‘They’re all the same under their skins—avaricious beasts—’
‘John the Baptist—’
‘You’re an idiot, an idiot—’
Shekhar had made up his mind that with or without an invitation he wouldn’t return to Manika’s place; he had been banned from Chatursen’s group after fighting with Kaalu; aloof from those who were less intelligent than he was out of arrogance; unhappy with his family after getting letters of rejection to his repeated requests for more spending money; when Shekhar was sitting in melancholy isolation in his room like an untamed, proud horse trampling on the dust of the past, he began wanting to write formal prose or poetry to give himself solace like he used to, he realized that a few of the things that Manika had said echoed in his mind and scattered his thoughts and compelled him to think about them rather than brush them off easily . . . He didn’t want to do that, but his memory contained a certain compulsion and it made him helpless. It was all too easy to remove thoughts of the members of Chatursen’s group or the Kaul sisters from his mind—they were merely the fashionable forms of irrelevant vices; but Manika—she was the mutilated and corrupt form of power, depressing, but not contemptible that she couldn’t be ignored. Manika’s—her type’s—their souls were completely infected, but it was still a soul, and the infection was not hers alone; it was the desire of the modern soul . . .
Shekhar gave up the futile quest for solace, and having dropped the pretence of formal prose or poetry, he began writing whatever came pouring forth from his brain—students and teachers . . . fashion11 and culture, reason and passion, hedonism and asceticism and obsession . . . Gradually he began to write faster, as if his mind were being cast in a mould, and in his growing astonishment he realized that he was automatically composing prose and poetry, narrative and exposition and so much more; and although he wasn’t experiencing the pleasure of creation, merely the satisfaction of exertion; and although he wasn’t colouring the pages with the sweet colours of his imagination, merely pouring forth the bitter juices of familiar experiences; and once he had written something down he had no desire to go back and read what he had written; he’d pick up the piece of paper and toss it in the large drawer in his cupboard—nevertheless his mind was becoming disciplined and skilled. Slowly he was overtaken with the knowledge or the belief that the people he was writing about, the men and women who had surrounded him and made up his world, were ultimately not all bad; they were pathetic ensembles of good intentions—they possessed noble desires, but their desires weren’t strong enough. They were satisfied with setting out to find the virtuous but were ultimately ensnared, trapped and destroyed by the wicked . . . Could a man possibly condemn such people? But wasn’t compassion for such as these equally impossible? A lone individual trying to view the whole world with compassion—he had set for himself an immense challenge!—Slowly, without coming to any resolution to this question, the stack of coloured pages began to grow, so much so that he began to stack his filled notebooks in a box and then, when it was no longer possible to divide them into categories, he filled up an entire cupboard . . .
His friends mocked his new-found asceticism. The circle around Chatursen took it as a sign of its complete supremacy, and no matter when Shekhar would leave his room they would greet him with barks and meows, a new sort of tradition to announce their victorious glee; others thought it was just preparations for the exams, a few said that he had been wearing borrowed clothes and shoes, and now that he was no longer getting them, he wasn’t out and about as much . . . Everyone scoffed at him, but really they were all burning with curiosity about what he was up to.
It was now the height of summer—examination days were fast approaching. Shekhar read a few books as if intoxicated to prepare, took the exams in a daze and knew that he would still easily score well and then immersed himself in writing. His classmates went back home after the exams, but the remaining students spread all manner of rumours about him when they saw that he was still studying—everything from preparations for the ICS exams to opium dens—but he remained immersed. Finally, the remaining students had gone back to their homes and Shekhar was left all by himself.
Shekhar wasn’t prepared for the isolation. Something of the terror of isolation had fallen over him. It was necessary for him to run away from it—from himself—constantly; constantly establishing himself and staying put. Finding himself alone in the hostel, he began to be drawn towards the servants—and suddenly he was interested in their lives. But after two or three days, he had decided that there was nothing more there that could keep him interested—these hill folk smoked their hookahs all day and spoke vulgarly, sang a few songs in the evening and played kabaddi at night, and that was it. And then when he found nothing of interest nearby, he unconsciously started wandering the streets and the alleys. It was terribly hot during the daytime, so he slept through the day, and from evening until midnight he’d be wandering, and after a couple of hours of sleep, he’d be walking again in the early morning.
