Bhava

11

First, as if from the depths of a cave, one, one, or two, two, sprouts of melody, and now the clear sound of a bell emerging, and then a bass melody oooooo, and then jingling as if from belled anklets. All melody as if made from itself inside itself. As if going deeper and deeper down inside, melody wandering and searching the depth of the depths. Even as everything ended, again a melody arising from a deeper side of the kundalini. Did the melody find what it sought? As if saying look, look, the wonderment of small, small bells. Was it being lost, or drowning in ecstasy?

∗

Dinakar, reading an English translation of Bardo Thodol, listening on his Walkman to the chanting of Tibetan lamas, tried to relate his present state of mind to the bardo state described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Not reclining on a pillow, he sat up straight on a mat.

He was in the drawing room of Narayan Tantri's big house, sitting straight-backed even though mattresses were laid out together with large cushions covered in white cloth. Sitamma saw Dinakar and said, ‘What has happened? Come sit on a mattress.’

She saw Dinakar smile and said, ‘Ayyo, I keep forgetting that you don't understand Kannada. Get up and take a bath. Then I will give you your morning food. Everyone will be awake very soon. As soon as he sees you, my grandson will start dancing about and troubling you. That's why I haven't told him you have come, I left him tied to his phone. Get up, get up!’ Then she made gestures to make clear that he should take a bath.

Dinakar took a clean towel and Pears soap from her, surprised that after twenty-five years she still remembered he was fond of Pears. Humorously, forgetting that Sitamma wouldn't understand him, he said in Hindi, ‘This means you are my other mother.’ Sitamma shot back, ‘What? Early morning you get up and right away you speak to me in the Sahib's tongue?’

She went on, ‘Tripathi was such an orthodox brahmin, my dull mind could never understand why he spoke that Sahib's language.’ Then, feeling shy that perhaps she had said something which she ought not to have said, she covered her mouth with the end of her sari and, laughing, entered the kitchen.

By the time Dinakar came out of his bath, all was festivity.

Gopal, Narayan Tantri's son, flung himself at Dinakar's feet and then began dancing about. ‘See,’ Sitamma said, ‘my grandson will boast of you to his whole gang and get his dinner out of it as well.’ As Sitamma stood making fun like this, Narayan Tantri caught his mother's eye and gestured that she should not embarrass Dinakar. Dinakar considered the changes in Narayan Tantri. ‘I would certainly not have recognized him. He has grown stout. And now he weighs his words like a public man.’ The sharpness and mischievousness of his old friend didn't seem to be there. Dinakar felt a little disappointed to think that he had found a mother again, but not a brother.

As he watched Narayan Tantri, Dinakar's resolve to confide in him withered. How could he speak to this successful public man of the secret that gnawed at him?

He had even prepared what he would say to his friend.

‘Look, Narayan, it seemed there was nothing sacred left in my life, so I began wearing these clothes. After my foster father died, his sons had become very greedy, and I went less and less often to their house. Their eyes were on the gold which Tripathi had never even touched. I felt disgusted, but gave them what they wanted. Now I go there only for Tripathi's shraddha.

‘After my education in England, I lived in Delhi. Slowly I became empty. I could say anything, charm anyone. I didn't know where my roots were. Even if I searched for them, I knew I could not find them. But it wasn't in my nature to be lonely, either, and I lived a dissolute life. The women I made love to then are everywhere now. In Lucknow, Delhi, England — but gradually I got tired of this. Trying to hide one woman from another, having affairs … the weariness increased. At the same time, it was an addiction.

‘All this business began in Hardwar, in my twentieth year, when I was with you. Even while I felt that I was being reborn — that, having lost my mother, I was reborn in your mother — even in those days I kept a big secret, without any regret, and I was happy with that secret. But now I want to understand what happened to me then.’

Such words went round and round in Dinakar's head as he tried to bring himself to speak of what was so important to him. Hopelessly, Dinakar looked at his old friend. Meanwhile, Narayan Tantri was flattering Dinakar with elaborate hospitality. Perhaps, Dinakar thought, his friend had also prepared for himself a voice meant to obscure some hidden sorrow.

12

Banana leaves cured on the hot ash of the bathing-room fire. On these fragrant, bud-shaped banana leaves, kadabu steamed in cups made of jackfruit leaves, and on the kadabu, yellow-coloured ghee from cow's milk. Three different types of chutneys. In a banana cup, creamy curd. On the side, hot steaming coffee.

Dinakar, who didn't know the Kannada names of any of these foods, sat and ate with great appetite. Narayan Tantri and his son Gopal had bathed and, sitting by Dinakar's side, ate more than he did. It was Sunday, the courts weren't in session, and Narayan Tantri seemed more relaxed. But although Gopal ate his food, he was eager to go and share news of Dinakar's arrival with his cronies.

There was a sound from the backyard — somebody calling out ‘Amma.’

‘Who is it? Chandrappa? Just stay and wait a little,’ Sitamma said, going into the yard.

She came in again, ladled some kadabu and chutney onto a banana leaf, and on her way to the backyard said to her son, ‘Gangubai wants to meet you. Chandrappa has come to ask whether you will be at home. I told him, “Let Gangubai come.”’ Then she took the leaf-plate out to Chandrappa.

Sitamma, who was very fastidious about eating taboos, didn't serve Chandrappa or Gangubai or Prasad inside the dining room. But she would never let them go without giving them something to eat and exchanging courtesies, inquiring after their joys and sorrows.

Gopal seemed displeased that his grandmother had invited Gangubai home, and Narayan Tantri's face fell when he observed his son's angry look. Dinakar could not quite make out what was happening between father and son, but he remembered that Gopal had been a very obstinate child, and that when Gangubai was a girl looking after him, she often resorted to the four upayas to get him to sleep. Sitamma took no account of the tension of the moment, but went to the backyard and began to talk of this and that with the dull-witted Chandrappa.

‘How much milk does the cow give? Has the white cow become pregnant? Were you able to sell the male calves? How much did you get for them? How long is the school holiday for Gangubai? Why doesn't Prasad show his face here at all? How is his music going? How well he sang in the temple on Ramnavami.’ Sitamma had already asked most of these questions many times that week. As usual, she expected no answer from Chandrappa. Her only aim was to make him happy.

Chandrappa looked at her, listening to her affectionate words with his mouth slightly open. Seeing his open mouth, Sitamma said, ‘What, isn't the kadabu tasty? Shall I bring some more curd? It is the curd of Tunga, your own cow, so thick you have to cut it with a knife.’ This Chandrappa understood. He shook his head, said, ‘No, Mother,’ and began to eat the kadabu.

Sitamma, seeing a coconut which had fallen from a tree in the backyard, brought it and said, ‘Chandrappa, will you please shell this for me?’ There was no need for it to be shelled, but she knew that Chandrappa delighted in any manual job, especially where he could use a knife. In his house, it was he who cleaned Prasad's bicycle so that it shone without a speck of dust, then oiled it and tied a garland of marigolds on the handlebars. On festive days, it was he who brought mango leaves and festooned the door with them.

When Sitamma came back into the house, she looked angrily at Gopal. She knew what he was waiting to say. Gopal spoke with a heavy face. ‘Let Father go to her, if he wants. But she should not come here. You must know how the whole town talks…’

‘Can you or anyone stop wagging tongues? Who are they to us? Let your politics go to hell! I know your worry is only that the brahmins here won't vote for you. Just think, your mother died immediately after giving birth to you and didn't even see you, do you know that? It was Gangu who carried you about and played with you. Get up, go, bow down to God and ask forgiveness for your bad thoughts. Take this rupee and put it in the box for the god of Tirupati.’ From the coins tucked in her waistband she gave him a rupee. She had many coins left there, for the beggars who came to the house.

