Because he still doesn’t understand what’s happened to him or what he wants. Because when he thinks about that house, and about that meeting, he sees the face of the mistress of the house, how she welcomed them, he can’t remember a thing about Sharda! But in those rare moments when everything around him becomes perfectly still, he feels as if he can hear from somewhere—from somewhere—the sound of a veena being played. He begins to drift away in its waves, begins to fly, forgets everything, loses himself in the infinite and then becomes nothing. And for two or three minutes at a time he experiences that non-sensory, other-worldly, perfect emptiness which sages and ascetics strive to encounter for mere seconds, a feeling which brings him into complete unison with the world and where nothing else remains, and which he only realizes once the experience is over—when a flutter of a white, silken ribbon startles him and says, ‘Such a big silly boy like you.’
But even after experiencing all that, he cannot connect this meditative feeling to Sharda! Even when he thought about what he had learned from novels and would ask himself, ‘You aren’t in love, are you?’ he would get another question in response to his question, ‘With whom? The mother or Sharda?’ He couldn’t answer that—and it irritated him.
He would get lost in that same emptiness, in that unknowable world that was created by the mystery of the song on the veena. Then he would wake up.
One day he no longer feels any pleasure watching the smoke rise from the chimney. He walks away in a daze towards that nest where all his dreams slept.
He enters the grove of eucalyptus trees and sits in the shade of a tall tree. The leaves are falling at this time of year so he is able to sit on a pile of red, brown and yellow leaves at the base of the tree. And from that spot, he looks over at the nest. It has a big window in front and a large flower-printed curtain has been drawn across it from inside.
The room behind the curtain is perhaps empty. But since nothing can be seen behind the curtain, nothing can disprove his imaginings. So in his mind’s eye he imagines all three women are sitting in that very room . . .
And then he floats away on the heights of his own poetry set to the music of the veena, because in adolescence, who isn’t a poet!
Something like lightning flashes through him. From atop another hill in the same eucalyptus grove, someone was approaching.
The form was new, the clothes were new, the style was new and the radiance new, but like a jolt of lightning his consciousness rang out—Sharda!
He melted into his shame, afraid that she might see him in this condition! He hides behind the tree, then runs off, holds his breath while he runs and, once he’s a good distance away, back home, he comes to a stop.
Then a voice chides him, ‘Such a big silly boy like you!’ He slowly walks inside.
The unfortunate wretch still has no clue what these changes in his life are, what this novelty that has appeared is, what mark of some incomprehensible power.
He’s learned something new. When his father is at the office, around 12 p.m. or 1 p.m., he leaves home and goes and sits a little way from the summit of his mountain at the edge of a path, on some expanse of verdure. His overheated body finds pleasure in its gentle coolness. He sits there waiting for the moment when Sharda will come down the path.
Sharda takes this route on her way to school and when school let out at 1 p.m. she came back home on this very path, alone. He sits there waiting for her and she passes through here around 2 p.m.—the school was about two miles away from that spot and Sharda’s house was about a mile in the other direction. He wondered whether Sharda got tired walking that distance—even though he would walk twenty miles easily for no reason at all.
When Sharda gets there, she doesn’t stop. He doesn’t say anything either. He just sits there quietly and watches her progress—from the first moment that he sees her as she turns the bend with her tired arms carrying her books, until her white clothes and her thin frame disappear behind a big acacia tree, until her footsteps, until the sound of her footsteps falls completely silent . . .
At first he used to watch her from a distance and wouldn’t make his presence known. But one day, when he was engrossed in a refreshing nap while waiting for her at the edge of the road, Sharda had seen him, and she quietly walked over to him, and put her bundle of books on his back. He woke with a start, shocked, but then was filled with an instant courage. He takes the books and goes with her and asks her affectionately, ‘Don’t you get tired carrying such a heavy bundle?’ They walked on like that until they got to the thicket of eucalyptus trees a little way from Sharda’s house and they halted, at the same time, from the same impulse. Sharda took the books back, and then to destroy this temporary silence, she laughed mischievously and said, ‘The big silly boy is kind,’ and then ran off . . .
He stands there staring at his own hand—because his hand has touched the clothes of that running-away Sharda.
They haven’t talked since, but they have their silent meetings every day. As she turns that bend—from the darkness of the dense shade—and passes that stretch of verdure, she always looks in his direction and smiles and then keeps walking. She doesn’t stop, and he doesn’t call to her. Ever since the day that he touched Sharda’s clothes, they’ve reached a mute pact not to repeat the circumstances that brought it about. Although the two of them probably didn’t know that they were withholding themselves from each other, hiding their shyness . . .
Shekhar knows that her school is going to be closed for Christmas. He won’t be able to see Sharda for two weeks starting today. He thinks, ‘These will be two very long weeks,’ where he won’t be able to see her. He’s lost in these thoughts, forgetting about poetry, forgetting his dreams, sitting there, vacantly.
His gaze isn’t fixed on that path today. He’s filled with anticipation, but perhaps the feeling that the scene might vanish before his eyes at any moment has made him focus in another direction. He’s looking at his old friend, the S-shaped tree at the top of the distant mountain, and thinking about old matters . . .
