River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  Ambika was the best-known actress of her time. When she made up her face with the powder of ground yellow kasturi leaves and lined her almond eyes with kohl made of pure ghee and lampblack, she created a sensation. She belonged to the courtesan or vaishya caste; her mother and grandmother had been court dancers. The vaishyas were a class apart. Treatises were written for them on how to lure and captivate men. Some were trained as spies and were called vish-kanya or poison-maidens. They were reared on slow poison so that their kisses would be fatal for the enemy. Ambika was an enchantress without being a dangerous vish-kanya. She had also had strenuous training in the performing arts. As a high-class vaishya she was an accomplished entertainer of nagar-seths, warlords and princes.

  Gossip-mongers said that Gautam treated her badly. He flirted with other women, drank expensive wines, dressed himself in the finest muslins from Vanga and silks from Kashi. He wore pearls and diamonds and lived like a lord—all at the expense of the wealthy Ambika. He exploited her unashamedly. The scandals and tales about Gautam were not unfounded. The fact was that he had become a thoroughly degenerate and wicked man. He had long given up his search for Champak and had settled into a kind of fake domesticity with Ambika. Now he was a middle-aged rake with a streak of silver in his ringlets which made him look more attractive than ever.

  Tonight he was in Pataliputra with yet another abject audience at his feet. According to dramatic convention he came out of the wings and began his dialogue with the chief actress about the theme of the play. The crowd gazed at him, spellbound. He laughed silently for they could never view his inner drama . . . just as there is a backstage which spectators cannot see.

  And then it happened. In a flush of unexpected excitement he threw up his disfigured hands.

  Women gasped. Romantic young girls were shocked. There was a hushed stir in the hall. The celebrated, sad-faced hero had mutilated fingers. He always kept his hands, especially the left one, carefully concealed under his mantle. On this fateful evening his glance had fallen on somebody in the audience. It had upset him so much that he spun round with a flourish and his shawl slipped off. Ambika quickly picked it up and threw it back over his shoulders . . . He was still aghast by what he had seen.

  Champak sat in the front row, dressed in purple silk, loaded with gold ornaments. She was accompanied by a little boy and her maid. She had come to attend the famous actor’s first performance in the metropolis. She had also wanted to see Ambika, who was reputed to be his possessive mistress . . .

  When she saw his crippled hands, burning tears welled up in her eyes. Through the mist she watched Gautam’s face flicker like a dying candle. Speechless for a moment, he gathered his wrap and stared at Lady Magnolia again.

  The woman he had been searching for all these years—there she sat on the floor, cross-legged, with a child beside her. A prosperous housewife and mother. No longer an ideal or a vision, just a smug matron with a double chin and a middle-age spread. Shiva—Shiva—

  I hereby recognise Time the Gambler’s hilarious interplay

  with Maya, Illusion, and resume my own play-acting.

  Across the footlights Champak cried quietly, pretending to be moved by the hero’s oratory. Prince Hari Shankar had given up the world and yet could not quite give it up. In order to forget her Gautam Nilambar had returned to the world and probably remained a hermit at heart. She could neither renounce nor enjoy the World of Desire. Could the sacred nuns of Shravasti ever understand the Unsung Psalm of Sister Champak? Hadn’t she become wiser than the all-knowing Sister Uppalvana? For she had undergone her own transformation: she had done what a mere woman was required to do—she had accepted her “fate”.

  After the First Act was over she whispered to her handmaiden who sat near her. Jamuna slyly looked around and slipped out of the exit.

  “A dasi wishes to see you,” Ambika said to Gautam in the green-room.

  “Who is it?” he asked gently. All his irritation and harshness had vanished. Ambika was astonished by this very unusual, very sudden change in him for she noticed extraordinary peace on his face.

  “The usual thing, perhaps. A message from one of your female admirers,” she said and began her make-up for the next act.

  Gautam came out and encountered a dusky servant-woman at the bottom of the stairs. She bowed low and joined her palms. Speaking coquettishly she delivered the message. “Milady has sent you her greetings and would like to meet you after the play.”

