THE HOTEL AT THE END OF THE WORLD it’s business as usual, os Pema dishes up rice and pork curry to travellers who stop by for a drink ond refuge from the reins. Everyone there has a story to tell, ond at times they end up revealing more than they want to. On their journey to China, Kona and Kuja, bound together by fate, stumble upon the trail of the Flocting Island, promised land of plenty. Pema’s story is about lost love, while her husband specks of homesick Jopanese soldiers in Manipur ond the Naga hills during World War Il. The Prophet takes us bock to the quest for the Floating Islond, leading us to the little gir’s story as she sets out to fetch water and chances upon something quite unexpected... Drawing from various oral storytelling ond folklore traditions, ond with influences ranging from Commando war comics to World War II history and Buddhist art, Porismita Singh creates a world that’s magical yet very real. Exquisite in terms of both narrative and artwork, The Hotel at the End of the World marks a new height in graphic fiction in India.AT Tie END OF THE WORLDHE HOTEL it THE END OF THE WORLD Parismita SinghPENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books India Pvt Led, 11 Community Centre, Panehsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (USA) Inc, 375 Huson Street, New York, NY LOL, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, MAP 23, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Ins.) Penguin Books Lad, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Vietoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pry Led) Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Appllo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Group (South Arica) (Py) Led, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published by Penguin Books India 2009 Copyright © Parismita Singh 2009 All rights reserved 10987654321 This isa work of fiction. While some characters are not wholly fictional, situations incidents and dialogues in this work are products of the author's imagination and are nor co be construc as real. They are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work, ISBN 9780143102946 ‘Typeset in Commotion Business by InoSoft Systems, Noida Printed at Gopsons Papers Lid, Noida For my grandmother Dur gamoni Saikia, This book is sold subject ro the condition that it shall no, by way of rade or otherwise, be len, resold hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’ prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which tis published and without a similar condition including this condition being impose onthe wubsequent Purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no pat ofthis publication may be Terraced ore ino introxiced into aetna sstm,o tans i any frm or by any means eto Imechanial, photocopying, recording ox otherwise, withovt the prioe written permission ofboth the copyright ower and the abovementioned pliner a ths book " .Vd The hotel at the endl of the world had very few customers...PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books India Pvt Ltdy 11 Comavunity Centre, Panchshec! Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Stree, New York, NY 10014, USA Ponguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avene East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, MAP 2Y3, Canada (a Pearson Penguin Canada In.) Penguin Books Led, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Irland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Led) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Rad, Camberwell, Vicioria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pry Ltd) Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Appllo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Led.) Penguin Group (South Aftica) (Py) Lu, 24 Stardee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Led, Registered Ofices: 80 Strand, London WC2R OR, England First published by Penguin Books India 2009 Copyright © Parismita Singh 2009 All rights reserved, 10987654321 This isa work of Fiction. While some characters are not wholly fictional, situations, incidents and dialogues in this work are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. They are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely Fictional nature of the work, ISBN 9780143102946 ‘Typeset in Commotion Business by InoSofe Systems, Noida Printed at Gopsons Papers Ltd, Noida for my grandmother Durgamoni Saikia, ‘This book is sold subject co the condition tha it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold hired out, fr otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which itis published and without a similar condition ineluding this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copycight reserved above, no part ofthis publication may be reproduced stoced in or introduced inco a retrieval system, of transmitted in any form or by any means (eletroni mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without che prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book.The hotel at the end of the world had very few customers...L, co i¥ as But who were these two walking around the hills at a time like this? {They clic) not come from these parts. SZPema and her husband stopped for a moment to look at the new arrivals. Pema, for a little longer... "before