A Mirrored Life

by Rabisankar Bal

  Whether you believe this story or not is up to you. One day Maulana was discussing the principles of religion with his students in his library when a deranged Shams appeared. Looking at the books, he said, ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘You won’t understand,’ said Maulana with a smile.

  You won’t believe this, but I’ll tell you anyway, a fire broke out in the library at once. Maulana shrieked, ‘What’s going on? How did a fire start?’

  Laughing, Shams said, ‘You won’t understand either, you fool.’ He left the library without waiting another moment.

  Many slim books about Maulana Rumi are available in the markets of Konya. The story I am about to tell you was in one of them. Maulana Rumi was sitting by a waterfall one day, with several books scattered before him. Suddenly the decrepit, frenzied mystic came up to Maulana, asking, ‘What’s in these books?’

  Maulana smiled at him. ‘You won’t understand. All this is beyond the extremities of your knowledge.’

  — Do not be arrogant, shouted Shams.

  Maulana smiled again. — How is it possible for everyone to understand everything?

  — Really?

  Levelling a long look at Maulana, Shams flung the books into the water one by one. Maulana didn’t stop him, only saying, ‘What have you done? Some of these books are no longer available, my father had given them to me.’

  Then a miracle took place. Dipping his hand in the water, Shams retrieved all the books. None of them was wet or ruined. Maulana asked in wonder, ‘How is this possible?’

  Shams smiled. ‘It’s possible. This is called divine power, Maulana. You know nothing about this.’

  There’s yet another story I heard in Konya. Maulana was teaching his students in his madrassa when a halva-seller passed, advertising his wares loudly. Maulana called him in. Lowering his box of halva from his head, the seller gazed at Maulana.

  — Well? Give us some of your halva, said Maulana.

  The halva-seller handed him some and left the madrassa at once. When he had eaten the halva, Maulana grew restless and went out in search of the halva-seller. Years passed. Maulana did not return. Meanwhile his students had set off in different directions to look for him, but Maulana was not to be found.

  Maulana returned on his own a few years later. He no longer spoke to anyone, only writing poetry in Persian from time to time. His students copied the poems, which were ultimately collected in his famous Masnavi.

  But who was this halva-seller? Was it Shamsuddin of Tabriz, then? The funny thing is, nowhere in this story is Shams mentioned. But the story of Maulana’s life cannot be written without Shams. So, my learned readers, let us return to the first tale.

  Maulana Rumi rode his mule towards his house. A single question whirled in his mind—who was this aged dervish? He felt as though spring had arrived in the depths of winter. He muttered:

  The soul of the heron is at your door today: spring is here. Where are you hiding?

  Look, the world has adorned itself with leaves and flowers and roses.

  Meanwhile, Sultan, Hussam and Thereanos put the unconscious Shams on another mule and proceeded home slowly. Atabeg accompanied them. Sultan asked Hussam, ‘Have you seen this dervish earlier?’

  — Never.

  — I cannot even imagine someone challenging Maulana, said Thereanos.

  — Is he the one who was supposed to come, said Sultan to himself.

  — Who? Hussam placed his hand on Sultan’s shoulder.

  — Maulana told me this morning, he’s coming today.

  — Does Maulana know him?

  — No.

  Suddenly Atabeg said, ‘Dadajaan had also said he would be meeting him today.’

  — Meeting whom? Sultan noticed Atabeg for the first time. — Who are you?

  — Atabeg, he said with a smile.

  — Where do you live?

  — Nowhere.

  — Your parents?

  — I haven’t any.

  Sultan took his hand. — Do you know this dervish?

  — No, huzoor. He told me stories last night and put me to sleep. And then he tells me this morning, I’m meeting someone today, come, let’s go to the market.

  — What stories?

  — I don’t remember. I fell asleep. When will Dadajaan wake up?

  — Soon.

  — I’ll go as soon as he wakes up, said Atabeg timidly.

  — Where will you go? Sultan scooped Atabeg up in his arms.

  Atabeg did not answer.

  Planting kisses on his cheeks and forehead, Sultan said, ‘You will stay at Maulana’s house, Atabeg. You’re my brother today onwards.’

  Atabeg smiled. ‘Brother?’ he said, widening his eyes.

