The Dhamma Man

by Vilas Sarang

  My father, poor fellow. On the rare occasions he visited my rooms, I could see the love on his face. Love mixed with anxiety, fear and hope—a kaleidoscope of emotions and thoughts. And I would prepare a face for the occasion; the face of happiness and cheer, carefree behaviour, joy, playfulness. That would make him happy, contented. My father.

  Carefree behaviour and cheer; that was what was expected of me and that increasingly became a burden. I found holes in the façade. One of the boys of my age who were chosen as my companions disappeared one day. I did not see him for three successive days. When I asked the maids why I did not see him, I was told that he was visiting relatives. But the boy never appeared again—and then they said he was now living with his learned uncle. I understood.

  The maids, like everyone else in my little world, were cheerful and smiling. But they were not always the same. I used to detect small changes in their appearance. The face, the cheeks, the hair. In a maid’s rich black hair, sometimes, there used to appear a single hair with a different shade, a shade that could be called white. And when it became pronouncedly white, the errant hair vanished from the head—or the maid herself did. Taken for other duties in the household, I was told.

  The boys and girls around me, my playmates, changed every few weeks. Others used to appear. Younger, of exactly the same age as the ones who disappeared were when they first came. The world was always the same, always defying time. The children changed; but what about me? I could not be replaced. I, like everyone else, was changing with time. But there was a desperate and laughable attempt to obliterate any signs of change. I slowly understood why there was no mirror in my room.

  The world was my mirror and it only showed what my father wanted me to believe—the stagnancy of time. My palace also had an enclosed garden. A dainty, pretty garden. Tender plants, fresh flowers, always fresh. I used to roam around the little piece of land. The maid would shout, ‘Come back, Siddharth, come back to the house. Come back into the shade. The sun is coming out of the shadow of the building. It’s not good for you. The king will scold us. For god’s sake, come back.’

  To spare them the scolding from father, or from his minions and spies, I reluctantly returned. But even while retracing my steps, I could notice that the fresh and dew-drenched flower of the early morning, on my return journey, was dewless, and already looking tired and battle-weary, battling for survival, battling for youth, for life. I would caress the flower gently and whisper to myself, ‘Goodbye, flower, tomorrow I will not see you.’

  The little garden was always green but, naturally, the façade had huge holes in it. Birds were kept out of the garden. They are free spirits and their freedom could corrupt my mind. There was a huge wall around the garden, and, on the other side of the wall, men were stationed all around whose sole responsibility was to keep birds away. These men, with drums and cymbals, made noise when a bird—a crow, a sparrow or a parrot—was sighted approaching the hallowed playground of youth. The birds, usually, were frightened off. Eventually, they got so used to this ritual that they habitually gave a wide berth to the forbidden garden and flew off in other directions.

  Yet, reality always intruded. One morning I found, to my surprise and shock, a dead sparrow in the garden. It lay behind a bush and therefore was not noticed by the gardener-detectives who made a round of the garden early in the morning. I stared at the sparrow. It lay on its back, both feet in the air. Its eyes were wide open and the beak half shut. Its body was still, but I did not touch it. After some time, I moved away, silently. The next morning, the sparrow was not there: perhaps a detective had detected it. The small body of the bird haunted me for days. So was this what Maar did? Why did he do it to a small bird? I thought he did this only to grown men. It was unfair. It was unfair to pounce upon a small bird.

  From that day, I began looking at the sky. Sparrows I could not expect to see, neither crows nor parrots. These are low-flying birds, and could be shooed away easily. But there were other birds which escaped the drum-beaters. Kites. A kite circling the sky is a majestic, mysterious thing. It is so high it seems detached from the earthly world. But the kite, with its sharp eyesight, keeps an eye on everything on the earth below. Especially something dead—or alive—and edible. But it is never in a hurry. A kite’s circling remains in your mind for a long time. It seems peaceful, tranquil and serene, and yet, sometimes it oppresses you, especially at night.

