Kumar said, ‘All right, let’s go.’
They sat on the tram and set off.
Once there, they began walking. Beyond the residential areas they came upon a deserted street. It was almost evening—on the path were the long shadows cast by the trees planted along the sides. It seemed as if someone had painted on the golden slopes of the earth made uneven by the dust . . . Shekhar kept walking silently as he looked at the ground, holding Kumar’s hand in his. Who knows what he was thinking? Kumar kept looking at him directly as if he wanted to say something, but he would remain silent when he saw the expression on his face.
By the time they could hear the grave roar of the ocean, evening had fallen, the rosy glow of the sky had grown dense until it was tenebrous. They began walking faster and soon reached the water’s edge. They sat down on the flat sand under the cover of a large rock and watched the waves. As they watched, the last light of the evening sky was extinguished.
It was peaceful. The wind wasn’t stirring. People had also gradually headed back—that part of the shore was quite far from the residential areas. Looking out at the ocean in the darkness Shekhar felt that he was completely alone with Kumar there and that the ancient roar of the ocean had enveloped them . . .
Because despite the fact that the air was still, there was a deep disquiet in the ocean—foamy waves weren’t coming in over great distances, but there was a foamless commotion in the distance that was growing . . . Who knew where that vast, deep thunder arose—more powerful than the voice of the waves, and resolute . . .
There was a full moon out, and on the other side of the ocean, in the east, the moon was about to rise—and to steer it through the sky was a lone cloud, standing on the horizon, laced on all sides with a fringe from the moon, and behind it, just about to manifest, the breaking dawn of some unprecedented treasure of beauty . . .
Shekhar was quiet, and Kumar was quiet because of him.
Shekhar was slowly tousling Kumar’s long hair by running his fingers through it. It seemed to Shekhar that Kumar’s hair returned his touch with a tremble, just like a dog sometimes shows its gratitude to its master’s loving touch . . .
When Shekhar spoke, Kumar was startled. ‘Look, Kumar, it’s as if there’s no one else in this world.’
Kumar didn’t respond.
Shekhar bunched up Kumar’s hair into his fist, pulled gently and said, ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ Even though he didn’t think it was particularly necessary for Kumar to say anything . . .
Shekhar spoke again, ‘That’s all right, too. Everyone’s world is only as big as what they understand. Because how could we fathom the existence of those things that are outside of our experiences? I know that I have left several worlds behind, and I am certain that there are many ahead of me, but I don’t know, the one and the other seems like a complete lie to me—I feel nothing for it. At this moment the boundaries of my world are that rock behind us, that cloud in front and the moon about to rise behind it, me over here and you over there . . .’
He stopped talking. Kumar still hadn’t said anything. Shekhar took his hand out of Kumar’s hair and pressed it against the ground and became contemplative.
After a little while, he spoke again, ‘Kumar, nothing seems real today, like it’s all a dream. Still, the dream that I am a part of at this moment, doesn’t it seem lovely? Why do I feel as though you are younger than I am, that I am your protector, your guardian angel2 (protective goddess),3 and that you depend on me?’
Kumar responded quickly, ‘You’re right . . . I do depend on you.’
The response was in line with Shekhar’s line of thought, but it felt wrong to him. As if there were some hastiness in it, some aversion, some pretence; as if it were dragging him back to a mean reality from the world of his splendid dream. He said, ‘Kumar, it doesn’t seem as if you’ve heard a word I’ve said.’
Kumar was taken aback, ‘How did you come to that conclusion? If I hadn’t been listening, how would I have answered you?’
Shekhar became even more serious and said, ‘Tell me the truth, what are you thinking about right now?’
‘I’ll tell you—but you can’t get upset.’
‘Me—upset with you?’
