by Akhilesh
You must believe me. I am not conservative, and neither do I believe that only past traditions can contain truth and beauty. However, what can I do? The present – its every aspect, its every sound, seems to break my head open. I feel that the world has never been so ugly. I tremble at how terrible the earth and the future would become if the world moves at this pace! I am a unique entity in this sense. I am quite a feeble and small being before this globalized world garnished with technology, riches and allure. What an irony! I want to change it, but I have failed to make even a mark on the burly girth of this newfangled civilization. I have a fervent desire to annihilate it, but I have not been able to ruffle it. However, it is within my power to refuse to join its chorus of supremacy, splendour and prominence.
I would like this world to realize that while it may be eternal, invincible and indomitable, there is at least one person in a nameless corner who refuses to be subjugated. He rejects all definitions and explanations to prove the world is superior and still he exists in peace and harmony. This attachment with antiquity is a sort of negation of the present civilization. I do realize that this life of mine, founded on denial, is not realistic. Without doubt, I have created an imaginary world and I exist in it. And maybe I am happy and maybe I am unhappy. But who can deny that the present civilization is a virtual world in itself, imposing a farce on its inhabitants? They think they are profiting, but in fact, they are losing. What they consider riches, happiness and security are actually poverty, unhappiness and peril. What appears glamorous is actually quite ugly.
This contrariety is today’s reality. I protest against this unbearable reality through another contrariety. You have snatched away my life that existed before 1984, and so I have cocooned into it. ‘Move ahead’, ‘Get rich’, are global slogans, but I have adopted the goals of ‘Return’ and ‘Be ordinary’.
Suryakant stood at the end of Manas Vihar society, poised to go home, but he did not feel like it. He had fallen asleep at Chacha’s. Although he never slept during the day, the fatigue of the journey had caught up, and his brain was exhausted. He had encountered so many different people, events, memories and strains that all of them had combined together in an inexorable load, and his body and soul seemed incapable of bearing it. Maybe it was the weariness of the mind and the body, but he fell into a profound slumber.
When he woke up, he felt lighter and full of vigour. But when he reached the Manas Vihar exit, he found himself relentlessly cheerless. It often happened with him: if he slept during the day, he would wake up feeling sad and forlorn. A blend of relaxation, laziness and sadness suffused him. It happened for a brief time, but it invariably did: free from attachment or detachment, he would be subdued by the power of indifference. He was in this frame of mind at the moment. He had gotten up with the intention of going home, but he did not really feel like it.
He thought of going back to Chacha’s but rejected the idea because he would have to talk with or listen to Chacha. He wanted to remain silent and alone for a while. Finally, he started descending the stairs to the river bank. He had decided he would sit on the last step on the ghat and dangle his legs in the river for a while. Until the moon rose. Then he would go directly to Nupoor’s. But he was shocked when he saw that the steps were over but the river was still far away. There was nothing but sand at the last step to the river.
Evening knocked. It was hard to say whether the moon was waning in the sky or it was a pared down sun. In one direction lay the river and in the other, the river bank. Between the two, there stretched nothing but the sand where Suryakant stood. There was a temple on the left on the bank where the arti was being performed and a little ahead, by the river on his right, a pyre burnt brightly. A boatman was tethering his boat and another had untied his and was rowing across the river. A small number of birds were flying somewhere or maybe flying in from somewhere.
Suryakant sat down where he was standing, in the middle of the sand, and then lay down. The sand was still hot from the sun, and his back grew warm. The first thought that entered his mind when he lay down was: I am forty-two years old now. He failed to understand why the thought of his age had flashed across his mind. Was it a miracle wrought by the companionship of the river or the birds flying in the sky or the thickening evening or the burning body or the arti in the temple or his back in contact with the sand? Whatever it was, the feeling of the fleeting nature of the years had surfaced in him and for the first time in his life, this feeling had come so alone, so bright, so guileless that he was stunned.
