In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  It was as though the storm had arrived expressly in order to knock down that tree. A little while later, its force dissipated. Tree branches began to swing, the wires of water changed to drops and then quieted down. Although there were still light clouds in the sky, the dense army of black clouds had passed by. Now there were soft puffs of breeze. They all stepped down from the veranda; Billa, Debu and Jagna shook hands with everyone and went off towards the Lower Court, and Hunar Sahib turned towards Company Bagh, as he had to pay his respects to ‘The Gandhi of the Doab’ at the office of the Widows’ Aid Society. At first, Chetan had thought he’d part with them there, but the rain had washed the day clean. A lovely cool breeze blew, still carrying with it invisible drops of rain, and after Company Bagh, up to the turn towards Mandi, there were nothing but fields on both sides of the street that went above Ramjidas Mills. The thought of taking a stroll on that open street in such cool, rainy weather made even the company of Hunar Sahib and Ranvir tolerable, and when Hunar Sahib said, ‘Come on, let’s introduce you to Banshiram ji and Yogi ji!’ Chetan did not refuse.

  8 Tashna=Thirsting one (the poet’s nom de plume).

  21

  The Company Bagh street was quite wet. Water had pooled along both sides, so the four of them walked down the middle. Every time there was a puff of breeze, a shower fell from the trees. Chetan broke off a couple of leaves, rubbed them in his hands and inhaled them. The scent of eucalyptus infused his consciousness. Unripe fruit littered the whole street on the right side under the fallen mango tree, and little boys gathered it briskly. The street was empty along Company Bagh, all the way to the fork towards Mandi. The fields on both sides were full of water and a dense blue cloud had gathered in the sky to the right. Perhaps it was still raining hard over there. But the sky to the left was clear now. Hunar Sahib had become elated in that damp, expansive, freshly washed weather. He had a lovely voice and could do an excellent imitation of the poet Hafiz Jalandhari.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to sing you a famous song by Hafiz,’ he announced by way of introduction, and began to sing:

  The morning has awoken in the east

  The darkness of the world is far

  But my heart is dark

  The clouds have arisen in the west

  The drunken breezes roam about

  Awake, oh, tavern-goers

  Oh, drinkers and bartenders

  Mix the poison with the nectar

  My heart belongs to another

  The nightingale calls in a garden

  The nargis opens her eyes

  The dew scatters its pearls

  The black cuckoo warbles in the mango

  A sob rises in my chest

  What if I go mad?

  The meek cries of beasts

  Prick my every pore

  My heart belongs to another

  My heart belongs to another—Chetan sighed deeply—if his heart were his own, would he have been wandering about like an untethered camel since morning? He’d come home from Shimla after so many days, and run off to Basti as soon as he arrived; after returning from Basti the night before, he’d gone out wandering when morning came . . . His mother must be dying to tell him all sorts of things . . . Chanda must be waiting patiently for him to say just a few sweet words to her . . . she may have been quiet, but how many desires lay hidden in this silence? What was this fire that raged in his heart? Nothing attracted him. Nothing diverted him. If you thought about it, it was all absolute madness, complete idiocy. What had been his connection to Neela when he’d married Chanda? What right had he to desire her companionship? This was not the West, where, if he didn’t get along with one girlfriend, he could just take up with another; if he destroyed one world he could simply start a new one . . . and now Neela was married too. She’d even departed, bound in the chains of marriage. How could desire exist without hope? Why didn’t he think from the point of view of a married person? But he just couldn’t come up with any answers; everything kept flooding into his mind, again and again. If he stayed at home and didn’t come out and try to get rid of his sadness, he’d go crazy. But could he really get rid of it? It grew denser and coalesced deep inside him . . . What had happened to him . . . what had happened to him?

  And Hunar Sahib was singing:

  Who will tell me what affection is?

  What is the heart’s truth?

  What is the pleasure in dying and leaving no trace

  The heartless can hardly see it, only those who feel it know

  Listen oh sage, the world is ephemeral, oh love, oh youth

  The khas grasses are aflame

  ‘The khas grasses are aflame,’ thought Chetan—not straw, grasses—they were smouldering, not crackling clearly, and they were giving off smoke.

