Sharda’s face lit up, but she immediately turned around and cast a terrified glance back at her house.
Shekhar said, ‘You’re acting as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
Sharda didn’t respond.
‘You came to this place and didn’t tell me,’ Shekhar said with sweet reproach.
‘And where did you disappear to without telling me? I had no idea where you were.’
Shekhar observed that they were walking in the direction of a nearby park.
‘What are you doing these days?’
‘Preparing for the exams! There are only ten or fifteen days left.’
‘Matriculation?’
‘Yes.’
‘My exams are about to happen as well.’
‘Intermediate?’
‘Yes.’
After a few quiet moments Shekhar said, ‘Come to Madras after your exams. You should study at the college there.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll be there, too . . .’
‘And if I don’t come?’ Sharda smiled a little, perhaps.
‘Then I’ll take it that I am no one to you.’
‘Who are you to me?’
In that dim light, Shekhar couldn’t tell if Sharda was smiling or not. He began swinging the gate at the entrance to the park.
But Sharda said, ‘No, not now. I’m going. Mother will get upset. I’ll come back in the morning.’ And she hurried back.
Shekhar also walked back slowly.
They met at the park again in the morning. The conversation began haltingly, but gradually the dam burst open. Sharda revealed that they had returned for her older sister’s wedding, and that her father had been transferred there at the same time, and they had been here ever since. She also revealed that after Shekhar had left for his exams, she had cried quite a lot. She had cried so much that it made her ill, and that’s when her mother began to surmise what had happened. Ever since then her attitude towards her had changed. She stopped thinking of Sharda as a little girl. Now she treated her politely, like an equal, but there was such discipline lurking beneath that politeness . . . As she was talking, she suddenly burst into a smile and said, ‘I’m a grown-up now, no?’ Then Shekhar started telling her about himself, how his mother, too, was a strict disciplinarian but there was not even any politeness there, how he made friends in college, stories about his Antigonon League19 and its principles, his night school, his frustrations, his friend, the ocean, and the temple and the lake and the lotus petals . . . And then he began narrating how he went to Mahabalipuram, how he went swimming in the ocean and drowned . . .
A faint yelp escaped from Sharda’s lips, which pleased Shekhar—she was so worried about Shekhar . . . Then he began telling her even more romantic stories—about his running away from home, about falling into the waterfall in Kashmir . . .
Sharda interjected, ‘Stop this! I don’t want to hear talk like that.’
‘Why?’
‘Make me a promise.’
‘Tell me what first.’
‘I want something from you. Promise me that you’ll give it.’
‘I will.’
‘Promise me that you won’t treat your life so casually—you won’t put it in any danger—’
Shekhar’s heart welled up in happiness, and at the same time, a courage coursed through him as well. But his heart was racing so fast that it was about to burst . . . All of a sudden he blurted out—‘Sharda, do you love me?’
Sharda didn’t answer.
‘Tell me, Sharda, do you love me?’
Sharda was agitated and she got up and said, ‘I’m going home—it’s very late. Mother will be angry. I won’t be able to go out again. All this time—’
Gradually, Shekhar’s heart stopped racing. He had already started and going forward was not that difficult. Sharda’s avoidance of the question discouraged him a little, but he insisted, ‘I didn’t know what love was, but now I do. I will cherish you, Sharda. Tell me if you love me.’
‘And what if I say that I don’t?’
‘Then . . . then . . .’ Shekhar couldn’t find the words. He was quiet for a long time. Who knows what he was going over and over in his own mind . . . Then he said, ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t ask this now, but you will come to Madras, won’t you?’
She almost certainly didn’t care for this change in the direction of the conversation, but Shekhar didn’t notice that. Disappointed, Sharda said, ‘And what if I don’t come?’
‘What do you mean you won’t come? You’ll have to come,’ said Shekhar somewhat angrily and with a little laughter in order to hide his anger from himself.