  Sultan realized that the word held no meaning for Atabeg. Since he had no parents, his life did not include brothers or sisters either. As they walked along, Sultan asked, ‘Do you know who your father is?’

  — Who?

  — Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi.

  — Sultan! Hussam spoke harshly.

  — What is it, Hussam? Could Maulana not have fathered such a beautiful child? And listen, Atabeg, your mother’s name is Kira Khatun.

  Slipping out of Sultan’s arms, Atabeg put his hand on Shamsuddin’s inert body on the mule. ‘When will Dadajaan wake up?’ he asked again.

  — Very soon. As soon as we return home and take care of him, he will wake up.

  Sultan found Maulana standing outside the front door, looking worried. He asked Maulana, ‘Were you talking of this holy man’s arrival this morning?’

  — I don’t know.

  Sultan bent to kiss his father’s feet.

  THIRTEEN

  In Maulana’s house, in the neighbourhood, in Konya’s markets and roads, there was only one question on everyone’s lips: who was this mad ancient dervish whom Maulana escorted into his home with such care? Before Shams disappeared forever, he had told Maulana the story of a calligraphist. The calligraphist had three different styles of writing, using a separate quill for each. Only the calligraphist himself could decipher the first script, which was beyond everyone else. The second one was intelligible to himself and to everyone else. As for the third, leave alone others, he couldn’t even read it himself. Telling the story, Shams had burst into laughter, and then said, ‘Maulana, I am the third script.’

  Then who was Maulana? Shams had told Sultan and Hussam, ‘I was looking for him on every street in the world. The Lord had told me in my dream that I would find him in Anatolia. I did find him, Sultan, but I simply cannot fathom this. Every day I find something new in Maulana, something which was not there before. That’s why I cannot understand, try as I might. He is an impossible work of creation. How great our Lord is! One day I shall be gone, Hussam, but do not let yourself be content with Maulana’s beauty and wonderful messages. There is much more beyond all this. Try to look for that elusive elixir within Maulana.’

  Isn’t every epic also written in search of that elusive elixir, my learned readers? Our search makes us live and die in so many different stories. New scenes are born all the time.

  Let us now enter the room in the inner chambers of Maulana’s house where an unconscious Shams was laid down. A crowd had gathered around the aged dervish. It included both aristocrats and noblemen who often frequented the courts of Emirs and Sultans, and Maulana’s disciples and students. Maulana was sitting by Shams, stroking his forehead. His eyes suggested he had unexpectedly found an old, old friend who had been shipwrecked. Now he was only waiting for his lost friend to wake up.

  Eventually Shams opened his eyes. Maulana bent over him. The aged mystic raised two trembling hands to hold Maulana’s face and kiss his forehead. Then, sitting up and surveying the people around him, he finally settled his eyes on Maulana’s. Shams said, ‘I have turned the prisoner’s cell into a garden, Maulana. If my prison is my garden, just think of its beauty.’ Looking around and laughing, he said, ‘Do any of you understand what I’m saying?’

 
The people gathered there exchanged glances with one another, and bowed their heads.

  Rising to his feet, Shams roared, ‘What is the objective of this life? What is it, tell me? You are noble people, there are kings and scholars and teachers among you, hundreds of degrees, tell me, why does this world exist?’

  ‘Who are you, huzoor?’ Maulana asked calmly.

  — Quiet! Shams roared again. — Why are all these people here?

  — You were ill, so . . .

  — I am never ill, Maulana. Don’t you know how it feels to be united with your friend after a long time, don’t you know the tumult within a man, like the ocean on a full moon night? You alone know. The world survives to serve the Lord. So that two friends can meet. And what do humans believe? That bread and meat are the most important things. That the bakery and the slaughterhouse are the last word.

  Maulana’s younger son appeared, walked up to Shams, and shouted, ‘Who are you to say all this? Who are you?’

  — Who are you? asked Shams in a steely voice.

  — Alauddin. Maulana is my father.

  — You are not a worthy son. Leave the room.

  Alauddin looked at his father in surprise, saying, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything, Maulana?’

  — Sultan, a stricken Maulana called out.

  — Yes? Sultan came up to Maulana.