She comes and sees his emptiness and goes over to stand next to him, but he doesn’t notice. He only notices when she says, ‘What are you looking at, silly?’
But even when he’s taken notice, he still responds distantly, ‘I’m looking at that tree—on top of that mountain over in the distance.’
‘Hmm—why?’
‘Because I like it. I used to go there a lot.’ He pauses for a second, ‘I’m going to go back there for Christmas.’
The thorny path that they’ve made their mute pact not to tread is quite close to that spot. She moves away. Flatly, she says, ‘My school reopens on the 5th.’
‘What are you planning on doing?’
‘During the holidays? I’ll read. And—’
‘I’ve been reading poetry recently.’
Sharda looks at him suspiciously—they aren’t heading back towards that path, are they? And she says, ‘I like Tennyson’s poem.’
He was about to say, ‘I’ve been reading translations of Tasso,’ but he recalls one of his poems and it embarrasses him into silence.
She leaves. She says, ‘Goodbye!’ And then he recites the poem by Tasso to himself, he says ‘One long goodbye?’
He wasn’t able to hear whether she responded to his question.
He looked through all the books at home until he found a collection by Tennyson, Maud and Other Poems. He doesn’t remember where Tasso is. He takes this book and goes and sits under his S-shaped tree and reads it disconsolately. His eyes are reading, but his ears are perked in anticipation of certain words, and in his mind, he wonders, ‘Will she come?’
He hadn’t told her to come, nor had Sharda indicated that she had planned to come. But he’s returned here every day for three days and sat here in the hope that she might come . . . Because he had told her that he would be spending his time here—meaning, he’d be waiting here. Was she unable to understand something so simple?
As he’s thinking about
this, his mind fills with the words that his eyes are reading, and he realizes suddenly that he’s singing one of the verses that his intellect hadn’t recognized but his heart had known:
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown;
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone.12
And she’s come. She comes eagerly, but she hesitates when she sees him sitting there and stops, and showing her surprise, she says, ‘Oh my, what are you doing here?’
They begin to wander around—meandering aimlessly here and there. They’re talking about frivolous things—although neither is paying any heed to what the other says. They’re just happy to be together . . .
They come down from the top of the mountain and climb another nearby peak. Then suddenly, for some unknown reason, he remembers that Sharda’s name also starts with an ‘S’. He turns around to look—his friend, the S-shaped tree, is only half-visible. He blurts out, ‘S for Sharda.’
‘What?’
‘Your name’s written on that mountain.’
‘Let me see—where?’
‘Over there! Can you see—it’s an S?’
‘No, it’s definitely not an S.’
‘You can’t see it from here. Wait a second, I’ll climb this tree and look.’
He’d seen it several times before; and even if he could see it again from up high in the tree, Sharda still wouldn’t be able to see it. He didn’t think about any of this. Flush with the bravado of adolescence, only one thought occurs to him: there had to be incontrovertible proof for what he had said.
He quickly climbs a nearby cedar tree. It wasn’t an easy tree to climb. He has cuts and scrapes all over, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t think about anything else.
He climbs quite far and looks—the S can be clearly seen. And as if he’s proclaiming his victory, he cries out, ‘It’s right there.’
Such were the rewards of his efforts. She says, ‘Silly, how am I supposed to see?’
It’s unclear why, either because Sharda had mocked him or because of his own silliness or perhaps because of some defect in the tree or because of bad luck, but as he’s climbing down, he slips and o-o-o—Crash! And ridiculously, several branches of the cedar tree come crashing on top of him!
Even before he considers his injuries he gets up to make sure that Sharda hasn’t seen. She’s clutching her belly with both hands and laughing hysterically . . .
He doesn’t even realize that his face has been scratched, that he’s been cut, that he’s twisted his left ankle; he just gets up and starts walking off quickly in one direction like a madman . . .
Sharda stops laughing and asks, ‘You aren’t hurt, are you?’ She gets no answer. ‘Come here, show me,’ and then, ‘I’m not coming.’
‘Not coming?’
‘Not coming.’ He keeps walking.
‘You won’t come to me?’
‘No, never, not even after an eternity!’ He walks off. But a little slower than before.
She laughs again—a trembling laugh, but it’s still a laugh!—and he begins walking faster again, though it hurts a lot.
Evening.
Shekhar couldn’t go back for four days. His feet hurt badly! But today he’s determined to go there. He braces himself, tightens his fists and clenches his teeth in determination . . .
He leaves home on the alibi that he’s going for a walk. He’s hidden a small axe in his coat and somehow he’s managed to walk through the house and out the door without a limp. He fixes his stare on that tree and he’s walking towards it with a pronounced limp.
He’s set out on a terrifying mission. It’s not clear whom he is angry with, but he knows exactly what his revenge instinct has planned . . .
He’s reached the tree. From this close up, the S-shape can’t be made out, and the leaves and the branches all appear different.
He’s taken off his coat and removed his shoes. Holding the axe in one hand, he climbs up the tree. He takes a deep breath and clenches his jaw and starts his project . . . He is wounding the tree, cutting off its branches, erasing the relationship between it and Sharda’s name . . .