Gradually the threads became entangled. Sharda said, ‘I won’t come. I’ll study here. There’s no point in going there. Besides, where will I live all by myself? And—’
‘If you don’t come, I’ll know it’s because you don’t care for me at all.’
Even more frustrated, Sharda said, as if repeating what he had said, ‘Then it seems as if I will have to give you an opportunity to think that I don’t care for you at all.’
‘Sharda?’
Sharda, silent.
‘Sharda!’
She, still silent.
‘Sharda!’ This time, his voice trembling, ‘Sharda, do you remember those days?’ Shekhar rapidly recounted so many of the things that had transpired two years ago—waiting for Sharda on her way back from school, their meeting in a forest of pine trees, sitting together and reading the Gitanjali, plucking flowers and finally that moment when he had suddenly got up and covered Sharda’s eyes with both hands and hidden his face in her hair, intoxicated by the fragrance . . .
Sharda, too, had turned away and haltingly said in a tormented, trembling voice, ‘I don’t think that there is any point in remembering those things that shouldn’t have happened.’
Shekhar stepped closer and clutched both of Sharda’s wrists. There was a desperate plea and a consciously suppressed rage in his sudden movement, in his touch, in his voice, all together. ‘Sharda! What’s happened to you? You love me. Say that you love me—’
‘Let go of my arm!’
‘Why won’t you say it? Say it—’ Shekhar tightened his grip even more.
And then in a voice suddenly straining with rage and tears, ‘You? Love? I regret ever having spoken to you!’ Sharda jerked her hands free, and worrying the dark marks that Shekhar’s fingers had left on her wrists, she ran home!
Shekhar stood there, paralysed, for a long time, trying to understand what had just happened, and then slowly made his way back home.
The next morning and evening, and then the next morning and evening, Shekhar waited for her in the park. Sharda didn’t come. Then, suddenly, Shekhar realized that everything was at an end. He wasn’t surprised. The ocean hadn’t accepted him, the ocean which accepts everything into its blue, it too had rejected him and thrown him out!
He was defiled. If Sharda didn’t accept him, what was surprising about that?
Shekhar told Sadashiv, ‘We should go back now.’
‘You’ve finished preparing! You—’ Sadashiv stopped suddenly and was left speechless, left staring into Shekhar’s eyes. After a little while he said in a hurt voice, ‘All right, let’s go. We’ll find out when we get back just how prepared you are.’ He started packing.
‘Sadashiv, you didn’t ask what happened.’
‘You’re upset. You’ll want to be alone while you’re upset. You won’t like getting close to me.’
‘Sadashiv, how did you come to be so wise?’
Softly, Sadashiv said, ‘I’ve learned a lot from my mother’s insanity. People who have suffered are qualified to be gurus.’
When they were leaving, Shekhar bowed to pay his respects and Sadashiv’s mother said, ‘Son, you haven’t told me when you’re planning on coming back.’
Shekhar was overcome with emotion. He immediately bent down and touched her feet.
With tears in her eyes, she placed her hand on his head and blesse
d him.
Shekhar noticed—filled with a feeling that was very similar to gratitude—that she didn’t give him the regular blessing—‘Be well.’ She had said, ‘Be glorious . . .’
*
For a few more days that meaningless, pointless effort, studying with those eyes that didn’t see anything; and then dispiritedly taking the exams; and then even they were over . . . Shekhar knew that he would pass, but he would barely pass and not more than that. He said goodbye to his friends and classmates.
And then to say goodbye to Madras he went to the ocean shore.
He no longer had any attachment to the region around Madras. He knew that he would never come back. Now his struggle with nature, the pageantry of his contamination, would take place on some other battlefront. Farewell to Sharda, farewell to Sharda’s land . . .
He watched the tide ebb and flow for a long time, and its unfathomable mysteriousness . . .
