The Dhamma Man

by Vilas Sarang

  ‘I settled upon a compromise. My father, as you may imagine, was dead against my plan. I held my ground. Then he said, “Since you are so adamant, let us meet halfway. You may leave your house, but not before fulfilling certain conditions. First of all, marry. Produce a son. Then you may go.” I pondered this. I understood that my father was anxious, above all, about securing his kingdom. The son must produce a grandson who will, in time, take over the reins of governance. My father is king and all his thoughts are of his kingdom and the continuity of his royal line.

  ‘I told my father I would think about it. And the more I thought, the more it tore my mind to pieces. I knew what a grave injustice I would do to my wife, and to my son. A wife—what kind of a wife? A wife of a few months. A son? A son who would not know his father at all. My heart ached at the thought of it all. But then I thought about the life that I had set my heart on. And my heart ached more. It ached unbearably.’

  Siddharth fell silent. Talking about these things had drained him.

  ‘And then you decided to take this path?’ Bimba said.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Siddharth said. His voice was immeasurably tired.

  Bimba remained silent.

  ‘I don’t know what to say. What to think of you.’ She paused. ‘At one moment, I hate you. Hate you for being so heartless. At other moments …’

  ‘My wife, you may hate me. You may call me heartless. It is nothing to me now. I’m beyond all that.’

  A sleepless night, and then a sleepless, troubled day.

  The next night, Bimba faced her husband with a certain clarity of mind. Or at least she thought so.

  She said to her husband, ‘Nath, on my part, I have decided on the one course of action open to me.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘I will not have a child.’

  ‘Ever?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘It cannot be forever. When your father-in-law learns about it, he will simply say, “My son, marry another woman.” So you will be a loser on both counts.’

  ‘I didn’t think of that, Nath …’

  After some moments, Bimba announced, ‘In that case, I will not have a child for as long as possible—ten years, fifteen years …’

  ‘I guess that’s possible,’ Siddharth said. ‘Of course, my father must agree to it. He may get impatient.’ And then, after a moment, he added, ‘But I will convince him.’

  ‘And you, Nath? Are you willing to remain childless for so many years?’

  ‘I have promised my father a grandson. That’s all that matters to me. Whether it is after a year, or after ten years, or fifteen, it’s all the same to me.’

  Bimba stared at her husband blankly. Then suddenly, she cried hoarsely, ‘You’re heartless! Yes, you’re heartless, Nath! You’re—’ She checked herself, before she used some word that she would regret forever.

  ‘I am already a sramana in my heart and soul. To a sramana, such words are incomprehensible.’

  The next night, Bimba tried a different tack. She was determined to try everything in her power. She greeted her husband with a honeyed smile.

  ‘Come, Nath! Let us forget all that we said the last two nights. Let us be husband and wife. And, yes, what prevents us from being lovers?’

  Siddharth glanced at Bimba as if he were looking at her from far, far away.

  Bimba knew that her bravado was hollow. A sramana … and a lover. But she bravely, desperately, kept up the pretence. Married life, she was now beginning to conclude, was a matter of keeping up pretences.

  All of a sudden, she thought, how could she accept this; why must she accept it? There was a man beside her. A man in the prime of youth. And she, too, was young. She, too, was wellshaped, her body rounded in the right places, slender in the right places. Could a man lying so close to her not be aroused? What if he was a would-be sramana? She would test him. This man was stubborn. What he needed was a little goading. Bimba snuggled closer to her husband. She caressed his body. Lovingly, tenderly. She played with the hair on his stomach. She reached further down, determined.

  But, in spite of her vigorous efforts, she found that his manhood did not respond. Bimba was amazed, and irritated. Any other man would have responded. But her husband was calm, self-collected, passionless. What kind of a man was this? Suddenly, Bimba lost control.

  ‘You are a man, aren’t you?’ she said.

  Immediately, she realized what she had said. She was frightened.

  ‘Forgive me, Nath. I should never have said that.’