He’s now cut off many branches, so he comes down, puts his coat back on, hides the axe and begins walking home like a stumbling drunk, without turning back, very quickly . . .
A little way from the house, near the signboard, his madness leaves him—the curse that weighed heavily on his mind has been lifted. He stops to look at the mountaintop, looking for a sign, while his eyes seemed to be trying to avoid his own gaze . . .
That symbol of his identity, of Sharda’s, and of their unity changed from an S-shape into an unfinished cipher, like an overturned, empty bowl, as it stood there looking up at the sky . . .
He lets out a long sigh, swallows his endless stream of tears and says, ‘Sharda, I love you so much!’
In adolescence a moment can seem like a vast eternity, and eternity can seem like a mere moment. Seven days from the day that Shekhar had decided that he wouldn’t go to meet Sharda he had returned to that very spot.
But she didn’t come. A day, two days, three days, a week, three weeks—it’s almost been one month now and she still hadn’t come . . .
Much has happened in the meantime. It had been decided that Shekhar would take his matriculation exams and prepare to go to college. That was why he was leaving for the north in a few days. But there was something even bigger in his life than his studies and his worries about the changes the future would bring—something that was so personal and serious.
Shekhar’s disposition had changed ever since he had cut down that tree. He was steadier, more reasonable. He wasn’t tormented any more the way he had been by the face of the mistress of the house and the eldest daughter’s voice and the strumming of the veena’s strings and Sharda’s words that would creep into his thoughts. He had understood the tumult that was taking place inside himself, he had recognized and accepted the truth that was hiding there—that he loved Sharda? He no longer had those mixed-up dreams. He was no longer bothered by that ineffable restlessness that spread through every part of his body. The form of the restlessness was still indescribable, still oppressive and pervasive through his body, but it didn’t happen without any provocation or at any time. Shekhar knew that he was completely attached to Sharda and to her thoughts. He no longer tried to deflect attention from the harmony in his life by losing himself in the world of antiquity, no longer reading the Greek myths of Narcissus and Echo, or Hero and Leander, or Daphne and Apollo, or Eros and Psyche, even abandoning Tasso and Tennyson. Whenever he found himself alone now, he would listen to recordings of the violin on the gramophone, or in the extreme isolation of the night, he would listen to a recording of Sheshanna13 playing the veena and compare the two, which always resulted in a decision in favour of Sheshanna. When he didn’t find occasions for this at home, he would go to that pure spot and read Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. He now found that mystical poetry to be a pleasure that no other thing had ever given him—he would read one verse and his entire past was washed away like so much dirt on his skin, and he felt as if he stood there, pure of mind, speech and action, ready to worship some God . . .
I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs . . .14
Sometimes a rapture would course through his veins . . .
O the Waves, the sky-devouring waves, glistening with light, dancing with life, the waves of eddying joy . . .15
After a month and a half of waiting for her she still hadn’t come. Shekhar kept waiting for her despite the cruelty of his desire; he wouldn’t go towards her house, nor on the road to her school.
Shekhar couldn’t bear the thought of waiting that day. He would be heading north in two or three days to take his exams. But it never occurred to him that he should go to Sharda’s house and
meet her, or at least see her.
She’ll come, why won’t she come? Why, because Shekhar had said in a moment of anger that he wouldn’t come?
Why hadn’t she come all of these days?
No one was there to explain to Shekhar that she had come the second day after the incident, and the third, and the fourth, that she had cried for a long time, and that she had taken some leaves from that S-shaped tree and left—without thinking about when she would return.
Shekhar was reading the same verse by Rabindranath Tagore and he was reciting it for a tree, sometimes for the leaves scattered below and sometimes for the sky:
I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs . . .
The latticed shade of nondescript branches on tall trees; the affectionate spread of soporific sunlight on the cascade of tobacco-red and yellowed leaves; and the deep lentil green of a pine tree in the life-giving environment—all of this filled him up inside, like the lyric-less words of a song by the Toda people, turning into a raag . . .
She came. Wilted and lost. She blossoms in disbelief. The disbelief vanishes but she remains in bloom.
She sits next to Shekhar. The two of them are silent. Shekhar wants to say something, but how can something which can’t be expressed in your native tongue, for which silence is a rough expression, be expressed in a foreign language?
Shekhar begins reciting the Gitanjali to her. She listens, lost as before.
One day the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying and I knew it not . . .16
Then in a voice that cracks, with disconnected and broken sentences, Sharda tells him about the three days that she came to look for him and was disappointed. Shekhar sits there quietly and seriously, hiding the gratitude in his heart . . .
But these were the days of adolescence. How long could he keep up that seriousness?
The pair got up, and Shekhar, holding the book in his hand, ran this way and that trying to catch Sharda, but she was lightning and uncatchable. The running took them far from their familiar favourite spot, to the foot of another mountain, which had a waterfall at its base and on which lilies bloomed in the grass that covered it all over—most of them were perfectly white, but a few had red lines drawn through their petals, making them look like the Sudarshan Chakra.
Shekhar Page 20
