The One Who Swam with the Fishes

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  I emerge from behind the sheet they have hung up for modesty in the grey tunic and matching trousers. The grey fabric clings to me like a lover, my hair is done in dozens of intricate braids, through which Mohini has threaded small pearls to gleam here and there, a style she tells me is called ‘starry night’. I look like a lady, like what they have been calling me all along, and for the first time I can truly believe in what I am here to do.

  Marry the king.

  Then

  I was not prepared to see a man on our island, and so I dropped the fruits I had been carrying and a ripe pear rolled away from me and stopped at his feet.

  It had been three full moons since I arrived at my strange new home, and everything felt like it was falling into place. Dvipaa-ma was teaching me about various herbs and she even trusted me enough to send me collecting every morning with a basket tied to my back. Of course, since the island kept changing, it was hard to say whether the same herbs would be in the same place, but I enjoyed walking, striding through large swathes of reeds, or perching at the edge of a mossy rock to peer at the bottom of it. Sometimes I brought home strange flowers, which I was praised for, but once Dvipaa-ma gave a screech and made me burn a whole pile of violently blue leaves for they were deadly poison.

  As time went on, I grew wiser about my searches and learned to sniff at fruit, maybe take a little nibble and see if it reacted in my mouth, scratch the surface of a leaf and dab it on the underside of my wrist to see if it tingled, watch birds and squirrels looking particularly industrious and follow them to see what seeds they were eating. Dvipaa-ma taught me to tie my herbs together with a bit of dried grass and place them in the sun to dry, and now I had bundles all over my little sleeping cave, which had conveniently grown some shelves where I lined them up. My pillow was made of sweet poppies dried and mixed with grass and so my sleep was deep and dreamless. I also learned to mix some of the herbs with our cooking – some for energy, some for strength, some for sharpness of mind. I felt the healthiest I had ever been in my whole life. This would be the way I lived forever, I told myself, all thoughts of finding my birth family or going home forgotten. I would grow old and grey on this island. I also thought that Dvipaa-ma had simply wanted some company, which is why she told me she could cure my smell. It was evident to me that that was a lie, otherwise why would she never let me ask? There was probably no cure, but on this island, none cared.

  And so, settled as I was, feeling old beyond my years and already running a house – well, a cave, but that counted all the same – I was startled to see that I could still be surprised. A man on our island. And such a man too. He was probably some sort of sadhu – he had wild hair and long matted beard. The beard, flecked with grey, went down to his chest which was bare except for a cloth he laid across one shoulder. His dhoti was saffron, surprisingly bright and clean, and he had a string of beads wrapped around his fingers. He looked at me and seemed amused, although it was hard to tell through all that beard. He bent down, picked up the pear and held it out in his hand, offering it to me.

  I couldn’t decide between running to warn Dvipaa-ma that our island had been discovered or chasing him off myself. Dvipaa-ma may know magic but she was old and had recently been coughing in a rather disturbing way that caused her small, shrunken body to almost lift itself off the ground. In fact, just before leaving for, the day’s herb-collecting, I had made her special tea to ease her aches a bit, and she had fallen asleep quite soon afterwards. I hoped a rest would make her feel better. As unmotherly as she was, she was still my only companion.

  Thus decided, I faced him, chin up, trying not to show how much my knees were knocking with fear. ‘Who are you and what do you want here?’ I said boldly.

  ‘I should ask you the same.’ He had a deep, rumbling voice and his cheeks rose like little round apples when he smiled, which he was doing, even though his voice sounded grave.

  ‘I live here,’ I said. ‘This is my island, well, mine and … one other person’s, and I order you to leave it at once.’

  ‘Can anyone really own a piece of land?’ he asked, musingly. ‘Especially one as sacred and magical as this one?’

  ‘Well, we were here first.’

  ‘The cry of all our human ancestors, no doubt.’

  ‘Look, I don’t even know how you got here, but as you can see, it’s occupied, so maybe you could go find yourself another magical island where there aren’t any people.’

  ‘That’ll be difficult.’ To my dismay, he made preparations to sit down, and began to extract a long pipe from where it was tied to his shoulder cloth. ‘You see, my dear girl, there aren’t any other magical islands. I should know. I made this one myself.’

