He decided that he would try once—and if he still couldn’t experience it, then he would go back to his dirty, crowded and noisy city forever . . . He would know once and for all whether he had lost or won—if he was incapable of pleasure, then he would live with this harsh inability being his truth . . .
He put all of his necessary supplies on two mountain mules and set out with the mules’ owner.
He climbed the slopes for four days non-stop—the forests grew thicker, the silence deeper and the air thin, short and cold. For three more days, he and his mountain-dwelling companion kept moving on—crossing over countless tiny mountain streams and waterfalls from gurgling streams, strung together like pearls—past where the cedars and the birches stopped and the vast lowlands spread out all around them, lowlands covered in green, red, blue, yellow, white scentless flowers . . .
They went even farther—past where even the flowers stopped—except for the rare, forgotten blue poppy that one could see, and occasionally a strong-smelling shrub or a misshapen bush with dried leaves . . .
And beyond that even the lucky blue poppies stopped, the shrubs stopped, and all that remained were dull crags and trampled, insensitive, dull grass . . .
A thought occurred to him, that one by one all of the pleasurable things had fallen behind on this impassable trail—the trees had been left behind, the flowers had been left behind, the shrubs had been left behind and even the solitary, meditative blue poppies had been left behind—all that was left were the dull rocks, the dull grass and the dull curious one, himself . . . He should have been able to find beauty on this desolate path—but was beauty even a real thing? Wasn’t beauty just a name for an imagined pleasure, the feeling of an imminent experience of attaining pleasure? ‘This is just about to make me happy,’ thinks the person so overwhelmed by the thought that even before he attains happiness, he perceives pleasures and then says, ‘How beautiful!’ Isn’t beauty the name for the satisfaction acquired by the nectar of desire . . .
Did that mean that he had been separated from his own desires? He knew that wasn’t true, that his body could burn with desire, had burned, would burn . . . Did that mean that there was nothing in the world that could bring him happiness, or which would give him the hope of happiness? It was also difficult being that unlucky—even amongst the rocks that lie nearby, one could occasionally spy a green or white coloured vein.
He crossed a mountain pass and suddenly came to a clearing; there was a wide lake before him, surrounded on all sides by peaks—some naked and dark, some veiled in ice . . .
He told the mule driver17 to set up camp, and in the light drizzle of rain, he went inside, ate a little, and lay down—he was exhausted. He was so tired that he couldn’t even sleep—he just lay there thinking.
He was such a fool . . . Had anyone else set out on such a quest for beauty? One had heard about that in stories—some prince went to the island of sapphires where the goddess of beauty lived, or some king said to his minister that he wanted the essence of beauty—but had anyone ever tried to determine whether these stories were true? ‘Story’ and ‘reality’—even a small child was made to learn by rote that these were two different categories . . .
He was the only fool who hadn’t understood this—he lived in the real world and wanted to obtain something from a story world . . . Why shouldn’t people laugh at him? Or consider him a fool? At home, his wife, surrounded by the crowds and the filth of the city, would also laugh at him, saying that the fool had married but set out on a quest for beauty . . .
He woke with a start. In his dream he had seen a black boulder with two large, round eyes that were fixed on him and it said to him, ‘You did very well to set out on this quest for beauty that led you here—to me.’ And then all of a sudden it transformed into his wife, who burst into thunderous laughter.
He rose and went outside, taking long steps on his way towards the lake . . .
As if struck by lightning, he stopped in the middle of the path. Some inexpressible thing was gathering speed and welling up towards him—a little cold and frosty, a little awesome, a little thrilling—not just welling up, but shaking every vertebra in his spine and pervading his head . . .
Spread out before him—the light from the moon’s rays, shadows, the blanket of ice, sparkling waters, ripples, stars . . .
Beauty, like a deeply felt wound—the sensation coursed through his veins . . .
The dance of the moonbeams on the ripples of the water—the dance of mountain nymphs on a sheet of liquid velvet—and, on the far side, in the shape of a massive column and in a fixed pose, a row of seated ascetics—peaceful and meditative and immovable . . .