Those who have not spent any time in such aimless wanderings—in perfect vagabondage—cannot imagine how deep the intoxication is. It took Shekhar a long time to realize that the curiosity which was drawing him to wander each chance he got was slowly destroying him—he was gradually becoming a full-fledged ‘loafer’,12 the kind with no curiosity, with no desire, ambition, hope or will, who had no more to his existence than the fact that ‘he was’. Unconsciously he was approaching that condition where he might steal in order to eat if he got hungry, without noticing that he had stolen or that he had done it because he was hungry; or that he could steal someone’s blanket because he was cold but wouldn’t realize it . . .
That was why when he suddenly set out on the same path on which he had followed Chatursen and the others that one time, he wasn’t completely at fault, even though he was at the time completely aware and very mindful.
*
As he walked through that hazy neighbourhood, lit by multicoloured lights, his mind grew dim and tired instead of alert and awake. This irritated and frustrated him. It was as if he were shaking his mind trying to wake it up, saying, ‘Wake up, Shekhar, do you know where you are? This is the red-light district. They sell flesh here, they sell satisfaction here, they sell happiness here. Get it?’ . . . But his mind refused to grasp this. In his growing rage, he began repeating, ‘Whores, whores, whores, prostitutes,13 harlots, get it? Where there are no relations—no shame—no light, no darkness—only colours—faces colourfully painted . . .’ But this only made his mind even more tired. It didn’t wake it; it refused to come under Shekhar’s command and it wasn’t prepared to go forward either. It was as if it had no concern for either the one that was going forward or the one that was advising caution . . .
All of a sudden, a woman bumped into him. He realized with some shock that the bump hadn’t been accidental; the woman had intentionally, purposefully and indecently shoved him. Shekhar stared at her for a second—without anger, without feeling, and stood off to the side. Astonishingly, the woman cursed at him. Shekhar wanted to ask himself, ‘Why did I come here? What did I want to do here? What did I want to get here?’ . . . He had perhaps hoped that he would have an exciting time or feel a sharp disgust or get angry; some overwhelming reaction which would stir things up inside him, which would make him tremble—this softly—very softly!—he wasn’t prepared for this fatigue—nor for the slightness of the tumult . . .
Two half-naked boys were sitting on a porch. They were sitting together in an obscene pose, their arms around each other’s necks, each kissing the other on the mouth, and after each kiss they’d look across to the facing window and laugh a meaningful laugh. Shekhar followed their eyes—in the light from a blue light bulb14 was a woman sitting wearing a purple sari, and in the coloured light her made-up face looked like—the face of a corpse lying in water . . .
Shekhar moved on.
Four Muslims wearing chequered, jute sarongs were standing under a window and watching a tall mendi
cant. The mendicant was old, wearing an ascetic’s red and yellow, with a string of large rosaries around his neck, looking up at a deformed, middle-aged woman sitting on the balcony above saying, ‘What? Aren’t you a woman? I may not have any money, I might be a beggar, but—’ now beating his chest, ‘—I’m a man, a man . . .’ The woman is staring at him with contempt, and the gathered onlookers are laughing . . .
No. Not this either. Here, too, there was only the same note of alienation, a faint repulsion and the echo of Manika’s phrase, ‘—They’re all the same under their skins—avaricious beasts’ . . . Man and man, woman and woman . . . man and woman . . . Shekhar moved farther on.
A young girl, half-naked and in rags, pulled at his arm and said, ‘Sir, give me some money.’
‘I don’t have any money; away with you.’ Shekhar jerked his arm free; his tone was cruel, too.
