There was a forest two miles from the house, and Mother was wandering back and forth in an open clearing near there.
Shekhar saw her from a distance and simultaneously saw a little farther off, in the other direction, his father coming towards her. He turned around and went back—it didn’t matter if it killed him, but he couldn’t bear to watch the scene that was going to happen.
It was getting dark as the two of them came home. Father called out to the servant from outside the house, ‘We aren’t going to eat dinner—Mother isn’t feeling well.’ They went into the bedroom and locked the door.
The next morning, Shekhar couldn’t detect anything. There were no signs of the quarrel; the dark clouds had evaporated. For the first time in Shekhar’s life, his father said to his mother after drinking only half of his cup of tea, ‘It’s really good today. Here, have the rest of this cup.’
Shekhar noticed something else, too. The young female servant in the household—the one who played with Kamala and was always laughing—was acting nervously and keeping her distance, even though no one said anything to her.
*
In the afternoon, Shekhar was standing outside his house.
The telegram man brought a telegram. Shekhar signed for it on behalf of his father and then ran inside with it.
Father was in the bedroom—the door was closed. Shekhar quickly opened the door and said, ‘Father—’
Mother and Father quickly separated from each other. Father looked at him angrily and then calmly asked, ‘What is it?’ Mother was still a little startled and shy and had turned away and hung her head.
Father asked again, ‘What is it?’
Shekhar quickly presented his father with the telegram.
He read it and said, ‘Listen, Saraswati has had a daughter.’
Mother responded with surprise, ‘What? Already?’
Father said, ‘Shekhar, you should go.’
Shekhar went outside but his heart was racing. He closed the door behind him so that he could stand at the crack and listen in.
Mother said, ‘But it’s only been eight months—’
Father seemed surprised as he said, ‘Yes, look—’
Shekhar knew that they were coming towards the door. He ran off.
Saraswati had a daughter. Saraswati.
After the wedding, Rama went to live with her husband.
Shekhar wondered, ‘So there was a girl hiding inside Saraswati, too?’ And that time, Saraswati had said, ‘I don’t know!’ If she were here today, Shekhar would have asked her again; she’d definitely know now even if she hadn’t known then. But would she answer him? In the process of this back and forth, Shekhar recalled what had happened when he opened the door to the bedroom. What was it that had scared them? Why was Mother embarrassed?
It was nothing—he had seen everything. Father’s arms had embraced Mother, and he was saying something, that’s all. Shekhar knew that his own arms sometimes longed to embrace someone, to overpower them, and in his imagination this made him happy, proud and gave him self-respect. So why were they afraid and embarrassed? Why? Arms are arms and strength is strength. What was it that they were hiding, that Shekhar hadn’t seen, which was embarrassing?
The question was still swimming in his head when a letter came from Saraswati—her daughter was dead.
Mother read it and said to Father, ‘She says that the child was born at eight months.’ And then as if she meant ‘this was meant to be’, she said, ‘Yes—Oh!’
The girl died a mere four days and six hours after she was born. Mother says that Saraswati has written that the child was born at eight months. What’s this new secret?
When he got a chance, Shekhar asked the cook, ‘What does it mean when a child is born at eight months?’
‘They are born after eight months.’
‘What do you mean? Eight months after what?’
‘A baby stays in a mother’s belly for nine months.’
As if to corner him, Shekhar asked, ‘How does it get in there?’
The cook laughed and said, ‘Master Shekhar, you should ask Atti.’ He pointed at the young female servant and laughed even louder.
Shekhar was shy around her but he still went up to her. She didn’t speak his language, and he was only able to get out a few words in her language somehow, ‘Baby—how?’
Atti began to laugh. She didn’t understand Shekhar’s question. She mocked him and repeated his words back to him, ‘Baby—how?’ She gestured to indicate that she didn’t know what he was talking about . . .
