I met the great Khan suddenly. One fine day, once upon a time, quite recently in 2011, the great Khan stepped out of the internet and entered my mind. He has been quite friendly, and yet, I am yet to meet him and get to know him in an informal way. Each time I get on to the internet, he floats from my mind and on to the web, and moves through the pages as I surf. He is quite an interesting man. He began to materialise when I was researching about the Kongur Tagh mountains near Kashgar, and the Mount Kailash area in China. These are really the ultimate of destinations to travel to, in the middle areas of the Hindukush and the Himalayas and the northern regions of the mysterious.
The area above Kashmir, north of Ladakh, west of western Tibet, eastern Afghanistan and Baluchistan, Kazakhistan and the Uighurs are regions that are rarely talked about, other than the violence and disdain of the local peoples. The great Khan seems to be from somewhere in this region. He has not disclosed the exact location of his village. It seems to be a secret village, high up in the high mountains. The great Khan has never mentioned about any European or westerner having discovered his village. He is happy, for he has traveled himself, coming down to the plains, and having moved through all the nations in the regions.
Daily, he introduces me to his family, his friends and neighbours and the people near his secret village high up in the mountains. He seems to have clear likes and dislikes. He likes donkeys, even if they are moth-eaten and old and incapable of their regular work. He dislikes his father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Amazingly precise. He respects his elderly neighbour. One of his neighbour, he calls him “Lalaji”... so I am guessing
like, his secret village in the high mountains must be quite near India or Pakistan borders, but then, there could be a “Lalaji” in Afghanistan or in the Uighur area. Or, he could be calling anyone else in the generic and respectful manner.
He does not seem to want to disclose the location of his village to other Khans in the region. There are some others from the local area whom he seems to distrust and dislike. This is quite interesting. I am hoping that the
great Khan will tell me more about why he hates others in his own region. I shall ask him the next time around when I will meet him on the Internet.
He is quite a teacher, sometimes. He is able to discern and separate the unseen from the obvious and is able to instruct me on the various aspects of the manner of humanism that we need to search for. His thoughts and
teachings range from zen-like koans to Sun Tzu to Mullah Nasruddin and our own Sheikh Chilli-like misadventures. Often, it is, like, he is already there, in spirit and body, when I am only searching for the reflection in a transparent glass that can never give back.
Mostly, I know that he is using situations to explain perspectives. Like, I do not know if he has actually traveled farther away from his secret village in the high mountains and ever gone to the airport? He does seem to have traveled to the cities and sometimes I think he is just bluffing to tell me a good story. I do not mind. For me, whatever the great Khan tells me, deep inside my mind, it does not seem to sound like a bluff. He tells me a
great story, and that much is true. I am happy.
He does seem to like the chillum and he does seem to enjoy it only when he is away from his house, far away from his village, high up in the mountains, higher up than his village. He likes to sit under a chinar tree, with his chillum, puff away, and sit silently, contemplating nothing. Even when he is away in that remote place, he is able to get away to travel on the internet and he turns up at many different places in the world. I would not be
surprised if he would meet us at Hawaii or in remote Madagascar.
He does not move through the cable TV, though. That is quite disappointing. I keep surfing cable channels and it’s not fun. So, I have got around to surfing the internet while watching TV, and that’s quite ok with the great Khan. The next moment that I get back to the internet, he seems to always be around the corner. The Facebook seems to be his favourite, because we get to know what others think of him, verily, as we speak about him.