  I blinked at him. I hadn’t considered that this island, my island, could have been a man-made thing. For me, it was a gift from the gods, which one I did not know, so I included them all in my prayers every evening. Could anything as precious and glorious as this have come from the mind of this rather scary-looking man with his bushy beard and his eyebrows as fat as caterpillars?

  He lit his pipe and took a long pull at it. ‘Now that I seem to have stopped your questions, shall we admire the river in silence? Look how lovely she is, with the setting sun gleaming off her waves. Look at the village in the distance – how nice it looks with the last rays of light on the thatched roofs. That’s your village, isn’t it, Matsyagandhi?’

  By this time I was unsurprised that he knew my name or where I had come from since, no doubt, he was a very great magician, so I nodded, still standing.

  ‘Do sit down,’ he said. ‘Be companionable. You are my guest, after all. Do you want this pear back?’ I shook my head. ‘It looks delicious. Pears don’t grow on my side of the island.’ He bit into it, eating it in two quick mouthfuls, and tossed the core into the water. Then he wiped off the juice from his beard, and without looking at me, patted the sand next to him. Cautiously I sat down, but at some distance from him. The river did look beautiful, I decided, and if he stayed on the other end of the island, then I didn’t have to see this strange man very often. I could avoid him as adroitly as I avoided Dvipaa-ma when she had some task for me that I didn’t feel like doing.

  I was wondering how to tell Dvipaa-ma of this addition to our island but she came crashing through the bushes herself, as though I had summoned her. She stopped short when she saw us.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she said crankily to the man.

  ‘Dvipaa! And how is your health today, my dear?’

  ‘As if you care about my health. My cough has kept me up all night, nothing will soothe it. I could die here all alone with no one to care.’

  ‘You’re not alone. You have this lovely girl, Matsyagandhi. And you have me.’

  She shot me a dark look. ‘I’ll deal with this lovely girl later. As for you, as long as you have your meals on time, you don’t care whether it is I or a ghost who serves you.’

  ‘Now, now,’ he said, mildly. ‘I walked all this way to enquire after your health.’

  ‘Fat lot of enquiring you’re doing,’ she said with a snort, ‘sitting here watching the sunset. And you!’ She spun towards me. ‘There I wake up, sick and alone, hoping to be tended to, and the pot is cold, the fire is out and you’d vanished! Ungrateful girl! Was it for this I taught you everything I know? So, you could turn your back on me?’ It seemed I was doomed to be called ungrateful by every woman who tended to me. What was a “grateful girl” I wondered briefly, what did gratitude look like – tending to someone without even being asked? Not questioning orders? Being placid even when something didn’t agree with you? Because that sounded a lot like being a servant, if you asked me.

  ‘Peace, Dvipaa, peace,’ said the sage, breaking into my musings. ‘It looked like she was heading back to you when I encountered her. It was I who made her stay a little. I have so little company, sometimes I get greedy for it. I am sorry you had to suffer.’

  I nodded vigorously. ‘I was just coming back to you, Dvipaa-ma! Here
, look, I even found some pears that I was going to give you because you said you couldn’t bear to eat any dinner.’ I stood up and gathered up my basket again. ‘I don’t even know who this person is. I certainly didn’t want to talk to him, but he said he made the island.’ I chuckled and shook my head in an imitation of elders in my village when they wanted to convey how unbelievable something was.

  ‘Just like you to show off,’ said Dvipaa-ma, sneering.

  ‘Just like you to not tell the girl about me.’

  They were bickering in a very familiar way. I wondered … but no, this sadhu had to be at least twenty or thirty rains younger than the ancient Dvipaa-ma. He caught my eye and smiled at me. ‘Since Dvipaa isn’t making introductions, allow me to introduce myself. I am Sadhu Parashara. I already know who you are, of course, Matsyagandhi, and what brings you to this island.’

  ‘That’s because I told you about her, stop acting so mysterious,’ said Dvipaa-ma sulkily, sounding no older than I did.