Kumar hesitated over the words, ‘The thing is that my mother was really sick and Father spent his entire income on her treatment—it’s likely he even took out a loan. They haven’t sent anything for me this month and probably won’t be able to next month either. I haven’t even been able to pay my fees, and college . . . I’ll probably have to . . .’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Even more anxiously than before, ‘I ask you for help all the time—who else is there who cares for me? But—I worry sometimes about how much—’
Shekhar was offended, ‘Am I just anyone to you?’ And then, ‘How much money do you need?’
Kumar stumbled over his words, ‘I don’t know exactly. Maybe fifty—maybe some—probably fifty or sixty . . .’
‘Will a hundred be enough?’
Shyly, ‘What will I do with a hundred . . .’
‘It’s settled—now let’s talk about something else! Everything will be fine tomorrow. Don’t ever think such things again.’
‘Shekhar, I am your—’
Shekhar knew what the next word was going to be and so he stopped him—‘Enough, now quiet! I’ve already said there will be no more discussion about this!’
They fell into silence again.
Slowly, the moon rose. Shekhar saw as the tiny cloud that had been adorned with a silvery fringe until now suddenly became dark as soon as the moon emerged.
In the moonlight, in the slipperiness of the sand of the nearby beach, scattered stones became visible, like black stamps. Shekhar looked at Kumar, who was looking at the moon.
Shekhar blurted out—and as soon as he spoke he was surprised at what he said—it had taken so little time to find words for his thoughts and make them manifest—‘Kumar, if you ever become someone else’s, other than mine, I will choke the life out of you.’
Kumar responded with a note of fear in his voice, ‘What are you saying, Shekhar!’
Shekhar pulled Kumar towards him and kissed him on the mouth. But at the same time a doubt welled up in his mind—‘Why this fear?’ He also felt that whatever he was feeling wasn’t being returned; like his own reflection on the surface of a lake, which shudders, not with life, but with illusion. But he suppressed both of these doubts immediately . . .
Kumar said, ‘Come, let’s go now. It’s getting so late.’
It took Shekhar some effort to avert his eyes from the ocean, and he said, ‘Come.’ He didn’t want to leave, but when he thought about the thing that he had just said, and the compulsion which had made him say it, he didn’t think he could challenge Kumar’s request.
They went back to the hostel. Neither of them said a word.
*
Shekhar gave Kumar 100 rupees. A few days later he gave him twenty more. Of these, fifty rupees had been given to him to save—so that he could use them if the need arose. What remained was his monthly allowance. And having disbursed money in this manner, he wrote a letter home asking for more money.
Two days later a reply to his letter arrived, but money did not. Father had written that Shekhar was wasting his money, the money was for necessary expenses, not to be squandered on friends, and—more things like that . . . And also that next time he should think it over seriously and write how much money he needs and—it would be sent to him.
With wounded pride, Shekhar wrote back that whenever he wrote, he took care to think about what he wrote. He needed that amount of money and he didn’t need to think it over again. If his father wanted to send the money, he should, otherwise he shouldn’t.
That letter got no response—nor did money arrive. Shekhar stopped leaving his room.
Kumar went to him and said, ‘Come on, let’s go to the circus today.’
Shekhar said, ‘I real
ly don’t feel like going today.’
‘Why, what happened? You don’t go out at all any more. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, just because I don’t feel like it.’
‘You just have to come today. Your mood is just going to get worse sitting here all day. It’s even been ten or fifteen days since you’ve gone to the cinema.’
Shekhar turned away and said, ‘I don’t have any money. And it doesn’t seem likely that any will arrive soon.’
Kumar waited for a moment and then asked, ‘What happened?’
‘Father wrote that I was spending money on trivial things and that he wasn’t going to send that much money. I wrote back that if he was going to send a lesser amount then he shouldn’t send any at all. That’s all.’
The two were quiet for a while. Then Kumar got up and said, ‘I’m going now. I have something—’
‘Come on, sit down! I can’t concentrate. Let’s just sit and talk this evening. Or let’s go to the ocean.’
‘No, I just remembered, I have something important to take care of. It’s good that we didn’t go to the circus, otherwise—’ He said it as he was leaving the room.
