‘To fight for something . . . but for what? When everything was rotten, what was there to fight for . . .’
‘So what did you decide, Shekhar?’
‘I never needed to—you showed up again—you came into my life—I never knew what I should fight for, but you were with me; I started fighting for you—or I planned to start fighting. Shashi, I’ve been struggling continuously for my whole life—I’ve even fought with you, but now I acknowledge that I have loved you, too. I’ve given the best of myself in fighting, because I was doing it for you. Sometime in the middle I feared that all of my ideals were ignoble, but that vanished, because you were no less than a pure ideal . . . But then a hunger grew inside me and that brought with it a new fear . . . Shashi, have I sinned?’
‘Shekhar, I have only ever loved you. I have never committed a sin.’
. . . Two disconnected sentences . . . Shekhar only gradually absorbed their meaning . . . But when he fully realized them, then—
‘And Shashi—now that I have found a goal to fight for—Shashi, Shashi, are you really going to leave me, Shashi—’
Suddenly, Shekhar took Shashi’s head forcefully . . . Shashi woke up, his fingers kept tracing patterns on Shashi’s hand—
‘Shashi, will you really leave me—will my life really never have any meaning—’
Shashi patted his hand and said, ‘It will, Shekhar, it does. It will after I’m gone, too. You won’t be defeated—never defeated—for me, Shekhar, for me . . .’
‘I know, Shashi . . . I cannot stop—you’ve never let me. But I don’t know how I will go on—I can’t see how—for whom . . . Or whether I go on just for you—I go on, without seeing, without understanding, somehow, for you, only for you, Shashi . . .’
Shashi’s forehead was cool, her face gentle and peaceful, so calm, so still that Shekhar, terrified . . . panicked, said, ‘Shashi, have you—gone?’ Then feeling embarrassed, alarmed at the stupidity of his question . . . But Shashi isn’t alarmed, her fingers reach out for Shekhar’s hand again—
Had the atmosphere changed? Could the sun and the shade trick someone? Why did tiny shadows dance on Shashi’s face and then disappear when her unblinking eyes were still bright and her lips are still and gentle? Why did the fingers of her left hand sometimes curl into a fist while lying on her chest even though the rise-and-fall of her breasts was regular?
‘Shashi, are you in pain?’
The blinking of her eyes says no.
But why did it seem to him that underneath his hand, Shashi’s cool forehead would be struck with a pain that then lingered, why did it seem as though Shashi was trembling?
‘Tell me, Shashi, why, what is happening? What is happening . . .’
Shashi takes his hair and pulls his head towards her and says, ‘Joy, Shekhar, joy . . .’
Day, afternoon, evening, night, morning, day, afternoon, evening, night, dawn . . . Fever, sweat, exhaustion, a slight ache, shivering, fever, loving-yet-limp hands, fever, sweat, cold . . . The air smelled of Holi, gentle and cool; the incessant falling of leaves, round, white clouds like scattered cotton, nomadic, carefree, aloof; dusty grey, whirlwind . . . Doctor, a wash basin filled with ash, charts and bottles, fruit juice . . . A letter from Aunt written in Gaura’s handwriting—‘Mother’s eyes are seriously troubling her which is why she isn’t writing herself. She sends both of you her best blessings, and she says that you should write very soon about Shashi’s condition, it isn’t good to wait so long between letters. God willing she will get better soon . . . She sends 100 rupees . . .’ And then from Gaura, herself, ‘Aunt wanted me to send the money by money order, but I’m putting them with the letter and sending them by registered mail because you might not accept a money order sent from here. I am very worried about Shashi’s health, would you even write if we weren’t worried? Shall I come to help nurse Shashi to health? I haven’t asked Mother, but if you say so, I will definitely come, no matter what happens—write to us soon about everything . . .’ Gaura had become very wise—such a slight girl . . . Commotion, the racing and roar of cars, white caps, red shirts, ‘Black Laws’, ‘Bhagat Singh has been hanged’, ‘Gandhi’s pleas unheeded!’ . . .