Gopal took the money from her like a little boy and, with a sigh, walked to the puja room.

Sitamma sighed too. With relief.

13

As Gangu came down the stairs after finishing her talk with Narayan Tantri, she seemed to be in tears. Narayan Tantri followed, looking down as he descended the steep, old-fashioned stairs, holding onto the railings so as not to lose his balance.

Even after twenty-five years, Dinakar's heart pounded at the sight of Gangu. Still slim, with her salt-and-pepper hair in a bun, her pallu pulled around her shoulders and held with both hands, Gangu looked a mature, handsome woman. She came downstairs without any support, touched Dinakar's feet, and, in traditional welcome, said, ‘Have you come?’ She didn't seem to have lost her passion for bangles. The many she wore on both arms expertly harmonized with her sari and blouse.

Dinakar managed not to reveal his feelings because Sitamma came over and began to talk pleasantly. He noticed that Narayan, with hands clasped behind his back, was observing his reaction to Gangu. Dinakar reflected that his sexual impulses had not changed in spite of the Ayyappa clothes he now wore. Feeling awkward, yet wanting to say something for the sake of propriety, he began making small talk in Hindi.

Even in the old days Gangu knew Hindi, which she had learnt in high school. She used to speak with such playfulness, but now she stood quietly, listening to Sitamma who was saying, ‘Our Gangu is not an ordinary person. Can you say that she has aged? Doesn't she look as she did in Hardwar? I tell her, “Dye your hair just a little, here and there,” but she has got vairagya in her. She has become a madam after finishing college. Whenever she comes back from school, she has a bunch of children following her. She is truly a kindari jogi. But can one say that only she has vairagya? Her son also has vairagya. He is like sage Shukamuni. Not at all like our Gopal, the jewel of our family. Gangu's son doesn't even wear a shirt, he puts on a white dhoti and white upper cloth, and sports a long beard. You should hear his singing, when he is singing it seems as if Tyagaraja was born again. Our Gangu is truly blessed.’

Gangu looked pleased by what Sitamma said. And Dinakar was amazed at Sitamma. Even though he couldn't understand the language she was speaking, he could see how her words made everyone happy.

14

‘The beach near Suratkal is beautiful. Let's go there,’ Narayan said to Dinakar as soon as it was evening. Narayan drove his car himself, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Dinakar suspected that Narayan, like himself, was waiting to say something. But Narayan talked on and on, full of praise for Dinakar's TV show about the election, his report on South Africa, his various articles, and so forth.

Dinakar walked on the clean pure sand of the beach, looking with pleasure at the sea which rose in waves, approaching and then receding, enjoying it in silence. Then Narayan turned to him, held his hands, and said, ‘I must tell you something. I have wanted to say it all these twenty-five years, but was unwilling to speak. I had even thought it might be better not to meet you. When I saw you today, I thought, “Why on earth did he come?” But after seeing Gangu this morning, I decided that I must tell you.’ Then he stopped.

For a while, both men stood gazing at the sea, not saying anything. The setting sun bathed the whole sky in colours that changed every moment. There was no one else on the beach except for a few fishermen who were spreading their nets. Dinakar sat on the sand, began pushing it into small mounds, and waited.

Although he was a man of forty-five years, Dinakar felt himself becoming a boy again. He could hear anything, say anything. And Narayan seemed free from the English which in public he used so carefully. Now he unthinkingly mixed in Kannada words, speaking as if talking to himself. Yet Dinakar had not brought himself to say what he wanted to say. He thought that he should speak out, yet he was reluctant to interfere in Narayan's inner conflict. The sky was becoming bare, losing its colours, returning to its own true state as it had done from time eternal.

‘Dinakar,’ Narayan began, ‘you know after my wife died I didn't marry again. Gangu came as a maid servant and became part of the family. She brought up Gopal. Back then, she had been married off to someone on her mother's side. Her mother had belonged to the prostitutes' community. As was the practice, for the sake of appearance, she had given Gangu in marriage. The husband was one of her own dull-witted cousins — the man who came this morning to our house. The fellow is as gentle as a cow and he actually lives by tending cows. Gangu hadn't wanted to follow the profession of her mother, so she came to our house. She had by then finished her high school. After coming back from Hardwar, I put her in a college. Her mother, who had always been after her, had died, so Gangu felt free to do what she liked.’

Narayan stopped talking. Dinakar, who had been digging the sand, began to take out wet handfuls, and shaped them into shivalingas. He remained silent, certain now that he could never tell Narayan what he wanted to say. Narayan began speaking again.

‘You did not know that I had a sexual relationship with her in Hardwar. And I did not know that you had a relationship with her.’

Dinakar suddenly felt very light. For a moment he wanted to say, ‘But I possessed her first, when she was still a virgin.’ Then, ashamed of his crude impulse, he quietly went on listening to Narayan.

‘Only a few days later, after we came back from Hardwar and she began college, did I come to know she was pregnant. I was scared, though also relieved knowing that people would assume the child belonged to her husband … I am by nature a practical man. Gangu insisted that she should have an abortion, otherwise it would be difficult for her to study. Although I thought the same, I felt I should say, “No, have the child.” After she became pregnant, Gangu began to love me so much that I developed an attachment for her which I never had for my own wife. The way she felt helpless made me love her more. I bought a house for her, and saw to it that there was a little garden and a cowshed at the back. My mother also pressed me about this. What I bought then for half a lakh would now cost at least twenty lakhs. Land prices in Mangalore have become like Bombay.

‘Never mind. Gangu was four or five months gone in pregnancy, the baby inside her had begun to kick, and again she kept after me that she wanted to abort. Then one night, as I was lying beside her, she began to sob and tell me of the affair between you and her. “I don't know whether this child is yours, it could just as well be his,” she said. “Leave me if you don't like me,” she said, and kept on sobbing.

‘A great rage against you and her arose in me, more for her than you. I wanted to beat and kill her. Maybe my lawyer's cautiousness held me back, or the merit of my ancestors. Never mind. I thought she must be an enchantress and I suffered, thinking about the power of this woman who could hide from me in Hardwar her love for you.

‘I stopped seeing her for a few days, but then I went to her again. I couldn't check my desire for her. They say that when you lust, you have neither shame nor fear.

‘I took her to Bangalore secretly and found a doctor willing to do the abortion. The night before the abortion, as she slept in a hotel room by my side, she herself looked like a child. I cannot explain what happened to me then. It must have been the doing of my god.

‘Suddenly I thought, “What does it matter if the child is mine? What does it matter if it is Dinakar's? It is still a child that is floating and growing in her womb. Let it be born and let it grow. I will believe that it is mine.”

‘When I thought all this, I woke Gangu and told her. She embraced me, weeping with joy. The next day I brought her back from Bangalore. Who knows what Mother felt when she saw me? She scolded me, “You have not worshipped God in so many days. Take a bath, then go to the puja room.”

‘I believe there must be something of my mother's grace in the change that took place in me.’