  With a sickening feeling he realised who had sent her. He stood very still for a moment. Descending to the second step he said, “No. Tell your lady on behalf of this body: One who is awake falls asleep one day, and one who has been asleep suddenly awakens. Consider those who are awake all the time. Further: I now am wide awake, and though the path be sharp as the razor’s edge, nothing can hinder me now. Also: has your lady forgotten the injunction that, for a devoted wife all other men are in the likeness of a shadow? You may go now, my good woman. And may the gods . . .” he checked himself from reciting the benediction. In an instant he had regained the mannerisms of an ascetic.

  Jingling her anklets the maid ran off. She returned after a few minutes and was not surprised to see that he was still there, backstage.

  She said, bowing, “My lady says: you are so right, O Wise One! It is good that you have woken up. Further, the Lady Champak says: What, kind sir, do you know of a woman’s devotion? However, it’s all right, she says, for none can blunt the razor’s edge. Now you may go too, quoth she, and bids you farewell.”

  Jamuna paused a little and added, “Milady had also asked me to tell you that after the war she was captured by the victors and brought over here . . .”

  Gautam looked at her intently and recognised her: She was the royal maid-servant Jamuna, who had held the umbrella over Champak and Nirmala when he had seen them for the first time that long-ago rainy morning on the river bank near Ayodhya. Later he had met this woman in the royal camp near Shravasti. She smiled faintly. “Your honour, I was also made a captive when the palace was sacked. We were all brought to Pataliputra. Lady Champak was forced to join the harem of an old mantri. Look, sir, right now he is away on tour. Milady would like to meet you on the quiet. For a few moments . . .”

  Now she was playing the traditional role of the stage kutni, the go-between between the nayika and the nayak—and in such tragically changed circumstances.

  “For old time’s sake,” she pleaded.

  He thought quickly. Should he go and meet this fat, married woman, cause her greater unhappiness and totally shatter his own world of dreams? “No,” he spoke firmly and briefly. “My dear Jamuna, there are no old and new times. Only Eternity—which is also an instant.”

  The woman rushed back to the hall and returned with the answer: “Lady Magnolia says that in all your glory and self-assertion you may propound great philosophies but right now, at this moment, after receiving this reply from you, it is she who has become the Enlightened One. For she has realised the Supreme Truth—it is a profound misfortune to be reborn as a woman, especially since her beauty and youth have nothing to do with Eternity!”

  Gautam kept quiet. The message squashed all argument. Suddenly he asked, “And where, pray, is Princess Nirmala?”

  “If you ever happen to go to the Convent of Golden Mists near Jetvan, your honour, you may come across a wrinkled old woman with shaven head sitting under a wood-apple tree, telling her beads. That is Sister Nirmala, a Buddhist nun, and one of the famous Sisterhood of Shravasti. During the killings at Ayodhya she escaped to Indraprastha. She stayed there for a few years in somebody’s harem. Some monks helped her to run away and reach Jetvan Vihara where her brother, the former Prince Hari Shankar, was in residence at the time.”

  “Shiva! Shiva!”

  “Yes indeed, sir. One can’t stop marvelling at the game of dice called Life. And the other day, a wandering bhikshu told us that the Reverend Brother Hari Ananda of Jetvan Vihar has passed on and entered the Void. And now I
must take your leave, sir, for you are getting late for your next act.” Jamuna stepped back deferentially and vanished into the crowd, leaving the famous actor dumbfounded.

  9. The River

  As soon as the performance was over Gautam hastily left the stage, without once looking at his audience. Back in the silent green-room he took off his unstitched silk robes and ornaments and removed his make-up. Ambika had not returned yet. Hurriedly he covered himself with a white cotton mantle and slipped out of the back door.

