A Book of Memory

by Sudhir Kakar

  I was getting known in Delhi intellectual and cultural circles as an unusual bird, ‘the psychoanalyst’. I was painfully shy in large gatherings, the malady of introverts who are compelled to be extroverts, and much preferred the company of intimate friends. Yet we did go out often and occasionally I would meet stimulating writers and artists who had begun to flock to Delhi which was on its way to establishing itself as the new cultural capital of India.

  One of the first writers I met, at a small dinner party a few months after my mother’s death, was V.S. Naipaul. Naipaul was gathering material for his second book on India, later published under the title India: A Wounded Civilization. We talked and arranged to meet the next day at my house, where we talked some more. I had read almost all his books when I was in Vienna and was an unabashed fan. My first impression of him as a person is in a letter to Pamela: ‘I met V.S. Naipaul recently—do you know his work?—and it was such a liberating feeling to have my restlessness and intensity responded to and even encouraged. A marvellous man!’

  I was working on The Inner World at the time and Naipaul was interested in my psychological take on Indians. We exchanged letters on the subject after he returned to London. The next time I met him was four years later on his next trip to India and the meetings reinforced the first impressions.

  Naipaul was here [Delhi] for a week, in seclusion of a kind as he recovered from his stay in Iran and Pakistan. It seems Pakistan exhausted him—‘They are all mad!’, but now he is on his way to Malaysia and Indonesia to complete his study of the Islamic belt. We met often and I have come to know him better—his past and his present—and both my liking and admiration have grown. He liked the two chapters of the new book [Shamans, Mystics and Doctors] very much (including the one on the Pir which you have read) but felt the language needed to be tightened up. I guess he would feel that way.

  I was sorry when our contact came to an abrupt end. Knopf, the New York publisher which was publishing Shamans in the US, had asked me for blurbs from ‘famous’ people to promote the book. The only famous people I knew were Erikson and Naipaul. Erikson responded graciously. Naipaul, in spite of a couple of reminders, did not react at all. Today, when I am importuned with requests for blurbs, I understand Naipaul’s silence but remain baffled by a total breaking of contact that followed a request that could have been politely declined.

  The success of The Inner World, and later of Shamans, Mystics and Doctors, was my admission ticket to Indian intellectual and cultural elite, symbolized by being offered a membership of its highly selective watering hole, the India International Centre in New Delhi. Another sign of my elevation was invitations to lunch and dinner from Pupul Jayakar, a confidante of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (she was back in power after her victory in the 1980 elections) and her unofficial minister of culture.

  Mrs Jayakar was one of a group of remarkable Indian women of the era, daughters of the Indian freedom movement that included Kamladevi Chattopadhyay, who were instrumental in reviving traditional Indian textiles and handicrafts. Gifted with a fine sense of aesthetics and felicity with language, Pupul Jayakar wrote excellent biographies of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Indira Gandhi. She was also a close friend and ‘disciple’ of Krishnamurti, an internationally renowned philosopher-mystic-teacher. I always thought of Krishnamurti as an intellectual mystic, as contrasted, say, with an ecstatic mystic; one who strides the path of ‘knowledge’ rather than of devotion.

  Krishnamurti stayed with her whenever he came to Delhi and during one such visit, she invited me and five other ‘Delhi intellectuals’ for a conversation with him. Krishnamurti was a thoroughly modern guru, although he disliked that appellation, who had distilled the essence of Upanishadic and Buddhist wisdom and could convey it with rare eloquence. His magnetic personality, iconoclastic attitude towards established religions and emphasis on reason rather than belief made him enjoy huge success with the more intellectual and higher placed sections of society. He was not one of those gurus who hid his own humanity behind an armour of spiritual impermeability and the mask of a saint. He liked expensive cars and gourmet food and, as I later read in a biography, had a long-term relationship in his Ojai retreat in California with the American wife of his confidant, editor, manager and fundraiser, Rajagopal. One of Krishnamurti’s biographers points out that the problems he talked of with such deep understanding, of fear and its relation to death, ambition and insecurity, were the ones he struggled with all his life.