  *

  Then Hunar Sahib began a new song:

  Jingle jingle, the black clouds rain, drip drip the eyes do weep

  In the seasons of Savan and Bhadon there are such days

  When the noisy droplets scatter songs

  When we strain our eyes hoping

  Waiting for the ones we love

  In the shadow of our damp eyelids sleep broken dreams

  In the seasons of Savan and Bhadon there are such days

  And Chetan’s heart filled with boundless sorrow at the gathering clouds, the damp weather, the rippling water-filled fields, the rain-drenched street that shone like molten silver, the intoxicating puffs of breeze. He wished he could just dissolve completely into this atmosphere, become a part of the breeze, puff along causing sorrow to fall like drops of rain, join in with the dolefully meandering clouds, and wander about from place to place.

  Hunar Sahib was singing a poignant tune and Chetan began to listen, concentrating completely on the song:

  When the small black clouds do gather round

  in the rainy season I feel shaken without my darling

  They string the pearls of tears in eyelids again and again

  In the seasons of Savan and Bhadon there are such days

  The queen of rain does dance when

  she comes to the gardens full of youth

  We sow the seeds of sorrow in the fields of our hearts

  In the seasons of Savan and Bhadon there are such days

  Just as Chetan had snapped and run from home in order to distance himself from the deep sadness he felt inside, he now felt frightened by these sorrowful songs. He interrupted abruptly, ‘Why are you singing such sad songs, Hunar Sahib? It’s such lovely weather, sing us a fun love song.’

  And swaying along, intoxicated by the weather, Hunar Sahib replied, ‘Here, listen to this:’

  Sing me a song, beloved, in the heavy rains of Savan

  Let love come to youth, let there be delight in words of love

  Sing me a song, beloved

  A song from whose sweet verses a Ganga of love bursts forth

  In the earth of the desolate heart, a river of light will burst forth

  Sing me a song, beloved

  At the high note of the verse, Hunar Sahib stretched out the words ‘Sing me a song’ in such a tender tone that it lingered in the heart. Instead of listening to the song, Chetan kept waiting to hear the tone of the refrain. When that song was finished, Hunar Sahib began another. Chetan didn’t enjoy it as much—there was depth in Hafiz’s songs, sorrow, a delicate, sweet pain—but these other songs were quite light and shallow. He wanted to say to Nishtar, ‘Why don’t you sing some verses from Heer Ranjha?’ but so long as Hunar Sahib didn’t shut up, interrupting him would mean insulting him. And Hunar Sahib kept on singing—songs, ghazals, poems—but Chetan didn’t hear a thing; on and on that same song by Hafiz—‘My heart belongs to another’—echoed in his ears. He felt irritable and kept trying to get his mind off that song and on to something else—he kept thinking, there’s so much to do in this life—one must rise above this aimless existence. He wasn’t Majnu, nor Ranjha, nor Farhad. In Class Six, he’d read this couplet by Hali:

  Oh love, you have o
ften consumed entire countries and departed

  That home where you first lifted your head, you ruined and departed

  At which he’d decided to himself that he’d never get caught up in the whole love thing. But had he even known what love was then? And what use was love that had no resolution? And how could one love, if one considered the costs? So how could he have compared himself to Majnu now? What a fool he was.

  And he walked along, tangled up in his thoughts, fighting with himself, making fun of his own idiocy, until they were just outside of Mandi, and he saw a large signboard that read, ‘Widows’ Aid Society’ posted upon a new, half-built house that stood alone.

