seen like a man with a huge computer-like head. He fell down and smoke emanated from the computer and it caught fire making Multigoal’s rescue a dream.

“Later I was born a dirty spirit with a computer head”, mystic creature told Dr. Indranatha in English through the computer. Dr. Indranatha reflected of stories of different dirty spirits that Arhat Rev. Mahinda preached. At the instance, fire engulfed the creature.

“Sir, get away from it”, villagers shrieked. Dr. Indranatha got up and the watch indicated ten in the morning. He took a sigh and thought of the tragic death of Dr. Yeoman Brunette Multigoal which was reported as a lead story in newspapers.