  Here, I do not share his biographer’s implicit judgement that a personal, life-historical connection diminishes the value of his teachings or renders them suspect. Every great philosophy, Nietzsche wrote, is a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography. In the case of some scholars and scientists, he adds, ‘there may really be such a thing as an “impulse to knowledge”, some kind of small, independent clockwork, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end’.7 I would go further and add that the work of not only the philosopher but also of the artist, the writer, and of many a creative scholar in the humanities is inspired by the fundamental impulses of their nature that are embedded in and have been shaped by the course of their lives. I believe that original work takes place only when the areas of enquiry carved out by the individual as his own resonate with the major themes of his life that are played out below the surface of his conscious awareness. Insights dawn, and are more often one’s lot, when the work is but an unconscious continuation of one’s inner theatre, of one’s biography in another register.

  The conversation took place one winter morning in the yard of Pupul Jayakar’s home on Safdarjung Road. Krishnamurti sat cross-legged on a raised platform. Mrs Jayakar sat right behind him, looking after his each need, a glass of water, a white linen handkerchief to wipe his lips, whispering in his ear if he had not heard a word—he was well into his late eighties at the time and, as it turned out, it was to be his last visit to India. He was still a beautiful man, with fine features, carefully combed thinning white hair and a clear, warm brown complexion heightened by the beige pashmina shawl thrown over a beige silk kurta. The six ‘intellectuals’ sat around him while about two hundred invited guests, most of them Krishnamurti’s followers from Delhi’s social elite, sat in front of the stage on durries spread on the floor.

  I remember that Krishnamurti began with a short disquisition on his favourite subject, the origins of fear in human thought, before turning to us with ‘Do you agree, sir?’ This was the sage’s method of teaching, asking a question and then going on to expound his ideas before asking another question. I was not conversant with the process and thought that from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, he was mistaken. I agreed that anxiety (he was using fear synonymously with anxiety) was bred by thought, by fantasy in my parlance, but felt that he was giving short shrift to its origins that lay in the individual’s prehistory, indeed at the beginning of life in the trauma of birth. As a fledgling analyst, committed to the Freudian edifice, I enthusiastically proceeded to correct the sage, giving the standard psychoanalytic explanation of the various kinds of anxieties during infancy and childhood—loss of the needed and beloved caretaker, loss of the caretaker’s love, the fear of punishment by internalized caretakers—unmindful that people had come to hear him and not me.

  Krishnamurti suddenly interrupted me by pointing a finger towards the roof of the house behind me, ‘Look at that beautiful bird!’ Necks swivelled. There were ‘Oohs!’ and ‘Ahs!’ while I subsided into an embarrassed mumble. By pointing to the bird, enabling a shift in the consciousness of the audience, the mystic had again exposed the hollowness of a purely intellectual discourse. I was mortified! My listening now became adversarial. Fear, he said, further arises when you compare yourself with someone who is higher, with someone who is what you are not. You want to become him and not be what you are. No, you don’t, I was silently saying to myself. What you do when you envy is to look at all the faults and shortcomings of the other person; you do not envy someone you can disparage. I
was unaware that I was doing the same to Krishnamurti.

  But envy does sharpen perception, even if the perception is one-sided, of the warts and chinks in the armour of the envied person and not of his beauty, wisdom or accomplishments. After the talk was over, a dozen of us were invited inside by Mrs Jayakar to a private lunch. I walked into the house behind Krishnamurti, watching him slow down in front of every mirror he passed, smoothing back a wispy lock of grey hair. He was in good form throughout the lunch, regaling us with stories of fast driving in sports cars and the wonderful restaurants in California and Switzerland where he had many followers. I was quiet as I listened to him—penetrating insights interspersed with human, all too human, bragging. I began to like him better as I began to sense a man divided within himself, the sage existing in the same body and mind with a vain youth and fearful child.