15

In the sky, the sun's love-play was over and the moon's grace appeared. While the sky seemed serene and peaceful, frothing waves moved over the sea, like thousands of white horses rushing forward in battle. The waves wet the feet of the two friends. Dinakar got up first. Then Narayan, who seemed to have been in deep meditation, lifted his heavy body by bracing his hands against the sand. The rudraksha beads on Narayan's neck caught Dinakar's attention, and Narayan Tantri in turn looked at the amulet on Dinakar's neck.

‘You've always worn that, haven't you?’ Narayan Tantri said.

Dinakar felt eased of tension by this casual question, although he was still aware of the profound effect that Narayan's earlier revelation had created.

‘That is matra-raksha,’ Dinakar said. ‘My mother hugged me and tied it around my neck before she went to bathe in the river. Inside me there is a painful knot of unanswered questions. Did she tie the amulet around my neck knowing she was going to kill herself, or did she accidentally fall and die? Who is my father? They say my mother wore a tali around her neck and kumkum on her forehead. That means she was not a widow, she must have left my father. But why did she leave him? And whose gold was in the trunk? My father's? My mother's? That gold must be tainted … because of it my benefactor's children became greedy. It also led to the shamelessness of the woman I married.

‘By today's reckoning, the gold must be worth a crore. Sometimes I am tormented, wondering “Did my mother steal it? Is it dirty gold?” But I feel lighter because I have lost half of it. That is another big story, I shouldn't go into it now,’ said Dinakar. Then he went on to tell it just the same.

‘You remember how Tripathi used to sit on that chair, a stick in his hand, kumkum on his forehead, neatly shaven, with a big white moustache, a gold-bordered shawl around his shoulders. Even now I can see him sitting there like a king. He had a very strong voice. He would sit on his chair and get everything done in his masterful way. Exactly the image of a feudal lord. Yet he was also a great philanthropist. Every day food was given to people in the dharamshala he got built. He never touched any of the gold from my mother's trunk. He educated me in English schools with his own money. But the son he had who was my age, he sent to a Sanskrit school, trying to bring him up as another Tripathi. From the beginning, that son didn't like me. When his father couldn't hear what he was saying, he would insult my mother and make me cry. He hated me because I was his father's favourite. So Tripathi himself bears some of the fault. A man who looked after everyone else with such lordly kindness did not treat his own son with enough kindness.

‘Even before I went to Oxford, Tripathi's influence had begun to wane. His son stopped the daily feeding in the dharamshala. Tripathi would sit in that old chair of his, stick in hand, like an aged lion, and he grew increasingly more melancholy.

‘Now I believe that Tripathi was perhaps an ichchamarani. One morning, after his dip in the Ganga, he could not sit up straight in his puja room, so he leaned on a wooden plank. Even though his own son knew Sanskrit and wore a tuft like him, he didn't call his son. He sent for me, with my modern cropped hair, and said, “If you have already bathed, put on your silk dhoti and come.” I wore as an upper cloth the silk dhoti that he had given me in my eighth year, after my mother's death, when he whispered the Gayatri mantra into my ears and got the thread ceremony done. I put on the gold-bordered silk dhoti which he gave me the previous Navaratri, and sat before him. I have a good voice. People say that my mother was a good singer, and I must have got it from her. Tripathi requested me to recite the stotras composed by Adishankara. But before I started reciting, he asked me to bring the bunch of keys from his bag. From this big bunch of keys he took one out and gave it to me, saying, “I have kept your mother's gold in my small iron safe. Here is the key- Be careful, keep it from my greedy son. When you go to England, don't leave the key here. After you come back, as your gift for having grown up in this house, rebuild the temple which my ancestors had built on the bank of the Ganga. In England, don't eat what ought not to be eaten, don't drink what ought not to be drunk. Come back, then marry a girl from a good family and become a good householder.” I fell at his feet and he blessed me.

‘As I began to recite Shankara's stotras, he closed his eyes and never opened them again.

‘I finished my studies in England, came back, and rebuilt the temple. His son did not particularly want this done. The dharamshala built by Tripathi was slowly becoming like a hotel. Those who came to stay there were now asked to pay some money in the form of a donation.

‘They even had to pay for hot water.

‘This saddened me deeply. Then, one day, Tripathi's son brought an accounts book and showed me some accounts on old yellowed paper. I could tell he himself had written this, but he pretended that his father had done so. He forced a smile and told me, “Look, these must be expenses incurred by my father on your behalf.”

‘The account he placed before me was for nearly ten lakhs. I began to tremble in disgust. I went and got the trunk from the iron safe and told him, “Don't bring dishonour on your father's soul by yapping at me that this account was written by him. Just take from this trunk whatever you want.” That made him unsure of himself. So I went and sold some bars of gold and gave him ten lakhs. Then I took my trunk with what remained in it, and came away to Delhi.’

∗

When he realized that Narayan, walking by his side, was not responding, Dinakar felt ashamed. ‘Have I acknowledged the nobility and sacrifice of his feeling “Gangu's son could be your son, but I will bring him up as my own?” Is it right for me to be boasting of my generosity in giving away gold?’ Dinakar felt dismayed at the self-regard which had not left him despite his new attire.

Yet even as he thought of touching Narayan's feet in reverence, Narayan surprised him by making a pointless remark, speaking purely as a lawyer.

‘You know, it wasn't necessary to give up the gold. You could have maintained that the account was a forgery, and not in Tripathi's handwriting. If the son had gone to court over it, he would certainly have lost the case.’

∗

Dinakar felt relieved by Narayan's worldliness, even though just a moment ago Narayan's large-hearted speech had created a dilemma for him. Seeing how a man such as Narayan could overcome his limitations in a noble gesture made Dinakar feel small. If he had responded by touching Narayan's feet, that act would also have increased his own self-esteem, and would not have been a sign of turning over, in facing a truth.

‘What was I really feeling as Narayan told of his affair with Gangu?’ Dinakar wondered. ‘Was it regret? When I pressured her the first time, she had appeared ignorant of such things, yet how soon she began to teach me. Did Gangu, who lost her virginity with me and I with her, then learn from a married man and begin to teach me?’

Dinakar remembered the places and times of meetings with her. Whenever Narayan and his mother went to the temple for darshan, Gangu would quickly pat Gopal to sleep, or leave him to play with one of the children in Tripathi's house, then find some unused corner of the attic Where, to the sound of Tripathi reciting mantras, they would join together in love.

‘When I was not there, would she meet Narayan in the same place? And when the bedding was spread and the others lay down to sleep, she would sometimes say that she wanted to wander on the bank of the river. Even in that cold we would open the doors of the old temple that Tripathi's ancestors had built and lie together under that stone wall with the big carving of Ganesh on it. On the stone floor that was damp with oil, sandal-paste, and kumkum. And again we would lie together in Kashi, where I went with them because she asked me to go. In my very small room. On a torn mat.

‘Where could she have met Narayan when everyone was sleeping side by side? Could he even have had her when his mother was sleeping in the same room? I had thought that all Gangu's stolen moments were mine alone. Where else, when she was out of my sight, could she have been meeting him? At Hardwar? At Kashi? At Mathura?

‘I used to get up early every morning to bring buckets of hot water to people staying in the dharamshala, to the very old and the very young who couldn't go in the cold to bathe in the Ganga. And then in the afternoon I had to serve food to everyone. I had taken these duties on myself during my holidays … perhaps that was when Narayan had his stolen moments with her.