Perhaps this explained why these thoughts had generated fear, desperation and depression earlier, but today he was immersed in remarkable love for his own self. As if he was his own child, or his own father – he touched his forehead tenderly. God knows what miracles lay in the touch that his eyes closed and two teardrops drenched his eyelashes. What, why and how this happened he had no idea. It had never happened before. A child had begun to breathe in the body of a forty-two-year-old man. But the miracle did not cease yet, it only acquired strange new shapes: it appeared in the sky with its soaring birds, and was stretched on the sand like Suryakant. The next feeling was unusual and unique: Suryakant felt as if he was an endless, forty-two-year-old expanse of water in which a boatman was anchoring his boat and another was rowing. This was the moment when he also thought: Everything is here on this earth. Everything, everyone, is right here in this awfully dynamic and dazzling world – only I am missing. A corollary appeared instantly, Only I am there. I am the One. Nothing else exists.
He beheld himself as a contemplative child who was thinking: it is his lacerated self that bears the curse of immortality, with laceration wounds on his form. Although everyone who attests intimacy with him appears close, yet nobody is actually close. He asked himself, ‘What am I? An ostracized, exiled entity lying on the bank of the Gomati. A bubble in the sea ready to burst?’ He wept, recalling the times that Chacha too had wept inside the mosquito net in Gosainganj, soaking his face and pillow in tears.
He wondered as he wept: one cries like this only in dreams or in one’s sleep. What kind of cry was it – in a dream or in sleep? No sooner had he harboured the suspicion than his sobs ebbed. He opened his eyes and the cries abated little by little, as if he had really been blubbering in sleep. When he fell silent, he realized that the sky, the moon, the temple and the burning pyre were all located as usual, like inanimate objects. He was almost surprised – the rare experience he had just now, was it nothing but the creation of his weak nerves? When Chacha had wept in Gosainganj the other night, was that also the product of some kind of mental disturbance? He started and sat up facing the river with his legs crossed, as if he were a sage absorbed in meditation.
‘Why did I return to this town after so many years?’ he asked himself aloud. ‘Did I come here to hunt for Pandeyji’s family or to reunite with my own? Maybe both were my goal. I have almost traced Pandeyji’s family in Gosainganj, but have I really found my own people?’ Fear flashed in him like lightning. ‘As far as my kin in Sultanpur are concerned, they all appear to have changed. They are some other people looking like my mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, Chacha. They are imposters. It is not even my home! Or have I changed so much that I’m unable to recognize them? Do Ma and Babuji feel I am their own son?’ He lost the nerve to continue with these thoughts and changed track: ‘When I was returning here, what did I expect? What kind of fortune was I looking for when I arrived?’ Something clicked in his head.
The thing that called out loudly to me, that drew me here, was my memories. Earlier, I used to learn words by rote, but I did not know their meaning. The gap sometimes caused hilarious and sometimes horrible situations. Anyway, with age, I became familiar with the meaning of the words, but for the past few years, I have begun forgetting the images that give birth to words and their meanings. It is tragic, but I can barely retain any image in my memory. Nothing but words and words and words and words and words occupy the cosmos with their meanings. The he
ap of words, massacring the images, has turned into a surprising image in itself. Hardly any meanings remain, only their shadows linger – words, hugging the shadows of meanings, occupying all space.
And in this manner, the treasure trove of memory was lost. Whenever I came across people and objects, I stored only their names in my brain, not their meanings or images. My brain has become a dustbin of nouns. What are memories? Merely images. When images vanish, memories too disappear. It happened a couple of days ago. I was often terrified, afraid that my box of memories would get lost. I found it hard to concentrate on anything. Life was meaningless. These sicknesses were born from the loss of memories and there was no cure for them. So, I devised my own therapy: I would take out words from my childhood cellar of memories in the Mayfair notebooks, jot them down and try to mull over them. It really benefitted me. For instance, I wrote an almost forgotten word in the Mayfair notebook – ‘majira’. And then I started thinking carefully about the majira. I first heard its music and then I visualized it – like two small brass bowls or plates or two small brass covers. When they came together, they created music. It is not only their coming together, whenever there is a commingling in this world, it produces music. From the memory of the majira appeared the musical soirees – the soirees of women during marriages, a mujra, and Alha, the song sung by a Surdas in trains.