Shekhar wanted to explain his question more clearly but then Mother walked in and asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
Shekhar was taken aback; Atti continued with her work. Mother said, even more suspiciously, ‘What were you doing here with Atti? Eh, Atti, what was he saying?’
Atti lowered her head and said, ‘I don’t know.’
Shekhar left.
*
A line appeared like lightning dancing on this screen of darkness—Sharda.
Shekhar’s father’s bungalow was surrounded by acacia trees and shrubs in the foothills of a mountain. In front of their house, on top of the mountain across the valley, there was a tree whose branches and leaves made the shape of the English letter ‘S’ against the background of the sky. A little way beneath the summit, the mountain is covered on all sides by cedar, pine and eucalyptus trees. This distant image was the sole source of nourishment for Shekhar’s roving eyes, eyes which were hungry for novelty, for change, and which were tired of the monotony cast on everything around them. Shekhar’s father was a foreigner in this land. His north Indian provenance was lost on southern provenance and chauvinism; despite being respectable he was still seen as an outcast. And in addition to the loneliness that this created, Shekhar felt that dreadful state of loneliness where all the world’s injustices, its courage and fear, its bravery and cowardice, its arrogance and faith and doubt, its affection and anger, its love and hatred all get mixed together and fill one up . . .
Shekhar—hungry from countless hungers; Shekhar—unable to understand his own hunger, unable to find answers to his questions, finding himself surrounded by walls of indifference and frustration. He would go and sit in front of the window of his room and stare out at the sign of that ‘S’ spread out against the sky and think, ‘Has God written my name in that vast emptiness, like the sword of Damocles10 hanging over my head for all time?’
It was during one of those days that Mother remembered that there were others who lived in the world besides herself, and she resolved to meet them.
Just next door to Shekhar—in that sprawling mountain district, next door meant five miles away!—lived a Madrasi family.11
Shekhar had already met the adults of the family—they had been over to visit once or twice. They’d studied abroad and come to learn that even if the world didn’t spread over the entire planet it did at least extend beyond the immediate boundary of their home. Mother was going to meet them to ‘return’ the favour of their visit. Shekhar was asked to accompany her because the people they were going to visit didn’t speak Hindi and Shekhar’s mother spoke neither their language nor English.
Hungry for novelty, Shekhar cheerfully went with his mother.
They arrived. They crossed through a small grove of eucalyptus trees and have entered their bungalow and the initial introductions and formalities have already taken place. When Shekhar and his mother were entering the bungalow they read on the signs posted outside that the name of the house was ‘Eagle’s Nest’, and at the same time they spied the mistress of the house sitting on the grass in front. There was a young woman with her, and a little farther off, a girl was standing in the middle of a bunch of pea vines picking pea blossoms. When she heard the sound of footsteps she turned with a start to see the newcomers. She then gathered up her open tresses to hide the flowers that were strewn in them and ran inside. That’s when the two women who were sitting on the grass got up to welcome the
m. Introductions were done somehow or other because it wasn’t necessary to say too much; an introduction is accomplished easily enough with a smile.
Everyone went inside. They are all seated in a well-decorated room. Mother is sitting on a chair and her son is standing next to her (even though he has been offered a chair and asked to sit with a gesture); the mistress of the house was sitting next to the hearth on the wooden threshold and the young woman—her daughter—was sitting on the floor.
They are all quiet. The mistress of the house in anticipation and the daughter because she has no duty to perform; Mother because she doesn’t know any English and because she has put all her hopes on her son; and the son because he cannot find anything to say in the surfeit of novelty in this new world. Sometimes he looked at his feet, which seemed perversely awkward to him, so he tried to hide his left foot with his right and his right foot with his left, and then because he feared that everyone would laugh at his foolishness, he cursed himself. Sometimes he would look at his hands, which seemed unnecessarily coarse and useless to him, so he would clasp one hand with the other and think about hiding them somewhere or cutting them both off. Sometimes he would think about his clothes and feel that no one in the world had ever worn such ridiculous clothes. He then considered the way he stood and felt that he was standing like a giraffe in a circus . . . After he came to that conclusion, he sat down with a thud; the mistress of the house looked at him and all he could think was, ‘She must be thinking that this uncivilized boy doesn’t even know how to sit down properly.’ That unlucky wretch, and that cursed adolescence.