being proceed into clishing out rice and pork curry. uF, Ae B 2s Better to be careful, you never know wi strangers, What surprises they hold for ——— a iilhe regulars in the hotel looke: Kona anol Kuja ate. And it was only after they had gone through a mountain of rice anc chilli, lail® s@ak and half a small Pig...that somebody askecl the question— “ancl, my son, whatever has given You a hunger like China? The China people are coming = again?Tt was a long time ago when the yak and the cow hacl the same coat lof hair—no more, no less, «the roads on the Indian side were so The yak was a good creature, After some time in China, he thought he'd jcome back here to return the yak could never muster the covrage + ito come back! Andi that's why you see the stupid Indian-side cow still gaping « lat the mountains, waiting for the ve x return its coat, Ard you, You role the yak to China, huh?(Huh! This good-for- ~.and tell us, good \/ap travellers, of your " journey to China...Kona ane Ku ja's StoryWe've been friencls, Kona ancl I, since we were children, I was borna healthy child but my legs, they stopped at here was no more, As for Kona, he fell sick as it left him unable to see what was in front of hough he coulel see what was miles and miles J I, we got on with life as well as we could, the knees—t a baby ancl his eyes, t away. Kona an“Aie, we'll get that I for dinner yet!le came and sat with us that day after the bazaar. Here, take a sip, you'll see everything ! Sibu always had big plans. Pak pak pak pak he would goon ancl on about this and that, And lavgh atus chasing chickens, huh!One time, when he wanted to bring Madhuri to do shooting in the rice fields, the village people even gave some money . But now everybody had forgotten about it, This time, he was talking about a bridge. A bridge they were building, that would go from the hills here all the way to China, There was plenty of work at the bridge, They were looking for people—people like me ancl Kona—to work there, Then, Kona does a stupid thing ancl opens his mouth, s Could we go g there, Kuja and I-I would like i one half blind, the other legless, ‘] 90ing to China ona bridge...But Sibu, he thovght for a while and said... 74 eo Yes, we clecicled , we would) go work on the bridge and then go on to China. See what fate had scrawled on our foreheads... @ ACG Aiiee,.. You can't go to China on a cycle!ja Goi the Tr Bricige! Kona ancl Kuja going to see chine Bric et TR hole Soiage was talking about it, And we Chine Beto set of f when this oll man turnecl vP.n First he lavghed khek-khek las if he'd heard a big joke. wit will eat = you up like it has eaten others, These bi9 things always crush us small people. 16Bot we were of f—Kona with his funny eyes could see the bridge from miles awa For him the joy was in the distance, The closer we got to the bridge, the less he would see of it. The poor man, I always said, 40 throv.gh=The jeep dropped us near the river, ancl we hacl to walk from there into the hills,We finally reached the bridge. Huh! Why China? This bridge could go right up to the heavens, See ed, how do I tell you? But—aiee—after that what happen onc th This lying-thieving Sibu, he sold vs—Kona ancl me—to the construction gang and disappeared.the two of us, you might ask. We ould they wand with Th 9 forests or laying the brits, What harelly b¢ 329 truction camp was dis fee | Poop hed coulel hfe at the con wer or had been tricke ti ee! Fer 9 But Ne akt from cap them happy—People neceledl to ugh or hard day's eee fell sick—they macle us p. . else they ran The two idiots, they called us. o = ing and ust sat there watching svening, But sezing these people work are macle vs both very sac. They s/o t ercling road and that it would gree time it was en our children would be dead bY y “ ge. lidh't want anything more with the 6ri it was a never- many times, Ev, Finished, We oiWe went back to the old business of bets—leeches, beetle races— mace some small money and bribed the guards and ran of f, And here we are! You didn't go to China, you didn't get malaria... Nothing hap peneci?, If you ask.me, \ China dloes not exist, Not in this China is where you are, honey...)Hai, you lot! You all have Faces like the backsicle of an olel cow! Another round) for And this fool here has alreacly opened his big You are all mouth, very very na, Kona? Better 1 speak than you kill us at night for our secret! After we escapeel from that bridge, we clecided to go home. We had seen the world anc) had escaped with the skin still on our backs, This was good enovgh. § Walking back t we walked as far away as we SI could from the bridge. We did not want any more trovéle,..Who should we see, lying on the grovrd with fever, sweat on his body and moaning and crying, but Sibu!t towards evening , he souame very ill, ancl tried to say something. «an islanel on a lake that floats with many treasures... streasures,.. find this island..the Floating island,[ We just sat there not knowing what to do, He was no longer a brother or friend to vs, But after somebody cies, what is left? Nothing. Ancl we sat with that nothing insicle vs, His whole life was full of lies and mad plans, Even in his last moments he was telling vs about some Floating island, First the China Bridge, now this floating island—even - in death, he would not —_— leave us. What did a g he think? We would — run after this island now? Huh! atHim... A floating island, An island that nobody knows anything abovt, All we had to do was keep walking and we would reach there, Then why go home so early? We could fumble along . \ with our clestiny a little longer, Who knows what that would bring! \~ anal every clay we would receive a message telling us where to Jo. hig] Then one day, the skies split open and M we lost network, No more messages. YE Ze