  How easy it was to abandon Ambika too, a mere woman. On reaching a side lane he quickened his pace and made for the nearest city gate. Nervous, like a prisoner running away from gaol, he looked back from time to time to see if he was being followed, but apparently nobody had noticed a white-robed sanyasi picking his way through the jostling crowds of the metropolis and the river-front. The Street of Dancing Girls was brightly lit with torches. Crooks, jugglers and men-about-town were assembled in gambling dens. The wooden parapet of the distant Imperial Palace was visible in the moonlit summer night. Gautam smiled: at this very moment the Emperor would be playing chess with Prime Minister Chanakya. A city-woman watched him closely as she passed by. She probably worked in the prime minister’s intelligence department which employed clever courtesans, and was merely doing her job.

  The question, Gautam said to himself, which someone ought to put to the great Chankaya, is: Who will spy on whom?

  Sentries walked to and fro on the ramparts. The city walls of Pataliputra have sixty-four gates—which of these leads to my destination?

  I have been an ascetic and a libertine, a thinker and an idiot, a beggar and a grandee. I have seen it all. Perhaps now, in spite of myself, I have reached a stage of sanyas when one desires neither death nor life.

  He proceeded on his journey, going through many towns and peacock-villages. Where is my final refuge? He felt lonely in a way he had never felt before. There was nothing to be afraid of, he reassured himself. He was with the earth, the earth was his mother and she was still with him. He smelt the soft smell of grass, the coolness of stones, the strength of the soil beneath his feet. He stretched his arms and touched the air.

  Many days went by as he proceeded on his way. Exotic plants and flowering boughs bent down before him, birds accompanied him, whistling blithely. Raindrops played sonorous melodies on lotus petals. It had clouded over. The multicoloured stoles of peasant girls fluttered in the wind as they sang, sitting on swings under dark green trees.

  He took a boat from a riverside town and got off at Saket. A drop of rain fell on his eyelashes. Black clouds thundered on the horizon. He was overcome by a strange ecstasy. Stormy rivers roared in his heart, melodious waterfalls made music within his brain. He found Indra standing by his side. The rain fell like a cascade on his face. He whispered his hymn to Rudra . . .

  Like the charioteer lashing his horses forward by the whip

  Does he announce the message of rain,

  Lions’ roars are heard from a distance,

  Roar and thunder, sow the seed,

  Come flying hither in your squelching car!

  So that high lands and low be levelled —

  It rained all night. Then the clouds gave way to the soft light of dawn as he reached the Saryu. He knelt down on the wet earth and saw that there was void all around. He was, as ever, all by himself, the eternal man. He felt that he was in God, was apart from God, was God himself. He stood up, straightened himself and chanted softly:

  O God, thou art fire and sun, and wind and moon.

  Thou art the starry sky, Brahma, water, Prajapati;

  Thou art woman and man,

  Thou art the young girl, that old man art thou, who walks by, leaning on his staff.

  Born with Thy face at every side

  Thou art the dark blue fly, the red-eyed parrot, the storm cloud, the ocean.

  Two birds, great friends, sit on a tree. One is nibbling a fruit.

  The other watches him helplessly,

  Man sits on this same tree, saddened, amazed at his powerlessness.

  But one who looks at the other’s contentment and recognises his greatness puts an end to his own sorrow. The ones who know the eternal person of the Rig Veda are sitting contentedly. When the light arises, neither day remains nor night, neither existence nor non-existence. Only Shiva remains. The eternal light is that of Savitri from which wisdom was born. Its beauty cannot be perceived nor its splendour portrayed. It exists within the heart.

  Thou that was not born, one approaches Thee, trembling—

  O Rudra, protect me. He is the lone bird in the world.

  He is like the sun which has gone down in the sea.

  One who will know him shall cross the ford of death.

  For there is no other way of voyaging—

  The water was flowing unceasingly under his sore feet. He looked up. The Saryu had swollen with the rain. He had finally come back. He could visit the Convent of Golden Mists and meet Sister Nirmala if she had survived the loneliness of the Whispering Shadows. Then he would return to his ashram. He had seen the world.

  He had reached the water’s edge when he heard someone shouting in panic, “Maharaj! Maharaj! Be careful, you might slip. The mud is treacherous.”

  He stepped back. A village girl sat on the lowest step of the ghat filling her pitcher of water.

  “I’ll be careful,” he told her gently. “I would like to go across before it starts raining again.”