Shekhar was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
What is poverty? What is wealth? Why is it that one man who is looking for entertainment cannot go to the cinema or the circus, and why is it that another man prevents him from going despite having the ability to allow him to go?
But was entertainment just cinema and theatre? Could a person not be happy without going to those places? There had been days before when he didn’t go to the cinema—was he not entertained then? When he had gone to Lahore for his exams, he’d get bored studying all day and want some entertainment, but it was enough for him if Shashi walked by him without saying anything and he could tease her by saying ‘Sisterji?’ and if not even that, just to be able to hear her laugh from a distance . . . Why couldn’t he do that any more?
Had Kumar been there, perhaps he wouldn’t have thought such things. Kumar’s closeness, Kumar’s conversation, Kumar’s laughter—all of that would be enough for him . . .
But for Kumar?
But for Shashi?
What is this unexpected accident of love which makes a man dependent on someone else like this, but at the same time also gives him strength, also becomes his protector . . . And what was that unexpected accident which was greater than love, a force greater than love, which made love possible, which created new circumstance, in which love could exist, in which two souls could meet?
But were he and Kumar one? Wasn’t there an emptiness in that oneness, somewhere deep down? Did they want the same thing? Did they desire in the same way? Did—
But was it necessary in love for any two people to be sold by one another’s own hands and become each other’s slave? Was there no love without servitude?
And if so, why was there this condition that love had to exist between two individuals? Was it necessary that one had to have someone to love—was it impossible to separate the feeling of love from some crude, isolated object? Was it necessary that the sentence ‘I am in love’ was unerringly followed by the question ‘With whom?’ and did that ‘whom’ have to be only one? Couldn’t all humanity be loved, all love be loved?
He had always brooded; he had never tried to step outside of himself, embrace life, make the world his own, he had never tried making himself the world’s. He kept asking for love; he had never known how to give love . . .
But the condition that he found himself in at this moment, was it his fault, or Kumar’s, or someone else’s? Was the desertion that he was feeling at that moment a result of his incapacity to love or the result of his inability to receive it?
A verse of poetry danced in Shekhar’s mind. He got up and started writing:
O Man, O you formless, dense feeling of which I am a part, I want to forget myself, forget my loves, and become only yours; I love you; I love the desire to love you and my ability to . . . O you, give me the strength that I might love only you and that I might endure your love . . .
That night, Shekhar went downstairs to eat dinner and asked the hostel peon, ‘Hasn’t Kumar come?’
‘Now? No, he has gone to the circus.’
‘With whom?’
‘With Krishnamurthy.’
Shekhar went back upstairs without eating dinner. He sat on the windowsill in his room and watched the various tramcars racing outside, listened to their gears, the horns of the motorcars and the screams of the rickshaw-wallahs, but when he found himself unable to observe, hear or understand anything, he began repeating the verse he had written like a meaningless rant—‘O you, give me the strength that I might love only you and that I might endure your love . . .’
*
For two days, Shekhar didn’t go to class. He sat in his room, waiting for Kumar to come to him and ask for his forgiveness, or at least come clean to him, but Kumar never came.
On the third day, a very bored Shekhar emerged from his room. He had decided that he would go sit by the ocean and clear his muddled head. He wasn’t even thinking about Kumar—nor did he have any desire to enter his room and see him.
As he was descending the stairs, he heard two or three voices laughing from a room and when he recognized Kumar’s voice among them he stopped in his tracks.
One voice—‘Shekhar doesn’t leave his room these days. What’s the matter?’
‘Haven’t you heard? His father’s cut him off,’ Kumar spoke.
‘Then it’s probably for the best,’ and then a loud guffaw.
‘That’s why Krishnamurthy’s so lucky these days, right, Kumar?’ and then another chortle.
Then Kumar’s voice, ‘Come on, man, don’t blather on like a fool. Shekhar was an idiot.’