This wouldn’t do at all. Since she sees nothing happening, the mistress of the house makes an attempt.
‘What class are you in?’
Who can possibly imagine the scale of the mental determination he mustered to answer, ‘I study at home’?
‘Are you going to sit for any exams?’
A one-word answer, and even then he thinks that the word is too much, ‘Matric.’
That’s when his mother asks, ‘What is she saying?’ He explains it to her. He feels alive for a second.
Another voice speaks, ‘Can you sit for exams if you haven’t been to school?’ The question belongs to the young woman.
‘Yes.’
A third voice says, ‘Wait, how?’
He turns around in surprise. The girl who ran off while she was picking flowers has entered the room. Wide-eyed, he tries to take her in quickly—God forbid their eyes should meet!—and then stares at his feet again—crude feet! At his hands—useless hands!
Her question goes unanswered. Her mother says, ‘This is my daughter—Sharda.’ But before anyone has a chance to say anything else, she repeats her question, ‘How can you sit for exams if you haven’t gone to school?’
After a few moments of silence it dawns on him that her question has still gone unanswered. He thinks it was impolite and this makes him even more nervous and he becomes completely incapable of answering the question. So she says, ‘What are you thinking? Why won’t you give me an answer?’
‘This girl is shameless! I’m not responding to her questions, but she keeps asking more questions!’ These are his thoughts as he notices that the girl isn’t ashamed of the way she appears. Her hair, which was loose outside, is still wet and now tied with a silk ribbon. She’s wearing a white kurta and a skirt that exposes her ankles—or was it a petticoat? She’s looking at him with an unabashed curiosity, a look that makes him increasingly uneasy and angry, too.
In the meantime, everyone is silent. Mother asks Shekhar, ‘What is she saying?’ In order to hide his unresponsiveness he tries to put her off by quietly saying, ‘Nothing.’
But Mother is a mother, after all. She asks her son, ‘How do you say “shy” in English?’
‘Shy.’
And as soon as he says it, he understands why she asked and hates himself. His mother smiles and gestures to him with her thumb and says, ‘He’s “shy”.’
They all understand and begin to laugh. But the cup of his shame is still not completely full—he’s about to be trampled upon while he’s lying in the dirt! Sharda laughs, looks at him and says, ‘Good gracious, such a big silly boy like you!’
Mother Earth! Why don’t you swallow me! He is unable to bear these insults, so how are you able to endure them? And who knows what else this shameless girl will say?
Oh! He gets a little relief—Sharda’s mother is scolding her. As she should. Novelty is one thing, but this shamelessness!
Rebuked, Sharda got up and left.
Then, somehow or another, people began to talk to bring this required-for-the-sake-of-civility meeting to a close.
But the end was still not in sight. Sharda returned, this time carrying her veena over her left shoulder like a bindle stick. She sat on the floor not that far from his feet.
Mother said to her son, ‘Ask if anyone plays the veena. It looks beautiful.’
The son turns towards Sharda’s mother and says, ‘She’s asking if anyone plays the veena. It looks beautiful.’
‘Yes, Sharda plays it.’
He’s speechless. He doesn’t think about the obvious next step in the natural flow of the conversation. He is completely unable to do anything—neither can he ask Sharda to play nor can he say anything at all . . .
Sharda laughs. The strings of the veena begin to vibrate.
His pride says, ‘She’s embarrassed at how brazen she is.’ His brain says, ‘She’s trying to please her mother.’
These were the years of adolescence. Otherwise he would have realized that these were not the only two explanations, the explanation was that mysterious element of a woman’s nature, her easily manufactured outward contrariness that hid her beauty and her harmony . . .
