greeting, Gupta led him outside to a separate door. Turning the key, Gupta invited Ali to follow him up the narrow stairway leading to the flat.
“It is perfect,” said Ali, as he wandered around the three small rooms, inspecting them enthusiastically.
“I haven‘t yet told you how much the rent is,” Gupta warned.
“How much?”
“Three pounds per week, with a month’s rent in advance,” Gupta told him.
The smile on Ali‘s face disappeared, and he said, “That much?”
“It is the going rate,” Gupta explained defensively.
Buttoning his coat, Ali apologised for wasting Gupta’s time, saying, “Thank you for showing me your wonderful flat, but it is sadly more than I can afford…”
At this point Gupta felt bad, far removed from the teachings of his religion, to help his fellow man. As they walked down the narrow stairway, Gupta thought about it some more. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he said, “I tell you what I will do…”
Ali listened with interest. “For the first six months, I will rent you the flat for only two pounds per week, after that it will return to the original three – I can’t be fairer than that!”
Smiling again, Ali agreed to his terms, promising to help in the shop during his spare time as a way of making up for the shortfall in rent.
“If you give me a hand at the busy times, when I need it,” said Gupta, “that will be just fine. I will then leave the rent at two pounds for week for as long as you want to live here, in the flat.” So it was agreed, and within the week, Ali had moved into his new home.
For a while, everything went swimmingly, with Ali helping in the shop whenever Gupta needed him. However, this happy situation failed to last, with Ali making more and more excuses as to why he was unable to help Gupta when asked.
The kind-hearted Gupta readily accepted Ali’s excuses, thinking how he might feel if the tables were turned. Although Sonita had some doubts as to the validity of Ali’s excuses, she also accepted them in the spirit of genuine Indian hospitality.
One particularly busy evening, just after Ali had made another weak excuse as to why he was unable to lend a hand, Gupta decided to look further into the situation of their peculiar lessee.
“You can’t be serious, Gupta,” Sonita said to him. “Suppose he finds out what you are doing, up to? What will happen, then?”
“Don‘t worry, my wife,” Gupta replied, trying to calm her concerns. “I just want to find out who we have living above us…”
“But...”
“It will be okay, I will be watching him from afar. I will be extra careful that he does not see me,” he reassured her.
Nothing more happened for over a fortnight. Sonita had almost forgotten about her husband‘s plan to spy on their lessee, to try to find out what he was getting up to in his spare time, until one evening, when Gupta came down from the flat with another lame excuse as to why Ali was unable to help him. Tearing off his shop coat, Gupta grabbed hold of his coat and hat and put them on in a flash.
“What are you doing?” Sonita asked him, as he closed the venation blinds on the shop door. Lifting one of the pieces, he peered furtively through it.
“Watching,” he whispered in reply.
“What are you watching?” she asked.
“Shush, I think I can hear him…”
They heard a muffled bang upstairs as Ali pulled the door closed behind him.
“I am going to follow him, so I am,” Gupta then told his wife. Opening the door quietly, he peered through the crack, and saw Ali turning the corner at the end of the rain soaked street.
“Be careful, my husband,” Sonita warned him. Waving her goodbye, Gupta exited the shop.
As he made his way along the cold, wet streets, Ali had absolutely no idea that he was being followed, spied upon. Even when he reached his destination, a large red brick house, where he knocked once, then twice and then once again, he saw nothing to tell him someone was following. A couple of minutes later, a young woman opened the black painted door, greeted Ali and then invited him inside.
“That‘s it,” said Gupta from his position of concealment across the road, behind a pillar-box. It’s a woman, and a rich one at that judging by the size of her house!”
Happy that he had solved the case, that Ali was seeing a woman, that he was not the dark, shady character he had been beginning to imagine, Gupta made his way back to his shop.
Well?” Sonita asked her husband the instant he returned to their shop.
“Well what?” he teased as he hung his wet coat and hat on the back o the door.
“Ali – where did he go?”
“Oh, Ali,” he answered, pretending he had forgotten about him.
“Come on,” Sonita warned as she grabbed hold of an egg, threatening to throw it at him.
“No, not the stock,” Gupta cried, faking concern for his profits.
