*
In those dark times, several of those scenes flashed like fireflies, but they were all only scenes. They all came and went; nothing remained fixed, except for that dissatisfaction which appeared and grew, and even when repressed, kept growing . . .
The butterfly made another round . . . But where was that open window, where was that path to freedom?
A tide of non-cooperation welled and the entire nation was swept up in it. Shekhar, too, tried to get carried away by it and when he couldn’t he began to paddle with his own arms and float . . .
He took out all of his foreign-made clothes and threw them out, and began to wear the few coarse swadeshi clothes that he owned. He stopped going out and meeting people because he didn’t have enough swadeshi clothes to wear. Every afternoon he would go and stand by one of the windows upstairs and look out. And sometimes from a distance the call of hundreds of voices in unison reached him:
‘Victory to Gandhi! Down with the enemy!’
And then, with every fibre of him being thrilled, he also called out from his window:
‘Victory to Gandhi! Down with the enemy!’
He couldn’t go any farther; he didn’t have permission to leave the house. But the lack of permission was a kind of prod that constantly compelled him to try and find a way . . .
Except for Mother, everyone had gone out. Mother was upstairs, sitting in the rooftop. Shekhar gathered up all of the foreign clothes from all of the rooms in the house and made a pile of them in an open area downstairs. He brought out the lanterns and poured the kerosene from them over the pile (the containers of oil were with the servants, and he didn’t have the courage to get them) and set it on fire.
The fire flared up immediately. Shekhar’s joy similarly flared up. He danced all around the fire and sang at the top of his lungs:
‘Victory to Gandhi! Down with the enemy!’
Mother came down a short while later. And soon after, it was as if Shekhar’s cheeks were also foreign—burning . . .
But the whole pile had turned to ash . . .
*
Shekhar began to hate all foreign things. He saw that it was not only the influence of foreigners that flowed through every vein of their bodies, but their terror, too. He remembered old things and some new things, too. He began to see. He began to notice that Father asked him to speak to his brothers in English at home, and that he could speak in English from a young age, but he was still learning Hindi. His first ayah was Christian and only spoke English; and his first teacher, with whom he had to spend all his days, was an American missionary, who may not have taught him to read anything, but taught him English all day long. Shekhar thought that if one’s mother tongue was the first language one learned, then his mother tongue was English and his mother was a foreigner . . . His self-respect took a heavy blow—I am obliged to call maternal the very foreigners I hate. From that day on, he began to study Hindi with a deep affection, and he tried to eliminate all English words from his vocabulary. He started to remove foreign practices from his habits . . .
In order to prove his knowledge of Hindi, and to show his devotion to Gandhi—which he had no other means to make apparent—he began to write a nationalist play. The memory of the only play that he had seen was still fresh in his mind and so he didn’t have any particular problem writing one. The prologue was lifted verbatim, though he had to make a few small changes. And then the play started—a beautiful dream of a free, democratic India whose President was Gandhi. The way to win it was unceasing spinning and weaving, the repudiation of foreign goods and men and turning the other cheek at each opportunity. And the heaven that was at the beginning of ‘Harishchandra the Honest’ was moved to the end—bearing the imprint of Shekhar’s sunset-golden island.
The last scene of Shekhar’s play had a free and unoppressed India—a material and visible dream . . .
The play was complete. Shekhar made a clean copy with beautiful swadeshi ink and hid it under the rest of his books. He could still remember what had happened after his first literary endeavour, and that was why he didn’t show the play, that priceless gem, to anyone—not even Saraswati! And all the time, wherever he went, a voice echoed in his head—I am Shekhar, the author of a novel play, ‘Chandrashekhar’. And I created it by myself, without anyone’s help, with my own hands, this picture of a free, unoppressed India, I did.
*
Shekhar’s father was on tour for a day, and Shekhar was going with him. They locked their luggage up at the station at Bankipur and father and son were strolling outside the waiting room—Shekhar a little ahead, Father following him.
A boy appeared next to them and he looked up at Shekhar and said to him in English, ‘What’s your name?’