Obviously, all the things and facts associated with this music resurfaced! It was the power of the preserving lost words in the Mayfair notebooks! But I was not exactly successful because the entire past could not be transcribed. I had forgotten most of the words and had thought that it was impossible to revive them. I came to seek help from a territory beyond my childhood, but was defeated. The words I discovered from the period after my childhood were merely a crowd of letters, like leafless trees. Unlike in my childhood, images did not accompany the words, although I felt strongly that numerous memories were trying to wriggle out of their coma, which was almost as extensive as a full life. As if countless birds had been trapped in a vast net and were now trying to take flight. It became all the more difficult when my job was endangered because of Sampooranand Brihaspati. And the spectre of cancer right before this was merely a false alarm. I was afraid I would give up the ghost soon. The most surprising thing was that whenever I strove to picture my corpse, my face would not come into view. The very idea of death made me feel that at each stage of life I had a different body – from my high school days to university – and all these bodies were consigned to the flaming pyre. Gauri thought I was staying up at night to gather information and find a new job. I did, but the reality was that I had stepped into a magical world. And at this moment too, I am not in the midst of the river, the sand, the temple and the pyre, but in an enchanted universe …
22
AS IF A DEVICE HAD BEEN DAMAGED
Devdatt Tendulkar did not go to his clinic in the evening, and had been assisting Nupoor in the kitchen since the afternoon. The two were preparing for the dinner party. Devdatt was in the role of the apprentice. All the vegetables had been washed, skinned and sliced by him. Nupoor tossed spices in the oil and Devdatt watched over their simmering. In addition, he toiled considerably outside, fetching everything from the market. He had brought fresh ras malai in earthen cups from the renowned Gaya Prasad Mishtan Bhandar. He’d also procured dahi vadas and paneer from Brijwasi’s. His zeal to welcome Suryakant home was no less than Nupoor’s.
He undertook every task with enthusiasm. However, as he had been doing since they married, he would take a break with Nupoor now and then. During these interruptions, he would hold her hand, hug her, kiss her or fuck her. They had the house to themselves. The children – I will tell their names now, Ina, Mina, Dika – had all gone to their maternal grandmother’s house and would return with Mama and Mami in the evening. And thus, the interruptions were often prolonged. He would put away the work they were doing and fondle Nupoor. Maybe it was Nupoor’s enduring beauty or Devdatt’s sexual excitement, but they enjoyed several raunchy moments. The fact was that Devdatt was unable to control himself. It happened just a little while ago: Nupoor was pouring mustard oil in the frying pan as Devdatt came into the kitchen. He took the oil bottle from her and switched off the oven. Devdatt held the mustard oil bottle in one hand and Nupoor’s arm in the other, moving towards the bed. Nupoor resisted. She resisted even when Devdatt started unclothing her on the bed. And when Devdatt removed his own garments, she struggled. She suddenly fell silent when Devdatt tipped the mustard oil on her body. He massaged her entire body with the oil. And then they sprang upon each other. There was such wildness in their passion that the bed started rocking. The bed would creak intermittently so loudly that their banging was drowned in it.
The room was filled with the aroma of mustard oil and the bed sheet was soaked. Nupoor replaced it with another bed sheet and naked, she walked into the bathroom to finish the oil bath. Devdatt insisted on going in, but Nupoor told him to dust all the furniture and doors and said, ‘You can bathe after you finish.’
He started dusting with a towel wrapped around his head. He was removing dust, but he never realized that he was also making things filthy. The oil on his body stained several curtains, walls and pieces of furniture. When he finished, he remembered that the door should be cleaned from the outside too. He was about to step out when he realized he had not a stitch on, and removing the towel from the head he tied it around his waist. After cleaning the door, he looked at his nameplate: DR DEVDATT TENDULKAR, BAMS.
