The story of Nan Phu is not a story. That is to say, it is not fiction. It is real because many people, who are euphemistically called children, believe in it. Is it not what we believe to be real is real for us? And frankly there is no other criterion to test the reality of it. This story, which is not a story but reality, is about a boy called Nan Phu, who used to live in the village of Bumboret a long time back. He belonged to the Kalash tribe who have populated the Chitral Mountains since time immemorial and are known for their megalithic stone circles and ibex horn carvings. We all know and the children believe that in ancient times there was a time when charms and magic and sorcery and witchcraft prevailed. The people of Kalash tribe, since they retained the customs and traditions and lifestyle of ancient times, were likely to also possess the knowledge that the advancement of civilization had made scarce, if not extinct, in other people. Nan Phu belonged to this tribe and was in possession of such an esoteric knowledge.
In fact it was not knowledge but a box. Inside the box was a gate. Inside the gate was a world. Inside that world was another Bumboret village. And inside that village was another Nan Phu. This other Nan Phu also had a box, which had a gate that led back to this Nan Phu’s world. The only difference between the world outside the box and the world inside the box was that there was magic still prevailing in the world inside the box. And Nan Phu, not only the one inside the box but also the one outside the box, knew this.
It was a time when the British officer Alexander Burnes was tracing the footsteps of his illustrious namesake, Alexander the Great, and trying to find the famous altars of the Macedonian monarch. Alexander Burnes had a contingent of British officers from Calcutta with him. He camped at Rumbur for some days and it was during this time that one by one the officers from Calcutta got the news of the death of their little ones born in the British administrative centre of India. The tropical climate of Gangetic Bengal played with the lives of British young ones, who lacked the immunity to withstand the onslaught of cholera and malaria. The ambitious British officers in their imperialist zeal had crossed the high seas and reached the land called India. But their colonial project did not find favour with the Picts and the Elves and the Gnomes and the Goblins who had protected the British children and had provided them immunity from the scourge of diseases for ages. Thus, in Calcutta the unguarded children of the British officers became the victim of their fathers’ thoughtless ambition.
When all the officers accompanying Alexander Burnes went into mourning and he was left alone, he went on a walking tour of the vicinity of Rumbur. That was how he came to Bumboret and met Nan Phu. Though they did not speak with each other since one’s language was alien to the other, Nan Phu could read Burnes’s mind. Nan Phu, who had the remnants of magic from ancient times still left in him, could see through the eyes of Burnes the English graves of Calcutta where the dead children were writhing and the yet-to-be-born ones were pleading futilely with the Picts and the Elves and the Gnomes and the Goblins for protection. It was then that Nan Phu decided to help the children. What was the use of the magic or rather the box in his possession if not to do good to others?
It was a cloudy day when Nan Phu decided to enter the gate inside the box. But he did not know that the clouds forebode a warning. So when he reached the other world, the world where charms and magic and sorcery and witchcraft still prevailed, he found it raining. The Indus was behaving treacherously and anyone who was not a master of magic could well be carried away by the raging river. Nan Phu had unwittingly risked his life and his condition was precarious. He was wet in the rain and the tide of the flooded river was pulling at his feet. Luckily the other Nan Phu, the one of the magical world, had the intuition of his coming and was ready to meet and protect his counterpart from the other world. Just as the rolling stones were giving way from under the feet of Nan Phu and he was about to lose his balance, a hand clutched his hand. They met – the two Nan Phus.
Instantly, to the surprise of the newly arrived Nan Phu, the rain stopped and the river went back to its original shoreline. Clouds dispersed. The sun came up. Seeing the quizzical look on the face of his counterpart, the Nan Phu of the magical world said, “The purpose of the flooding of the river is over. It was to put your life in peril and probably to drown you. But since I have saved you that purpose is defeated and nature has abandoned its pursuit. That is how things happen in this world. You should have noticed the omen of the clouds before entering the box.”
“Oh!” was all that was heard in reply.
So the speaker continued, “I am Nan Phu of this world. Call me Phu because that is the name that was given to us from the magical world and I will call you Nan because that is the name that was given to us from the world where magic has faded.”
In response Nan could only say, “Phu.”
“Yes.”
Soon Nan began to come into his own and out of the shock of how close he had been to death. He liked Phu, whom he had always wanted to meet. He told him the purpose of his visit. Phu became pensive. After a while he spoke. “You will have to travel to Ganok. To the Factory of Potions. That is where you will get the cure for the diseases that afflict the British children in Calcutta causing their untimely death.”
Nan said excitedly, “Then I’ll go there this very moment. I have heard of the village of Ganok in my world and I will find my way there. Will you accompany me?”
“Sure. I’ll accompany you. But it is a long journey. We will have to halt at Olthingthang. My pet ibex will guide us.”
“Oh! You have an ibex as a pet. How wonderful!”