  Maulana said softly, ‘Tell Alauddin to leave. Tell everyone to leave.’

  — Very well.

  Telling him to come closer, Maulana whispered, ‘I told you, Sultan. He’s the soul of the heron. Spring has come to Konya.’

  Sultan spoke to everyone in turn. Eventually the room emptied out. Maulana and Shams stood facing each other. Then the door was locked from within. Shams embraced Maulana, muttering, ‘The Hadith says this world is a prison to believers. I am astonished, Maulana. I haven’t seen a gaol anywhere. Everything is joyful. Even if someone pissed on my hand I would forgive them.’

  My learned readers, that same room became the location of forty days of penance and solitude for them. Maulana Rumi entered a period of Chillah with Shamsuddin. Maulana’s disciples and students turned up thrice a day, but the door to the Chillah khanah did not open. The pupils lost hope with each passing day. How could a genius like Maulana forget everyone else for the sake of a stranger? Students who had come all the way from Baghdad, Samarqand, Farghana and Dilli were about to return home.

  Occasionally Alauddin was heard screaming, ‘Break the door down and drag the old bugger out. An infidel, a magician.’

  Trying to calm his brother down, Sultan would say, ‘Everything will be all right, Ala. Have patience.’

  One day Kira emerged from her mahal too, asking Sultan, ‘Who is this man, my son?’

  — I don’t know, Ammijaan.

  — Some old man who wandered in from the streets. Don’t I mean anything to Maulana?

  — Ammijaan . . .

  — I want to see what’s going on.

  Kira banged on the door. There was no sound. After she had banged on the door thrice, a faint voice emerged. ‘Who is it?’

  — Maulana! Kira shrieked, fainting.

  Hussam saw Kira lying unconscious outside the door to the penance chamber that day. She was holding a bouquet of unknown flowers, which had never been seen in Anatolia.

  ‘What happened in there, Ammijaan?’ asked Sultan.

  — Through a crack in the door I saw not two but six more people, surrounding them. They left after offering the namaz, leaving this bunch of flowers at Maulana’s feet.

  — How did you get them?

  — Maulana gave them to me himself.

  — When?

  — I don’t know. Putting her arms around Sultan, Kira burst into tears.

  — Didn’t Maulana say anything to you?

  — He did.

  — What did he say?

  — He said, these flowers have come from India. Don’t tell anyone.

  Kira Khatun died nineteen years after Maulana’s death. In Konya they would say that the flowers had remained fresh till her death. When sick people came to her, Kira would just touch their body with a single petal and they would recover.

  After Maulana’s death Hussamuddin Chalabi had recounted yet another incident. — One day I was peeping through a crack in the door. Maulana was immersed in a book, while Shaikh Shamsuddin was pacing up and down, mumbling to himself. Suddenly he asked, ‘What are you reading, Maulana?’

  — Ma’arif.

  Shaikh laughed. — Throw it away, throw away that book. Shaikh Bahauddin’s book, isn’t it? Throw it away. There’s nothing in there.

  — What should I do then?

  — Don’t say a word, Maulana. Not one word.

  Hussam wrote of yet another incident he had had a glimpse of. Cupping Maulana’s face in his hands, Shaikh kissed his forehead, saying, ‘You are a man of so much beauty, Maulana.’

  — You are beautiful too, Maulana said.

  Shaikh Shamsuddin smiled. ‘I am beautiful, but extremely ugly too. You have not seen my ugly side, Maulana. I shall not betray you. You will have to see both my selves: the beautiful and the hideous. In this life that has begun for us, Maulana, there is no pretence, we’re both alone.’

  Many things changed during those forty days. The students who had come from foreign lands went back home. Since Maulana was not going to be at the madrassa, why should they stay on? Sultan tried to persuade them.

  — Please wait a little longer. Maulana will teach you again.

  Sultan realized that these students did not love Maulana, they had congregated only to gather a few scraps of his knowledge.

  One day Sultan fetched Kira from her chambers and asked her to peep through the crack in the door.

  — What is this I’m seeing, Sultan!

  — Yes, Ammijaan. I couldn’t believe my own eyes either.

  Kira saw Maulana whirling and dancing. His right hand pointed to the sky, and his left, to the floor. He was like the focal point around which circles were being drawn to link the heavens and the earth. Maulana was lost in a whirling dance, like a tornado. And the aged dervish was smiling.