He staggered from the force of knowledge—he was lost in the infinite sky—he had attained it, but far beyond his capacity—his mind was left wounded, defeated and shattered in the face of that development . . .
Whoever sees Diana bathing is left blinded—it’s impossible to retain the ability to see anything after that sight . . .
A madness overtook him, he began babbling and walking forward with his arms outstretched so that he could embrace the beauty of the lake and the ice and the sky . . . But can one embrace a dream with one’s arms, hold it tight . . . ?
He was half-asleep as he was advancing—towards the lake, where the nymphs were dancing on the moonbeams . . .
The next day, when he emerged from his tent by sunrise, the mule18 driver went inside Shekhar’s tent, but he wasn’t there. He waited for him for some time and then set out to look for him.
There was nothing to be found—save a few footprints in the snow headed towards the lake that disappeared at the edge of the lake—and there was nothing beyond that, except an impregnable, veiled, ancient beauty—silent, smiling, secretive . . .
*
The very next morning, Shekhar packed up his things, tore down the tent and began his return. Now that he had secured his new feeling, it wasn’t necessary for him to stay there—not just unnecessary, it became impossible, too.
Three days later, he reached his first post office, where a letter finally reached him after having been sent from various places. There weren’t too many letters, only a few from familiar hands—when he saw one in an unfamiliar handwriting he tore open that envelope first, and the rest of the letters remained unread.
Shashi had written him a three-line letter—her father had died and her mother was suffering from repeated fainting spells.
*
It was evening, dark and silent; when Shekhar didn’t see anyone as he entered the house, he breathed a sigh of relief. For some reason, he was anxious that he wouldn’t be able to handle his share of the grief that had cast a shadow over this house. Even though he had come here and stayed here while Shashi’s father had been ill and had become a part of the household, still he felt that his connection was really only to Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi, and since both were presently racked with grief, he wouldn’t be able to go near them, share in their sorrows. It seemed as if he had become impersonal, personal feelings—pain and joy—didn’t affect him; and in that condition, it was both impossible for him to offer condolences and cruel for him not to . . .
At the door, on the threshold, in the courtyard, on the stairs—Shekhar saw no one. He quietly put his meagre bedding down in the courtyard and walked softly up the stairs.
On a mat spread out on the ground, Aunt Vidyavati lay unconscious; Shashi sat next to her, one hand on her mother’s forehead, the other fanning her.
Shashi’s younger sister Gaura was standing nearby with a glass of water, but it was her silent tears rather than drops of water that she sprinkled over her mother.
Involuntarily, ‘Shashi—’ escaped from Shekhar’s lips and he immediately felt embarrassed. Kneeling next to his aunt, he took the glass from Gaura and sprinkled the water himself; Shashi looked over at him once, in a straightforward, general acknowledgement of his presence and kept on fanning; Gaura perhaps went downstairs to look after his things. Aunt gradually
opened her eyes, looked at him blankly, recognized him and then closed them again, and then she tried to roll over and gave up; softly, Shashi said, ‘She’s asleep—it’s the first time in three days.’ Shekhar looked up at her once, as if to ask, ‘Have you been watching her for three days to see whether she’s slept or not?’
But he didn’t say anything; Shashi got up and left the room, Shekhar followed, and as soon as he left the room, she closed the door and asked, ‘When did you get my letter?’
‘Five days ago.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I was in Kashmir—’
‘Where in Kashmir? It took you five days to get here?’
‘Nowhere, Shashi. I was out of sorts,’ he said and then fell silent immediately.
Shashi went to the kitchen and slowly began gathering things for cooking. Shekhar asked, ‘Can I help?’ She silently pushed the plate of flour towards him and gave him a jug of water. She began chopping vegetables.
Shekhar was struck by this manner of uncontroversial agreement to his offer of help and he stared fixedly at Shashi. That’s when he realized that she wasn’t there—all that was there was a mechanical human that kept going on only to keep others going, kept going on . . .