  Looking back, I now regret that my mortification and, yes, envy, that sought to reduce his stature prevented me from being more receptive to what he had to offer, to profit from a rare encounter with a highly charismatic and wise man. Later, when I read a few of his published conversations, I found that I often agreed with him. In his stark view of the reality of human life and the world in which it is embedded, he was nearer a ‘depressive’ Freud (and the Buddha) rather than the optimist purveyors—Western psychotherapists or Indian gurus—of a possible psychic transformation that ensures a permanent dwelling in the land of ‘happiness’. Krishnamurti was certainly no promiser of rose gardens. I appreciated his emphasis on the necessity of uncompromising introspection for leading a fully aware life, a perspective he shared with the wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius who held that ‘those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy’.8 No mental problem can be finally overcome, Krishnamurti says again and again. It can be understood but not conquered. Freud, too, had observed that a man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but get into accord with them, for they are legitimately what direct his conduct in the world. To understand deeply (Freud’s ‘get into accord’) required one to observe by paying full attention, which is not to be confused with concentration. When the conscious mind is attentive, he said, it has no thought, it is empty but aware; then it can observe. Here Krishnamurti, the intellectual-mystic, was at one with the mystical-psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion who advised analysts that to really understand the patient in an analytic hour, the therapist needs to come to the session with an empty mind, a mind ‘without memory or desire’.

  Pupul Jayakar would have liked to have me as a protégé but I had a temperamental problem in accepting patronage (this had also been my difficulty with Rajni Kothari in CSDS), even if I liked the intending patron, which in her case, I definitely did. She was warm, sophisticated, stimulating company. Normally, nothing annoys a patron more than a refusal of her proffered generosity. This is especially true in the Indian setting where most rewards that society’s institutions have to offer are channelled through the patron-patronized relationship. Mrs Jayakar’s turning away from me, however, was done much more graciously and was justified by what must have seemed as unforgivable behaviour on my part.

  She had invited me to dinner one evening and I was happy to accept. Her Gujarati cook made excellent vegetarian food and the guests were always carefully selected for their compatibility. We were no more than six to seven people, among them the poet-scholar A.K. Ramanujan and his wife Molly who were visiting Delhi from their home in Chicago. I had planned to leave soon after dinner to go to a classical vocal music concert by Sharafat Hussain Khan, one of my favourite singers. However, it was less music than love that was responsible for my stealthy glances at my watch to determine the right time for a polite leave taking. Mala, who will make her appearance in the next chapter, was going to be at the concert and just to be near her and share the same space even when at the most we would perhaps only exchange a polite ‘hello’ in passing, was a promise of unmitigated joy. Just to listen to the same music at the same time was thrilling enough. Everyone who remembers the rapture of ‘falling in love’ when the world is rolling in ecstasy at your feet, when erotic grace is garbing all around you in beauty to your taste, will understand my ill-considered impatience to leave the dinner party.

  Having politely declined an after-dinner coffee, I was on the verge of leaving when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi walked in. From the way Mrs Jayakar greeted her, the visit was not unexpected. Mrs Gandhi, who lived on 1, Akbar Road, very close to Pupul Jayakar’s bungalow, would sometimes drop in late in the evening at her friend’s house to relax after a trying day. Mrs Jayakar introduced us and Mrs Gandhi acknowledged each introduction with a thin smile and a nod signifying that she was familiar with the person’s name and work. If I remember correctly, she was dressed in an elegant blue silk sari and blouse that highlighted the wide swathe of white hair on the right side of her head. And though her carriage was erect, regal, she looked frail. There was a nervous tic in her eyes that led to uncontrolled, continuous blinking. I could not help attribute the twitch to fatigue and the stress she had been labouring under after the death of her son Sanjay and the burgeoning Sikh militancy in Punjab.