  Forty days later the door opened. An old man and a young man stepped out. But it seemed to Kira that her young husband had become much older, gaunt and pale with a thick beard.

  — Sultan, called Maulana.

  — Yes, Maulana.

  — We shall go to the hamam.

  — Very well.

  — There’s only one thing whose absence I have felt over these forty days.

  — What is that?

  — A bath. Maulana smiled. Taking Shams’s hand, he said, ‘Come along, Shaikh.’

  — Where?

  — To the hamam. For a bath.

  — I don’t care for all that.

  — Rule and exception, both of these are duties, Shaikh.

  — The Lord be praised.

  The old man and the young man undressed and sank into the water at the hamam. Hot and cold streams flowed into the pool at the same time. They bathed each other, embraced and locked themselves in a prolonged kiss.

  Hussam’s daily journal was available in Konya. I had purchased it. Many people said Hussamuddin Chalabi had written no such journal, that it was the work of an anonymous author who had passed it off as Hussam’s. Quite possible. Still I would like to tell you some of the things I read in this counterfeit journal. The real or the fake Hussam had written:

  I am convinced that Shamsuddin and Maulana had entered into a homosexual relationship. Maulana had become his cup-bearer. Despite being the pupil closest to Maulana, I wish to inform you that Maulana had embraced me, kissed me, and kneaded my well-built chest on numerous occasions. Can we conclude that Kira Khatun was unable to satisfy him sexually, then? But it is said that he had intercourse with Kira Khatun eighty times during a single night. This is undoubtedly a fable. Considering the physical state Maulana was in, leave alone eighty times, even eight times would not have been possible. But then eve
rything is the Lord’s wish.

  I cannot say anything conclusive on this subject, my learned readers. Two individuals had melded with each other, what could be more important than this? Whether it was homosexuality or heterosexuality is irrelevant.

  Later, Kira asked Maulana one day, ‘What do you see in the old man, Maulana?’

  — I had died, Kira. Look, I am alive again.

  — Have I not been able to give you anything at all?

  — I was a teardrop, now I am a smile. Do you know what he told me?

  — What?

  — He said, ‘You aren’t all that mad. How will you stay in this room?’ And he said, ‘You aren’t intoxicated enough. You’re still outside the clan.’

  — And then?

  — I made myself intoxicated, Kira. It was such a joy. Kira asked with a smile, ‘And then he accepted you?’

  — No. He said, you have not died yet. You have not become one with the earth in joy. I looked at him with a dead man’s eyes. I am still imprisoned, Kira, I am dead, without wings.

  Kira embraced Maulana, taking his hand and pressing it on her breasts. Disrobing Kira, Maulana played with them, saying, ‘The breasts provide mother’s milk to the sons of the earth. And these same breasts are the greatest source of sexual arousal. I consider “breast” a root word.’

  — Maulana . . .

  — Men have two dead breasts. They will never be able to save this world, Kira. That is why I am leaving you. Shaikh Shamsuddin needs a woman. I want to be at his side to meet his need.

  It was a marvellous night. Many such stories wander around the streets of Konya. That night Maulana ran his tongue all over Kira’s body as he entered her, after which they left their beds and flew up into the sky. The old men and women of Konya could not sleep that night. The entire sky was covered by a bed laid out for a miraculous sexual union.

  Along with the sounds of pleasure spreading across the sky came Maulana’s hoarse voice, telling Kira as he kissed her, ‘This is what I have been thinking of all day, and I am telling you tonight. Where did I come from, what was I supposed to do? I know nothing. My soul came from an unknown land, Kira, that is where I shall return. My drunken antics began in an inn somewhere. I shall be cured if I can go back there. It is the intervening journey that is sorrowful. I feel as though I am a bird which belongs somewhere else, whose day to fly off is approaching. But who is it who uses my ears to listen? Who speaks with my tongue, Kira? Who sees with my eyes? Do you know what the soul is, Kira? If I had even a fragment of an answer I would leave this jail for the intoxicated. I did not enter of my own free will, Kira, the one who brought me into this world is the one who will take me back home. I am only waiting for him.’