He suddenly realized that he wasn’t impersonal, that he was drowning in melancholy, that their sorrow was his sorrow—a font of deep sympathy gushed forth inside him . . .
Sorrow generates connections; it’s also sublime and redemptive. The connection of sorrow can even make the fallen sublime and pure.
While staying with them, some similar knowledge was breaking out inside Shekhar, which is when he decided that he wouldn’t leave and would sojourn in the lap of that sorrow . . .
More than a month had passed since this family suffered deep wounds from the maelstrom of death; the house, at least, seemed to be running as usual from the perspective of regular activity—daily obligations are the only thing keeping the order of the world constant and stable—and Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi were busy all day with some chore or another. Whenever women from the neighbourhood came over to offer their sympathy, they would sit with some work and faithfully remain receptive to collect the fleeting, sometimes fake and more often ritualized sympathy, because that was convention, obligation, even if the deep wounds of fortune became even deeper, burst open and drained the life force in the process . . .
Shekhar would be perfectly still while watching this pervasive, silent faith in duty—standing at a distance, with eyes wide open, he would stare at Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi; whenever they looked at him with a momentary concern, he would leave quickly . . . Sometimes his aunt would call to him to ask, ‘What’s the matter, Shekhar?’ He was never able to respond, and she thought that she shouldn’t display her own grief and make him sad—she couldn’t imagine that it was her refusal to show her own pain that was creating the tumult inside him, that which immediately transformed her joys and sorrows, scolding and anger, love and indifference into work, which is ready to lead an individual on a rugged path to the highest peak, but will not stop for even a short while to help create a flat, paved street that will help an entire community . . . which has no self-control, which has a command of the physics that go into the flow and diversion of water, but hasn’t understood the work of irrigation . . . That’s when he would run into an empty room to hide, and he would curse himself for having wasted a long life; he was a dog running around in small circles in the same area chasing his own tail, he hadn’t understood, hadn’t wanted to understand, hadn’t set in motion his ability to understand the pain that others felt, their suffering . . .
Who knows who should get the credit for this, but that day all of a sudden, the dam burst and three of them—Aunt, Shashi and Shekhar—began talking. It made Shekhar very happy to see that his aunt would even smile occasionally at something Shekhar said—although that smile could have brought someone else to tears.
Perhaps Shekhar said something about his future plans and let it slip, ‘I won’t be able to do that—I don’t have the line for it in my palms.’
Shashi asked, ‘Do you know how to read palms?’
Before Shekhar could answer, Vidyavati extended her hand and said, ‘Really? Look and tell me how long I’m going to live.’
The question startled Shekhar so much that he couldn’t respond even in the negative to Shashi’s question; he took his aunt’s hand in his own, looked at the life line and, as if he were responding to some unspoken doubt, said, ‘Why, there is still a lot left—’
‘No, no, Shekhar, tell me that it won’t be long now!’ There was a piercing sharpness to Aunt’s response—‘Not long, Shekhar, not long!’ It was as if he were drifting in a current of pity. His aunt fell silent and drew her hand back . . .
Shekhar’s hand remained outstretched and half-opened, just as it had been when holding his aunt’s hand—his eyes fixed, as if hurt, on his aunt’s and he stared—a glorious light flashed in those bottomless lakes of the soul and then burned itself out—his aunt regained control and composed herself and laughed a false laugh. She said, ‘Let it go, it’s not as though palmistry is ever accurate . . .’
Is life so cruel, and was a clear purpose indispensable for living? Shekhar didn’t know what his purpose in life was . . . He got up to go.
Shashi had finished seventeen years of her life and was starting on the eighteenth. Shekhar could hear talk of this fact from different places in the house—almost as if from the walls—and sometimes from the mouths of the women who had come to offer sympathy, ‘Dear God, who will get this one married? Dear God, to have such an old, unmarried girl still living at home!’ Still Vidyavati never mentioned this nor did Shashi ever give it any thought—even though Shekhar could clearly see that there was a huge difference between the Shashi from four years ago and this peaceful, grave idol.
