I sat and mused that the factory which today was no more than a few scattered bones in a charnel house had once brimmed with life. One might have imagined that the waves of happiness and sadness it had set off were a tempest that would never be stilled. The redoubtable sahib who on this very spot had made the blood of thousands of poor peasants run indigo blue would have seen me as just an ordinary Bengali youth. Yet the earth had quietly girdled the edge of her green sari around her waist and with a liberal plastering of clay erased all trace of him and everything of his, his factory included; whatever vestiges of the past were still visible would be totally obliterated by just one more wipe of her hand.
Such philosophizing is old hat and I haven’t set out to reiterate it here. My real feeling was this: No, my dear chap, the last word isn’t the daily plastering of mud, morning after morning, on the courtyard of time. The planter sahib and the terrible life of his factory have indeed been erased like a marking in the dust—but what about my Damini?
I know no one will accept what I am saying. The demystifying verses of Shankaracharya’s Mohamudgar spare none, ‘This world is illusion,’ etc, etc. But Shankaracharya was a sannyasi. He had said such things as, ‘Of what avail are wife and child?’ but without grasping their significance. I am no sannyasi, so I know in my bones that Damini is not a dewdrop on a lotus leaf.
But I am told even some householders speak in the same world-denying terms. That may be so. They are only householders; they may lose their housewives. Their houses are maya, illusion; and so are their housewives. Both are man-made things, and vanish at the touch of the broom.
I haven’t had time to be a householder, and—thank heaven—it’s not in my temperament to be a sannyasi. That’s why the woman I found as a companion didn’t become a housewife; she couldn’t be dismissed as maya; she was real. Till the end she remained true to her name, Damini, lightning. Who would dare call her a shadow?
There are many things I wouldn’t have written, if I had known Damini merely as a housewife. It is because I have known her in a nobler, truer relationship that I can tell everything frankly, whatever others may say.
If I had been able to turn Damini into a regular housewife and pass my days as others do in this world of maya, I would have had a carefree existence, oiling my body, taking my bath, chewing paan after meals; and after Damini’s death I would have said with a sigh, ‘Varied is the world of samsara.’ And to taste once again its variety I would have respectfully accepted the proposal of a matchmaking aunt. But a smooth entry into samsara, like that of feet entering an old pair of shoes, was not for me. From the start I forswore all hope of happiness. No, that’s not quite true—I am human enough not to give up hope of happiness; I must have had some hope of it, but I certainly didn’t feel I had a claim on it.
And why not? Because I had to persuade Damini to assent to our marriage. We didn’t exchange ritual glances under the corner of a red silk shawl to the accompaniment of Raga Shahana. I had entered marriage in the broad light of day, with full understanding of everything involved.
When we left Swami Lilananda we were faced with the necessity of thinking about food and shelter. Till then, wherever we went we gorged on food-offerings brought to our guru: indigestion was a greater worry than hunger. We had totally forgotten that people in this world had to build houses and maintain them, or at least rent them. All we knew was that people had to sleep in houses. As for our householder host, where he would find some space for himself wasn’t our concern; but he had to worry all right about finding a place for us to sprawl luxuriously.
Then I remembered that Uncle had willed his house to Sachish. If the will had been with Sachish it would have sunk like a paper boat in the waves of his ecstatic devotion. But it was with me; I was the executor. My task was to ensure the fulfilment of certain conditions, of which the most important were: that no religious service could be held in the house; that a night school for the children of Muslim tanners had to be set up on the ground floor; after Sachish’s death the whole house had to be used for their welfare. Uncle hated piety more than anything else, deeming it more vile than worldliness. The provisions in the will were intended to neutralize the odour of sanctity from next door. Uncle described them—using the English term—as ‘sanitary precautions’.
‘Let’s go back to Uncle’s house in Calcutta,’ I suggested to Sachish.
‘I am not yet ready for that,’ Sachish replied.