Shekhar looked him over head-to-toe. The boy was wearing a nice suit, with a British hat on his head. His voice had a tone of arrogance in it, perhaps because he wanted to show off his knowledge of English.
Shekhar found the question mean and insulting. He didn’t respond. Partly, also, because his father was right there behind him, and he was nervous about speaking in his presence.
The boy thought that there was no one to challenge him, that this boy probably doesn’t know English at all. With a little more haughtiness he said, ‘My name is _____. Do you go to school?’
Had Shekhar’s father not been there, he would have definitely responded (in Hindi), though he might not have answered that question. He also suspected that the boy was repeating some memorized lesson, that he didn’t know English that well. He simply stared at the boy hatefully, and didn’t say anything.
His father’s angry voice boomed—perhaps to prove to that boy that his son knows English—‘Why don’t you answer him!’
Shekhar became even more upset, even quieter. The boy smiled and walked on.
Father said, ‘Come here.’ Shekhar followed him into the waiting room where his father caught him by the ears and asked, ‘Why didn’t you answer him? Has your mouth stopped working?’
And the train arrived just in time to save Shekhar from giving a reply—or from the impishness of not giving a reply.
The next day, at home, Father said to Mother, ‘All our boys are idiots. They don’t know how to speak to anyone.’
Shekhar heard him.
*
No, nowhere was it to be found, that unrestraint, that release, that freedom! Neither in intelligence nor in stupidity; neither in isolation nor in companionship; neither in poetry nor in drama; neither in work nor in idleness; neither in hate nor in love—not even in the love of his immense, oppressive, generous father . . .
Shekhar’s father was tall, fair-skinned, well built and able-bodied. His keen eyes, crooked nose and fat but pressed lower lip were all markers of his proud and angry Aryanness that was carried by a greedy and thieving race of barbarians, in some ancient past, when it entered India and stayed on after it had established its mastery over it. He was generous by nature, but after getting hurt once or twice he developed a suspicious disposition. And when someone becomes suspicious after being hurt, then nothing in the world escapes his suspicion. So despite being honest himself, he considered the rest of the world to be dishonest and thieving—as if he were saying to himself again and again, ‘See, you were honest, and that’s why you were tricked. The whole world is dishonest. Don’t trust anyone!’ So despite being a pure-hearted person, he became bent on believing in the faults of others at each turn. When he became older, Shekhar used to say to him, ‘Look, human nature is trusting. And since it’s trusting, it takes sides and acquires prejudices. So why not believe the world is good? It’s not a matter of judgement at all, and when one side makes us happy, we can at least live in peace. We are not forced to spend our days lying in bed.’ But Father would respond, ‘You’re a child. What do you know! You were the one who bought a ten-paisa whistle for half a rupee!’ Shekhar would say, ‘Let’s say that I did, but I am still happy. Thinking about that whistle makes me happy to this day. Even though you weren’t
the one who lost half a rupee, you still remember that fact today because you can’t trust anyone, right?’ And Father would cut the argument by saying, ‘You are too idealistic. When will you learn?’
He was an Aryan, and so he admired strength and ability. Perhaps that’s why he liked to be called ‘Sahib’, although his pride had never allowed him to put on a hat; he always tied a turban. Shekhar remembers several such incidents, like once when his father beat a coolie who had deigned to address him as ‘Babu’ instead of ‘Sahib’. This was the same father who had on another occasion refused to meet with an officer because his invitation letter carried the stench of something like, ‘You can come meet me, although I may or may not meet with you, depending on my wishes.’
One form his worship of ability took was that he liked to feel as though he were powerful. This was the sentiment that led him to intervene in his children’s play. It wasn’t that he wanted his children not to play or not to study, or that they not do this or that; he wanted them to play or study only because he told them to. Spontaneity—that the only reason that something was happening was that it was happening, or because the person doing it was doing it—had no value for him. Consequently, whenever he arrived, the child would become silent in terror, the game would end, the book would be set aside, the legs would be brought underneath and beds and chairs would be immediately abandoned . . . No one ever knew when something would be outlawed. It wasn’t a matter of them being good or bad, proper or improper; rather it was a matter of two other criteria, namely, whether he liked it or not. And that was that. Neither reason nor argument held any sway before them.