  Siddharth became increasingly restless as the charade became more and more unbearable. He saw his rooms as a bare whiteness, with nothing to relieve it. As a matter of fact, his rooms were decorated with colourful paintings and there were artful trinkets everywhere. But Siddharth did not see any of those, nor did he see the people that he was surrounded with: his maids, his playmates. He saw beyond and through them only the whiteness of a wall, although the walls were painted in pleasing colours. The maids and the playmates he saw as whiteness upon whiteness, and their movements as the movement of whiteness upon whiteness.

  The oppressive whiteness drove him to do something that he had not done so far. Through one of the maids, he called the chariot-drivers.

  ‘Get a buggy ready. A buggy. Not your fancy chariot.’

  ‘Does little master wish to go on a pleasure drive? It can be done. But I will have to get the attendants and the soldiers ready. The soldiers must clear the streets in advance.’ Channa was frightened to death. He realized that he would be the first man to introduce the little master to the real world. The wrath of Shuddodan was sure to fall heavily on him.

  ‘Don’t bother about all that. Just get a buggy with one horse and let’s go.’

  ‘But prince … prince … this is unheard of … how can you …’

  ‘Just do as I say.’

  ‘But, little maharaj, we must inform the king about it. We must get his consent.’

  ‘Don’t bother. We are not going into battle—just a walk around town in a modest buggy. And I don’t want to look like a prince surveying his estate.’

  The frightened cart-driver reluctantly got the cart ready. Siddharth permitted one attendant to be with him in the cart. The prince’s adventure began. This momentous journey is an inalienable part of Siddharth’s life. Whether it is historically true does not matter. Between myth and history, it is sometimes myth that better represents truth.

  The poet who invented this legend must be credited with a dash of genius. He has built up a classic contrast: a boy, completely ignorant of the dark facts of life; the sudden revelation of the three quintessential real-life situations: a man mortally ill, a man almost at death’s door and a man whom Maar has made his own, which fall on him like lightning bolts.

  One may imagine an alien from a planet where life is so advanced that citizens have no idea of the processes of time, of old age, of disease and of death. What would such a being’s reaction be to conditions on earth? Or a nearer example: how did the Lilliputians react to the sight of Gulliver washed up on their beach? They had never imagined a human being so huge. The impact of experience—regardless of the veracity of the story—upon Siddharth’s life would have been huge; no less than the ‘legend’ that must have passed down by generations of Lilliputians long after Gulliver had become one with dust.

  No doubt, in the narration, it is suggested that the boy has vague intimations of hidden realities. But there is a world of difference between mere inkling and stark reality. That is why Siddharth was so impatient to experience the real thing.

  The phantom prince in the phantom cart was more than reality. Leastways, the prince was, for the first time, in touch with reality. It pleased him, and he faced it bravely. The dust in the street, the people, his subjects, walking in the dust, were themselves the dust. All things the prince watched avidly. Particulate dust gathered on the handrails of the cart. The prince touched his nose with his fingers, smelled the dust. So this was reality. He was gradually getting to know reality and there was much more for him to know.

  The prince instructed the cartman to dr
ive slowly. He didn’t want to miss anything on the road.

  Then came the first epiphanic vision. The prince could see a strange apparition walk by the side of the road some distance away. When the apparition approached, the prince instructed the cartman to stop.

  The apparition was wearing only a loincloth; in its hand was a walking stick; its thin, bent legs trembled. The prince stared at the bow-legged figure. In which direction was his torso aimed, the arrow which his bowlegs strained to hold aloft? The prince knew only too well.

  The cartman turned around to see the prince looking at the aged man.

  ‘My prince, this is what they call an aged man.’

  ‘I know, cartman. Did you think I didn’t know?’

  ‘Well, I thought … I thought you had never seen an old man. So …’ the cartman mumbled.

  ‘Cartman, I have seen many things I am supposed to have not seen.’

