SeshuChamarty

I saw him first at the far end of the quiet street, barely a few minutes after I started for my daily jog. The sight made me gasp for breath and utter, “Goodness Gracious!” I just could not help myself stopping in my tracks.
He looked so healthy, and so full of life. I was dumbstruck. Admittedly, I am not a believer in supernatural stuff. Though I enjoy Harry Potter stories, I never truly believed in witchcraft. Ditto with UFO. For me even moon is an UFO, for reasons that I have never set my foot on it. Coming to the subject under reference in real world, I saw his picture only in the morning that too under an obituary column in a local newspaper right on my coffee table. I wondered, “ was it a newspaper bungle or some fateful faux pas of the family? Or, was it a mysterious case of dead man walking? ” I was vacillating.

Gathering enough courage, I moved closer to him to have a better look. Yes, it was he all the same. No mistaking on that score. He was aged about 50 years, sporting a bushy honey-colored mustache. Had it not been for that trademark mustache, I would not have cared in the first place, either for that commonplace picture in newspaper or the man who was apparently in flesh and blood sitting right before me on the cold cement sofa. You don’t happen to see that mustache everyday, granting you had access to hundred and one TV Channels in the metropolis flashing thousand and one faces.

With slight trepidation I approached him and opened tentatively. “Nice weather! Is it not pretty odd for the season?” He glowered at me with a hint of suspicion as though it was his normal way of giving response to any opening line from a stranger. I thought either he did not care for me or had not heard me at all. I tried once again, this time louder, “Will you please tell me what bus I should take to go to the Town Square?" Of course, I was fully conscious of the fact that I was in my usual tracksuit and didn’t exactly look like a tourist. He consulted his watch as if to retrieve some information from it. At last, I decided to be nonchalant and asked for his name as well as the place he came from. He shook his head listlessly and made a gesture with his outstretched palms holding the tips of forefingers to his lips, seemingly conveying that he did not get my language right. I asked what other languages could he speak, using the same language akin to that of deaf and dumb. He said something incoherent and surely I could pick out the word ‘Assamese’ mentioned in the midst of his mumbling syllables.
“Boy! There you are”, I almost blurted out to myself. “Why could not it be true?” After all, there are bound to be close resemblances among the vast multitude of people here and there in this big world, which is now newly christened as global village. Here is one instance of such rare coincidence. A dead man from our place had striking resemblance to a stranger hailing from 'God knows where', assuming for sometime that it was far off Assam in India. It was not anybody's fault. Is not Pan-India a great leveling factor like Pan-America? Finally, I signaled a farewell with an exaggerated bow suggesting a huge apology and left the sulking alien alone there.

I sauntered briefly for a while to gather enough momentum to catch up my usual jogging pace. In the process, I wearily looked back. I was startled to find him not there. He was right there a moment ago sitting morosely on the cement sofa. Strange! How could it be true? He couldn’t just move away that quickly? Presuming for a while he did, he couldn’t be gone any farther, to be completely out of my sight in that very short time. Well. It was impossible for humans to disappear just like that from the scene into nothingness like dematerialization shown on Star Trek. There were no shops or houses on the flanks nor did traffic pick up that early. I slowly retraced my steps back to the cement sofa. To my surprise, there fluttered an opened up newspaper perched top down on the arm of the sofa. The picture of the man was staring mockingly at me from the front page. It was simply leaping out from the surrounding text, embossed in dark ink. I picked up the paper and saw a yellow circle drawn around the profile with a numeral ‘13’ written outside prominently in the same color. It was intriguing. What could be the significance of number 13? I tried to figure out the visual significance. Maybe it had to be his 13th successful attempt either partly or fully, to get his picture published in as many newspapers around the globe for reasons best known to himself, albeit under obituary columns. But, the very number' 13' vaguely indicated some portentous connotations to my otherwise rational psyche. A chill passed down my spine.
The puzzle continued to play havoc on my mind even after I returned to my beautiful cottage. I was sharing the residence with a bachelor friend as I was new to the place and also owing to the fact that my friend was badly in need of some temporary accommodation. Soon I slumped down tiredly in the couch beside him. My friend appeared to be deeply absorbed into something in the newspaper. I tapped on his shoulder and shared the news of my queer encounter with a man who was reportedly dead. To dramatically bolster up my story I pointed my shaky forefinger accusingly at the picture in the newspaper held by my friend. I nudged my friend for his valuable advice as to what I should be exactly doing in such circumstances, “Is not it time we called the police and reported the biggest bluff in these parts of the world and I am sure, also a fraud on our society?”
My friend laughed off the whole matter as ridiculous and termed it as nothing but the net effect of my extended multiple hangovers, thanks to the previous night’s Sunday binge. In his opinion I was just being paranoid and seeing a ghost in an out- of- the town wayward tourist who probably went astray from some troupe. Posing like a criminologist, he insisted that if my story were to be believed, the mustached man should have some plausible reasons, if not an outright evil one to get his profiles published under obituary columns and no sane person ever went to such great lengths. He also insisted that it would be difficult for the police to get the man tried in the court for want of criminal motive, if at all I reported the matter. To substantiate my case, I harangued on my haunches giving off my own set of gems regarding the man's probable motives for faking false death. Among others it included: grab a fast insurance claim, ditch persistent creditors, escape police dragnet or at the worst, give a slip to a divorced wife chasing after her arrears of maintenance, etc. My friend quipped, "Come on! Boss! To sound credible you should have done better than that. For the record, I bet you could never come out with one sufficiently cogent and gullible motive, even supposing the mustached man was yourself." I was beginning to suspect my friend’s motives instead.
Suddenly the doorbell rang and my friend padded along to the lobby to answer. Listening to the animated discussion going on at the door, I wondered it might be our sacked servant hollering for his arrears.
While I was putting away the newspaper after intensely studying the dubious picture for one last time, the very face of the man with the mustache zoomed in front of my face. I literally jumped out of my skin.
The man extended his hand, “Hi There! Your good friend here just told me everything, about your getting disturbed seeing me in the morning and how my face was playing tricks on you ever since and that you were even tempted to go to police. No doubt, it was my own photograph that appeared under the obituary column. I am just a marketing consultant engaged by the local newspaper. My assignment is to survey on practical lines how vividly the printed images capture the imagination of causal readers and how far they are retained in their memory despite the fact that these images are not related howsoever remotely to their real or perceived interests or backgrounds.”

He continued, “As in script, I followed you up to your cottage to gather my subject’s impressions straight from the horse’s mouth. However, your friend here was rather too eager and told me everything, he being our volunteer- collaborator from the subject’s house. I think my job is well done. It is time I went to the press and filed the feedback. Boy! By the way, you happened to be the newspaper’s 13th subject for the record which is quite good for the present series, especially in this line of study. Incidentally, it is also my individual target figure to wind up my part.”

He left the room in great rush before I could even bat an eyelid or come out of daze to open my mouth.