$e be made, for the 1 UN 2 buses to come, a uA bay? ‘A good place for waiting, this. ts We Zone wand have @) | || OL drink, I'm cooking 1 dinner. \" N mlIsland? What floating island will you Find in this end-of-the-world place? What clo we have here but the fog ancl the Sometimes people come, sometimes they that brought me here,How did I come to be the chhang woman of the end of the world? Ah! there aren't enovgh evenings in this life... ~..for all my stories. But there was another Pema once...[Anal though the village she lived ix was ns ¢ to the town, she rarely steppedl ovt of her han ec. Her father had been struck clown by Wi a mysterious ailment ancl she spent most of her time nursing him. He had been a sturdy man, But the sickness came and went anal left him a shadow of his old self.There were times when the sickness waned ancl he would regain his health, SIE UY But after that brief period, just as the rose came back to his cheek, they would) Find ‘That the fever anal clelirivm had returned,ancd Pema, cavght up in this cycle, rarely thovght of the pleasures of the world, That is, until she met Keising, the Yak man from the town, Keising was from the hills further north where the snow fell... ema, he was like nobody she had ever met, He carried with him the open wilds, the summers spent as a Yak herder in the mountains, piety ancl humour, And the Promise of a future with a colour TV,he year before, Keising hacl been selected to teach in the town's primary school. And before he started work there, he unclertook a pilgrimage to” the holy places, and the cities where his relatives Now, on his way back home, he was passing throvgh Pema's village.for the future and a life in the new town that was coming, ve. fit “el 4 Keising was like a gust of fresh air in Pema's oy ts the snow ound wastelands and his long walks with his herd of yaks, ar Un Ge courtedl her told her about his travels ancl the faraway Places he had} visited... i]And the stories of this new world slowly crowded into the room where Pema sat by her father's bedside, When it was time for Keising to leave, they decided he would ask Pema's father for her hand in marriage.Ah... Then Pema's feet slip, she falls intoa gorge and dies, she's saved... the two loversEat like Pigs, these People! al Ta mT Wy 7G Th (UP Ant Kersing come to ask \l" ( |S=— for her hand... i i ) } - aN iN j Y |It had been a difficult night, The sickness had returned and Pema's father had been drifting in and out of consciousness, Sor ral =] xhausted LL LIA LZ : 2 Terribly wrong,The cursed thing would not budge. What badd luck! There weren't too many vehicles on the road), So all of us pushing the Sumo noticed a truck hurtling down at grea Speed... WDwawith this man on the top, his hair flying, eyes bright like a He dic) not have the face of the workers who ricle on the top of trucks—he was like nothing I had seen before, In that desolate spot, he put the fear of god inus! fortunately, our Sumo started moving, and we set of f from that accursed place,in, I woke vp to see that ¢. J. There hac been an pa Just before daw Sumo had stoppeIt was the truck that had passed vs earlier, They were driving like the devil and had finished by going clown the hill. t WZ It was hard work looking for people in that mess. : I Z fe a LOR i “ip ak SLNot a limd or a piece of cloth, Nothing. We finally gave up, Carried of f by a wild animal, we decided, ie SL WLAN 54It was morning by the ti Geached ihe town, I hacl tina caly or a cup of tea before I way to your house, wagon my But what a morning it was. I looked ve and there was so much beavty in the worlcl! I remembered that moment because of the joy in my heart, It was beating so«telling me about how he had suddenly been taken il the night before, But I barely heard anything, My head was spinning, my mouth dry... The man on the truck—He looked tired ancl sick sitting there—while the night before, he had been shining like a gocl,,, no mistake—it was the sameThis is not the first time, Pema saicl, He has been seen A night walker, Do you know the night walkers? My father is a night walker, one of death's porters, = laa «< ‘ — ~< When a man or a woman's time comes, = 7 * = 7 death sends him to gather their souls, Father's sickness—mother called it his duty—has been a Part of our lives for as long as I can remember, and mostly we learnt to live with it, There's nothing we could do about it, It is his destiny, He was chosen to do this,a > ° 2 r < re o > 8 v = s 8 + frighten me as a child, When the FiIt's all right... stop...stop... Sometimes, your : father has to 90 on Bes aes @ journey, He has to understand Se far, these things ther, My mother There's nothing to be seared of, explained... Oh, he looks like he is hasn't gone anywhere, He's sleeping in his bed, RS i SSS ai ae But that's only his jocly You see sleeping on the