What was that secret that burst forth from the resounding strings of that veena?
Like a ‘spotlight’ in a theatre, gradually the emotions of his heart narrowed from the expanse of the world to focus on one image, and then slowly moved away from even that, lost themselves somewhere in the darkness, washed away. The image is Sharda’s half-wet hair, wrapped in a ribbon and tied in a bun, which is slipping down her shoulders and trying to hide behind her ears. As soon as he sees it he feels that the wave of music which is washing him away is like pure, white smoke, like a new cloud that crashes into mountains and runs on; and it melds with a fragrant vapour that rises from Sharda’s body and the scent of her wet, earthy locks . . .
He felt as if the two of them had been surrounded by a mass of dense clouds. He felt as if the scent of Sharda’s hair was running its fingers all over his body lovingly, but wherever it touches him, it scalds him . . . He’s drinking in the fragrance of those unscented locks, with their faint smell of neem blossoms which lights his soul on fire . . . Although he’s burning, he is filled with an ineffable joy and flowing away in the sky . . . He’s beyond the earth, and now that piece of cloud is moving forward, passing Sharda, beyond the boundary of the sky, into the infinite . . .
He felt as if he were breathing in blades of fire. He felt as though he were suffocating. He’s looking straight at that wilful bun of Sharda’s hair. Crossing beyond the infinite, at the edge of the infinite . . .
But even the longest journeys come to an end. He’s sojourned—who knows where he’s arrived! The veena is silent, too. Sharda turns around for a moment and looks right at him, with a laugh that’s meant to tease, which disappears as soon as she sees him. Their eyes meet. And that boy who had avoided looking at anyone for too long for fear that they would see him looking at them is now staring at this girl in front of all these people; his eyes aren’t even blinking, let alone turning away . . .
But the moments that swing you out into the infinite are not long. The two of them avert their eyes at the same instant . . .
At the same moment Mother says, ‘Tell her that she plays very well.’
He would rather die than say that—to Sharda, to anyone else . . .
Mother looks at hi
m once with suppressed rage, but this wasn’t the time to say anything, so she says to him again, ‘Ask who teaches her.’
He manages to ask—the mistress of the house.
‘I teach her.’
Mother instructs him to say, ‘So you play as well?’
‘A little bit.’
Again, as instructed, ‘Some day I’ll have to hear you play.’ And to himself, ‘But not today. Heard enough for one day, couldn’t bear to hear any more . . .’
This time without being instructed, ‘I have always wanted to learn music, but I’ve never had the opportunity. I can never find anyone to teach me.’ He says this without being instructed because Sharda had risen and gone inside.
Now they are getting ready to end the conversation. Mother has stood up from her chair. He wants to wait until Sharda gets back; he is certain that she will come back. But just as he wasn’t asked his opinion before they came here, he isn’t going to be asked when they leave.
Until he reached the gate of the bungalow, he could feel someone’s mischievous eyes on him—he felt a tingling up and down his spine . . . He turns back to look, but he is mistaken. Then he hears a voice echoing in his mind:
‘Such a big silly boy like you!’
In order to explain why he looked back to his mother he says, ‘Mother, this place is called Eagle’s Nest. It’s a strange name, isn’t it?’
‘Definitely.’
*
When an atheist begins to regain his faith, the most learned pundits can’t match wits with him. The all-consuming wave of his blind faith destroys and submerges all of the caves of doubt and the mountains of intellect that stand in its path.
It’s exactly like the feeling in adolescence—the age of hatred and disgust at the self—of love!
His house was in the foothills of a mountain from whose summit he could see the grove of eucalyptus trees in front of Sharda’s house, but he could see neither the house nor even any other part of the house over the trees but he could certainly see the rising smoke from its chimney . . .
It was the reason he used to sit atop that summit and look down over there. And as he sat there he contemplated this novelty . . .
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