I couldn’t see what he meant. He went on: ‘Once I tried to base my life on intelligence and found that it couldn’t take life’s full weight. Then I tried to build my life on ecstatic devotion and found it bottomless. Intelligence is an aspect of my self, and so is mysticism. It is not possible to balance oneself on oneself. Unless I find some support I can’t return to the city.’
‘Tell me what to do,’ I said.
‘You two go ahead,’ Sachish said. ‘I’ll wander alone for a while. I think I can make out the vague outline of a shore. If I lose it now I’ll never find it again.’
Damini drew me aside and said, ‘That cannot be. If he wanders all by himself who will look after him? He did go away once. I shudder whenever I remember how he looked when he came back.’
Shall I confess the truth? Damini’s anxiety roused me into anger like a bee-sting. It irked me. For nearly two years after Uncle’s death Sachish had wandered alone; he hadn’t died. I couldn’t suppress my feelings and I spoke out pungently.
‘Sribilashbabu,’ Damini said, ‘I know people may take long to die. But why should he suffer at all when we are there?’
We! At least half of the first-person plural was this wretched Sribilash. In this world one group of people has to suffer in order to save another group from distress. The world of samsara is made up of these two categories of human beings. Damini well knew to which group I belonged. Still, it was some consolation that she had drawn me into her party.
I went to Sachish and said, ‘Very well, we won’t go to the city now. We can spend a few days in that ruined house across the river. Since it’s rumoured to be haunted, people won’t bother you there.’
‘And you?’ Sachish asked.
‘We’ ll try to remain as unobtrusive as ghosts,’ I said.
Sachish glanced once at Damini. Perhaps there was a touch of fear in that glance.
Damini appealed to Sachish with joined palms, ‘You are my guru. No matter how greatly I may sin, allow me the right to serve you.’
2
WHATEVER YOU MAY SAY, I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND SACHISH’S ENTHUSIASM for spiritual austerities. Once I would have dismissed such things with a laugh; now—whatever else—my laughter had ceased. I was dealing no longer with a will-o’-the-wisp, but with a blazing fire. When I saw its flames engulf Sachish I didn’t dare behave towards it like a disciple of Uncle’s. What phantasmagoric faith gave birth to it and what miraculous faith would ultimately consume it? It was pointless to approach Mr Herbert Spencer to settle such questions, I could clearly see that Sachish was in flames, his life was ablaze from end to end.
Until now he had been in a state of perpetual excitement, singing and dancing, shedding tears of joy, attending on his guru; and in a way he was quite content. His mind was exerted to the utmost at every moment, squandering all his energy. Now that he had gathered himself in stillness, his mind could no longer be kept in check. No more did he wallow in mystic contemplation of ecstatic union with the divine. Such a desperate struggle to attain understanding raged within him that it was terrifying to look upon his face.
Unable to contain myself any longer I said to him one day, ‘Look here, Sachish, it seems to me you need a guru who can lend you the support to make your quest easier.’
‘O shut up, Bisri, shut up,’ Sachish replied with annoyance, ‘why take the easy way out? The easy way is a fraud, the truth is hard to attain.’
I said a little nervously, ‘It is in order to show the way to the truth that . . .’
Sachish cut me short: ‘My dear fellow,
this isn’t the truth of a geographical description. The God within me will tread my road and none other; the guru’s road only leads to his own courtyard.’
Words from Sachish’s lips have so often contradicted each other! I, Sribilash, was Uncle’s follower no doubt, but if I had ever called him my guru he would have chased me with a stick. Sachish had got me, the selfsame Sribilash, to massage a guru’s legs, and now soon after he was giving this lecture to the very same me! Not daring to laugh, I adopted a sombre expression.
Sachish went on. ‘Today I have clearly grasped the significance of the saying, “Better die for one’s own faith than do such a terrible thing as accept another’s.” Everything else can be taken from others, but if one’s faith isn’t one’s own it brings damnation instead of salvation. My god can’t be doled out to me by someone; if I find him, well and good, otherwise it’s better to die.’
I am contentious by nature, not one to let go easily. ‘One who is a poet finds poetry in his soul,’ I said, ‘and one who isn’t borrows it from others.’