Afternoon, evening, night; and everything is unreal, a lie, a delusion—a distant mirage . . . There were only two big, starry eyes nearby, the shimmering sparkle of stars which hides fear, alarm, worry, panic . . .
*
I am writing Shekhar’s story, because I am trying to find the answer to life’s questions in it, but there comes a point after which I cannot maintain the separation between Shekhar and myself—the one who suffered that day and the one who narrates today become the same, because ultimately the meaning of his life is the same as the meaning of my life; and I am not neutral towards the answers that I have to find, have to search for, I am not!
If this means that the ultimate victory is the historian’s, then so be it. History means nothing to me; the succession of events also means nothing. Life is ultimately redeemed by life—the best aspect of our lives is that wondrous creation, human being—and the pride of an individual’s life is his love—his ability to dilate himself, to sacrifice himself, beyond himself . . . The import of the story is not for me, its meaning is for the character that I have been narrating; and so that I can acknowledge it, bear witness to it, before I pass on . . . When I will no longer be, then this work can stand as a memorial to him! Had the circumstances of his life been different, then his future would have been as well—perhaps he would have been the head of a household and all of those lives would have been blessed with that gift-like, affectionate, pure love which is the offering of every expansive soul . . . But that is not what happened. I am the only one who has seen that expansive soul close up, I, who became the cause of its destruction . . .
But I am not offering testimony, making a confession, to wash away my crimes or as atonement. Even crimes could have drowned in that love, as expansive as it was . . . I won’t minimize Shekhar’s crimes, because his commitment to love lay behind them, that Shekhar who is me . . .
Worry, worry, fear . . . Decision . . . Perhaps Shashi already knows, but one day suddenly Shekhar realized . . . To make the ignored visible is perhaps both proper and necessary; one cannot aim for ignorance . . . He had stopped going in to the workshop for a few days now. Now he had given up leaving Shashi’s side, he had moved his bed into her room, he would sleep two hours at night and an hour or so whenever he found the opportunity, otherwise he would remain in constant vigil by Shashi’s bed; when she would wake, he would caress her forehead or the hand that lay across her chest; when she was falling asleep, he would curl up and be perfectly still so as not to disturb her, and if she slept peacefully he would immediately watch her face—and such opportunities for watching gradually increased . . . Or sometimes when Shashi would tell him to get some rest, he would lie on his stomach on his cot, balancing on his elbows, his head on his chin, he would keep watching her . . .
Nursing a patient is a science. It depends on the intellect; there is no place for emotion in it. People who have been colonized by western civilization laugh at the Indian mother who won’t take her sick child to see a doctor, clutching it instead to her chest all night paralysed with fear . . . Mere, instinctive love—the unreasoned agitation of a maternal animal for her wounded infant—this is not scientific nursing; but one animal’s cry is also a medicine for another animal, not only a medicine but also a necessity . . . And for those instances where science acknowledges its impotence, there is the power of this basic instinct which is not powerless—not even in the face of death because death is first and foremost a fear of death, and that fear cannot touch an individual enveloped in a cloud of love . . .
The doctor came twice a day, and he would leave medicines or have them sent. Two young men from Shekhar’s organization would leave meals and ask after them, sometimes they would tell them of the happenings in the world which even when he heard them would not remain in Shekhar’s mind, because t
here was no room for them there . . .
Shekhar spoke very little, and Shashi almost never spoke, and only when she gave Shekhar a reassuring message with her eyes . . . After each new attack of illness—a full cycle of tremors followed by fever, and fever followed by sweats and cooling off—when Shashi’s aching hand would be trembling on her breast, and her fingers would curl up and then open fully, and the lids would tighten over her already closed eyes and then fully open, that was when Shekhar realized that entertaining conversation was necessary to keep Shashi happy and to keep her mind off the pain. He would try to start such a conversation, but his mind would go blank, and he could think of nothing distracting to talk about. Then he would reach for Shashi’s hand and softly say, ‘Shashi, don’t be afraid. I’m here with you—’ Shashi would open her eyes and look once at him; that gaze had the slightest, laughing compassion in it. ‘Am I afraid? You should not be afraid, I am with you . . .’