‘These boys are mine, and only mine, and so I have complete authority over them’—that was his fixed standpoint. And partly for this reason, he named his children in the foreign fashion (to him), in which the father’s name is joined to the child’s name. If Shekhar had to write his full name, then he would write, ‘Chandrashekhar Haridutt Pandit’, or in English, ‘C.H. Pandit’. Shekhar first saw this fact come to light when he saw that his father had taken a red pen to his book on which he had written his name, completely naturally, ‘Chandrashekhar Pandit’. His father had drawn a caret between the two names and written ‘Haridutt’ above them . . . And another time, when he saw the cover page of a compilation of poems that he had written himself, on which in a moment of ecstasy he had signed ‘Shekhar, son of nature’, ‘nature’ had been crossed out and ‘Pandit Haridutt’ written in its place. On that day Shekhar felt as if his father had destroyed a pure moment and, unable to bear the tyranny, he destroyed the notebook . . .
It’s not clear whether he derived pride from the demonstrations of his boys’ successes or because he had an unbiased interest in the progress of his boys, but whenever he was pleased by something one of the boys had done, it would make him enthusiastic. He would praise his son more than necessary, would boast about him to everyone, just as his anger would take his opposite feelings to an extreme point . . .
But just as it is natural for some people to flare up in anger quickly, he was naturally a generous man. He didn’t hold on to grudges or ill will for very long. And even two minutes after he had beaten his boys hard he could say, ‘No matter what, my boys are a thousand times better than the rest.’
It was over this last point that Shekhar’s parents fought repeatedly. Shekhar’s mother held strongly to the idea that her children were much worse than other children. Whenever the boys did anything that could be criticized, she was always ready to say, ‘Other people’s children behave much better.’ What she meant by ‘better’ could be that they enjoyed themselves while playing peacefully; or that they sat obediently; or that they got up in the mornings, washed themselves and started on their chores without being asked; or that they didn’t complain about unfairness when they did their work, and they each did the work that was assigned to them . . . Father would argue, ‘You always say such things,’ and that would make Mother even angrier, ‘Yes, I’m coming to you, too—you have spoiled them. Do you know anything about your boys? I am the one that has to deal with them night and day! Look at so-and-so’s sons.’ And then the catalogue of all the sons of all of the families in the neighbourhood would begin, and poor Saraswati and her three brothers knew that there were no virtues left in the world for them to claim as their own—all had already been seized by other people’s children . . .
Shekhar’s mother was of average height, heavyset and somewhat lazy by nature. A short forehead, eyes placed too close to her nose and bulging out of their sockets, a straight but small nose, beautifully shaped lips, a mouth that was a bit big and ears that were rubbery, small and set a little far back. Her whole face had been designed to show vivacity and loquacity, but because there was no seriousness or generosity in it, it couldn’t be called beautiful. And this deficiency of character and grace was visible in every gesture, in every mannerism, in her whole personality . . .
Mother wasn’t well educated. Nor did she have any great admiration for education. After all, women are more practical and realistic. But Shekhar’s mother had more than a special love for hands over heads. Anybody could tell you in less than three seconds how many paisas there are in 871 rupees and thirteen annas. That was not as impressive to her as, for instance, a person who could feed a family of three on four and a quarter annas and still have two paisas left . . .
This was another source of debate between Mother and Father. Mother wanted the boys to be energetic, clever and fit while Father thought all of that was pointless . . .
Mother wanted her boys to meet people, learn about their doings, keep track of how much so-and-so makes, what so-and-so is cooking and what so-and-so’s sister-in-law’s uncle’s son does for a living; Father said, ‘Don’t go to anyone’s home and don’t talk to anyone. What is all this nonsense to you?’ Sometimes Mother would send one of them secretly to a neighbour’s house saying, ‘Go do this one thing’ or ‘Go find this out’; if Father ever got wind of this he’d subject them to a lengthy interrogation: ‘Why did you go there? What did you go to do? Who gave you permission to go? Why couldn’t you send one of the servants?’