The girl clutched on to his legs. She said, ‘Give me some money or come with me—you can give me money afterwards.’ She stopped speaking and gestured to a small building in the distance where a lantern was glowing . . .
Shekhar didn’t even free himself; he walked on with her on his leg. The girl let go.
A voice from the sides, ‘Kinno, look—it’s one of your countrymen—call to him, won’t you?’
Shekhar felt a faint twinge of curiosity. From the name of the person addressed and the revelation that she was a countrywoman, Shekhar couldn’t immediately tell what region she was from. But he didn’t pause, nor did he turn around to look, even though he heard the loud sound of the kiss that had been aimed in his direction . . .
He turned at the corner when the person coming towards him said—‘Flowers for sale!’
No, they weren’t garlands of jasmine. Shekhar took one look, staggered backwards as if he had been shot and then, steadying himself, bent his head and covered his eyes with one hand and ran—ran . . . In this place—bouquets of lotuses! Lotuses, which had been for him symbols of purity, which . . .
He ran, and for no apparent reason a meaningless phrase repeatedly overwhelmed him like a blow from a hammer—God and Man—God and Man . . .
The conclusion to which those lotus flowers forced the various streams of thought in his head, and the shackles that were on him as a result of the decision not to go home for the vacation, became the reason that Shekhar was filled with a burning desire to go to Kashmir as soon as possible. The beautiful playground of his childhood . . . How long had it been since he had seen anything beautiful, and how deep was the longing in his heart to see such things—that were beautiful, completely beautiful . . .
But was that real? Was it really the quest for beauty that had made his life here so tumultuous? Was it the ugliness of his condition that was wreaking havoc inside him? He wasn’t certain, but war was another name for chasing after possibilities, and life was merely a protracted struggle to catch the possible . . .
*
There’s an ancient Chinese poem which roughly says, ‘Should a man be lulled into a stupor by the desire that his bones be buried in the same tomb as his father’s? Wherever one goes, one can find rolling hills “dark with the crops of the harvests”.’15
He turned that poem into a proverb and set out for Kashmir. On the way, he kept on filling his mind with the reborn memories of his past, but he couldn’t taste their sweetness, the past isn’t made more attractive by having a grave next to it; it only produces a desire to find a better hill dark with the crops of the harvests than the first, no matter where one would have to go to find it . . .
He would also laugh at his own quest—a quest for truth, a quest for knowledge, a quest for freedom, he had heard of all of these, but he was undoubtedly the first detective on a quest for beauty.
The past was a lie. There was no hill dark with the crops of the harvests—only graves.
When he got to Srinagar, Shekhar searched in each lane and alley—it had no effect on him. There was nothing special in Srinagar—except for the varieties of smells. He even went to visit the renowned forests outside the city—but all that was there were lines and angles and circles—and the austere serenity and exacting arrangement of the trees only reminded him of the tranquillity of death. The person who had famously written about those forests—‘If there was ever a heaven on earth, it was this, it was this, it was this’16—was probably a mathematician who caught the craze of forestry . . . Shekhar travelled over rivers and streams and lakes, but the beautiful vistas were wrecked by tourists and the reckless throngs of their smoky boats. That was when he set out on a journey to a certain lake hidden in the perfect whiteness of the Himalayas. He looked at the yellow, red, blue and white flowers blooming in the mountainous foothills on either side of the road with eyes soaring upwards, and he had gone so high that here and there he could see last year’s ice hidden under the cover of rocky crags. He broke off a lone blossom of blue poppy flower, which was considered a lucky find, from inside one such crag—how strange was the fortune of that flower which bestowed luck on the one who had it but meant the death of the flower!—but beauty, he wasn’t able to find beauty! He climbed higher, while the coolies who accompanied him prepared to rebel because others had been where he was headed, but none had been able to camp—no one had been able to strike a tent there . . . But, ‘That’s where beauty would be found!’ These words convinced them to go as far as the lake; at the edge of the lake, they struck camp and he lay down to think, ‘Where to now?’