And in this way the wick of the lamp would burn out, but Shekhar sat and watched the light . . .
The night was long, but it kept moving; the stove had gone out, Shekhar was awake . . .
Shashi gently called out, ‘Shekhar—’
Shekhar bent down towards her so that he could hear Shashi well, so that she wouldn’t have to repeat herself.
‘Shekhar—in the cabinet—a letter.’
Shekhar understood her words. He opened the cabinet and took out a few folded pages on the bottom shelf and asked, ‘Do you want to send this letter somewhere or to give it to someone?’
The blinking of her eyes meant yes.
‘Someone—I’ll send it—’
Her eyes were fixed on Shekhar; her mouth opened slowly, ‘Read it.’
He didn’t know to whom Shashi had written the letter—should he read it? He is still racked with doubt when he opens the pages, he haltingly reads the first paragraph (Had Shashi written to Rameshwar—How could she write to him—) when a flash of lightning strikes him; how could he have been so blind . . . Shashi had written to him, to Shekhar—to Shekhar!
Shekhar stopped at that realization. His hands trembled; unable to read any further, he stares at Shashi—
‘No, not later, now—’
He reads the whole thing in one breath—it wasn’t the case that by reading it so quickly he didn’t understand its meaning, its words—sentence after sentence branded his consciousness like a hot iron and continued to ring in his ears . . . And things began to happen at the same time, things that Shekhar was fully and consciously party to, but that ringing was also present, as if two lives were being lived at the same time, one that was intense because it was life in its immediacy, and the other which was even more intense because it happened before the immediate and was trying to lay siege to the present.
‘. . . You were only gone for a few hours, you even came back; but I lost you and found you so many times in those hours, sent you away and then propped you back up with my own hands . . . But I never forgot about your love for even a moment, Shekhar, but when the headiness of the moment passed I saw something greater than your love—your future. I say that it is bigger than love because love will be a part of it . . . I am grateful for that moment . . .
‘I am writing this letter to you so that you can read it after I’m gone—when you read it later, perhaps you will ask why Shashi didn’t tell you these things earlier when they wouldn’t have felt like such a vile curse—but it was for the best, Shekhar . . . If I had a long life to live, things might have been different, but in that clear moment I also realized that I only had a few days left . . . Which is why I won’t write about my love in this letter, either—the love of one who has passed can only produce anguish, and anguish should not speak . . . I will only talk about your love . . .
‘Love can also be an art, Shekhar; it is not a wicked thought, I consider it to be an auspicious one; but to me it’s become more intimate and necessary than even art—I don’t say that out of conceit, I consider it my failing . . . The joy of art is a controlled joy; and just once, I poured my entire being, my entire world, into the sacrificial flame—that wasn’t controlled, so perhaps—it wasn’t joy either—but it caused so much pain that we can’t even really call it a tragedy22 . . .
‘Once, I said to you out of vanity, “Can you write something for me?” You had said that ideals weren’t enough, that you needed a tangible symbol of those ideas; and I had come to you hoping to be your symbol . . . Shekhar, I didn’t do that out of conceit—I do not claim that I was the alpha and the omega of your life—I am not audacious enough to claim to be the ultimate conclusion . . . All I wanted, all that I had asked for, in exchange for destroying my life—sacrificing it, reducing it to ashes—was that it be useful for you, that it find its meaning in you. You became my symbol, a symbol for me and my life—a symbol of my place in the sea of trembling failure and idiocy and frustration and ruin all around us, a symbol of my crossing over . . . That’s why I asked you to write for me—not to give your life hope, but for me to find hope from you . . .
‘What you have given me I have gratefully accepted—as a boon, not as a right; I never imagined that I would be able to keep it tied up forever. I need you because the wreckage of my life finds its expression through you—through you, and from the dream that I dream for you; but I know, I realize that you are not wrecked, and that is why I have decided that as long as I have any say in the matter, my love won’t be the kind that tries to hold you back . . . Shekhar, my love for you knows no bounds, but I want you to know that I have not tied you down, am not tying you down—not now while I am still here and not—after . . .
