Portraits: Saqlain Ketchfire

Halim Ketchfire son of Halal Ketchfish in his element

Photo: Arun Jayaprakash

                   
Saqlain is an underground rapper from Middle-earth. His long wavy hair, his eternal black stubble, his broad shoulders and tall figure all scream of high descent, and apt enough is his alter ego: Versgul. It is difficult to imagine more tragic a life than that of this man whose recognition, if not for his deliberate low-lying strategy, would be equal to that of Hurin the tall himself.


In a fit of revolutionary energy, Versgul or Halim Ketchfire, for that was what he was known as among his friends and relatives, did the unimaginable. He dissed Manwe the king of the Valar and Arda in a diss track produced in the underground halls of the blue mountains for his apparent lack of a sense of responsibility during the war of the rings. It is said that the beat in the diss song was a part of the music of the Ainur itself, which might describe Manwe's unnatural fury for he cast Halim in a cryogenic chamber and cursed him to a future where hip-hop and rap would be appreciated but there would no longer remain the heavenly bliss of Middle-earth.


For eons, the sarcophagus of Saqlain floated around the seas of the earth while races disappeared and the elves left for another planet and the rule of the earth was left in the hands of men who invented religion and in the absence of pure evil constructed the idea of an infidel. Capitalism rose and the history of mankind was declared to be a history of class struggle but for Halim Ketchfire the struggle was that of an indefinite wait. In that prison, he was neither fully awake nor in complete oblivion; rather, he roamed a kaleidoscopic world in which his brain gradually began to collapse, unable to comprehend the music and visions designed by Manwe to teach him humility so that when a bunch of fishermen broke open his cryogenic hell, ending his long imprisonment at the beginning of the twenty-first century, he could not remember who he was.


He says that the last few decades have been all about remembering. Indeed, it is an absolute delight to hear him tell stories about his estate by the river Snowbourn, about his involvement in the underground hip-hop scene in the basements of the mighty dwarves, about the numerous battles he'd fought in and protested against; about the blooming of the white lilacs in spring or the dance of the maidens of Rohan. He indeed is a man cursed to with a lifetime of longing and guilt, cursed having to cope with a world he does not understand. But the gradual indoctrination into modern life has not been without its own hilarity. Many a time has it come to pass in room number 225 of Men's hostel H that Arun has been challenged to a duel unto death for matters as serious as the ownership of the handwash. It has been difficult, for instance, to teach wildlife conservation to him for he tends to leap at the first wild duck he sees near the lakes on campus. But he is no fool. "Old habits die hard", he casually shrugs. "You don't care about the orcs going extinct. Or the great eagles. Even the formidable dwarves could not be saved."


Right now he is busy reconstructing a musical instrument from his days in Middle-Earth. It is a melodic percussion instrument. We have seen his drawings and designs, and it seems that one would need four hands to play the damn thing. But you can count on him. He has the DNA of the Rohirrim. You should meet him if you can. He's ridiculous.