  ‘I forgive you,’ Siddharth said. ‘Bimba, I have achieved complete control over my body. It’s no use trying.’

  Bimba felt utterly helpless. She buried her head in her pillow and cried. The pillow was soon wet.

  Then she raised her head and said, ‘My dreams are shattered, Nath. I had so many dreams. I will be queen, I thought. I will work especially for the children of the poor. And I myself will have lots of children.’

  ‘Lots of children,’ Bimba repeated bitterly.

  The full meaning of her husband’s resolve was still to sink in her mind. When she seemed to understand it, she said, ‘Nath, after the firstborn, you will leave home, is that it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘But why?’ she said, and immediately realized the absurdity of the question.

  ‘I must do what I must do.’

  ‘But … but … to abandon your wife—your child …’

  ‘To abandon the world, these are little things.’

  ‘Little things!’

  Bimba thought about her terrible conundrum. To have a child, she would have to say goodbye to her husband. And to keep her husband she would have to forget about a child. For how many years? Five … ten … fifteen? For a moment, there was nothing before Bimba’s eyes except blinding darkness.

  A year. Two years. Three. Four. Time passed. Bimba knew that the time she had at her disposal was circumscribed; though it was quite substantial. She was like a dog on a long leash. Or like a prisoner on a generous, though temporary, parole.

  Over the years, her life was as happy as it could be. There were certain things that were taboo. They could not talk of sex, there would be no attempt at sexual overtures, and the casual, intimate physicality of married life was missing. But other than that, Bimba’s life was placid, contented, suffused with restrained warmth, almost happy. After all, she was a princess; all luxuries were at her instant command.

  Her husband was often busy with matters of state, attending, with his father, meetings with the council of ministers and adjudicating disputes. Bimba often wondered why her husband was doing all this. After all, he was soon to leave it all behind. A chess player bent over his game, he would suddenly toss the board into the air: the little wooden soldiers, the assorted wooden army, the camels, the elephants, the queen and the king, all scattered to the floor, pitifully staring at their unexpected fate. It was with a different checkmate that Siddharth would confront his little princely world.

  Bimba once asked her husband about this.

  ‘As long as I am a prince, I must do my princely duties. When I am a sramana, my life will be different.’

  Doing his princely duties. His marital duties, except for one. A chill went through Bimba’s body. Was there no place for feeling in all this? All right, not for love. She accepted the exile of love as the bitter premise of their life together. Like a poet whose first love was his muse, this man, soon to be a sramana, was already preparing, mentally, for relinquishment, armed with a comprehensive disinterestedness. In his calculations, if calculation is the right word for it, there was no place, or very little, for a wife. For Bimba, this was a bitter pill.

  But her husband did his duty well. He was kind, considerate, almost charming. His magnetism as a person was astounding, although its roots were in disinterestedness. He was handsome. His black hair seemed to have its own sensuality. The flowing locks around his head looked bewitching. His beard was wellgroomed, and of a curly t
ype. He seldom smiled, but the placidity of his face was strangely comforting, and made the onlooker absurdly happy. Such a man was—sooner or later—to be a sramana, because he believed, as he said himself, ‘The household life is impure, the sramana life is the free open air.’ As the years went by, she toyed with the thought that her husband might change his mind, having become accustomed to the householder’s life—whenever she thought this, her heart throbbed wildly but she knew it was hopeless.

  But was it? Hope is irrepressible.

  She wanted, year after year, for the miracle to happen. But after ten years of waiting, nothing happened.

  It was getting late. She couldn’t take many more chances.

  In the thirteenth year of her marriage, she accepted defeat.

  That night, for the first time, I had intimate contact with the man who was my husband. I didn’t know what to feel. It was so unreal, and at the same time unbearably real.

  I felt deep in my body something distinct, angelic—heavenly. I wanted that moment to stretch to infinity, to last forever. But then, something happened. A crisis was reached and my womb began to gather nectar.