‘You have your own future, Shekhar; my future was you and only you. If in your quest for your future you ever—’
Shekhar looked at Shashi to see whether it was necessary to read all of this in front of her or—but he realizes that Shashi’s eyes are telling him something more immediate than the letter. He comes very close to Shashi; her lips want to say something, but they are speechless, perhaps they want to say something speechlessly—Shekhar puts his lips over them and they stop quivering. He looks into Shashi’s eyes and slowly gets up—he knows that he has heard what she had to say, those lips still had the ability to be kissed left in them—and then there were no more words, just a nervous flutter which, it seemed, her will had tried to control but had gradually given up in frustration—in one ultimate deliverance all of the tension and strain and pressure—
‘If in the quest for your future you ever think of me, don’t blame yourself that you are able to go on without me; you can go on. That won’t be my defeat; it will be my greatest victory . . .’
Shashi’s entire body, except her eyes, became lifeless matter—
‘Everyone can be fortunate enough to be an ideal for a while, a day, a moment; but no one is an eternal ideal, cannot be. That is why one who is “eternally” true to one’s lover is always certainly failing in the face of the ideal, and the one who is faithful to the ideal will always certainly let his lover go on . . . An ordinary man and an artist—that’s what is different about a rebel . . . I don’t want you to be less of a man, Shekhar, but if you have it in you to be more than that, I happily give you permission—freedom to . . .’
Shashi’s eyes didn’t die; seeing the expansive, fearless, bright kindling inside them having burned out, they retreated inside themselves . . .
‘The two of us, you and me, have been building a mansion for years in which neither you nor I will live . . . But will it be any less beautiful just because neither of us lives in it . . .’
In this tranquillity, in this dwindling light, could there be any weeping, any wailing? The mechanical form of Shekhar’s numb body moved over to the window, the window opened, and the light from the day flooded inside . . . He turned around to see Shashi’s face, bathed in rosy rays, sparkling with the colours of life . . .
Shekhar remained stunned—paralysed, both in the knowledge of some superhuman, cosmic presence, the long-awaited dawn of
some inner truth . . .
A sudden revelation . . .
*
But there’s no story after this. No sequence of events. Life has lost all meaning, lost all reality, order, motion, everything. Even mere existence—the continuous addition of one moment to the next—had been erased. I am a shade, a dream, a spectral resentment, a parting, a mystery . . . A thought that wanders from feeling to feeling—setting fire to everything, itself scorched in the light, burning higher—continuously rising, rising, not dwindling, not dying . . .
Death, you are also a shadow—devour this shadow, if you have the strength in you—if you have the courage . . . Break the torch, snuff it out, tear it to pieces—the body is a torch and one day it too will burn and be destroyed, but its flame reaches higher—there, and there, and there—evading your clutches, daring you, imperishable, free . . .
Devour it, touch it if you have the power in you, if you have the courage . . .
A young man showed up.
Brother had sent him a hand-delivered letter appealing to Shekhar to come to Lahore if at all possible—some of the organization’s members who were in prison were going to be sent to the prison colonies in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; if the independence struggle were going to be kept alive, then it was necessary to save them from this living tomb, and in order to accomplish this, Shekhar’s participation was necessary . . . He didn’t know how Shashi’s health was, but he was completely prepared to make arrangements for her care and treatment—
The young man spoke compassionately, ‘Brother didn’t know when he sent the letter . . . You’ve been deeply hurt . . . But you should come, the work will give you some comfort, and the job requires much effort . . . If sister Shashi were still alive, that’s what she would tell you, too—and I have faith that even now her soul will find some peace from it—’
Shekhar wasn’t listening at first, but he heard the last sentence; he wanted to slap this young man across his face for speaking so easily; but then all he said was, ‘Someone will have to look after all of this—and the workshop—’
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