  ‘Yes, my prince. Shall we proceed? It’s only an old man—not important.’

  ‘You fool! This is the only important thing a person may see.’

  Siddharth observed the old man: his bald head, the ribs painfully outlined, the skin folded and wrinkled in a hundred places, the kneecaps that looked as though they were precariously glued to the legs, the toes splayed out: a whole man, yet like a leaf—a phantom called reality.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Siddharth said to the cartman. The horse moved ahead. The phantom soon moved out of sight but was forever etched on young Siddharth’s mind.

  ‘Halt!’ the prince ordered.

  By the side of the road lay a middle-aged man, naked but for a piece of cloth covering his loins. The man’s whole body was covered with scabs. The scabs were in various stages of suppuration and were breaking open. In spite of what must have been an extremely painful condition, the man continuously scratched his sores. The body looked foul even from a distance—a most revolting sight.

  The horse-cart had stopped very near the man who lay with his disease unfurled for the whole world to see. Siddharth’s companion instinctively covered his nose with his upper garment.

  ‘Why do you cover your nose, my dear man?’ Siddharth asked the attendant. ‘This is the human body. And this is how it smells. Take in the sight, and take in the smell. Take it in deep so that you will not forget it, ever. This is the true smell of the human body.’

  The diseased man was in extreme pain and almost crazed by it. Siddharth knew that there was nothing he could do for him. Nobody would touch him.

  ‘Move, cartman,’ Siddharth commanded. One could hear the attendant and the cartman sigh in relief.

  The second apparition seared Siddharth’s mind like a hot iron brand.

  The third vision was classically simple. Four men were carrying a bier made of bamboo and coconut fronds. A fifth man lay supine on it. The bier-carriers were chanting vague mantras as they walked.

  Siddharth told the cartman to go a little slower, in step with the bier-carriers.

  ‘Isn’t it a great relief, my man? After the nightmare journey of life, at last, the oblivion of death.’

  ‘But there is no joy, my prince.’ The attendant ventured.

  Siddharth laughed. ‘Joy, my man? You still hanker after joy? Far more, my man, are the joys of oblivion and articulation. The wind shall carry the good news in the ten directions. Yes, it is good news.’

  ‘But, my prince, the whole world thinks of death with dread.’

  ‘Indeed, guardsman, it is a dreadful end to a dreadful journey. I do not question that.’

  The bier-carriers had stopped in deference to the prince. As he got down from the cart, Siddharth said, ‘Please put the bier on the ground. I want to have a good look.’

  The cartman, too, got down. The prince stared at the dead body for what seemed to the cartman an inordinately long time.

  Then the prince bent down and touched the dead body. He withdrew his hand quickly.

  ‘Cartman, do you think there is no difference between a dead man and a living one?’

  ‘I don’t see any. Except that the dead man is dead. He does not move.’

  ‘Cartman, touch the dead man’s body,’ Siddharth commanded.

  The cartman was clearly reluctant. But then he obeyed the prince. He touched the body and, as if stung, withdrew in horror.

  ‘Well, you thought there was no difference between a living man and a dead man.’

  ‘Yes, my lord! But when I touched the dead body, I never thought it would be as cold as ice.’

  ‘Now you know what death is. Cartman, move on.’

  The round of reality complete, the prince got down at the gate of his mini-palace. As he had half expected, there was a commotion at the palace gate. The prince had gone on tour of the town without regard to protocol, or to his elders’ opinion. The most in panic were the cartman and the guardsman who had accompanied the prince. They were sure to lose their jobs, if not worse.

  To cap it all, the king, Shuddodan, was himself at the gate. His impatience and anger were quite obvious.

  ‘Prince Siddharth, you have not behaved as was expected of you.’

  ‘There was a reason for such behaviour, father.’

  ‘What reason, pray?’

  ‘The reason I cannot explain to you.’

  ‘You are becoming a most irritable child. I fear for you.’

