‘How can God say this?’ he’d asked Ma. Then Ma read him the commentary that said God is infused in all the beings and objects in the world: high, medium and low—all of them—and all move only by the power of God. There is not one thing that is devoid of the power of God. God’s divinity and power develop in a special way in all types of sattvic, rajasic and tamasic beings and objects, thus giving them special qualities, special influences and wonders.
But this explanation seemed contradictory to Chetan. God is diffused in all beings and that special quality in them contains a particular expansion of his power. Why this favouritism from God? But poor Ma, what response could she give? To her, even his making this argument felt like a sin.
Chetan had read that entire chapter and the whole thing seemed full of incongruities and contradictory statements . . . God was not just gambling among deceitful acts, he was also the lion among beasts and the crocodile among amphibious creatures. He was Krishna among the Yadavs and Arjun among the Pandavas (how Krishna himself could say this was beyond his comprehension); among horses, he was Ucchaishravas, Airavat among the elephants, and king among men (Chetan objected deeply to this last bit. A Brahmin with royal patronage could say such a thing, but not God) . . . and then among munis he was both Kapil and Ved Vyas (this last bit seemed quite laughable to him).
But when he grew older, he learned that the incident described in the Gita had never occurred anywhere; Maharshi Ved Vyas had used this incident to insert the essence of the Upanishads into the Gita, and in order to make that knowledge comprehensible, he had made use of that particular incident . . . and then, if the poet Ghalib could consider himself a saint, then why couldn’t the poet Ved Vyas become God? Ghalib had praised Mir. Ved Vyas praised Kapil (through the mouth of God).
And that was said by the Maharshi who had given the sermon about rising above the ego. Chetan suddenly smiled as he walked along trying to avoid the mud in the street, his thoughts all tangled up in the chapters of the Gita. Actually, the education he’d received in the Arya Samaj school and college had shaken terribly the Sanatan Dharma beliefs he’d learned from Dada ji and Ma. It’s impossible to grasp the entire teaching of the Gita without believing in Krishna as an incarnation of God, but he didn’t believe Krishna was an incarnation of God. In his father’s words, he could consider him a great man, but he didn’t believe that he was God and that he’d taken that incarnation to improve dharma due to its degradation . . .
The Arya Samaj did not believe in gods and goddesses, nor in virtuous reverence, nor in Bhakti or Vibhuti Yoga, but they had the highest faith in Gyana Yoga and Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga (the essential forms of the Upanishads) . . . but by that logic, Chetan also didn’t believe in the values he’d got from the Arya Samaj. The Arya Samaj had the highest faith in the soul, the Supreme Soul, the cycle of death and rebirth and moksha. But there was nothing about these that seemed true to Chetan, that could be completely unobjectionable. Krishna himself says in the Gita:
Atha cainaṃ nityajātaṃ nityaṃ vā manyase mṛtam
Tathāpi tvaṃ mahābāho naivaṃ śocitumarhami
Jātasya hi dhruvomṛtyurdhruvaṃ janma mṛtasya ca10
If, however, you think that the soul is perpetually born and always dies,
still you have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed one,
For he who has taken birth, death is certain; and for he who is dead,
rebirth is certain
But if Chetan had been in Arjun’s place, he’d have said, ‘Not only do I not believe in the immortality of the soul, I don’t even believe in the existence of the soul.’ He’d read again and again in the Gita that only ‘one unusual philosopher among thousands, among millions, attains that soul, that Brahma,’ . . . but who knows if he will actually attain it? Perhaps he understands that he’s got it. Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha, all of them got it, but there’s such a difference between all of their beliefs. And in his moments of agnosticism, Chetan could find no path at all.