Mother wasn’t generous. She wasn’t wrathful. No one ever saw her beside herself with anger. But she also never forgot a transgression. Her disposition wasn’t expansive enough to become excessively angry, and for the same reason she wasn’t that compassionate either. Father would even ‘reconcile’ with the wrongdoer after he got angry with him, but Mother wouldn’t even do that when she was in the wrong, and would remain angry with the person she scolded.
Mother held appearances to be very important. Sometimes, the boys would be taught how to perform their dawn and dusk prayers. Father realized that it was impossible for them to concentrate on the rituals in their current state, so he eventually stopped forcing them to perform them. He got quite angry and said, ‘What’s the point if your heart’s not in it? Don’t do it.’ And after the boys heard him out and stopped doing their rituals, he didn’t ask them to perform them again. Then it was Mother who began to force the boys to sit as prescribed in the proper place for prayer and perform the appropriate rites.
Father was emotionally excessive; Mother was cruel because of a lack of emotion. When Father’s anger rained down on him, Shekhar felt as though they were friends again; when his mother said nothing, Shekhar felt as if he were being baked by a sweet flame.
And from the union and friction between these two divergent temperaments were born six offspring: Saraswati, Ishwardutt, Prabhudutt, Shekhar, Ravidutt and Chandra. These were the products of that friction, and the playground of its evolution.
*
Life is another name for strangeness. Those whose lives have been crushed into nothingness by the weight of conformity also endure enough challenges to make a beautiful novel. If every human being were to write his own autobiography the world would have no shortage of beautiful books.
But only when everyone has learned to write.
We learned in college that th
e reason that there are so many stories written these days is because the material for them is readily available. I can still picture it, my skinny English professor, his wide frog-eyes splayed open behind the lenses of his thick horn-rimmed glasses, and the way his voice used his nose more than his mouth when he spoke: ‘Each and every one of you has had at least one important challenge in your life that is different from everyone else’s, which stands apart and is special. And that’s why each one of you has at least one good story in him. Few people have life stories that are thrilling enough, heavy enough, and special enough to produce a good novel . . .’
But it seems to me that all the challenges that I could remember in my life were mine, were original, were complete stories in themselves, and my life was a brilliant novel. I may have been the only one who felt this way; fascination with one’s own life turns it into something unique. But at the same time I realize that it wasn’t so unique, so idiosyncratic that others couldn’t derive pleasure from it; my private experience contained enough of a germ of collective experience that the collectivity would be able to understand it and see a glimpse of itself in it. My life is a solution in which individuality and ‘type’ are mixed together, without which art is impossible, and without which the novel is impossible.
It’s completely possible that even with the right material I might not be able to produce a novel. But when do I intend to write a novel? I only want to rid myself of this weight on my shoulders; I don’t want to give my life over to anyone else. I want to realize it myself because I want to offer it up such that after it’s been offered I won’t get it back. It will be completely destroyed—nothing will be left . . . Then there won’t be a Shekhar; there will only be me. This Shekhar, who dreams of being an artist, a fool chasing the fame of poets, will have ended, and what will be left over will be me who will go to the gallows; it will be me, who I call ‘me’, and even while I say it I don’t know what ‘me’ means.
*
People, generally speaking, forget what their lives were like. That’s how society finds it possible to lay down laws such as ‘Those mothers and fathers are best who teach their children to live like adults.’ The blow that this single sentiment delivers to youth is possibly greater than what any other law or custom or order has ever done. When they teach their children to behave like adults they forget what their own lives were like, that they were once children, too, that they also had the same innocent mischief in them and that they embarrassed their parents, too, with their tricks. If parents could remember their childhoods their whole lives, their children, and they would be so happy!
Shekhar Page 14
