Part 2: The Blue Door of Permission

Summary:Nira helps a tearful blue door recognise itself, opening Ulto-Pulto-Lok and revealing the first impossible clue to her magical quest.

I looked at the blue door. A tear rolled from its keyhole. “Why are you crying?” I asked. The door sniffed, and its brass hinges trembled. “I have been waiting seventy-three years for permission to open.”

“But you are the entrance.”

“That is the problem. An entrance may be authorised to admit people, but I have not yet been certified as an authorised entrance.”

Mangaldas adjusted his spectacles. “The object possesses no documented proof that it is a door.”

“It has hinges, a lock, and the word door written on it!”

“The notice was issued by the door itself. Conflict of interest.”

“Then why not simply open it?”

“Without evidence? Suppose it later proves to be a disappointed window?”

At that moment Professor Bhokambol emerged from behind the desk. He was a green goat wearing six pairs of spectacles, so his eyes seemed to live at the end of a glass tunnel.

“A fascinating administrative problem,” he said. “I wrote a thesis on objects unable to prove their existence.”

“What was your conclusion?”

He chewed thoughtfully. “I ate it. It lacked fibre.”

Professor Bhokambol explained that Ulto-Pulto-Lok had once overflowed with magic. Rivers climbed mountains for better views. Songs grew on bushes and had to be gathered before becoming excessively sentimental. When Mondays became unbearable, people could borrow extra Tuesdays.

Then the God of Magic disappeared.

In his absence, the Collector of Certainties declared that every object, creature, and event required a definition. Birds needed flying licences. Fish submitted certificates of wetness. Dreams announced their destinations before entering anyone’s sleep. Even shadows had to follow their owners at a prescribed distance.

“Where is the God of Magic?” I asked.

“No one knows,” said the professor. “But a prophecy says a question-loving child will follow eight impossible clues to the Palace of Unfinished Wonders.”

Mangaldas coughed disapprovingly. “Prophecies should be submitted in triplicate.”

I faced the blue door again. “What would prove you are a door?”

“An opening certificate.”

“What would prove you can open?”

“Opening.”

“Then open.”

“I cannot open without the certificate.”

“Then close.”

“I am already closed.”

“That proves it,” I said. “Only a door can be closed in a way that prevents someone entering through it. If you were a wall, nobody would call you closed. If you were a window, Mangaldas would already have climbed through you to avoid work.”

Mangaldas sounded wounded. “I use windows only during official emergencies.”

Steam clouded Professor Bhokambol’s front spectacles. “The child has presented reverse evidence!”

The door sighed. Its panels straightened; its hinges quivered. “But will the evidence be accepted?”

“Accept it yourself,” I said. “For seventy-three years, you have waited for strangers to certify something you perform every day.”

The mustard field became still. Even the forms on Mangaldas’s desk stopped rustling.

Then the door declared, “I recognise myself as a door.”

Mangaldas jumped. “Self-recognition is not in the manual!”

The thick manual opened its stained cover and replied, “Neither are mango-chutney stains, yet I have seventeen.”

The blue door opened with all its strength. Darkness should have waited inside, but another morning appeared instead: a yellow-leaf road, distant mountains, and golden question marks floating in the light.

A fierce wind swept across the mustard field. Seven queues tangled into a skipping rope. Forms rose and became white pigeons. Stamps stamped one another in panic. Mangaldas’s desk grew four wooden wheels and escaped towards the hills with half the paperwork.

Then the whole office hiccupped.

HIC! The mustard flowers jumped.

HIC! Mangaldas’s white coat became a flock of handkerchiefs.

HIC! A silver bubble emerged from the keyhole, carrying a scent of cardamom. Professor Bhokambol caught it in a medicine bottle and raised it to the sun.

“The First Impossible Clue,” he announced. “The Hiccup of a Door That Never Opened.”

Bright letters appeared on the bottle:

WHEN THE DOOR THAT NEVER OPENED HICCUPS,FOLLOW THE KING WHO HAS NEVER RIPENED.

“A king who never ripened?” I asked.

“Perhaps a raw mango,” said Chhataram.

“Perhaps a young idea,” said the professor.

“Or a badly planned government,” muttered Mangaldas.

Beyond the doorway, a yellow road stretched towards drums, slogans, and fruit sellers singing competing campaign songs.

I could have returned home. Mother was waiting. My mathematics notebook remained missing, and I suspected the disappointed potato had taken it for higher education. But somewhere along that road waited the God of Magic.

I stepped through. Chhataram hopped behind me. Professor Bhokambol followed because the prophecy seemed academically nutritious. Mangaldas came to inspect whatever happened next and record objections.

“Will you return?” called the door.

“Yes.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No.”

The door laughed so loudly that three nearby mountains removed their hats.

Thus my journey began: without permission, without a map, and without knowing why a door’s hiccup smelled of cardamom.