‘Or could it have been when I visited the houses of my classmates?’ He remembered that Gangu used to tell him, ‘You may become bored being with me always. Take some time for yourself, go and wander about and then come back. I will be waiting.’

‘Perhaps when Gangu became pregnant and confessed to Narayan about her affair with me, he suffered in the same way I am suffering now,’ Dinakar thought. ‘Like me, he must have searched his memory, wondering when she made love with me without him ever knowing. If he dwells on the details of my lovemaking and I think of the details of his lovemaking, how can he or I ever cross over and realize the illusion of samsara? On the contrary, we keep on lusting feverishly. Searching, questioning, we chew the same stuff and regurgitate like a cow that chews its cud, swallowing it over and over again. Until we love another woman, we keep wandering like wraiths.’

Even as he thought this, Dinakar became aroused and again desired Gangu, wanting her even if it meant deceiving his friend. He thought of her years ago, gasping, getting him into her urgently, in the secretive darkness. When he had seen her come down the stairs just now, her middle-aged beauty had stirred him, got him vibrating with pleasure. She had been his first lover, she had made the pleasure of woman bloom for him and had remained in him like a fragrance. Thinking of this, he sighed, feeling sure that for him there would be no liberation from bhava. The sigh was not of sorrow, but of weariness. Of desire which had begun to wither.

Narayan, released from his lawyerly self, began to speak again. And again Dinakar listened and suffered, as if he were dreaming in the cool moonlight on the clean white sands of the beach.

16

‘Gangu's son is named Prasad. Since we didn't know whose son he was, we called him the prasad of Hardwar.’

Narayan spoke half-jokingly, reaching out to include Dinakar. There was in him a touch of urbane courtesy, as if — even after twenty-five years — he were asking, ‘Do you approve of the name?’ Dinakar respected Narayan for this, and felt that his friend had gone beyond him. But what Narayan went on to say pushed him into a sorrow that would remain with him.

‘Until Prasad was five years old, Gangu and I would meet in her house secretly, without any anxiety. Chandrappa was our protector. When she and I were together, he would be breaking logs outside the gate, or drawing water from the well for the flower garden. If anyone came and asked for her, he would say, “Gangu not there.” It used to pain me that this dull-wit could comprehend so much. I do not know what Gangu felt about it. How could we ever repay Chandrappa?

‘As Prasad grew, so did our anxieties. Our lovemaking became a matter of haste. It seemed to me that she always wanted it to be over quickly. And since she was eager for it to be over as soon as possible, my attention got distracted. I also thought of you. How, after taking your pleasure, there was no need for you to have anything more to do with Gangu. You had become invisible for us. But because of Prasad, you stayed in my mind.

‘As Prasad grew older, he became unhappy because the other children at school made fun of him. My son Gopal also seemed discontented. Although he had grown up under Gangu's care, if she came to see him, he would get irritable. He became quiet only if my mother rebuked him. And it made me uneasy, thinking that I was leading an immoral life using my mother's protection. But such guilt leads nowhere. We don't get liberated from maya by such feelings. Anyhow, as I became well known, everyone accepted me. My relations with Gangu became a secret that everyone knew.

‘Yet I stopped going to meet her when Prasad was at home. Gradually, it became more and more difficult to make love discreetly. This has been so for the past ten years. It is far more than ten years now since we have been able to meet without strain, because one day Prasad openly said to his mother, “Let him marry you if he is my father.” Somehow I could not take that step, and I suffered because of it. But what is the use of such suffering?

‘Prasad stopped going to school. He would sit moodily in the house. Gangu had done well as a teacher, but she too began to suffer, keeping her son's unhappiness in her belly. Yet nothing changes if we groan, we just keep on groaning. And how could she ever leave me?

‘Then everything changed when Prasad started to learn music. He developed and got better. But he wouldn't sing to just anyone, though when he comes to our house, he always sings bhajans for my mother. He wouldn't sing even to his own mother. And if I came anywhere near him, he would stop singing.

‘The mystery was that he would sit in his own room and sing for hours before Chandrappa. And Chandrappa, whom we thought a dumb animal, would listen for hours, sitting in front of Prasad with his mouth hanging open. Before and after singing, Prasad would bow to Chandrappa and to his tamboura.

‘But all along Prasad must have been developing vairagya. He even began to seem tolerant of me. If he smiled at me I would be happy the whole day, forgetting all the irritations that Gopal caused me. Prasad looked exactly like the holy sage Shuka, as my mother also said. His serene eyes, long beard, hair falling onto his shoulders, the white clothes— dhoti and dhotra — in these he looked just like a young sage. I would think, “He is nobody's son, he is God's son,” and feel at peace.

‘But this morning something happened. Prasad went and stood before his mother and asked, “Who am I?”

‘Gangu said that her eyes filled with tears because she couldn't lie to this son of hers who looked like a rishi, yet she did not want to speak the truth. She also felt confused, and wondered why Prasad should now be asking this, when for so long he had been made fun of as my son. But then she understood that Prasad wasn't asking her that question, he was questioning himself. And having asked, “Who am I?”, he added, “Mother, I want to take sanyas to understand this question. I want to go to Hardwar where my life took root, and there I will also meditate on the roots of music. Please give your permission for this. The attachments of samsara are difficult to break. So I will also take Appayya with me. He seems very devoted to me.” As you know, it is only Chandrappa whom Prasad calls “Appayya”. After saying all this, he touched his mother's feet.

‘Gangu now feels desolate and deeply troubled because of what Prasad said this morning. She does not know what will become of her if she loses her only son.

‘She spoke to me of ways to keep her son. Should we tell him the truth of his birth? That would mean telling about you too. So you see, your coming just now must have been fated. Gangu has the illusion that her son will stay back in her house once he learns the whole truth. Another illusion is that if she gets a wedding thread tied by me before God, her son's agitation will end.

‘I do not see what relationship there is between the two. Perhaps to my lawyer's mind things don't happen that way. Still, I agreed to tie the thread. But now I am worried about Gopal. Maybe my greedy son will even want to kill me, fearing that the property will be divided. Haven't I already seen what his politics is like? He gets his opponents beaten by thugs.’

Narayan once again started sounding like a lawyer.

‘Since Prasad is a vairagi, I will have all my property registered in my son's name, even that which is not ancestral property, but out of my own earnings. I have already registered Gangu's property in her name. Anyhow, what she earns is enough for her. But I am still worried about my mother. I know that she will accept my tying the marriage-thread on Gangu. One day she saw me looking worried, and said to me meaningfully, “Find a girl for your son and get him married. He can live separately with his family. He will learn to be responsible. Then you can do what you please.” After saying this, she surprised me even more by what she said next in a whisper.’

Narayan stopped talking, opened the door of the car, waited for Dinakar to be seated, and then started the engine.

‘Do you know what Mother told me?’ Narayan asked, beginning to drive the car.

He paused, and then continued in a respectful tone, ‘For my mother there will be no need to take another birth. Although she lives in this bhava, she is free from it.’

After some time he spoke again, his voice trembling.

‘What Mother whispered to me was, “Gangu is like a member of our family.” She said this to me a year ago. I told Gangu and she said, “Because of Amma's words, I have truly become your wife.”’