  22

  In the pages of Widows’ Aid, the title ‘Mahatma’ was always printed before the name of Lala Banshiram. In a nondescript weekly in Lahore, one of his followers had even written an article titled ‘The Gandhi of the Doab and His Domain’. Chetan had no idea who had given him the title of ‘Mahatma’. He was also not so sure if Lala Banshiram possessed the intellect of Mahatma Gandhi, but it was true that Lala Banshiram had stinted nothing in becoming Mahatma Gandhi with respect to his appearance and demeanour—he was skinny like the Mahatma, though a bit taller, and when he walked along, with a hand on the shoulder of his secretary, Sister Saraswati Devi, he always bent over slightly; and like Mahatma Gandhi, he wore his dhoti a little above the knees. His two front teeth were broken and, in imitation of the Mahatma, he considered the wearing of false teeth to be immoral. He spoke very slowly. Like Mahatma Gandhi, he spoke Hindi with a Gujarati accent, though he was Punjabi, and he also placed a finger to his lips when he spoke, or sometimes when he was thinking, just like Gandhi ji. One year, during the Congress session, Lala Banshiram had found Sarojini Naidu standing outside Mahatma Gandhi’s tent, which had made it particularly difficult for him to meet him. When Gandhi ji had entered the pavilion in order to take part in the Congress executive session, he had supported himself as he walked by placing one hand on Sarojini Naidu’s shoulder. Where was Lala Banshiram supposed to find a world-famous lady poet like Sarojini Naidu to be his bodyguard? The child-widow sister of a distant relation, Saraswati Devi, worked at his institution. With the help of the Mahatma ji, she’d even studied as far as the Prabhakar Exam. After returning from the Congress session, he had engaged Saraswati Devi as his secretary and bodyguard. Whenever people came to meet Mahatma Banshiram, they first met Sister Saraswati Devi. And whenever Mahatma Banshiram came out, she always walked with him, and one of Mahatma Banshiram’s hands always rested upon her shoulder. She was also plump, like Sarojini Naidu. Otherwise, there was as much difference between her and Sarojini Naidu as there was between Mahatma Banshiram and Mahatma Gandhi.

  Chetan had seen her in two or three sessions of the City Congress Committee in which there was quite a bit of heated discussion and debate. Mahatma Banshiram didn’t say much, but when he did speak, he placed a finger on his lips, which was how Chetan learned how much he was actually worth. The patriot Lala Govindaram had total authority over the City Congress Committee. He didn’t speak much, he worked hard, he organized strikes, participated in sit-ins and he went to jail. Mahatma Banshiram didn’t want to do all this, because he’d taken on other constructive work according to the dictates of Mahatma Gandhi, but he also wanted to be the chair of the local Congress committee. Unfortunately, there was a greater need at that time for those doing destructive work rather than constructive work, so Mahatma ji had taken his institution to an inexpensive but spacious house outside the city, and when the movement was dormant, he took part in the Congress sessions as well. Before the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, when all the leaders of the city had gone to jail and people were annoyed that he remained outside, he too left his constructive work and went to jail for three months. Whenever Chetan observed him, his persona seemed a crude parody of Mahatma Gandhi.

  Actually, Chetan had not seen much of the world at that time. If he had, then he wouldn’t have been so surprised, because in those days, there were people in every region of India imitating Mahatma Gandhi. Those people had no chance of measuring up to the intellect of Mahatma Gandhi, nor did they possess his compassion, his sympathy, his perception of popular thought, nor his understanding of the nation and society. All their effort went into shaving their heads, going about half-naked, keeping vows of silence, using natural remedies, eating boiled water-lily root, or potatoes, or yogurt, spinning, or making a display of their broken front teeth, and so on.

  Since at that time even constructive Congress work was suspicious to the government, there weren’t that many widows at Mahatma Banshiram’s ashram. There were only two other women besides Saraswati Devi. Most of Mahatma Banshiram’s work was publicity-related. This was why he had started his weekly and he ran it in such a way that the government would not shut it down, even as it propagated the Congress’s constructive goals.

  The house where Mahatma Banshiram’s office was located was among those that had been built on cheap land outside the city for the lower middle classes, but the capital had run out before they could be completed. They climbed the stairs, from which the paint had peeled long ago, and Hunar Sahib told them to sit in the office of the weekly, to the left, while he himself went up to the roof on the right side, where Mahatma ji’s ashram was located in the rooms on the lower storey, and where the constructive work took place: there was a school, a loom and spinning wheels where the widows were taught how to live independently.