Shekhar’s vacations were over; it was time for him to go back to college and enrol in the MA programme. But he didn’t want to go. When Vidyavati asked him, ‘Shekhar, how many more vacation days do you have left?’ he knew that he could still get admitted even after registration had closed, so he said, ‘There’s still a lot left.’ But when Shashi asked him the same question, he said, ‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you going to continue your studies?’
‘Yes. But what’s the rush in going back?’
‘You really should complete your education. You can always come back here—what do people like us have after all? And these days we can’t even offer you the slightest bit of happiness—’
‘I’m never as much at peace as I am when I’m here—’
‘That’s just what people say—’
‘No, it’s true. And this time, there was a special peace in being able to share in your grief—’
‘Why?—’
‘The pallor of grief is a kind of penance—it redeems the soul.’
‘Are you certain?’
Shekhar was a little taken aback; he said, ‘Why?’
‘Grief only cleanses the soul of one who attempts to drive it away. No one else’s.’
‘So . . . I don’t follow.’
‘It’s true that you’ve come and shared in our grief, and it offered us consolation, too, but did you think that your obligation ended there? There is pain everywhere. So, you’ve decided that pain only lives here and you want to live under its shade, but you’re showing no interest in the obligations that you do have. You should go back to college—’
Shekhar was stunned. Shashi had never spoken so many words to him before—and not just so many words, but also deep ones . . . He said softly, ‘You’re right—I . . .’
‘And look, don’t you dare ever call me “Aap” again! My name is Shashi and yours is Shekhar.’
Perhaps surprised by her own audacity, Shashi immediately turned around and left; Shekhar was left staring.
*
This time, Shekhar didn’t have to do anything extra for his studies, because since he was studying literature for his MA he was alread
y familiar with most of the material included in the syllabus—a few special textbooks—one on literary criticism, one on linguistics, and the rest could even be read afterwards . . .
Shekhar kept himself at a remove from ordinary student life and began digesting the experiences of the last several months—becoming the monitor of a small hostel helped him in establishing his distance. A while later when the National Congress asked for volunteers for its next session, Shekhar signed up with the first group and duly began learning the official drills.19 It wasn’t that he had some political awakening, but he found a kind of comfort in the discipline the drills provided. He also thought that these external rules might provide a discipline in him internally.
After he completed his training, he was given the task of training the group of new recruits. In truth, this was even better as training because along with disciplining the body, one had to have an alert mind to see what someone was lacking and how that would be remedied . . .
It didn’t take long for the Congress session to draw near. One day, Shekhar rolled up his bedding, draped it over his uniformed shoulders, got in a lorry and arrived at the camp with the first group of volunteers.
The training was mostly completed, all that remained was the attempt to ready the few latecomers by making them march in formation four times, quickly; but, the volunteer corps still hadn’t been organized. There were commanders and volunteers. But the network of junior officers which is necessary to link them to one another didn’t exist. Until now, it hadn’t been given any special attention, because ‘We only have four days. Everyone has to come together and make this work.’ But ‘come together and make this work’ doesn’t tell you who gives the orders and who follows them, so one day five head officers—group leaders—were chosen and the next day the remaining five officers were ‘elected’ during the parade. Other than his strengths and his weaknesses, Shekhar had nothing to recommend him, but he was still made a junior officer—‘chief’—and given the job of managing the camp.
There were 1400 volunteers in the camp. Taking care of them shouldn’t have required anything special, but amongst the volunteers, there were at least 300 college students who believed that since they had become volunteers and paid for half of their uniforms, there was no reason that they should also be expected to do any work or be prevented from watching the spectacle of the Congress party. They also required three leaves each week so that they could go home—they couldn’t be expected to freeze to death in this jungle. Work was done during daylight hours, so whose business was it where they slept? And on top of that, after carrying the heavy burden of voluntary service, they also needed entertainment, and there was no cinema in the Congress encampment; they had to go to the city, all that you could do in the camp was play cards or backgammon, and to make that a little more interesting, sometimes they need to bet a little something.
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