*
As far as Karma Yoga was concerned, Chetan did not understand how man could act, free of desire, and still be successful. Chetan felt that anger, which is said in the Gita to destroy intelligence, had a huge amount of power. Instead of confusing the memory and destroying the intelligence, it sharpened the flow of memory and fine-tuned the intellect. If God was gambling among deceitful practices, a lion among beasts and a crocodile among amphibious creatures, then among passions, he was most definitely anger—Chetan believed this. The question was really which type of anger. The creator of the Gita had not created a classification for the types of anger. Anger could be in one’s self-interest, but it could also be for the highest good; it could be both moral and immoral; it could be both wrong and right. It could be that wrong, immoral and self-interested anger might create a foolish mood and destroy intelligence, but that which is called ‘righteous anger’ in English doesn’t destroy the intellect, it makes it keener; this is what Chetan understood. It was said of Mahatma Gandhi that he was the great Karma Yogi of the age, but if on witnessing the crushing of enslaved Indians at the hands of English power, he hadn’t felt distress (which is another form of anger), if the fire of anger had not ignited silently inside him, Chetan was not prepared to accept that without that distress, he would have been able to apply all his powers of wisdom to the foreign government with such devotion.
In Chetan’s opinion, it wasn’t just a question of anger, but of unjust versus just anger. And these two types of anger, appropriate or inappropriate, just or unjust, were linked with right and wrong action. The creator of the Gita got away with saying that ‘great philosophers have gotten all turned about in deciding which actions are appropriate and which are not’. But it seemed to Chetan that the correct form of yoga lay in making this decision, not in fleeing from it and remaining calm . . . One time a British traffic inspector had called his father a ‘damn fool’, and his father had slapped him hard across the face. The TI had suspended him right then and there. Chetan’s father’s overwhelming anger was given something to zero in on with all his intelligence. In those days, when it was an offence even to speak loudly in front of the British, he had fought for himself and won. That TI was transferred from his line. ‘If you are in the right,’ his father used to say, ‘then have no fear, God has given you intelligence, use it, dig in your heels with all your might. You will surely win.’ And Chetan preferred this lesson over the lesson given by Ma, and he had used it to form a philosophy for himself. It was not the philosophy of the Gita. Perhaps it was half-baked and riddled with errors, but it was the one Chetan liked best. He had given it the title, ‘Neo-Karma Yoga’. According to this philosophy, it was necessary for the practitioner of Karma Yoga to first decide whether his side of any matter was true or false, just or unjust, moral or immoral. Self-criticism would give one the power to evaluate one’s own side, and when one had come to a decision (if one found one’s self on the side of truth), one should apply one’s self to defending that side with all one’s power, making use of strong resentment, and just, unstoppable anger, and not cease until one is successful . . . ‘Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst’ his father always used to say in English, and according to this precept, he had taken from the Gita the message that one should not worry about the cycle of rebirth, one should try one’s very hardest to succeed, but at the same time, one should also be prepared for failure.
He was not attracted by serenity, self-knowledge, knowledge of the Almighty and moksha—he was only attracted by this modern, Neo-Karma Yoga of his, and whenever he thought about it, this seemed much more difficult that the Karma Yoga of the Gita. Seeing inaction in action and action in inaction, becoming free of attachment and desire and presenting all of one’s karma to God seemed just as difficult to him as learning to distinguish between good and bad actions and anger appropriate to justice and injustice. To him, it didn’t seem possible to attain the sort of wisdom that would enable one to distinguish between lawful and unlawful karma
without falling prey to self-deception. He was of the opinion that the true nature of yoga lay in arriving at the conclusion important philosophers labour mightily to determine. This type of wisdom can only be attained by continually examining one’s feelings, one’s psychology, one’s karma with impartial emotions and by creating the power of self-criticism. Once one has realized that the act one plans to undertake is right and just, it seemed best to him to approach it with a fire free of anger, completely cool, but continually blazing in order to accomplish it and find success in it. He didn’t believe in the slightest that one could meet with failure if one had realized all this and exerted the full power of mind and body. But he wouldn’t worry about that, that much he had borrowed quite liberally from the creator of the Gita . . . ‘Some day, I’ll create a new Gita with this modern karma and yoga,’ he said to himself, ‘but before this I should read the Gita commentaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Mahatma Tilak. I should read the Upanishads too from some authoritative account and I should also learn the beliefs of the Western philosophers on this topic . . .’
*
‘The Bombay Cat . . . an amazing film from the Imperial Film Company . . . the bewitching acting of the Queen of Beauty, Miss Madhuri . . .’