  The room Chetan entered with Ranvir and Nishtar was fairly large. There was a table and chair to one side. The file for this month’s edition of the weekly lay on the table. Unsold copies of the weekly were piled along all three walls of the room. On the other side of the room, there was a bench. A thin layer of dust covered everything.

  Chetan went and sat on the bench. Just then, Hunar Sahib returned from the roof, looking disappointed, but he managed with some effort to bring a smile to his face when he saw Chetan. He told them that Mahatma ji was observing a vow of silence and spinning.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Sister Saraswati Devi says we’ll have to wait a little while,’ Hunar Sahib clarified. ‘Actually, Mahatma Banshiram doesn’t just spin during his vows of silence, he also ponders how to take care of all his problems. That way nothing can interrupt his train of thought.’ Hunar Sahib laughed. ‘I’d actually forgotten that Monday is his day to observe silence. He’s spinning right now, so he can only see us when he’s done with that.’

  ‘How long does he have left?’ asked Chetan. ‘If it’s long, I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘No, no, stay; he’ll be free in just fifteen minutes. Sister Saraswati Devi said he’s already been spinning for forty-five minutes, and he always spins for one full hour by the clock. When he’s free, we’ll see him; after that, we can go. I’ll have to come back at some point to discuss matters to do with Widows’ Aid. From here, we’ll go to Yogi ji’s place. He’s attained quite a bit of skill in yoga lately. If he’s meditating and you go and sit quietly by him, you’ll spontaneously start to feel the influence of his thoughts.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘That’s what’s so amazing about yoga.’

  ‘People should learn how to do publicity from you.’

  ‘No, it’s not a matter of publicity; he’s just got a huge influence on me, bhai. I was so upset about this thing happening with my brother, but I was at peace after talking to him. I’ve promised him I’ll present the nectar of the Upanishads before the public in straightforward Urdu poetry.’

  And Hunar Sahib turned towards Ranvir and Nishtar. ‘Look, yaar,’ he said, ‘I’m going to write a poem for the new issue of Widows’ Aid. In the meantime, you two sort through all those slips of paper in the files where my poems and stories and other works are printed.’

  Ranvir and Nishtar fell upon the weekly files like the obedient pupils they were. To pass the time, Chetan picked up the file from the table for that month’s paper, and Hunar Sahib squatted on the chair and began to write a poem o
n the weekly pad placed on the table.

  Chetan flipped through page after page, but his mind didn’t alight upon anything. Widows’ Aid, like the journals Guru Ghantal or Paras, wasn’t the sort of popular weekly that would remind one of a carnival put on for the enjoyment of spectators with all sorts of interests and inclinations—a carnival where there are myriad forms of gambling; where tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages are sold; where there are caves of death; where there are small circuses; where there are stuntmen wearing burning clothing, who leap from five-hundred-foot heights into water; and most of all, where there are also holy men in a tent from a Himalayan cavern who will tell audiences the secrets to rising above life and death, joy and sorrow! Widows’ Aid, on the other hand, reminded Chetan of the yearly session of the Gurukul, where one saw renunciants wandering about, heads shaven, or long, tangled hair free from the graces of oil and comb, wearing thick homespun clothing, sacrificial threads hanging about their necks, barefoot and bare-headed. Everywhere you looked, there were Vedic sayings pasted up: on the walls, on the pillars. You’d only get hackneyed sermons to listen to, or hymns so ear-splitting, they’d damage your ears . . . Since this weekly was not sold in the bazaar it worried not about catering to the interests of the readers. It ran on subscription. Its customers were a captive audience. All the Congress committees in the district that had constructive centres had to buy it, and reports for all the constructive centres were printed in it; there were the Urdu translations of Mahatma Gandhi’s Navjivan essays on the problems of women and untouchables; Mahatma Banshiram was the editor, and all the rest was written by Hunar Sahib himself or rewritten by his pupils—with a view to the Congress’s constructive work . . . Chetan began to doze off after flipping through two issues. He’d been walking around since morning and although there was a breeze outside, it was quite humid in the room. He placed the Widows’ Aid file across his face, rested his head against the back of the bench, and dozed off.