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| National Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom, Vallarpadam (Kerala State, India) [source] |
The way Musa described it to me was like how one would narrate things which happened in their dream. The Abbé, however, was quite sure that he was awake through the whole experience. This, given that the people of Taimiria were weak-willed, superstitious, and threw themselves at the feet of any passing demon or any elf living under a rock behind their homestead, is no longer a surprise to me. Musa saw, late one sleepless night, a friend who had died some years earlier, from a time far back, when they were both dreaded felons terrorizing the good people of Taimiria.
The friend, Batukhan, was a sturdy, handsome youth, head of a roving gang. He easily towered above his subordinates, and maidens up and down the Qarataimir swooned in his sight. On that night he met Musa he was darkened with soot, coated with pitch, and exuding a sulphurous odour. Musa could not recognize him, until the burnt man opened his mouth and started to croak, and he noticed the accent was of Batukhan of Shurikoi.
On the other side of Musa appeared a large family, all of them dressed in colourful silk and woven cotton, of all the weaves and patterns known to man. It was impossible to count how many there were; once Musa thought he had them all in account, someone new appeared again. they were led by another tall and handsome man, whom Musa thought might look like Batukhan, except older and much less of a scoundrel. Coal-pit Batukhan seemed consumed with envy at the sight, which he took to be a personal insult.
The large family walked as a group to the east, keeping a festive mood with their tambourines, bagpipes, and bombards. They did not pay any heed to Batukhan as Batukhan had to them, rather they passed by him without doing so much as throw him a glance. Batukhan took offense at this slight and fumed, yellow-green smoke hissing through the cracks of his skin.
Presently, Batukhan seized a girl decked in a bright kimono, and dragged her screaming off the path. The leader of the group paused, and broke away from the group to face him. "Son," he said, "let my daughter go. How much must I pay you? Ten tamgas?"
"I will accept no less than fifty tamgas. Can you pay it?" growled Batukhan.
And the man reached into his pocket, passed Batukhan a thousand tamgas, took back the child, and was back on the way.
Batukhan soon came to the realisation that this was an opportunity to jump on, since he could seize custody of any child who followed in the tall man's path, ask for a ransom, and be sure he was paid many times as was worth the trouble. In exchange of a young teenage boy he was able to have in exchange a mansion in Ustanashehir; for a girl of eighteen, a fine ship in the harbour of Totte Muran to sail the circumference of the Little Ocean. "I will be a king," thought Batukhan, "I will be a prince-satrap, and all the earth will act to my bidding."
Musa, greatly distressed, found the tall man and protested: "why do you give a ransom so readily to a fiend like Batukhan? Do you not realize that he has learned to take advantage of you? He will take many more of your children hostage; he will do so until he has drained all of your finances."
The tall man turned to him and retorted: "Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? If even one of my precious children has gone astray, know that I will be there to wrench them from the maws of the Devil. If he thinks he was able to drain my coffers, I am able to grant him what he asks, far beyond the point of satiation. Wait, and you will find him begging for me to stop."
So Musa rushed to find his old friend Batukhan, but it was too late. "The treasures of the world I hold in my hands," lamented the tar-encrusted creature, "but in my hands they are like worthless dust. I am wrecked with envy," he wept, "to see each of the little children run back to their father's embrace, whereas I am left in the dark with my tamgas and my mansions and my ships, with no Father of my own to return to." And here the Abbé concludes his vision.
References:
Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, 24 September 2020
Matthew 20:15
Matthew 18:4
Matthew 18:12-14 / Luke 15:3-7