Chetan lifted his gaze—the poet Hardayal was walking by, wearing a high three-cornered hat and jokers’ attire, bell in hand, handing out posters for a new film, followed by some boys shouting out slogans and holding up posters for The Bombay Cat stuck to a bamboo frame. They’d probably just been all around the city, and now that they’d reached the cinema hall, they’d started shouting with renewed enthusiasm. Hardayal was tall, with sharp features, and wore ankle-length pyjamas, a kameez, a coat, and a turban with a tail in front. The past eight years had not changed the poet Hardayal a bit, and Chetan recollected how he used to listen to Hardayal’s baits during the baitbaazi in the pona at the Harivallabh Festival when he studied in Class Eight, and how these words would appear at the beginning of every final line of his poems:
Hardayal prepared this bait . . .
As Hardayal’s group entered the cinema hall, Chetan followed them in.
10 Ashk’s quotation has some errors. The original reads:
Atha cainaṃ nityajātaṃ nityaṃ vā manyase mṛtam
Tathāpi tvaṃ mahābāho nainaṃ śocitumarhasi
Jātasya hi dhruvo mṛtyur dhruvaṃ janma mṛtasya ca.
—trans.
29
Just beyond the ceiling-height metal doors operated by pulleys at the bazaar entrance of the cinema hall was a large room, which was also fitted with an identical set of metal doors, and beyond that there was a long gallery alongside the pavilion which housed the one-rupee, twelve-anna, eight-anna and four-anna ticket classes. When this cinema hall had only been a tin pavilion, and travelling theatre companies used to come here to put on plays, the entryway had been at the rear, at the gali side. On that side, there was a yard that opened out from the pavilion and the ticket booth; but the new owner of the cinema hall (actually, the owner was the same, but the lease-holder was new) had opened the gate on the bazaar side, as this made it easier to get the crowd in. The office was on the other side, but the proprietor placed an armchair in the passageway and sat there in the evenings. He was thin, with a gentlemanly smile and a complexion the colour of wheat, and he wore an elegant suit. Just a few years ago, Chetan and Hamid had got together and really made a fool of him, and Chetan had gone to the movies daily for almost an entire year for free. He had even found out about Chetan’s prank, but wasn’t able to do anything about it (and this was certainly due to his gentlemanliness). Chetan smiled when he thought of the incident, and decided he’d go up to the front for a bit—perhaps he’d find Lala Mohan Lal in the office or outside the pavilion and pay his respects.
*
The incident when Chetan had tricked Lala Mohan Lal was from those days when Chetan had first met Hamid, and written to Meenakshi Ramarao for her picture and presented it to an astonished Hamid, and articles by Chanda Devi ‘Kumud’ had started appearing in famous film magazines. For Chetan, the greatest difficulty in writing articles about films had been that his entire knowledge of the cinema was limited only to what he’d read in newspapers and magazines. He wasn’t able to save up even a four-anna piece to watch a movie. He got only one anna per day as pocket money; because he ate breakfast early in the morning, then walked more than three miles to college, he’d get hungry in the afternoon, and after eating two paisas’ worth of barfi out of that one anna, he’d drink two paisas’ worth of sweet (but thin) lassi. Hamid had asked him to go to the movies a couple of times, but he had put him off. Then one day, when his father had come to Jalandhar, his pockets had been full and he was in a good mood, so he’d handed out four-anna pieces to all of his sons. The next evening, after his father left, Chetan had told Hamid that he had four annas—if Hamid could watch a movie with him sitting in the four-anna seats, they could go.
Hamid had said that only the world’s nobodies and nothings sit in the four-anna seats, and one’s eyes can be ruined watching a movie that close, but okay, let’s go; for you, we’ll go ahead and sit in the four-anna seats.
It was a Sulochna and D. Bilimoria11 picture. The first scene was etched forever in Chetan’s mind: D. Bilimoria is wearing a military uniform, and stands with his elbows resting on the railing of the deck of a ship, watching the ocean; the ship is about to dock in the harbour of Bombay; birds circle above the ship . . . suddenly a slip of paper comes flying towards him and lands in his hand. It is a letter. He looks up: Sulochna stands on the other side of the deck. She had been reading that letter, when the breeze swept it from her hand. She comes to retrieve her letter. Their eyes meet and they become lost in one another’s gazes . . . after this, Chetan didn’t remember what happened. There was some villain who starts pursuing Sulochna on board the ship and carries her off. D. Bilimoria chases them . . . there’s a car chase . . . a fight . . . and in the end, the happy reunion of the hero and heroine. . . .
