The Girl with the Golden Parasol

FOUR

It was the second month after the beginning of the term. The university was known as “the Cambridge of India” and it spread over a few hundred acres surrounded by mountains scattering far into the distance. Students came here from Japan, Indonesia, Fiji, Mauritius, and even from a few African countries. The chair of the geology department was the world-famous Professor Watson. He’d turned down offers from all the major academic institutions in the U.S., France, and Germany in favor of India, since the astonishing variety of what he found here was better for his research. “This country is a living museum of wonders. Countless cultures, histories, races, and castes. . We’ve found evidence of human civilization here from as long ago as several hundred thousand years: alive, robust, burning brightly. And what applies to people equally applies to the ground we’re standing on.”

Dr. Watson went on. Bending over, he picked up a rock, which he examined with great care. “Look at this. This rock reveals the lava stage of the mountain on which this university was established. Look carefully. It’s actually a fossil, a thousand years old, maybe a hundred thousand. And it’s the fossil of some aquatic life. Right where we’re standing now, on this very spot, there once was an ocean.”

The people standing around suddenly looked confused. An ocean? Here? In Madhya Pradesh?

Rahul began to enjoy himself. He’d been assigned to the second floor of Tagore Hostel, Room 252, with a roommate, O.P., Omkar Prasad. O.P. was six foot three, thin like a bamboo stick, neck like a heron’s, bobbing at every step. O.P. was a clown and a chatterbox and declared, “I’ll marry a four-foot maiden. It’ll give these mountain people something to stare at when we make love in the ‘standing position.”’

Rahul pictured himself strolling in town in the shadow of the mountain. Looking up at the sky, he admires the full moon, shining like a golden plate in the night. His gaze wanders over the peak of the highest mountain where he notices a gigantic man, naked as Adam. Rahul makes out an impish apparition, like a tiny woman, fastened to the giant’s waist, and then the wind carries a thump to Rahul’s ears — a sound like someone drumming on an hourglass-shaped damaru. Thump! Thump! Thump! The figures sway back and forth. Who are they? O.P. and his fantasy girl? Or the maiden of the rock? The daughter of the Himalayas? It’s Shiva and Parvati! So this was the cosmic union from which the world was created. Thump! Thump! Thump!

Father used to get up at half past four every morning, bathe, then perform puja to Shiva. Sometimes the Sanskrit chanting and echoing of the prayer through the house woke Rahul in the silence of the dawn:

namami shamisham nirvana vibhum, vibhuam vyapakam bahma ved swarupam

ajum nirgunam nirvikalpam niriham, cidahashamahasha vasam bhajeham

nirankara monkara mulam turiyam