Dinakar felt depleted. He thought, ‘I am part of Narayan's life, but have no role to play in his release. He is framed by the samsara of his daily world, and I don't have that. There are people to advise him, people to listen to him, society to look out for. He has a place in society, but I don't. There are people to whom he can cause pain, people who expect things from him, but I have none. Prasad exists for Narayan, not for me. Prasad may be my son, or he may not be, but there is nothing for me to do about it. It is as if I am dangling, not knowing in which direction I should turn. And this body cannot endure being directionless indefinitely. For a rudderless man like me, there is neither samsara nor sanyas. I can't be in the world or be out of it. I have no ground to stand on. No matter how much I search, I will never find who I am.’

17

Narayan Tantri turned his car off the main road. He was still speaking, but Dinakar couldn't hear what he said. Stopping in front of an isolated tile house, Narayan surprised Dinakar by saying, ‘I come here sometimes when I want a drink.’ Dinakar began to feel suspicious when Narayan entered the house as if it were his own, and a fellow sitting outside, with only a towel over his bare shoulder, stood up and shouted, ‘Rangamma, lawyer has come!’ Dinakar thought, ‘Ah, this Narayan is also like me. He cannot keep up a strong emotion for a long time.’ A dark attractive woman showed her face and, while chewing paan, said to Narayan in welcome, ‘Have you come? And after so many days …’

Narayan didn't have to say anything more. She brought a jug of water and a bottle of whisky and placed them before him. ‘I have given up drinking for as long as I wear these clothes,’ said Dinakar. But he felt tempted, remembering his Delhi days as he smelt the whisky Narayan poured out. While Dinakar was admitting to himself that he would very soon return to his drinking, Narayan told Rangamma in Tulu, This is my friend from Delhi, a very great man. He is now in vrata. Bring him some lemon sherbet. No other requirements today.’

Rangamma went inside flirtatiously. Dinakar thought, ‘So this too is part of Narayan's condition. He suffers, yet keeps his consolations intact. And when he thinks, “There is no use in mere suffering,” he becomes a vedantin. But like me, he will not turn over and be made new.’

Dinakar felt ashamed of the way he was thinking. Here was Narayan, truly suffering, boldly getting ready, to marry Gangu. ‘Why should I judge him because of Rangamma when I myself have never been innocent? There is no liberation without clarity. And there is no clarity for me as long as I live in this world.

‘Once Ramakrishna Paramahansa put food before Kali and said, “Mother, you must eat this.” When she didn't eat it he began to cry, and then a black cat came and ate the food. Ramakrishna believed that the black cat was Kali herself.

‘If I were there, I would think it was just a cat, not a goddess. I can't even regret that I would believe so. Anyhow, it truly was a black cat. I am sure that if it had seen a mouse, it would have eaten it.

‘For people like me and Narayan, there is no clarity and there are no miracles, no wonderment, no turning over. There is no satisfaction in samsara either. Nor can I be content with not wanting to know what is beyond the world, even while I live in the world. Which means I have neither heaven nor hell, I have only small daily miseries.’

Narayan, who had been enjoying his whisky, suddenly became expansive.

‘I think that the only vice I have hidden from my mother is my drinking. But maybe Mother pretends not to know in order that I should keep thinking she doesn't know. What use is there in worrying about what we have become? We should just keep quiet. God's grace will come to those who keep quiet.

‘Never mind that. Think of Shastri who brought you here. Do you know that he had a wife like gold and he beat her so much that she ran off with a Malayali pundit? She took with her a trunk full of gold. But Shastri also has a keep. She was there from the beginning. She is a very nice woman. On her advice, he married a second time. He had a daughter who became disgusted with his ill temper and ran away with someone. Now Shastri goes around with Purana and pravacchan, thinking he can lose his karma like this, talking and talking. Mad brahmin! There is a proverb that the nature you are born with will not leave you even if you are burnt to ashes. Even if people change, others won't believe it. All over this province they say that Shastri killed his wife and that the jackfruit tree which he planted in the pit where he buried her has never borne a single fruit. And some people say he has hidden his own gold.’

Intoxicated by his own words, Narayan began to praise Gangu.

‘I used to take my drinks in Gangu's house. I would write on a piece of paper, and poor Chandrappa would take it and bring whisky and ice from a shop. Later I had a fridge put in Gangu's house. My mother had said, “There can be no fridge in our house.” She believes in madi. You see? Gangu's son probably did not like my drinking whisky in their house. Gangu held my feet and begged, “Don't drink here, please.” But when I stopped drinking there, I also stopped going there. I developed a new habit of coming here. This is what we mean by samsara.

‘But I haven't asked you anything about yourself. Also, Gangu asked me about you. You know what answer I gave her? “Artists like him don't get married, they live a carefree life,” I told her. And do you know what Gangu said? She said, “He looks as if he is in some deep sorrow.”’

Narayan began to laugh. All the pain in his mind seemed to have disappeared.

18

Shastri had returned and was waiting. Narayan went upstairs to his bedroom, on the pretext that he didn't want dinner, because he didn't want his mother to catch the smell of whisky. But Sitamma anyway mixed some beaten rice with curd and sent it to his room. She could not send cooked food because hands and eating-place could not be washed after the meal. When Shastri mentioned that he didn't take cooked food at night, she served beaten rice and curd to him too. For Dinakar and her grandson Gopal, she served a grand dinner.

This was very different from the afternoon meal. All around a cured banana leaf were different vegetable side-dishes, and also lentil salad, poppadom, crispy fried poppadom, kheer, a little dal — all of these things were like an artistically designed menu-card. Some items which were not visible now would appear later on.

To please Sitamma, Dinakar — like her grandson Gopal — took some water in his cupped palm, dripped a little through his fingers around the edge of the leaf, and drank the rest before starting the meal. Sitamma asked, ‘Do brahmins in your part follow this ritual?’ Dinakar didn't understand her and looked at Gopal, who explained. Dinakar nodded ‘Yes’ to Sitamma, then turned and told Shastri, ‘It is from this second mother that I came to know of kuttavalakki. If my mother was from this side, she must also have fed me that.’

Then he asked Sitamma for some kuttavalakki and she said, ‘Don't fill your belly with this. That's stuff that only old people eat when they are fasting in the evening.'

Once again, just as he had at their first meeting, Shastri stared at Dinakar while he ate kuttavalakki. He was startled when Sitamma laughed and said, ‘Why do you stare at that boy as if you want to eat him up?’

Shastri prayed to himself, ‘O Bhagavati, protect me. When I look at him, I see in his face the radiance of Pundit. His eyes are like his mother's, but his short nose, his complexion, the firmness with which his lips press together, all these are like Pundit's. When Pundit listened to music, he used to sit in just that way. He must be Pundit's.’

Then he thought, ‘No, he must be my child. I begot him while I was in that mad howling. Yet through some maya, he received a tender nature. He is mine, but he is not like me. He's a perpetuator of my family. Yet I cannot claim him.’ He began to sob inwardly, thinking, ‘My doubts will never be cleared. It will be my karma to go to hell and be wailing there alone for eternity. O Bhagavati, show this old man the path. Burn away my hatred for Pundit. Release me.’

Having made this prayer, Shastri finished his tiny meal. He spent the whole night thinking about meeting Dinakar the next day, asking himself, ‘Should I take him to my house, where the ghost is? Or should I not take him?’ Because of worry over this, he did not sleep.

Next day, when Dinakar got up, he said to Shastri, ‘When I come back from Kerala I will come and stay with you, all right, Uncle?’

‘Why should Dinakar say this?’ Shastri thought, feeling cheered by Dinakar's words. ‘It must be the Devi's wish that I have to wait before deserving to take my son home.’ With this in his mind, he left, after breakfast, in his car.