After a while both Nan and Phu were on their way to Olthingthang following an ibex. For Nan, this world was same as the world he had left behind except he had an uncanny feeling that magic was lurking at every cranny of this world. When they reached Olthingthang after walking for a long time, Nan found that strangely he was not feeling any tiredness. He wanted to continue the journey. But Phu said that even though they do not feel any tiredness in the world of magic, the body muscles do get tired and so they must rest and eat something. The people in Olthingthang were just as the people Nan would have encountered in his own world, except that the two boys were stared at since they looked alike.
In a while the two boys again started following the ibex, crossed the turbulent river Tui, and reached Ganok. It was then that Nan noticed the difference. The megalithic stone circles, which in his world were in ruins, were not so in this world. In Ganok the stone circle stood in full grandeur and inside it was the Factory of Potions. As they neared it they had to jostle with the crowd to get to the stone gate. There were queues to enter. Soon they became a part of a sinuous line of people proceeding towards the gate. There were all sorts of people – some looked ordinary, some extraordinary. There were jugglers and conjurers, some in coats and some in rags, some were talking and some were silent, some made faces and some stood expressionless, some were white and some were black, and some were also lookalikes like them. When they were inside the gate the crowd dispersed and though the Factory of Potions did not look like a big building that can house so many people, it did appear that the people vanished once they entered the building. An old woman who was in the queue just ahead of them was nowhere to be found by them once she had entered the building.
At the reception they spoke to the receptionist, a woman in suit, who directed them to an antechamber. Inside the chamber was a long table with the men and women who mattered sitting around it. Phu spoke first and explained the purpose of their visit. Then Nan gave a description of the deplorable condition of the children of the white people in Calcutta. The men and women who mattered looked glum. A voice at the far end of the table rose and explained that they have just allotted the sought after cures, under the recommendation of the noble Mr. Sym Pathy, to one member of the Pathy family, Mr. Allo by name, and had to console his brother Mr. Homeo, who also wanted the same curatives, with some trifles. So it was not possible to re-allot the same. Nan lowered his eyelids and the curve of his lips arched. Phu said, “Isn’t there any other remedy?”
The voice at the other end spoke again, “I am afraid, no. In course of time Mr. Allo Pathy will make the cures known to the likes of Fleming, Ross, and others and that is how it will be dispersed in that world of lost magic.”
Nan exclaimed “In course of time! Not immediately!”
Phu added, “What if Nan promises to deliver the cures immediately on reaching his world?”
The heads around the table entered into a consultation among themselves. And after a lengthy deliberation the voice at the end of the table rose again, “We have decided to give you the immunity potion instead if you promise to deliver it immediately to the needy on reaching your world.”
Nan’s face widened with a smile.
When Nan and Phu came out of the megalithic stone circle, they looked back and saw the Factory of Potions getting dissolved into thin air. Phu explained to the naive looking Nan that the Factory of Potions has exhausted its purpose serving them and so it need not exist anymore. That it how things work in the land of charms and magic and sorcery and witchcraft. Then, following the ibex, the two boys retraced their path back to Bumboret. They had the immunity potion with them. Nan thanked Phu before he entered Phu’s box and through the gate therein he came back to his own world. Nan was surprised to find that everything was just the same as he had left behind in his world. The cloud was still there but it cleared immediately. It seemed that all the time he was in that other world time had stood still in this world. But he had no time to muse about time because he had to reach Calcutta as soon as he could.
Nan Phu’s journey from Bumboret to Calcutta is the stuff of legends for he had to pass many a danger and meet many a challenge to reach his goal. He had written about his eventful journey too on returning back from Calcutta to his village. But the old Kalash language became extinct and it remained undecipherable. In course of time the pages of the manuscript were destroyed in the turmoil of history. What little remained extant were interpreted by the eminent Dr. Rama, Dr. Gama and Dr. Dgama variously. Orally it is known and the children believe that Nan Phu did come to Calcutta crossing the passes at Skardu and journeying through Deoli and Shamli and Dehra and Naini to Brahmganj to Berhampore to Barrackpore and finally to Calcutta. A Bengali folklore about Nondor Ma, whose medicinal potions cured many white children in Calcutta when the Western doctors failed to bring relief to them, mentions the name of Nan Phu.
Perhaps she was the same old woman who stood in the queue ahead of Nan Phu in the Factory of Potions. It was through her that it is known that a boy had come from the northwest, who had sowed the immunity potion in the soil of Calcutta, mixed it in the waters of the Hooghly, blew it in the air of the city, and even hid it in books in the libraries. The white children gradually stopped dying untimely and the Picts and the Elves and the Gnomes and the Goblins were all very happy and thankful to Nan Phu for what he had done. And all the white children – Harry and Potter and Mary and Poppins and Peter and Pan and Cinderella and Rapunzel and Jack and Jill and Hansel and Gretel and Weelie and Winkie and Alice and Frodo – all that lived during that time were happy and thankful to Nan Phu for bringing the potion of immunity for them into the land of tropical diseases and saving their lives.
And this is in short the story of Nan Phu or in fact not the story but the reality of Nan Phu, for many people who are euphemistically called children still believe that he existed and was the deliverer of the immunity potion into the world from where magic had faded.