  I wasn’t sure how to react to this Sadhu Parashara. He must have been a very great sage, with lots of magic and will power to be able to create all this. Was he Dvipaa-ma’s grandson? Great-nephew? How did she come into this? There was some signalling going on over my head, the sadhu raising his eyebrows and nodding in my direction, Dvipaa-ma pretending to look away till finally she lost the battle of wills and said wearily, ‘This is my husband, girl. Oh, stop looking so surprised. The island makes him look young, and as I said, I have no use of such vanities.’

  ‘Dear Dvipaa.’ Sadhu Parashara leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her wrinkled cheek. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you. And whether you’re eighteen rains old or one hundred and eight, I still see the beauty in your eyes.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you,’ she said, but I noticed her blushing and smiling as though she was a young bride, an almost grotesque expression of coyness on her ancient face. I turned away, not used to seeing affection between two adults like this.

  ‘On this island, Matsyagandhi, we love as freely as we like,’ said Sadhu Parashara, who seemed to be reading my thoughts. ‘After all, the great god Kama invented love, and we honour him every day by living it. Even Lord Shiva, the great ascetic, was not free from the coils of love, and if he cannot resist, who are we poor mortals to try?’

  When put like that, it made sense, and when he reached out for my hand, I willingly slipped it into his palm, feeling our fingers entwine. He took the basket from me and smiled down into my eyes. ‘You and I are going to be great friends. And now, Dvipaa, since you cannot come to me, I have come to you. How about giving me a meal before you send me on my way?’

  It was one of the best meals of my life. Not because the meal itself was memorable; the cooking pot was magic but could only work with what you gave it. With Dvipaa-ma sick and only me to do the scavenging, our choices were poor: yams and some sort of sorrel leaves, a sprinkling of some of Dvipaa-ma’s precious salt on top, and some of my equally precious dried fish from my rapidly dwindling supply tossed in for flavour. It was a simple meal, but I remember eating seconds and thirds, and getting up ever so often to refill the sadhu’s bowl; Dvipaa-ma had a poor appetite when she was ill.

  My own family was accustomed to eating in silence, my father fed first, then my brother, rapidly on my mother’s lap, then finally, my mother and I ate; needless to say, she did not make conversation with me. On the island, Dvipaa-ma had sometimes been so silent that I used to look up from my pot to see that she had left the fire and gone to bed, without even letting me know. Of course, sometimes that silence was broken by her immense belches and flatulence, but they sounded somehow sad and faraway, as though they didn’t belong to her body.

  Sadhu Parashara (‘Call me Parashara,’ he said winningly, after I had served him) on the other hand, was all about making our meal times lively. His voice rang out over the usually quiet woods as he told stories of the things he had done, the places he had seen, the gods whose favour he had won. Sometimes he would put down his bowl and use his two hands to make giant leaping shadows that became different things – a wolf once, or a cow, or a dancing girl. I was so transfixed I couldn’t look away, and when I finally glanced back at him, funnily enough, he looked younger than I remembered, not so old and intimidating at all. His beard was darker, his eyes bright and full of fun, his smile wide, and I found myself drawing closer and closer to him, till I was sitting by him. He put one of his large hands on my knee and smiled down into my face and I could have burst with happiness just then.

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ came Dvipaa-ma’s sour voice, cracking like a whip between us. ‘You can go. Girl, see to the fire and then bring me some tea. I tire watching you two fools – one bewitching, the other bewitched.’

  Was I bewitched? I shook my head to clear it and then glanced at my new friend, who looked a bit crestfallen. He saw me noticing, and shook his head too, very gently at me, as though to say, ‘Never mind her.’ He picked up his things to go, and I felt a small sinking in my stomach as he walked away.

  I was quite cold to Dvipaa-ma when I gave her her tea, placing it down in front of her with enough force for some of it to spill and then looking off into the distance when she tried to look at my face.

  ‘Oh, go to bed,’ she said finally. ‘You’ve been taken in by that man and there’s nothing I can say about it that will make you feel differently. Be careful what you wish for though, girl. Is this the destiny you choose?’

  ‘I choose to go to bed,’ I said haughtily as I walked off. Behind me, I could hear her cackling laugh, which soon turned into a cough.