Being old, not having much longer to live, Shastri thought that he had lost his desire for life. He went to Radha's house feeling relieved by that thought. ‘When I die, who will perform my funeral rites?’ he had once asked himself. But now he was content to leave it to God, and told himself, ‘Let whatever is true be revealed.’

19

When Dinakar went to his room that night, he couldn't sleep. He got up and squatted on his bed, tried to listen to music on his Walkman, but now the Tibetan chanting seemed unreal. There was no response to it in his heart.

Dinakar decided to write letters. His first letter would be to someone who, with him as catalyst, had become a holy woman. He would write for his own sake, because he knew she would never read the letter, and his knowing this impressed on him his absurd state.

He began writing in English:

‘Dear Shrimati Mahamata,’

He laughed at himself, struck it out, and, more properly, still in English, began again.

‘Dear Mahamata,’

— and on top of the page, to please her, he wrote in Devanagari, om namo bhagavati.

‘Dear Mahamata,

When, in my troubled days, I was trying to understand my relations with you and Gangu, I read a story about you in the Illustrated Weekly. The story went something like this:

One night you were travelling to Kashi in a train, and you saw a handsome young man. At that moment, you suddenly recalled that you had been Radha in a previous birth. A divine love welled up in you and you became helpless. Your body, which belongs to this bhava, could not bear this experience. You even forgot that your father was there with you. When the train stopped for a little while in some station, you got off with only the clothes you were wearing and from there you began wandering about like a religious mendicant. Once, while wandering, you felt tired and sat under a bodhi tree. It was then that you saw a cowherd playing on a flute. He, like the handsome young man you had seen on the train, was Bhagavan Shri Krishna himself, come to release you from your cycle of births. Listening to his flute, you were liberated from this world and became Radha herself.

This was, in short, your history as given in the story. There were also some pictures of you as you look now. Yet I could immediately see that the old mischievous look had not disappeared from your eyes.’

‘Dear Mahamata,

It is from me, not Krishna, that you had your first great experience of love in this bhava. From looking at me, who these days is in spiritual anguish. Listen, and I will make you remember.

Twenty-four years ago, you must have been eighteen then. By chance I was travelling in the same second-class compartment. You were sleeping on an upper berth, your father was sleeping in the berth below you. As you told me later on, your father had brought you to Kashi to overcome your bad planets because you had refused to live with your husband. You were still a girl studying in college and you told me all this in your beautiful broken English.

But here is the important point. My berth was near yours and I could see that your berth was not properly held by the chain. That was a good excuse for me to watch you anxiously. You had been looking at me, too, your eyes filled only with me. Your father was watching me suspiciously, but you didn't know this. Very gently, you began to bite your lips and move your mouth as if you were chewing something. You pushed up your breasts as if they were a heavy weight, then looked at the fan as if feeling hot. Under cover of your bedsheet, you began opening the buttons of your sari blouse. You smoothed your hair and even winked, showing me you understood that I wanted to bite your lips. Your eyes were very mischievous, eyes that smiled on their own. Even now your eyes are like that.

I had been thinking of my love for a girl called Gangu a year before, a love that had dissolved our bodies. Now I was looking at you, wanting to eat you up, yet trying to behave as if the only reason I looked at you was my concern that, without being properly secured, your berth might fall. I came over and, making as if to fix the chain, brought my left arm near your thighs. Then you turned slightly and with your right thigh touched my left arm.

While I was lifting the berth slightly so that I could attach the hook, your father got up, started hitting me, and shrieked, “Hey! Ay, ay!” Fortunately, other passengers in the compartment appreciated my concern, appreciated that a young man dressed in modern clothes responded so courteously to a woman in distress. They scolded your father, who had an irritable expression on his face. You still watched all this mischievously, and had silently come to an understanding with me.

I have always been good at knowing the heart of a woman, even in the clothes I wear right now. I acted as if I had been insulted by your hot-headed father, yet had forgiven him. After everyone switched off their lights, you quietly got down from your berth and made your way along the aisle. I guessed where you had gone and, a little later, I followed and pushed open the toilet door. You were waiting inside, and you embraced me. Not only had you opened the buttons of your blouse, you had even removed your brassiere and tucked it into the waist of your sari.

The stench of urine didn't bother us. I began biting your lips. You kissed me all over my face and ears, took my hands to your breasts. You murmured that you were a college student and hated the marriage that had been forced on you. You would go with me anywhere I wanted. In your reckless intensity of passion you seemed like a goddess to me. The train slowed, to stop at a station. Then you said, “Let's get down here and run away.”

Although I felt great desire for you, I had no courage. Yet I said, “Yes, yes,” as if saying so were a part of foreplay, and began to touch you everywhere.

But you were a wild girl. You left the toilet and got down from the train. It moved off again almost immediately. Soon your father noticed your absence. He shouted and searched for you, then gathered together all the bundles of luggage and got down at the next station.

After Gangu, you were my second withdrawal. Both times I withdrew, and this made me doubtful of myself. I thought I might be incapable of real love, that I was perhaps obsessed only with my own self.

Years passed, and I became famous. After many love affairs, I finally married. When I found that my wife was happier in someone else's bed than in mine, I felt furious and humiliated. I was disgusted by our quarrels over how much gold I should give her in order to divorce me. Despite my disgust, I didn't turn over. I didn't change. Just as she had married me for my wealth and kept up another relationship, I — in my own glamorous world — was balancing a few other relationships, like a tightrope walker in a circus. You may say that since I did not experience the truth of who I am, I suffered the illusion of being held captive by this bhava. Although I had known this truth intellectually, it was delectable to be under the spell of such intrigues. Forgetting the time I promised to one woman, I promised the same time to another; cheating on one in order to placate another; using the anger and emotion that I caused as a spice to make the act of love more delicious — this became an addiction. Yet it also led to a certain weariness that made it possible for me to listen, however dimly, for another strain of melody in me.

I wasn't able to live with my wife. Yet, for the sake of convention, I felt unable to leave her. Then one day I was drinking fine Darjeeling tea with her in the Taj Intercontinental, and I simply got up and left, went to the bank, and brought back some of the gold which my mother had left for me. I placed before her bars of gold worth nearly twenty lakhs of rupees, and she was wonderstruck. I will never forget the way her face bloomed. I saw in her the delight of an innocent child, and felt touched by the play of illusion that the gold produced in her. It seemed then that my hatred for her disappeared.

But that hatred returns whenever I remember the sounds of her lovemaking with the other man. One evening, I had entered the flat with my own key and stood silently in the drawing room. I heard her moaning in ecstasy. Her lover was a mere dull engineer. They were like two animals making strange sounds and then getting spent. I couldn't bear it, and thought of taking a knife from the kitchen and slashing her. Even the most lustful man will find it astonishing that his woman would get done to her by another person what he himself does. Why shouldn't there be release even in such painful astonishment?

Anyhow, seeing her enthralled by the illusion of gold, I thought I had a glimpse of my possible release. I took this Ayyappa vrata, postponed all other engagements, and for three months wandered in holy places. But I found no peace of mind. Then I read the story about you. That gave me hope of another way of release, and about a week ago I came to your world-famous ashram near Madras.