“You have one second, then you get it,” Sonita laughed, raising the egg, making ready to throw it.
“All right, all right,” Gupta replied, “I will tell you what I saw. There is nothing to worry about, though,” he explained, “Ali has been making himself busy with a woman, that’s all, a woman.”
“A woman?” Sonita exclaimed. “Why all the secrecy?”
“He must be a shy lover, I guess.”
After that the Singe’s stopped asking Ali to help in the shop, thinking he had more amorous things on his mind other than baked beans and cornflakes.
Despite this change, Ali never once asked why they had stopped asking him to help out in the shop. Whenever he came into the shop, when they were particularly busy, he never offered to help; he simply paid for his purchases and left without saying a word about it.
As the days passed, Ali withdrew further into himself and his secretive life. He never spoke to the Singe’s about it, until one evening when he came down to the shop, to purchase a pint of milk…
“Hello, Gupta,” Ali said to him when he entered the shop.
“Hello, Ali,” Gupta replied with the same welcoming smile he offered all of his valued customers.
“I’m in need of some milk,” Ali explained. “It’s thirsty work, trying to study.”
“You are studying?” Gupta asked, surprised that Ali could find the time, considering his amorous commitments.
“Oh, yes, I am studying alright! I am learning everything there is to know about the Cryptic Agenda; it’s for improving one’s whereabouts in the order of life, so it is!” Ali proudly informed him.
“Hmm, that is a mouthful…”
“It is more than that, Gupta,” Ali said enthusiastically, as he placed the bottle of milk onto the shop counter. He rummaged about in his pockets, looking for change.
“What exactly is it?”
Sorting the money from an assortment of buttons, coins, keys and grubby pieces of paper that he had taken out from his pocket, Ali placed the correct amount onto the counter, and said, “It is a complete way of life – a life change. Oh, Gupta, I am so happy to have found it!”
Despite having some misgivings about what he had heard, Gupta replied, “I am pleased for you, Ali.”
Over the coming weeks, Ali visited the shop on a growing number of occasions, each time buying milk, cheese or eggs.
“My, you do like your protein,” Gupta exclaimed one evening, when Ali purchased two pints of milk and a dozen extra large eggs.
“We need protein – loads of it, so we do,” Ali explained, “for the Transmigration…”
“The trans – what?”
“The Transmigration,” Ali replied, raising a finger to his lips lest the customer at the rear of the shop might hear what he was saying, “is when we pass over to the next stage of existence – to Alocyrrehcyzzif.”
“Alocyrrehcyzzif?” Gupta asked, struggling to pronounce the word, let alone understand what it meant.
Smiling from ear to ear, as if he had jus
t won a million pounds on the lottery, Ali said, “It is Nirvana – Heaven! It is whatever you want to call it – and then some! We call it Alocyrrehcyzzif.”
Still confused, Gupta said, “Who is calling it this?”
“The Cryptic Agenda, of course,” he answered. “Gupta, I have so much that I want to tell you and your lady wife… You see, this is why I have been unable to help you in your wonderful shop. I have been taking my studies.”
“Yes, I know that, you have already told me so.”
“Yes, it is true,” he answered. “Gupta, I want tell you all there is to know about the Cryptic Agenda and Alocyrrehcyzzif.”
“Try and relax, Ali. Here, have a drink of cola – it‘s on the house.”
“No, I cannot drink cola!” Ali replied, pushing the bottle away from him, horrified by such a suggestion. “Cola is reserved for the Holy Ones.”
“The holy ones?”
“Yes, at the centre, where I have been taking my studies, they told me that cola, particularly a special bottle of it, are essential to the Transmigration process. I cannot partake of it until I am pure.”
“But everyone drinks cola,” Gupta insisted, scratching his head, confused by what he was hearing.
“Jean Walters – my Numinous – explained it to me; she has shown me the way to Alocyrrehcyzzif,” Ali then told him. “She told me to eat protein; that it will help me to follow the true ways of The Cryptic Agenda.”
“It sounds like you have been sucked into a cult.”
“No, no!” Ali insisted, “It’s not a cult! It’s the path, the true path to perfection.”
“Doesn’t every religion say that?” the customer at the rear of the shop who had been listening