  My husband got up. His deed was done.

  I was exhausted—a sweet exhaustion.

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ I asked cheekily.

  ‘It was a duty and I performed it.’

  ‘Duty, duty, duty! Is there nothing in life except duty?’

  My husband smiled faintly. ‘There is precious little else.’

  Talking to my husband, I felt like I was hitting my head against a stone wall.

  But my body was insatiable and my mind crafty.

  The next night I said to him, ‘We can enjoy sex until I conceive. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Let us wait and see. Sex must be frugally used.’

  I felt like crying.

  ‘No sex for us then?’

  ‘No, not until it is necessary.’

  The conception changed everything. The conclusion that had so far been deferred, and towards which Bimba had been dreadingly groping, was suddenly, sharply defined in the blazing light of the sun. What Bimba immediately felt was dread. Each day brought closer what to her was like an execution. But, for the same reason, each day was precious, to be savoured and treasured. Her mind became very brittle.

  For Siddharth, too, the line had been drawn. The future he looked forward to had arrived, and the future was just the opposite of Bimba’s.

  Siddharth thought it wise to remind his parents of the vow that he had taken, and his understanding with his father.

  Siddharth went to his parents’ private chamber.

  ‘Come, Siddharth,’ Shuddodan welcomed his son.

  ‘Greetings, father, greetings, mother,’ Siddharth said. Pajapati was also there. Siddharth called her Mother.

  ‘Father, I wanted to remind you of the vow that I had taken. I trust that you will allow me to leave as soon as a child is born to me.’

  ‘What, Siddharth? I thought you had forgotten about your wish!’ Siddharth’s father said, and smiled nervously.

  ‘Such things are not forgotten by a man,’ Siddharth said.

  Shuddodan stared at his son for a moment.

  ‘Siddharth, do you mean it seriously?’ Shuddodan asked. ‘Look, you have been happily married for twelve years. If you had wanted, you could have had a number of children by this time. After so many years, do you want to quit everything?’

  ‘Father, my resolve stands.’

  ‘It is not human. It is cruel.’

  ‘A man who wishes to be a sramana must take such decisions, even if it seems cruel to householders.’

  Pajapati had been listening to the exchange between father and son. Now she rose from her bed and spoke to Siddharth.

  ‘Siddharth, my son, please stop this unnerving talk. Your father is distressed, I am distressed, and your wife Yashodhara—she is close to being unhinged. Why do you do all this? You are a raja’s son, not a monk’s disciple. You have no cause to abdicate your kingdom and wander around begging for your daily meal. Come to your senses, and forget these distressing ideas.’

  Most of these words were said in a calm, persuasive, patient manner. But towards the end of her speech, tears gathered in Pajapati’s eyes.

  ‘You may not listen to me, my son, but at least pay heed to your mother’s words,’ Shuddodan said.

  ‘Father, mother, please do not try to dissuade me from my resolve. It is fruitless.’

  Pajapati lost control of her emotions. With tears flowing freely from her eyes, she said. ‘Siddharth, my son, do at least think of your dear departed mother. If Maya were still here, she would never have allowed you to do this.’

  Pajapati held Siddharth by the arms and looked up at his tall figure beseechingly.

  Siddharth extricated himself from Pajapati’s embrace and said, ‘Mother, father, do not exert yourself further in this direction. I think it is best that I take your leave for the time being. There are still many days for you to have me around.’

  Siddharth turned and walked out of the room.

  ‘It is madness. It is madness,’ he heard his father say behind him.

  Siddharth thought about the conversation he had had with his parents. He could see that pressure on him to not leave would only grow. He could picture the scene. His stepmother in tears, physically holding him back; Yashodhara, too, crying, but silently pleading, infant in arms: a living reminder of a householder’s true duty. Even the servants would be crying, beseeching, making exaggerated gestures of grief, suggesting that the heavens were about to fall.