  When Mrs Gandhi asked me about my writings, I had the feeling that it was not done out of a weary formality but that she was genuinely curious and, perhaps, wanted to take her mind off weighty matters of state. Never at ease when talking about my own work, I fumbled for a reply. She turned to pick up a cup of coffee, which Mrs Jayakar had brought for her. Someone else took the opening to engage her in a conversation. Instead of patiently waiting for her to turn back to me, I took the opportunity to make my escape. Waving a hurried goodbye to my hostess who looked quizzically at me, I went out of the door into the veranda where Mrs Gandhi’s security officer, an elderly Sikh police officer, looked surprised to see me leave before the prime minister, unable to comprehend my act of lese-majesty. I asked him if he could have the white Ambassador car in which Mrs Gandhi had come moved to one side so that I could drive out of the gate. The concert was more than halfway over when I entered the hall, eagerly scanning the audience for the site of my infatuation. She had either not come or had already left. After this evening, Mrs Jayakar was always friendly when we met but I do not recall ever being invited to her home again.

  By the mid-1980s and especially after the publication of my book on Indian sexuality, I was a minor celebrity who was featured often in magazine articles, television interviews, and other purveyors of celebrity lives. I was someone who is asked by editors of newspaper supplements on his favourite books of the year, called on the phone by journalists to comment on psychological matters, mostly of sexual provenance, and photographed at the opening of art exhibitions or book launches. In the changing media landscape of those decades, when journalism was becoming more and more personality oriented, the need for celebrities who were not only Bollywood film stars had grown exponentially.

  My reactions to being a minor celebrity—with the emphasis on ‘minor’—were mixed. On the one hand, I did not take it seriously. After all, as someone has remarked, a celebrity is only a person who knows less people than those who know him. Suddenly, there were many more people who had known me well in school or college. I also heard about others who were my ‘very good friends’ even if I knew them but slightly or not at all. Unlike some celebrities who visibly wilt when they are no longer in the spotlight, I did not need media attention. Here I am thinking of the poignant case of Sophia Loren, the Italian movie actress renowned for her beauty, who had magazines with her photographs scattered all over her living room. She constantly needed to look at the photographs to reassure herself that she was truly beautiful, needing an external mirror to compensate for an untrustworthy internal one.

  On the other hand, I was not immune to the pleasant feeling of being recognized and of heads turning one’s way when one enters a room full of strangers. The gratification one experiences in being a cynosure of eyes and whisperings of one’s name (or reading it) is both involuntary and univ
ersal, the reason why if you want someone to like you, try to address him by his first name as often as possible; even if the other person knows what you are doing he won’t be able to help the flash of pleasure he experiences in hearing his name. I was aware that celebrity, like flattery, is fine as long as you don’t inhale, but accepted the fact that a part of my mind liked to sniff at its smoke.

  Being a celebrity also had practical benefits that were worth the price paid in envy and the put-on airy negligence of strangers who disliked you for being one. An immigration control officer’s normally sullen mien becomes cheerful as he recognizes and waves you through; a police inspector becomes friendly once he connects your face with the name on the driving licence and indulgently asks you to be careful and not skip a red light the next time around; the busy doctor ignores other patients in his waiting room and invites you to enter his cabin before it is your turn, and so on. Being a celebrity analyst also brought me celebrity patients although I hope that my services were worth more than my name. As for other benefits, I don’t think I ever tested Henry Kissinger’s observation that the nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore other people they think it is their fault.

  These were also the years that I became more involved in what may be called ‘the service of my country’, both of a serious and farcical nature. I had spent a year with my family at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton and returned to India in the summer of 1984, in the middle of a crisis that had overtaken the country. This was the Indian army’s assault in June, on the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest site, to clear it of Sikh militants who had been terrorizing the state of Punjab with a series of robberies and murders of Hindus and policemen. Operation Blue Star, as the army operation was called, not only killed scores of militants and their leader Bhindranwale, a fiery Sikh preacher turned terrorist, but also caused considerable damage to the Akal Takht, as much a symbol of Sikh corporate militancy as of religious piety. Sikh sentiments, especially of Jat Sikh youth, were inflamed and there was a grave threat of armed insurrection if something was not done soon to calm the situation.