‘I am a poet,’ said Sachish brazenly.
Well, that settled it. I came away.
Sachish hardly bothered to eat or sleep and seemed oblivious of his whereabouts. His body seemed to grow as thin as an over-honed blade. Looking at him one would think he wouldn’t hold out much longer. Still, I didn’t dare interfere. But Damini couldn’t bear it and became quite furious with God: frustrated by those who didn’t worship him, must He take it out on those who did?With Swami Lilananda she could occasionally vent her rage quite forcefully, but there was no chance of reaching God.
She never, though, slackened her efforts to keep Sachish fed and bathed regularly. To bind this strange man to a routine, she resorted to countless ruses.
For a long time Sachish made no protest against this. Then early one morning he crossed the river to the sand flats on the other side. The sun reached its zenith, then declined to the west, but there was no sign of Sachish. Damini waited for him without eating her meal. When she could no longer bear the wait she took a plate laden with food and waded across the knee-deep water.
Emptiness all around, no sign of life anywhere. The waves of sand were as pitiless as the sun—as if they were sentinels of emptiness, lying in ambush.
Damini’s heart sank as she stood in the middle of an unbounded, bleached space where no cry or query drew any response. Everything seemed to have dissolved into primal dry whiteness. There was nothing at her feet save a ‘No’—no sound or motion, no trace of the red of blood, the green of plants, the blue of the sky or the brown of earth. Only the wide, lipless grin of a gigantic death’s-head. As if under the pitiless blazing sky a huge dry tongue was displaying its thirst like a vast petition.
Damini was wondering which way to turn when she suddenly noticed footprints in the sand. Following them she reached a pond. The wet earth of its edges bore innumerable footprints of birds. Sachish was seated in the shade cast by a sandbank. The water was dazzling blue and on the bank fidgety snipes dipped their tails and flashed their two-tone wings. A little farther off noisy flocks of herons seemed unable to preen themselves to their satisfaction. As soon as Damini appeared on the bank they spread wings and took off with loud squawks.
When he saw her Sachish said, ‘Why are you here?’
‘I’ve brought some food,’ Damini replied.
‘I don’t want to eat,’ Sachish said.
‘It’s very late,’ said Damini.
Sachish just said, ‘No.’
Damini went on. ‘Let me wait a little. After a while you . . .’
Sachish cut in. ‘Oh , why do you . . .’
But suddenly catching sight of Damini’s face he stopped. Without another word Damini got up with the plate and left. The bare sand all around glittered like tigers’ eyes at night.
Damini’s eyes blazed more readily than they shed tears. But that day I found her squatting with legs carelessly splayed while tears streamed from her eyes. On seeing me, her sobs seemed to burst through a dam. My heart felt uneasy. I sat down beside her.
When she had composed herself somewhat I said, ‘Why do you worry so much about Sachish’s health?’
‘Tell me,’ she replied, ‘what else can I worry about? He has taken all other worries on himself. Do I understand them or do anything about them?’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘when the mind runs hard into something the body’s needs automatically diminish. That’s why in a state of great joy or intense grief one feels no hunger or thirst. Sachish’s state of mind is such that his body won’t suffer if you don’t look after it.’
‘But I am a woman,’ Damini protested. ‘It is in our nature to devote ourselves body and soul to caring for the body. This task is entirely the responsibility of women. That’s why when we see the body being neglected our hearts cry out.’
‘That’s why those who are preoccupied with their spirits don’t even notice guardians of the body like you,’ I said.
Damini retorted warmly, ‘Don’t they indeed! In fact they take notice in a way that’s quite weird.’
‘In that case,’ I said to myself, ‘the longing of your sex for the weird is boundless . . . O Sribilash, earn enough merit in this world so that you can be reborn as one of those weirdos.’
3
THE OUTCOME OF THE SHOCK SACHISH DEALT DAMINI ON THE RIVERBANK was that he couldn’t erase from his memory her anxious expression as she had gone up to him. For some days after he did penance by paying special attention to Damini. For a long time he hadn’t even bothered to speak politely with us; now he would often call Damini for a chat. They talked about the results of his profound meditation.