  Siddharth thought of all this with a measure of alarm. He decided that he did not want any of it. How was he to steer clear of all this clamour? There was only one way: leave quietly, and quickly.

  ‘A boy! A boy!’ cried the midwife.

  There was much rejoicing in the palace. Women clamoured to see the boy, to pet him, to hold him in their adoring arms.

  The palace walls were lined all over with lighted clay lamps. Sweets were distributed. Siddharth watched the proceedings with equanimity. He did not actively participate in the rejoicing, nor did he display petulance or discontent. His mind was like a weighing scale devoid of any weight, with the arrow pointing at zero.

  Pajapati, Bimba and others though it best not to needle Siddharth on the sensitive matter of his leave-taking. At any rate, they assumed that Siddharth would not be in a great hurry to leave. His child had just been born. Would he be so cruel and heartless as to say goodbye to the household on that very day? Siddharth surely would be around for a few days more.

  That evening, Siddharth went for a ride on his horse Kanthak. The horse looked splendid, with the bells of his bit made of polished gold, and his golden trappings beautiful with waving plumes. The sun had not yet set. Siddharth, with his servant Chandak, rode out of town. The landscape was bathed in a golden light. Siddharth rode out deep into the countryside. He got down from his horse near a field that had been ploughed for the sowing season. Siddharth had come here when his father ritually ploughed the field. The boy had a transcendental experience beneath a roseapple tree.

  Siddharth stepped out on to the field, its surface furrowed by the plough—it had been tilled that very day. The plough had scattered tufts of the sprouting grass. Beside the torn grass, Siddharth could see the tiny creatures that had been killed or injured. Siddharth stared at the mangled bodies of the worms, some of the creatures wriggling in agony. It was as if he was seeing the slaughter of his own kinsmen.

  Siddharth walked out of the field, which seemed to him like a battlefield. He reflected on the generation and the passing of all living things, and in his distress he said to himself, ‘How pitiful is all this!’

  He went to a solitary spot at the foot of a roseapple tree. The tree’s lovely leaves were in constant motion, and the ground underneath was green like beryl. There he sat down and reflected on the origin and passing away of all that lives. And he said to himself, ‘Pitiful, indeed, are people, who th
emselves are helpless and doomed to undergo illness, old age and destruction, yet, in the ignorant blindness of their self-intoxication, show so little respect for others who are likewise victims of old age, disease and death.’

  To know better the nature of life, and of death, Siddharth had one day gone, incognito, into the butchers’ market in town. He had seen there the carcasses of all kinds of animals: cows, bulls, horses, pigs, turtles, monitor lizards, hares; and all kinds of body parts and organs: brains, kidneys, lungs, all the offal. He would not have been surprised to see a human carcass hanging in one of the stalls. Siddharth talked to a butcher. In the course of the conversation, the butcher remarked, ‘I am sometimes surprised that men learn nothing from suffering.’ Siddharth was struck by the words of the butcher. He seemed to know more about life and death than the noblemen and women, and the rich and influential men of the town whom he habitually met in the councils of the state. Siddharth long pondered over the words of the butcher, and it was one of the seeds that went into the growth of his mind.

  Siddharth got up from his seat under the roseapple tree and walked back towards his horse. The field had become darker. The numerous furrows looked like dark waves on the ocean, and the tiny creatures still wriggling were like men buffeted by the heaving water. The one desire in Siddharth’s mind was to cross that ocean.

  6

  He had made up his mind to leave, that very night. To leave, to leave

  to leave

  to leave

  That very night.

  Did ‘to leave’ mean ‘to take his leave’?

  To take his leave! No, he could not take leave of his dear wife, of his loving parents—no, no, cross that dear, cross that loving—just wife, parents, of his servants—and of the little one that had come into this world just that day, his son—a son … a son … his son …

  Was there a flutter in his heart? No, it was an illusion. Like everything else.

  Yes. A stone.

  And yet … and yet …

  Why this fluttering—ever so slight? Yet, it was there—