The lake was wide, and in places in the middle, sheets of ice floated on the surface; above, a flock of cranes flew back and forth, and a gust of wind blew across the surface of the lake as if preparing the glorious path for the arrival of some mountain goddess. Shekhar watched for a while, and then because he was tired and shivering from the cold, he went inside and closed the tent to think—because the trails stopped here, and they’d have to go back, but he never paid attention to the trails leading back down, so how would he go back . . .
Standing in a crevice on one side of the lake, Shekhar thought he saw, in the cave created by two boulders in front of him, some goddess clad in white, standing, dipping her feet in the water. Then he thought, no, she wasn’t a goddess, she was human, and she was someone that Shekhar knew. But who? It wasn’t that either, the face merely resembled someone’s—Sharda? Shashi?
Shekhar woke with a start. He had fallen asleep, and moonlight streamed in from the crack in the opening of the tent and spread across his face. His dream had unsettled him, and he felt something like guilt. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and emerged from his tent.
Outside, clear moonlight was scattered everywhere, so bright that only a few stars could be seen even in the cloudless sky. The lake shimmered. Watching the play of colours—the play of only one colour, white—or rather the play of mere light and its absence left Shekhar speechless. The sparkling waters of the lake reflecting the smoky, dark mountains and the distant haze of the sweet, beloved, brilliant snow-covered range . . . Seeing this scene on that vast, perfectly still night sent a quickening wave through his body, as if he were waking from the dream of this world and entering into some higher plane of reality . . . It thrilled him. He closed his eyes, as if the only way to preserve this scene was by closing his eyes, as if open eyes would have mutilated it . . .
Oh, beauty . . .
Shekhar found himself shivering fiercely. He felt as if there were some heavy weight on his head and it was necessary to get rid of it; he slowly returned to his tent.
He went inside and lit a candle, got a pen and some paper and for a moment fidgeted with his pen indecisively. Then he wrote, ‘The union of beauty and reason can never be binding.’ He stopped for a while and then suddenly decided to put that piece of paper on his knee, and he bent over and started writing—the very first and most beautiful story of his life . . .
*
He had spent his whole life in cities—in the filth and the crowds of cities, in their strife and commotion, and he had learned to be so quiet and cont
ent amidst that that he served no purpose other than to add one more to the ranks of the urban population. He was a part of that filth and crowd, that strife and commotion. His neighbours knew of his stoic disposition. That’s why, when they heard about his decision to go to Kashmir, they laughed until their bellies hurt. ‘You’re going to visit Kashmir?’ He couldn’t even see the beauty in a buffalo—and Kashmir? He was setting out to understand the beauty that had eluded even the best artists’ attempts—this slithering worm of the city’s back alleys, eyeless, which couldn’t go forward if it wanted without first bunching itself into a ball. The saying was right—the camel, the horse and the buffalo drown and then the ass asks if the water is too deep!
But because he was a stoic individual, none of these words had any effect on him. He had to go, so he went.
He stayed in Srinagar for several days. He wandered around, drifted in search of the beauty that everyone could see and appreciate, but he was the only luckless one who couldn’t find it. He was slowly coming around to the belief that beauty might only be imaginary—and as he became more convinced, his quest became increasingly disoriented. He went to see the monuments built by the Mughals—cheap ornamentation and experiments in mathematics—that was all they were! He went to the village first and came back disappointed. Gulmarg made no impression on him. Dal Lake seemed lifeless to him, and Wular Lake was just a pool of dirty water.
Ultimately, he became restless to go back to his town—its filth and crowds, its strife and commotion. There things might not have been beautiful, but they were perceptible, they could be grasped and understood! Should he go back?
But leaving a task halfway through—that was what connoisseurs did—and how could he, one numb to pleasure, abandon his quest in the middle? He went outside his tent to sit and think, ‘Am I the only person in the world incapable of experiencing beauty? Am I the only one born with this disability? Or have I not deemed myself worthy yet . . .’
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