Damini had not been afraid of Sachish’s indifference, but these attentions filled her with dread. She knew they were too good to last, for they came at a price. One day he would look at the balance sheet and see that the expenditure was too high. Then there would be trouble. Damini’s heart trembled in apprehension, a strange embarrassment overcame her when Sachish behaved like an obedient child and had his bath and meals at regular hours. She would have felt relieved if he had disobeyed the rules. She said to herself, ‘He did right to spurn me that day But by paying me attention now he is only punishing himself. How can I bear that?’ Then she thought: ‘Damn it all. It seems that in this place also I’ll have to make friends with the local women and spend time hanging around the village.’
One night we were woken up by loud shouts: ‘Bisri! Damini!’ It was one or two in the morning but Sachish would have no inkling of that. What he might be up to at such an hour I didn’t know, but clearly his activities were driving the ghostly denizens of that haunted house to distraction.
We got up in a hurry and went out to find Sachish standing on the cement terrace in front of the house. ‘I understand it all,’ he shouted. ‘There’s no more doubt in my mind.’
Slowly Damini sat down on the terrace. Sachish followed her absent-mindedly and sat down. So did I.
‘If,’ Sachish said, ‘I move in the same direction in which He is approaching me I’ll only move away from Him, but if I move in the opposite direction we shall meet.’
I stared in silence at his burning eyes. What he had said was correct according to linear geometry, but what was it all about?
Sachish continued. ‘He loves form, so He is continuously revealing Himself through form. We can’t survive with form alone, so we must pursue the formless. He is free, so he delights in bondage; we are fettered, so our joy is in liberty. Our misery arises because we don’t realize this truth.’
Damini and I remained as silent as the stars. ‘Damini,’ Sachish said, ‘don’t you understand? The singer progresses from the experience of joy to the musical expression of the raga, the audience in the opposite direction from the raga towards joy. One moves from freedom to bondage, the other from bondage to freedom; hence the concord between them. He sings, we listen. He plays by binding emotion to the raga and as we listen we unravel the emotion from the raga.’
>
I don’t know whether Damini understood what Sachish was saying, but she did understand Sachish. She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap.
‘All this while,’ Sachish said, ‘I’ve been sitting in a dark corner, listening in silence to the divine maestro’s song. As I went on listening I suddenly understood everything. I couldn’t contain myself, so I woke you up. All these days I’ve only fooled myself in trying to make Him in my own image. O my apocalypse, let me forever crush myself against you! I can’t cling to any bondage because bondage isn’t mine, and because bondage is yours you can never escape the fetters of creation. While you concern yourself with my form I plunge into your formlessness.’
Then saying over and over the words, ‘O Infinity, you are mine, you are mine,’ Sachish got up and walked through the dark towards the riverbank.
4
AFTER THAT NIGHT SACHISH REVERTED TO HIS FORMER WAYS. THERE WAS no knowing when he would bathe or eat. It was impossible to make out when the currents of his soul sought the light, or when they sought darkness. Whoever takes on the responsibility of keeping such a person regularly bathed and fed like a gentleman’s son deserves divine assistance.
After a sultry day a violent storm burst at night. The three of us slept in separate rooms fronting a veranda on which a naked kerosene lamp burned. It went out. The river surged, the sky burst into torrents of rain. The thrashing of the waves below and the noise of the rain in the sky mingled to produce the continuous cymbal-crashes of an apocalyptic concert. We could see nothing of the turbulence within the womb of the massed darkness, yet the medley of noises emanating from it turned the entire sky as cold with fright as a blind child. A widowed ghoul seemed to shriek in the bamboo thickets, branches groaned and crashed in the mango grove, intermittently in the distance portions of the riverbank collapsed thunderously into the water, and as the gale repeatedly stabbed our dilapidated house with sharp thrusts through the ribs it howled like a wounded beast.
The Tagore Omnibus, Volume One Page 51