Such crowds of people, such jubilance! Everywhere there were colour pictures of you, clothes with your picture, stickers with your picture, plates with your picture. From the outside your ashram looked like a modern shopping place. I felt a little disappointed, but also curious. There were dharamshalas with rooms where people could stay in whatever degree of luxury they could afford. But I stayed in a resort hotel which had been built in a village on the beach, where quite a few foreign devotees also stayed.

Even if you personally met everyone for a minute, and sat like a Bhagavati Devi for ten hours, you could still see only six hundred people a day. Although I hid my identity as a TV man from everyone else, I revealed it to your managers, and so after three days I was lucky enough to get your darshan. There was a queue about a kilometre long, where each person got a half-minute with you. I had been standing in another, smaller queue. This was for VIPs who would get a full minute with you. There I had to wait, hopeful and uncertain, for darshan of your face — I who was an agent of that great change in you.

The half-minute queue people were fortunate enough to have their heads touched by your hand; but those in the one-minute queue were fortunate enough to be embraced by you. I had heard one of the mysterious tales that the pilgrims told each other: whoever has pure bhakti, whoever is standing on tiptoe, poised for release, having worn away all the karma and dirt of this becoming — when you embraced such people, it was said, your breasts would leak milk. If milk appeared, you would press it to that person's eyes. There was an old judge of the Supreme Court who got your milk, then gave up everything and stayed on to help manage your ashram.

Waiting anxiously for my turn, getting nearer and nearer, I counted on my watch the good fortune of the people standing in front of me — I wanted at least to glimpse you when I moved up in the queue. But your officers had arranged the queue in such a zigzag maze that no one could catch sight of you until they were almost face-to-face. Perhaps the intent was to make you suddenly appear like a vision.

But gradually I lost interest in following the process. Because of my TV shows, I too am adept at timing. And hadn't I come in search of you because I was tired of such games? Just like those who become artists in sexual matters and who deliberately stage the climax of an erotic experience.

Then I saw you. It surprised me that you did not seem tired, even after touching so many people. You embraced me, but I was not a blessed one who brought milk to your breasts. Did I or didn't I see the old mischievousness in your eyes? Have you or haven't you truly crossed over? But even after turning over, don't we still remain limited by our bhava? You still urinate, don't you? You embraced me just as I was thinking all these things.

You enfolded me in a divine, never-stale-however-much-touched love. I was filled with a sense of wonder. Then you went on and embraced the person standing next to me. But when you had embraced me, you made me feel for that moment that only I existed for you, just as you made the next person feel that you existed only for him. I thought that this might be a gift which never tires you although you do it day after day after day. I also felt sad that you, always sitting there that way, had grown fat despite your young age.

After having your darshan, I took up my journey again to seek out an old woman named Sitamma, who years before had become like my mother, and also to look for Gangubai, who had secretly shown me the taste of this body which I am now trying to punish in my vairagya. During this journey I also met an old man called Shastri. He fed me kuttavalakki and became like a relation from some past life.

My dear Mahamata, is the son of Gangu, whom both Narayan and I had loved, my son? It seems he intends to sacrifice all attachments in vairagya. Tell me, what should I do now?’

In this way, Dinakar finished the letter, felt tired, and slept.

20

On his third day at Sitamma's house, Dinakar thought that he had woken up very early, but when he came out he found that Sitamma had woken up earlier still, had already swept and sprinkled the veranda, and was ready to lay the rangoli. ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked. ‘Bring a chair and sit down. Look what rangoli I am going to lay. I will fill the whole veranda with the picture of Sri Chakra which is on your amulet. Isn't that rakshe from your mother?’ And she began to work.

‘Sri Chakra’ were the only words he had understood. But as he watched, he grasped little by little what began to rise on the veranda in red kumkum and yellow turmeric, and when it had fully arisen he took in the whole thing again, all the while drinking fresh coffee.

Nine triangles joining, one inside the other, creating an orbit which becomes a circle in turn becoming a chakra, the chakra becoming a petalled flower, the flower a form manifested within a square opened out to the four directions, the whole figure wombing in itself the creative energy of earth and sky.

This form had perfected itself in Sitamma's meditation, so that the eyes of an observer became absorbed in the continuous intermingling of yoni and linga, resting in the colours of kumkum and turmeric, then moving towards the point at the centre, becoming one with it.

After his coffee Dinakar felt serene, went upstairs to his room and again sat down to write, this time to the wife from whom he had separated.

∗

‘Dear Ranjana,

In the extreme hatred and jealousy I felt that day, I see now a hint of my release. I had wanted to take a knife from the kitchen and kill you. But even for a slut like you, there might have been a possibility of release in getting fucked by him. I have begun to believe this now that I can, without any jealousy, imagine that moment when you opened out continuously to him, allowing him to enter into every nook and corner of yourself, as you moaned in ecstasy. It is possible to get free of bondage through an unearthly pleasure so intense that you feel you cannot bear it, that you will die.

But if you continue to be a scheming slut all your life, you will never completely turn over. I am writing this after seeing that a girl who was touched by me in her ecstasy of passion became a mahamata. There was also a hint that vairagya might flower in you when I saw your face bloom in the ecstasy of illusion while looking at the gold I gave you. I cannot guess where you might find release. But if it happens, you will realize how easy it always was, how it could have happened at any time, how at any time you could have turned over as easily as turning over in your sleep. I wish you success in this. I never truly touched you and reached you. You have never truly touched me and held me. I hope that someday I will find it amusing that I still sometimes feel jealous when I think of another man caressing the birthmark on your thigh. Why do you want to get fucked by a worthless scum like him? I can't understand why you want to get fucked by a man who enjoys leftovers. Keep my flat as long as you want. Don't worry that I may suddenly turn up there. I am sending by registered post my key to the flat, so that I am not even tempted to do so. One thing more. Whatever I bought during the year of our marriage because you desired it, is yours.

From one feeling weary because of you, still not free from hatred, searching for a way out—

Dinakar’

Then he thought of all his other lovers and began writing short notes to them.

‘Dear Sudarshini,

I never loved you wholeheartedly. You too did not fully love me. But we were eager to conquer each other.

I remember seeing you one day, humming to yourself, sitting alone and looking inwards. In such moments I see the possibility that you may be released from bhava.

Dinakar’

‘Dear Priti,

Your desire for me grew from the fear that your youth was fading. And I, always curious in the beginning about every woman, came together with you. But later I began to search for ways to escape from you. Yet I held you to me through some illusion of love. That's because, like you, I am lonely.

Now I believe that you pretended to enjoy sex with me even when you didn't, because you wanted to cheat yourself. Forgive me for pretending to believe that you were happy. I remember one day you carefully removed the jasmine from your braid and placed the flowers on a green leaf. With your fingers, you delicately sprinkled water, the right amount, with loving tenderness. You were not aware that I, in wonderment, was watching you do this. Remembering this now brings hope that some good will come to us from that moment.

Desiring desirelessness, and realizing that it can't be got by desiring it,

Yours,

Dinakar’

‘Dear Mamata,

You never allowed me to see you naked.

But one day as you quickly removed your clothes to get under the blanket, I saw a white patch on your thigh. I knew that it was not leprosy, but you feared I might think so. Your liberation might lie in the leucoderma itself, even if it spreads all over your body. May God give you strength to face it.

You made many sacrifices for me. You accepted all my other lovers without envy.

I was never truly excited by you. It was feelings of compassion that united us.