Shekhar leaned on the railing for support as he slowly descended the stairs. At the bottom, he composed a message and gave it to the servant, ‘Please give this to Kumar—I’ll be waiting here.’
The message read, ‘It’s true, I am an idiot and a fool. But do you know which day I became a fool? I said to you on the ocean shore, “Kumar, if you ever become someone else’s, other than mine, I will choke the life out of you.” I was a fool for not understanding my own words . . . Insects belong to no one.’
It didn’t take long for Kumar to show up and say, ‘What’s the meaning of this, Shekhar?’
‘Meaning? Didn’t I make myself clear enough?’
‘I’m your debtor, and it’s because of the fact you have that power over me that you’ve insulted me so deeply, isn’t it? If I—’
Shekhar was enraged, ‘Debtor?’ But he immediately became calm and said, ‘It’s all right. I won’t take offence if this is the only thing that your soul-for-sale can come up with.’
He turned around and walked towards the edge of the ocean in long strides.
It was dark, the sky was thick with clouds. The beach was deserted, desolate. The air was completely still. And the ocean, too, was uncommonly still, still and hushed, although it seemed as though a light were burning somewhere inside it, or veiled lightning were dancing—the early stages of an explosion . . .
Shekhar felt that had the ocean appeared any other way to him, he wouldn’t have been able to stay at the water’s edge for even a second . . .
*
When Shekhar awoke from that sleep, he began to hear all manner of things being said about him throughout the hostel—a give and take of opinions.
He was a Brahmin, moreover his name was Chandrashekhar Pandit, but where was his topknot? Where was his sacred thread? When and where did he perform his prayers? He may very well have received God’s greatest gift—being one of the twice-born—but he had forsaken it with his conduct, he was fallen . . .
The hostel where Shekhar lived was for Brahmins. That’s why Shekhar, according to his father’s wishes, lived there. Before now, no one had even raised any questions about his Brahmin-hood. Several students lived according to the rules set for Brahmins and
practised the rituals, but on the inside, they didn’t really have much respect for them. Their dining hall was enclosed on all sides so that their meals wouldn’t be polluted by the ‘sinful glance’ of a passer-by—so that it wouldn’t become polluted by being looked at by members of the lower castes. If ever that happened, they treated their food as though it had become as disgusting as if a dog had partaken of it. Although sometimes a dog would wander into the dining hall and it was considered sufficient if it was chased away with a, ‘Get!’
It didn’t take Shekhar long to figure out the source of these criticisms. But he never had the desire to talk to Kumar or even to look at him. He realized that all the students were looking at him as if he were some alien creature, and it seemed to him that they were all thinking to themselves about what Shekhar would be in his next life—a dog, a crow, an insect—as if they felt pity for his fate. Sensing their ‘pity’ enraged him, and he thought, ‘Even if I go to hell, what’s it to them?’
But their ‘pity’ was never strong enough that they were moved by thoughts of his damnation to forget their future heaven. They had all decided that they wouldn’t eat with Shekhar, and one day Shekhar learned that the principal had received a petition from all of the students, which demanded that separate arrangements be made for Shekhar’s meals, otherwise they would be forced to leave the hostel.
They also told the people who ran the mess that until they had reached an agreement, Shekhar should be seated apart from the rest.
Shekhar found all of this completely unacceptable. But he didn’t want to drag the staff at the mess into this argument; so, he decided that until some kind of agreement was worked out, he would go and eat at a restaurant.
A decision had been made. The principal had decided that the hostel was for Brahmins, and that determinations of Brahmin-hood could only be made by members of one’s own clan, since there were a variety of traditions amongst Brahmins; Shekhar had been born a Brahmin and so he would remain there and continue to eat there, and no one could force him to leave.
Shekhar won. The other boys also saw no benefit in continuing the fight. The matter ended there—though the boys never forgave Shekhar his victory, and they never lost an opportunity to remind him that irrespective of what the principal said, they didn’t consider him a Brahmin.
Shekhar Page 24