VOLUME 2
STRUGGLE
Part 1
Man and Nature
Roaring, the train raced on. Shekhar had already left his mother, father and brothers behind in the land of the Nilgiri mountains, and now Madras was fading in the distance, too. Nilgiri, Madras, Malabar, Travancore—all would be left behind! He was moving on, the train pulling him along as it recklessly raced on northwards, and only stopping for a breath after 1000 miles. And from there another train would leave and drag him another 1000 miles away. Two thousand miles away from all the places he had known . . .
But what were these places that he had known? What did they matter to him? What were the Nilgiri mountains to him except a place where his relatives lived? And what was Mahabalipuram except a place where he had almost drowned? And what was Travancore even, other than the place where Sharda was and where he had managed to fight with her? If he wasn’t there, these places didn’t really exist . . . These places existed because he had been in them, and now he was running away from all of them, running away from the mark he had left on all of those places, running away from himself . . .
Was any of this real? Were those places real? Was all of that conflict, love and accusation real? Was he even real? The train pulled him along as it raced on, and it seemed to him that nothing was real, perhaps not even the racing of the train . . .
But it couldn’t be anything other than real. Shekhar was running away from his failures, running from his pain. He was a fool. He was making a foolhardy attempt at running away from life. And was there any place where he could really hide from life? Those who run from the battlefront, run from their own failures, ultimately finding new battles at each step, and they remain defeated until they realize that they can’t run any more, until they hold their ground and fight . . . Running from life? There was only more life ahead. You couldn’t stop life; its expanse never ended . . .
Let it be. Madras will be 1000 miles behind and Punjab 1000 miles ahead. There was a new life there; and Vidyavati was there, and Shashi, and . . . The din of the train is like the thunder of the ocean. Ocean . . . but this thunder was leading him away from the ocean, far away . . .
*
The Punjabis were tall and strong in stature, fair-complexioned, attractive and, from the sound of it, well-reputed. Shekhar looked them in the eye—they didn’t flinch, neither from fear nor from meaningless courtesy.
And he thought, ‘Here is a man. I can work with him; he will fight shoulder to shoulder with me.’
He had run away from the battle and come. He had arrived exhausted, and so he didn’t believe himself to be battle-ready, didn’t find himself to be alert. It was as if he had loosened his armour and was resting. He wasn’t asleep, his eyes were open, but he wasn’t holding a sword either. He was simply observing—his eyes held only the vague feeling of an attempt at recognition, with neither the compulsion for friendship nor the hesitation of enmity.
And after seeing the people of this new land two years later he thought, ‘Here there are men. I can work with them.’
Two years ago, when he had come here to take his matriculation exams, he hadn’t really seen the people. He had come with a head full of thoughts of Sharda, and he left with new markings put there by Shashi, and he hadn’t really seen anything special. But now that he had just come from battle, he was measuring them with a warrior’s yardstick—although it was one that belonged to a tired and resting warrior.
Shekhar wasn’t a partisan—and if he was partial at all, then it was because there was some justification for Punjab and its people—and as soon as he arrived, he began trying to become of one mind and one spirit with them. He tried to talk to the boys in the hostel to understand their ideas, their principles and their hopes. When he realized that he was the source of the problem—since he didn’t speak their language, he didn’t wear the same clothes, it was clear that he wasn’t one of them—he tried to look for a solution to this as well. He had a few outfits made—collars, ties, socks, shoes, comb, brush,1 cologne, an iron to press his pants, a hanger to hang his coat and even a khaki sola topi—but not with any desire to impress. All of the things he bought were ordinary, he didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of money, but he liked things with a special simplicity so that while his purchases were not expensive they didn’t look cheap. It’s necessary for showy things to look expensive when someone gets up close, but if no one ever gets too close, an inexpensive, workable thing can pass just as well. When he put on his clothes and went to meet with his classmates, he felt that as far as trademarks went, he was worthy of standing in their ranks. The language problem persisted, though—he couldn’t speak their language well and he didn’t understand the idioms at all. But since he looked and behaved more like them, and because he was able to understand most of what they were saying, he didn’t appear to be an outsider. And he was gradually granted entrance into their midst.