  “You won’t get a ferry in this weather.”

  “No matter! I can swim.”

  “Swim in this stormy river?”

  “There is no harm in trying, my good woman!” He raised his right hand to bless the peasant girl and repeated, “May the gods give you a bountiful harvest and good progeny . . .”

  It had become very pleasant. Mango-birds sang in the foliage. A shower of flowers dropped from a bough and fell at Gautam’s feet. He picked them up and put them in the river. The waves promptly carried them away. Then he jumped into the water and began swimming against the current.

  He had reached midstream. A forceful torrent came rushing and carried him close to the other shore. He struggled hard against the waves but the current was more powerful. In the struggle he caught a glimpse of a crag jutting out over the water. It was the stone fragment of the temple of the adivasis where he had met the “Greek” traveller and spent a night. Gautam quickly caught hold of its edge. He was exhausted and panted heavily. He closed his eyes and clung to the rock. Time was pushing the torrent forward and there was a seemingly infinite expanse of water all around. Holding fast to the bit of stone he felt secure for an instant. A stone which has been in the past will remain in the future as well. But he couldn’t hold on to the rock for more than a few seconds with his stumped fingers. The angry waves of the Saryu passed over Gautam Nilambar.

  Syed Abul Mansur Kamaluddin arrived at the river bank at full gallop. The Saryu flowed majestically in front of him. There was a row of huts on the other shore where some dervishes in patched smocks moved about, carrying out their ablutions for the early morning namaz.

  10. The Marvels and Strange Tales of Hindustan

  The fair, blue-eyed horseman glanced around loftily and dismounted. The long loose end of his turban indicated that he was a university graduate but his clothes established that, despite being a scholar, he was not poor. He was a distinguished-looking young man of about thirty who seemed very pleased with himself. He led his fleet horse called Toofan to the water’s edge and threw his scimitar on the grass; he feared nobody for he belonged to the ruling class. Moreover, he was not even a native Muslim. He was a vilayati, for he had arrived from the lands called ‘Vilayat’ in India because they lay beyond the distant Hindukush and the Pamirs. Even the horse he rode was foreign.

  While Toofan quenched his thirst the master took off his turban and Persian half-coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his linen shirt called ‘kurta’ in Turki. He tucked in his baggy Central Asian shalwar,
discarded his pointed high-heeled boots and knelt down on the jetty for his ritual ablutions. Starlight had faded and temple bells had started ringing out in the distance. The young man washed his face, arms and feet thrice, performed the massah by anointing his head with water, and stood up. Then he spread his large handkerchief of Meshed silk in a corner of the landing stage facing west, put on his turban and like the dervishes across the river, began saying his namaz-i-fajar.

  Dawn broke. The wood was filled with birdsong. The cavalier finished his fajar prayer and put on his boots again, because it was bad manners not to be properly dressed even if one was in a lonely forest.

  His horse was grazing. As for himself, he would have his breakfast in a wayside Sufi langar or a dak chowki where royal couriers changed horses. Anyway, he must wait here to bid her goodbye. She had said she came to this forest early in the morning to gather flowers for her idol worship. He had rushed down all the way from his inn in order to meet her. He looked anxiously at the Saryu and settled himself under a tree laden with ripe mangoes. His co-religionists called it the Fruit of Paradise. Like the Talmudic Jews, the followers of Islam kept thanking God for His blessings at every step. The world was a table-spread of Allah’s immense bounty.

  A boat passed by carrying early morning bhajan singers. They were chanting a hymn composed by Kabir Das, a weaver who lived in Banaras and had become popular as a mystic. There was no sign of Champavati yet. Resignedly, he leaned back against the tree and thought of this mystic phenomenon. Most mystics belonged to the working classes, like Mansoor Hallaj who was a carder of cotton-wool. The mystics in India were also humble folk and were busy attracting the masses. That reminded him of the book he was writing about this country. The sun was rising. May as well go through my manuscript while waiting for her. He took out his pen and ink-flask and a morocco-bound notebook. Half of it was still empty. He opened the volume and started touching it up here and there as he read . . .