He sighed. Whenever he looked at the nameplate, he would sigh. ‘God did not want MBBS and MD to be inscribed after my name.’ When he was unhappy, he would curse himself, ‘Even homeopaths are better off than me!’ But he did not remain unhappy for very long. He rubbed the oil from his hand on the letters of the nameplate to make them shine. He entered the bathroom and slipped and fell because it was slippery from the oil. But there was not much to worry about because his bones were intact and he engaged himself in removing lint and oil from his own skin.
Late in the evening, when everyone arrived for dinner, the couple was still oily. Chacha even asked, ‘Why have you people applied so much mustard oil?’ Chacha added, ‘Do you have anything to blush about that you look so bashful?’
Ina, Mina and Dika rescued their parents. They started touching Chacha’s and Suryakant’s feet. And then God knows what came over Ina that she started touching Shibbu and Kamana’s feet despite having retuned with them with her sisters. Mina and Dika followed her. Dika was so enthusiastic that she touched the feet of her parents too.
But they broke into laughter instead of blessing them, ‘Hey, you crazy girls, we stay here!’ There was so much confusion while touching feet that nobody recalled the mysteries of the mustard oil. The rest of the distraction was taken care of by Shibbu’s daughter bawling. Ina, Mina and Dika carried her into the room where a clean bed sheet had been spread and the TV was blaring. Things returned to normal after the children drifted to the other room. Chacha took out a paper packet from his bag.
Kamana spoke the moment she saw the packet. ‘Chachaji, should I guess what’s inside?’
Chacha replied, ‘I’ll listen to you only when you get rid of this veil.’
Kamana had used the veil of her sari to show Chacha respect. Now she raised it back. ‘Should I tell you now what it contains, Chachaji?’
Chacha concealed the packet partially and asked, ‘Yes?’
Kamana replied, ‘It has blackberries.’
Chacha nodded, ‘You’re right.’
When Chacha opened the packet and peered into it, Kamana said, ‘Chachaji, the salt sachet is not inside – it is in your bag.’ Chacha pulled out the salt from the bag.
Nupoor brought the blackberries on a platter, and everyone started eating them. Kamana carried the platter to the children. She offered the platter before each child like an arti platter, but they made faces. Her own daughter broke into loud wails when the platter was too close – perhaps she was afra
id of the black blackberries. The duty of pacifying her fell to Ina, Mina and Dika again.
Nupoor rejoined the group. Everything was easy and cheerful. It changed when Nupoor and Devdatt appeared to touch Suryakant’s feet like a newlywed couple. Suryakant was so flustered that instead of halting or chiding them, he stood up and blessed them.
Nupoor said, ‘Bhaiya, you weren’t there at our wedding, please bless us today.’
Suryakant had already blessed them, and he thought it proper to gift them something as well. He drew the purse out of his pocket. But before he could pull out the bills from the purse, Devdatt spoke, ‘Bhai Sahib, we won’t accept money from you at all!’
‘Why?’ Suryakant was curious, and he sat down.
‘Because we don’t want money, but something else.’
‘Fine … yes … tell me … I shall buy it tomorrow.’
‘We don’t want you to buy anything.’
Suryakant looked at them questioningly.
Devdatt glanced at Nupoor and said, ‘Bhai Sahib, we have heard that some very rich Pandeyji from America is pretty close to you, and he is in India right now. Please find me some work in America through him.’
‘What can you do there?’ Chacha asked with a certain bitterness.
‘Yes, Jijaji, what job can you get there?’ Shibbu asked.
‘Ayurvedic treatment.’ Tendulkar’s voice trembled as he said, ‘I have been carrying the stigma of Ayurvedacharya for so many years. Had there been no income from the photocopier machine, I would have found it hard to run the household, and Ina, Mina and Dika would have been struggling without bread, clothes and education.’ And then a surprising change appeared in his voice. He seemed filled with power, wisdom and confidence. ‘But …’ he looked at everyone and said, ‘But in America, this very Ayurvedic education can become the goose that lays golden eggs.’