The ease with which his clothes opened all kinds of doors for him should have made him suspicious, but he wasn’t in the right state of mind to be suspicious. Gaining acceptance, being welcomed, becoming recognized was so nice . . . Shekhar’s face wasn’t especially unattractive; nor did his European clothes weigh him down.
The tongue of a reserved man, an introverted man who is half-wild and half-ascetic, may very well falter in the constantly running, contrived, polite small talk of a foreign culture, but he has no problem or hesitation in putting on the clothes of a foreign culture or in making them his own. These clothes weren’t that strange to him. English wasn’t his mother tongue but it was his father tongue—an American priest had taught him to speak it using his own language . . . Soon, Shekhar discovered that the majority of the students knew who he was, and they didn’t know him the way that he was known in Madras . . . He gained some self-confidence, and with that confidence his studies improved. In the first quarterly exam, he learned that he was ranked first in three out of four subjects. So he became even more popular, received more invitations and was introduced to a wider circle . . . Slowly, the admiration he received from all corners spread through him like an intoxicant—he never noticed how or when his expenses more than doubled, how he now had more than three suitcases full of clothes when he only had a trunk before, since he could still never find the right colour tie for the right occasion—and even if you put all of his ties together, they still probably didn’t take up more than two inches of space! He knew that people came to ask his advice before they bought new clothes, and that the day after he wore a new tie, he could spot it in several places even though it was no longer around his neck. He even noticed that he had started getting invitations from male and female students who didn’t live in his hostel.
His armour was still on, loosely. There was so much happiness in abandoning it, in surrendering himself to each gust of wind. The wind would steal away his fatigue, dry his sweat, replace the blood tainted with exhaustion in his veins, cool it down and revitalize it, alleviate his pain . . . It was good to surrender yourself to the wind, to drift in the breeze . . .
But drifting i
n the breeze and flitting to and fro meant that the steel armour would pinch . . . As long as he had the armour on, he would have to remain a turtle—or he would have to take it off and throw it away so that it didn’t make things worse and injure him. Should Shekhar take it off and throw it away? But he had already cast off and thrown away all of his clothes, those vain pretences which are too heavy to carry on a journey . . . All that remained under the armour was his naked skin, naked and soft and vital . . . And hiding underneath the bone and meat and blood was a small, vulnerable, helpless, trembling life—Shekhar himself . . . So should he put the armour back on?
But it was so pleasant to lie down after taking off one’s armour in a boat lying on the edge of a river at some remove from the battle, to rise and fall with each gust of wind as if it were a swing . . .
*
But Shekhar came to find that the entire society that he had just been admitted into was divided into different factions. He didn’t detect such cliques amongst the students in the hostel, where people were divided into classes according to wealth or intelligence, but the people he met outside the hostel did things differently. Sometimes it seemed to him that these factions were based on ideologies because he noticed that Plato was revered as an idol in one of them and Schopenhauer in another; another would always be discussing Stoicism while another was debating Hedonism. Sometimes he felt as if all this factionalism was everyone’s attempt at differentiating their own particular addictions2 . . .
Shekhar slowly found himself being drawn towards two factions. The two groups were different from each other temperamentally speaking, but the internal conflict raging inside him drew him towards both simultaneously.
Most of the members of the first group lived with Shekhar in the dormitory. Shekhar had moved into this dormitory from his previous one because he had hoped to meet the best and brightest members of the student body. Generally, this was where the sons of well-to-do families lived, and most of the names that one heard around the college were residents of that dormitory because they played prominent parts in the sports teams—hockey, soccer, tennis, and so on—and took part in the debates that happened in the various clubs, or you could say that special places were reserved in this dormitory for such students . . .
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