  The next day, Dvipaa-ma sounded a lot better when I went to check in on her and even managed a papery smile when I gave her the pears she had scorned the night before.

  ‘And what will you be doing today? Some more collecting?’ she asked, after I had swept her garden up for her and arranged flowers in front of her idols.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I got quite a few herbs yesterday and I don’t think we’re low on any of our supplies. If you don’t need me, I might go for a walk on the far side of the island.’ That was where Parashara told me he lived, and I thought if I strolled by, I might see him again. I said this all quite casually, but Dvipaa-ma was too smart for me.

  ‘Oh, the far side, is it? A new-found curiosity to explore this island?’ I nodded, looking away from her. ‘You may as well go and see him,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He said to send you this morning anyway. He has a few things to teach you, and I have given you as much of my wisdom as I could.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said happily, preparing to leave. ‘I plan to learn from you for many years yet, so I hope you are not quite done with your lessons.’ I waved at her and set off, running through the trees. As always, the island opened up pathways for me that I had never seen before. I was never afraid of being lost while I was here. I even stopped to pick a few plums and collect a shiny stone I saw glistening in the grass. I’d ask Parashara what it was, I decided, and then I’d ask him for more stories. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was; it was all very well to leave your family, even if they did hate you and treat you badly, a person still needed to talk to other people. At least, I did. I didn’t know how all those holy men did it – cutting themselves off from the whole world – I wanted people in front of me and around me, and yet, I wanted a space I could retreat to when they got too much. Would I ever have that, I wondered, as the sun beat down on my head and I began to sweat from an uphill climb – would I ever be able to have an island and have people around me, all at the same time?

  Finally, I was on the other side of the island. A huge lake lay in front of me, and the path cut through a cliff, going uphill almost vertically till it became wider and led to what I could see was a cottage. The climb was steep and often slippery, but I found stones to cling on to and resting spaces here and there where I could stop and catch my breath. By the time I reached the top, I was exhausted, but I felt refreshed as soon as I gazed out in front of
me, the whole island looking small, much like a doll’s playground. I could just about see the top of Dvipaa-ma’s hut, and I wondered how she made this climb every day to feed her husband.

  ‘Hello!’ called a voice, and I whirled around to see Parashara standing by a well next to his hut in just his dhoti, waving at me.

  ‘Greetings, O Parashara,’ I said, hastily mopping my sweaty brow with the corner of my sari. ‘I was just having a rest.’

  ‘It is a hard climb, isn’t it? But I find the view so charming I couldn’t live anywhere else on this island.’

  ‘I was wondering how your wife does it every day.’

  ‘Dvipaa is stronger than she looks,’ he said. ‘And so are you, I suspect. Come up by the house and let me fetch you a cold drink. I have not much to offer but the well water here is the sweetest you will ever taste.’

  He looked even younger than he had the night before. Apart from a few grey hairs in his beard and wrinkles by his eyes when he smiled, he almost looked a young man. His back was very straight, his belly looked firm and his eyes bright and alert. He noticed me noticing him as he pulled the bucket up, the muscles on his arms tightening as he pulled, and he smiled and said, ‘The island makes me as young as I feel, and after meeting you last night, young lady, I feel very young indeed. Do you like the way I look?’

  I blushed and mumbled something about his looks being fine enough, and he smiled again, those funny apple cheeks of his rising up over his moustache, and gave me a tumbler of the water, which was indeed the sweetest water I had drunk. He made me finish the whole glass (‘it’s good for you’) and I handed him the plums, which he placed on the grass carefully as though they were eggs.

  That first day with Parashara stayed in my mind for a long time. I kept going back to it, turning it over in my mind. It was just … a perfect day. We wandered over the hill for a while, pausing to look at the river as it lay in front of us like a long looping ribbon. He could make bird calls from the back of his throat, and as he did, an inquisitive mynah stopped and walked close to us to see who was talking his language. Parashara told me a story about how the world began and how the ocean was churned, and explained the world to me, how it moved through the cosmos with the help of the gods, how there was an earth, a sea and a sky, and how these had to work together. I remember too what he said about our future, that the world had to be cleansed for a new yuga to descend, the worst age mankind had ever seen but one that was necessary.