And Chetan had been infatuated with Sulochna from that day on. At first, he’d only seen her in film magazines, but watching her on the cinema screen made his heart beat faster. When they came outside after the movie, Hamid had said, ‘Come on, let’s go tell Mohan Lal ji to order some good films. What are all these fight movies he’s ordering?’
Although Chetan had liked the film very much, and it had seemed to him that Hamid was just being a snob, he didn’t argue. ‘Who is Mohan Lal?’ was all he asked.
‘He’s the owner.’
‘You know him?’
‘Yes! I always discuss the merits of the films with him when I come.’
Hamid spoke English fluently. He always stood first in college debates and he didn’t feel the slightest hesitation in conversation. Mohan Lal had got up from his chair and started to stroll about when the film had ended. It was his habit to arrive just a bit before the film began. After it started, he’d go and sit inside on some empty first-class sofa, or he’d walk home, or to the bazaar. Then, after the first show was over, and the second was beginning, he’d return.
‘By the way, why don’t you get films like Kanthahar?’ Hamid stopped him and asked in English.
‘Kanthahar! I haven’t even heard of that,’ said Mohan Lal, smiling simply.
Actually, in the new issue of Film Land (which Chetan subscribed to), there was much praise for the film Kanthahar. The famous Bengali hero of silent pictures, Durga Das, acted in it. He looked so handsome to Chetan and Hamid that they were now quite eager to see him on the big screen. They didn’t understand that the movies discussed in Film Land were Bengali films, and the title wasn’t pronounced Kanthāhār but Kanthahār; but in the same way that they couldn’t pronounce Kumud properly and wrote Kumad instead, they said Kanthāhār instead of Kanthahār. They didn’t understand these things, but then Mohan Lal didn’t either. He told Hamid he must certainly inform him about good movies so he could order them.
Then Hamid introduced Chet
an to him saying he knew quite a bit about the movies, and his wife Mrs Chanda Devi ‘Kumud’, BA, wrote for film magazines.
‘Really!’ Shri Mohan Lal held out his hand to Chetan and asked, ‘Where did she do her BA?’ (Because in Jalandhar, even the boys’ degree college had only opened that year.)
Chetan had no definite answer to give. He blanched. But Hamid didn’t miss a beat. ‘At Women’s College, Lahore,’ he said. And then in the same breath he added, ‘Chetan is an Urdu poet, and his stories are printed in all the newspapers in Lahore. You should have him write your handbill.’
‘Yes, yes. Certainly . . . certainly!’ said Mohan Lal eagerly.
And the two friends shook hands with him and went on their way.
*
‘Yaar, now you’ve put an end to my ever coming for four annas,’ complained Chetan as they stepped out on to the street.
‘Why?’ asked Hamid.
‘How could a guy whose wife is a BA and graduate of Women’s College, Lahore, buy a four-anna seat to watch a picture!’
‘Arré, you write an awesome advertisement for him. He’ll let you in for free.’ And he guffawed loudly.
At the end of Station Road, Chetan parted from Hamid, his mind racing with the thought that he could watch a few movies for free by just writing an advertisement. But what difference did that make? Even he could afford to see a picture now and then (albeit only from the four-anna seats). But if only he could cook up some scheme whereby he could watch movies whenever he wanted. After some thought, he hit upon a plan to befriend Shyam Babu before making friends with Lala Mohan Lal. Lala Shyam Kishore was the owner of the pavilion that Lala Mohan Lal had rented and turned into a cinema hall. He had a famous litho press on Station Road by the name of ‘Shyam Press’. Shyam Kishore might no longer be living, but he had two sons: they were of medium height, fair and chubby, and both wore glasses. The elder of the two was called Big Shyam Babu and the younger was called Small Shyam Babu. Chetan had even met the younger brother. In his first year, he’d got together with Hunar Sahib and written a collection under the title An Evening’s Journey. They’d gone to the press to ask the price for printing it. How could he expand upon such a slight acquaintance? Chetan pondered this question all the way home.
In the City a Mirror Wandering Page 27