bed, He leaves it sleeping and goes to gather souls for the death god,This made him different from the other fathers. FT imagined him to be - YO big, powerful, doing an important job ferrying souls to death, We watched him sleeping— tiptoeing in ancl out of the hovse in awe of his terrifying duties.But soon I realized he was just a man ancl a weak one at that. One who could not live vp to his destiny.Goon the terror of his night's work took over his days. He tried to resist, And with each call, it ate into his bodly ancl soul. He became a sick man, with fever ancl delirium, crazed mumblings... It is not easy to be the dlevil's chosen one, 63Yes, it was my father you saw. But the next morning Keising was Gone, She accepted it, saw it as inevitable. One shoulel rot take up responsibilities one cannot shoulder, She was Srief-stricken, But it was not enough to kill her, Pema didn't even die,After Keising left, Pema spent more and more time walking around the hills, And then, one evening, her foot slipped and she plunged into a crevasse. It would have been certain cleath except for the edge of a tree that leaned forward just in time, She stayed there till dawn, till they brovght her down, barely conscious but alive, It was during this night that her father died.It was enough for the village to be brimming with gossip— that when commanded to take his davghter's soul... w the night walker had wrestled with death and yielcledl his own instead,The Soldier's StoryWhat else to do, in this nowhere-to-go place? Don't toveh that glass. m,\ Ask for another one,That glass we leave stancling, Some drinker\( Drinks from not one, you are! but two-two glasses! Can't even wait for his wife to get arefill... { A soldier spirit—one of the dead ones, ‘Almost every bod¥ has, right vp to the dorder... ThBecavse—even among the dead ones—he's an ocld one. Yes, yes, I've seena Few,..maybe,,.that one vs A spirits...this Place is full of them, You see 13Bad fog, this! Where is that road?by uw ~ AN Then there are the local one. freedom fighters ancl other.Go—go—leave me in peace! /\But this spirit, everyone said, was different, w.shovting ina wild tongue no one could understand, Fighting, 619 or small, operation lor encounter or bomb, he came rushing in. He's been while at the B Adtel. Comes in now anced f\ then, I sense \s it but Z \, kédep quiet.I've never told anyone— " what's there to say about a... a...a presence?And) so, it was an evening like this one, full of rain and fog, gloom all around... ‘or maybe, it was later the night, because everyone was asleep, I walked up to check the window...So, if he's sitting there, how clo you know it's a spirit and not a...2, is a Ghost, like @ manis a man, Where is the ( trovble?Go he sits there sipping his drink and begins to tell a sory. He came from the Japan war, From the time when the Tapanis came throvgh the hills to fight the British, z eUTene Cia Nt ae ei oi i A \ Soy It was a hard, hard fight walking from Mandalay— andl even further than that—walking and fighting... The monsoons burst into the juagle turning it into hell, Sickness, insects, the incessant Fighting, bombs, everything swallowed in muel and river, Ah, it was hellYThey knew they woulel not go back from here, It was a slow march to the enc, Before they came into our parts, they had already burnt their letters from home, then photographs... They ate what they could Find, raided villages, The war had turned against them,Then came the siege at Sangshvk, The soldiers of the 18th infantry, Niiagata unit from Echigo, awaited the battle at dawn, The solcliers were exhausted, There was little food or water, And the terror of the impending Fight kept them from sleeping. So they waited, watching the night in silence. When suddenly...wthey saw the night sky over the mountains break into white... A shower of cold stars? Balloon bombs? Propagancla leaflets dropped from enemy planes? .on to the grass, and their helmets, their fingers. They opened their mouths to taste it on their tongues...They couldn't believe it—snow in this land of rain and jungle? This army unit came from Niiagata, 4 north of Japan, snowbov FE BI (e+ UL Ze Eel tl = Ne ee ‘Ancl seeing these snowflakes waft clown the skies of Sangshuk, the soleliers felt unbearably homesick and thought, the snow from EchigoLE , EIEN Lt, Wav aie YG £ Z A suclden, sharp hunger for cleath. || >Instead of waiting for the morning— the empty terror, the thirst and the screams of the injured— How much better to go now, in the midst of these memories of Echigo... wuinstead of going on,,.like this? g <Echigo... And suclclenly, the guashots tore through the night. The battle had begun,Set, PN oa Loe 2 et a peared... the dovéts—all disap ke the heroes of his childhood, he rose—like a soldier of And li S 3 2 > ~< ’ < = \ | 2 3 : 4 s 7 2 bal < Ss ZS = z Ss 2 Ky ° O a 5 ° 3 % ~< = —< pe 2 ie z ’ alled them, I was living has all kines this new gry, proved into th a a PRAM ET But they had too much money to throw |. It became hard to resist.Some of these new ones came to me. They wanted my help— guns, forest guicles, some Fighting men and yes, they were willing to pay goocl money. island— we want to! Fined it, Science equipment. gl pese Srown-up people going for a story for ehildren... But you know the story, clon't = You, of the floating island?