The genie and me

The genie and me

Abu Sayyd's tent

Me in bottle

I was trapped in the bottle and the bottle was among many such bottles stacked on the crude desk  in a tent. The night was in it’s last lap, the morning comes early in the desert. I was in some kind of tunic fitting to my minuscule body inside the bottle. 
You must be wondering how come i am in a 75ml bottle, well that's'a long story but let me try to cut it short. 
It all started with my visit to Al Maha desert resort in Dubai. 

We were there for a musical soiree, many Mideastern activities like writing one’s name in Arabic script, henna tattooing, writing name on sand in bottle etc were going on side by side.After watching the program for a while i was curious to know more about those other activities of tattooing by henna, writing on sand etc  going on, I asked my wife to wait for me along with other guests . I sauntered to the old fellow with leathery skin in a typical Arabian white dress known as thawb at the corner writing names on sand in bottles. It was late in the evening and in the dim battery powered light he was looking like a character from Arabian nights with his pointed beard bending down and doing his craft on a wooden table. My interest was not in the writing of name on sand but something else.

Seeing me approaching he looked up and smiled. 

“Hello” I said.

He nodded at me. It was not clear to me whether he would understand English.

 As though he read my mind , smiled at me and said,”Yes, I can speak a little bit of English. Without knowing that language how can i run my  business with foreign tourists who come here for desert safari .”

I was relieved. In a conspiratorial tone I asked ,”Do you have any genie in those bottles?”

To my question he winked at me and asked,” Why do you ask that? Are you looking for some unfulfilled wishes?’’

I shook my head vigorously and said, “Just curious!”

“I must admit that you are the first person who asked me such question and I have been waiting for someone to tell my expertise with genies.”

He offered me a chair to sit by his side and we got into animated discussion about genie and the various stories I have heard. He informed that putting genie in a bottle was the practice of many centuries old, it was a kind of punishment given to the soul of a person who crossed path with some influential person. The flip side of the punishment was that whenever the genie could come out from the lamp or bottle he had the power to bestow anything under the sun to the person releasing him. An invisible bond started developing between us, may be the vast shadowy desert was having effect on me.

“I belong to that family which had the expertise of putting genie in a closed space.” He had a melancholy look on his face as though he was missing his ancestral importance of good old days. Now of course in modern age no one gives a fig for such medieval practice. 

I pointed to the bottles and mischievously asked, “Any of those bottles have genie?’’

He looked up at me and said, " just follow me a few meters in the desert to that tent.”

I could see some scattered lights at a distance. He informed me that those tents are meant for people like him who are carrying on ethnic activities around the resort. 

I was a bit reluctant but curiosity and the newly developed bond compelled me to follow Abu Sayyd.

He pulled out a torch and both of us started walking towards those tents. I was following him in that uneven sandy desert with his dancing light of the torch. Nights are pretty cold in desert, i pulled my jacket lapels to save myself from the chilly draft.The distance was not a few meters, we walked for about ten minutes but still could not reach. I kicked a bottle stuck in the sand, Abu Sayyd looked back and warned me to be careful as there could be some bad soul trapped in the bottles. When he said this I started getting goose bumps.

“How long will it take?” I looked back to the resort whose bright light was casting a magical spell in the desert.The mesmeric sufi song of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan who was giving live performance was wafting in the vast empty desert, his song sounded much better at a distance than sitting near one of those super big sound boxes.

“Don’t look back, walk faster.” There was urgency in his voice.

I heard some whispering sound, it appeared as though the sound of wind sliding down on those sand dunes and sounding like banshee, it was aerie . The tracks of Suvs,Quad bike and camel hoofs have left deep impressions on the sand. In the dark I was walking like a drunk on that wobbly track on sand, occasionally stumbling on those deep tracks gauged in the sand when I heard that strange sound. Something swept on us , both of us fell down on , something hard hit me.

When I came back to senses found myself in a bottle and Abu Sayyd too was in another bottler.He was gesturing at me in the dim light of the tent. No one was visible. From the bottle I had a good look of the tent, because of my tiny size the tent was appearing like a cavern, through the glass of the bottle and the refracted refracted light of the dim battery powered overhead lamp i was getting a tunnel vision of each angle. It was a Spartan tent with a bed, a tin box, few clothes hanging from a cloth line, a stove with some boxes at a corner and a pitcher of water. Apart from me and Abu Sayyd there were some more bottles with names written. From the gesture of Abu Sayyd I could make out that it was his tent.

Many questions were racing through my mind but the main issue was getting out and regain my normal size. I could see my pair of trouser, shirt, undergarments lying on the floor. I guess whoever had put me in the bottle could not shrink those garments. Abu Sayyd gestured at me to go for sleep , but how sleep can come to me? As far as I know souls were put in a bottle ,that is per those fables i had heard, but here I was shrunk to a Lilliputian size to fit in that bottle. Abu Sayyd could feel my dilemma , gave beatific smile to me and went to sleep sitting in his bottle. I don’t know when I had fallen asleep.

When I woke up I found myself lying on the cot with my regular clothes on. Abu Sayyd and a teenager leaning over me.

“How did we come out and regain size? My wife will be worried.”

“Don’t worry I am here.” I heard my wife’s voice as she came forward from the shadows.

She explained that she had watched me from a distance  going to the desert with Abu Syyd and she was about to warn but by the time we had melted in the dark desert. She waited for a few hours and then came out in search of me and met that boy Salamuddin who was grandson of Abu Sayyd. Then both came to the tent .

"How did you know we were in the bottles?" I asked
"We saw your cloth strewn on the floor and then Salauddin derived from all the tell tale signs that you must have been put in the bottles by casting spell by some evil soul."
"Yes i remebered to have kicked a bottle in the dark when that evil soul might have escaped."
 Luckily Abu Sayyd has passed on the knowledge of genie to his grandson and who knew the process of reversal.The process was pretty complicated and it took sometime to extract us out. 

I profusely thanked Salamuddin and gave him 100 Durham as bakshish. We came out of the tent , did not forget to take the the bottle on which my name was written, the sun had come out full and 2 camels were waiting to take us back to the resort. The desert was glaring with bright sunlight.





I was clutching the sand bottle with my name written on sand in our hotel room in Palazzo Versace, Dubai, told my wife that i must write a story about this bottle. So i thought of this plot in Dubai and wrote the above story, i have not shown the story yet to my wife. Hope you guys liked the story.
Though the story will appear to be impossible for some but then how today's generation lap up Superman,Batman or Harrypotter? My story is no different from those fantasy things.