Praying for you,

Dinakar’

He put all the letters that he had written into envelopes, thinking that he would write still more letters the next day — to one in Lucknow, to another in Allahabad, to another in Kuwait, to yet another whom he had been trying to seduce and who had been putting him off to make the desire more delicious — a reporter for a Delhi paper. Perhaps there was no use in sending the letter to Mahamata, who hardly had time to breathe. He stepped out of the house to go in search of a mailbox.

Sitamma called to him and said, ‘As soon as you finish walking, take a bath and eat your food. I'm going to make dosa for you today. I don't know what time my great son will get up. He has court today. He found the affection and concern in her voice very pleasant.

21

Narayan, on his way to take a bath, came to Dinakar's room and closed the door. Then he said, ‘I do not know what to do.’

The previous night Narayan had come in drunk, awakened his son, and told him of his resolve to marry Gangu. He had reassured Gopal that he would sign over all his property to him. ‘But my great son danced about in fury, shouting, “Why should I have been a son to such a father?”’

Gopal had also abused Gangu, who had brought him up, calling her an avaricious prostitute, and he cursed Prasad as a hypocritical sanyasi. Then he beat his head against the wall and screamed, ‘How can I stay in such a house?’ Nothing of this tantrum was heard in Dinakar's small room upstairs.

But Sitamma had heard the outburst. She had gone to her grandson, consoled him, and told her son Narayan, ‘First get this boy married. He may be worried that no one will give him a daughter in marriage. Let his election madness also be over. Whatever he is, isn't he your son? Like his father, this little one wants to become a municipal president and strut about.’

Dinakar was surprised that, in the early morning, Sitamma had been sitting as if unaware of the previous night's outburst. He said to Narayan, ‘Your mother is truly a mahamata. She stays in this world, caring for everyone, yet without being entangled with anyone.’

Now, on a flat iron griddle big enough to make four dosas, Sitamma was shaping batter, adding a little ghee, turning the dosas over to make them crisp, and when they were nearly ready, applying a little red chutney, filling them with potato and onion mixture, folding them, then lifting them off neatly and placing them directly on the leaf-plate. More green chilli chutney was served on the side. So her cooking too was devoted to God, and in the perfection of her dosas Dinakar saw the same dexterity of hand which had made the nine triangles meet in sacred unity.

Hoping that, if he spoke English, his mother would not recognize his distress, Narayan said to Dinakar, ‘My son Gopal, who I am certain was born to me and who has legitimate status, I do not feel is my son at all.’

Having said this, Narayan changed the topic out of a kind of delicacy, sensing that what he would otherwise go on to say might embarrass his friend. He turned the question into one of having a common personal law for the whole country, and waited for Dinakar's opinion. Having already eaten two masala dosas at Sitamma's urging, Dinakar — after more urging — began to eat a crispy plain dosa. Then Chandrappa's voice was heard calling ‘Amma!’ Sitamma, who was about to serve a dosa to her son, brought it instead to the backyard on a banana leaf. After serving it to Chandrappa, she came in.

‘Chandrappa asked whether Gangu should come here to see lawyer or go to his office in the city,’ she said. ‘I told him, “Let her come here at least for a moment, even if she has not taken a bath. Then she could also have hot dosa. Isn't it a holiday for her today, and doesn't she always make gruel for everyone in her house?” Since it would anyhow take time to make gruel, I asked her to come here. She can also bring dosas for all of them. Anyway,’ she continued to Narayan, ‘what is your big hurry? The office is always there, you can reach half an hour later. I don't know why my royal grandson hasn't come for his food yet. The little one is always at the phone and forgets to eat.’

So, speaking in her sprightly manner, she went inside to see if there was enough batter for Gangu's dosas and, seeing that there was enough and more, she lowered the stove's flame and asked Narayan, ‘Shall I give you another?’ Gratified when he belched in satisfaction, she went to the backyard to speak to Chandrappa. But Chandrappa had already left, having thrown the used leaf-plate into the bin outside.

22

Gangu, in another of her beautiful saris with matching glass bangles, and wearing jasmine in her long braided hair, looked fresh from her bath. Sitamma served her dosas in a separate dining room kept for Narayan's friends who were not orthodox. After finishing the dosas, Gangu threw the leaf outside, and although she had been told it was unnecessary to purify the eating-place with cow-dung and water, Gangu nonetheless cleansed the place where she had sat and eaten, and then went upstairs to meet Narayan.

When their conversation was finished, Narayan — dressed in a black coat, white pants, a bow-tie under his starched white collar, and with a gown and some files in his hand — came downstairs with Gangu, who was behind him. She touched Dinakar's feet and asked in Hindi, ‘Will you come in the evening? Your Prasad said that he wanted to meet you.’

Noting with admiration the Hindi she had learnt in school, Dinakar agreed to come. Narayan said, ‘Gangu's house is close by. Just walk on the road opposite to our house for a while, then turn to your right, and soon you will come to a mailbox. From there, turn to your left and go a little distance, until you see the Syndicate Bank. If you stand in front of the bank, you will see a narrow pathway to the left. Hers is the fifth house on the path. It is named “Rishikesh.” A fitting house for Prasad,’ Narayan said, laughing.

Dinakar suddenly remembered their visit to Sivananda's ashram in Rishikesh. One day Narayan, carrying a howling Gopal, went with Sitamma back across the bridge, and Dinakar and Gangu had unexpectedly enjoyed a rare moment of privacy. And this was the same Gangu who now stood before him expressionlessly.

Then Narayan said, ‘Never mind, Gangu, better to send Chandrappa along with Dinakar, let him not lose his way,’ and turning to Dinakar, he added, ‘Come with me now to the office, I must speak to you. I will send you back later in the car.’ He took Dinakar's arm and led him to the car. Gangu stayed back to share her news with Sitamma.

While driving, Narayan talked to Dinakar as if he had just been saved from a big crisis. Gangu had told him how afraid she had been that morning when she saw Prasad with his head shaved. But after finishing his musical practice, Prasad touched her feet, stood up before her and said, ‘Let Narayan Tantri start coming home. I will also live at home, although I will go away sometimes and stay at other places.’ He also told her that he didn't want the attachment even of saffron robes.

‘Do you understand, Dinakar? This was the first time he ever spoke my name to Gangu. She could hardly believe it. And Prasad spoke of me with affection and calm. He has shed his hatred of me. Gangu told me all this with tears in her eyes. When the son becomes a great ascetic like Adishankara, stands before his mother looking like a bestower of fearlessness, would not his mother feel as if she had been given a new birth?

‘Gangu told me, “You don't have to tie a mangalsutra around my neck for the sake of appearances.” She also told me that, feeling it was an auspicious moment, she revealed to Prasad the truth about you. That is why Gangu said that you should go and bless him. That's why she called you home. Gangu is a great woman.’

Dinakar felt awkward, hearing Narayan speak with such intensity. Yet in Narayan's words and gestures there was now the ease of one who had been relieved of a great embarrassment. ‘I wouldn't be able to achieve the nobility or poise or tactfulness of a man like Narayan who faces crises living in samsara. A man like me is not the man to be morally righteous.’ Feeling humbled, Dinakar followed Narayan into his office.

Narayan showed his grand office to Dinakar with pride. There were many clerks, large books, and files. Dinakar admired everything, shook Narayan's hand and, driven by one of Narayan's clerks, came back home.

‘Are you not well?’ asked Sitamma. She mimed eating, and showed him that she was preparing kesu leaf for lunch.