  Siddharth didn’t respond.

  So far, Shuddodan had spoken with a measure of restraint. Now he turned to the cartman and other minions. He vented his ire freely.

  Siddharth listened calmly. Then he said, ‘Father, may I say something?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Father, none of these men must lose their jobs. Least of all the cartman. If they will be made to pay for their conduct, so must I.’

  Shuddodan stared at the young prince. The prince’s demeanour told him something.

  ‘All right, this once I will forgive them. You too. But I do not want a repeat of the situation.’

  The historic journey was over. It will seem something of a set-piece. But that is how history treats events if it is unshackled by naturalistic quality, the classically simple lines of the sketch are paramount, the most fateful. The epiphanies were burnished in the transitory lifespan of Siddharth but it lives on in the minds, and the lived experience of countless people. It has, and will always have, the power to change people’s lives. The incident actually looks like the capsule representation of the dramatic transformation in Siddharth’s life by an imaginative poet.

  Shuddodan, too, realized the folly of imprisoning his son in a glass house. From that day the prison gates opened for Siddharth. He could go where he liked.

  In his teens, the boy searched for the question so starkly presented before him: human suffering, pain, dukkha. He asked his Sanskrit teacher, who knew a few scraps of the Vedas. But beyond that, nothing. In his late teens, Siddharth decided that he must go into the outer world, meet other teachers, experience other experiences.

  4

  I am a cow. I can say it confidently now, but it took me a long, long time to say it with self-assurance. When I first decided to be a cow, I was apprehensive. A close friend to whom I mentioned my desire laughed it off. A man, and a cow? It didn’t make sense, he said. But I was determined. I knew that being a cow was, most of all, an inner change. But the outward signs were not to be ignored. They help. So I asked a carpenter: he made a nice pair of horns for me. They were of wood, of course, painted the right colour. I was pleased. I tied the horns with a string under my chin. Similarly, I asked him to make a wooden cow-mouth. This was a delicate job. The mouth was kept a little open. I could not eat when the mouth was on, but I could make noise. This contraption I tied, with a string, behind my neck.

  After this, a tailor made a tail for me. It was made suitably thick with cotton padding. This too was appropriately coloured. Then I asked a barber to make a small clump of hair for the end of the tail. This was securely tied in place. The tail itself was fastened between my buttocks with some kind of
glue. I used to like the way cows, every now and then, flail their tails to ward off flies. Alas. I could not do it myself. My tail was limp and dead. I applied all my will power and tried to lift my tail. Just a little, just a bit. But in vain. But still I try every day, earnestly, to concentrate on the tail. Who knows, one day it will get the message. At any rate, I am sure that in my next birth I will be a cow. The very thought makes my heart flutter—a moving tail, triumphantly raised! A pregnancy! Milk flowing from my udders! My udders: massive—and generous! The farmer, or the farmer’s wife, milking me—milking, milking! With each pull of the udder, my whole body pleasurably responsive! Oh, I do not want to think any more of the bountiful joy of being a real cow.

  I found a farmer who had three cows with him. He used to sell milk in town. I made myself a place in the cow pen. It was useful for me to feel like a cow. The farmer’s wife uncomplainingly accepted me. She sometimes used to give leftover rice to the cows. She gave rice to me too. Because of my artificial mouth, it used to be difficult for me to eat. But I soon got used to it. The other cows used to eat grass, too. I also experimented with eating grass. At first, only a little bit. It is tough eating grass. I used to chew a mouthful for what seemed like hours together. Still, I could not swallow it. I forced myself to swallow the grass. It upset my stomach a number of times. But I persisted. After many days, my stomach, I believe, got used to it. The real cows, I know, regurgitate the grass they have filled their stomach with. That is a lovely way to spend time. They stare vacantly and regurgitate and chew the grass. But I used to chew a mouthful leisurely in a bovine manner. This gave me an unfamiliar sense of peace.