‘What are you reading?’
The hand on his shoulder startled him.
It took him a while to recognize the voice while he stared at the fingers lingering over his right shoulder; bony fingers that curled like a spider, mild hair above the knuckles and a ring with a large green stone.
‘The Brahmin’s Daughter,’ Sushant Kane stooped and looked at the book, turned the volume around. ‘Saratchandra again?’ A faint frown creased his forehead.
He knew everything Yogi liked to read and yet Yogi always felt a little shy showing him what he was reading. SrK liked to frown a lot. But there was no bitterness in the frown. It was acrid in a pleasant way, like the odour of tobacco that hung around him.
SrK liked to talk about books with Yogi. He used words Yogi did not understand, and yet Yogi always understood him. Yogi told him things that he liked in books, and SrK stared at him, his frown gone. He would say nothing about him sitting in the Central Library in his sports clothes and white running shoes, though Yogi knew he noticed all that. Yogi was cheating and breaking the rules of the Mission and SrK was happy whenever a boy cheated. But he didn’t want SrK to catch him reading today as he didn’t know what to do with his love for Saratchandra’s widows. It was a soppy, tearful kind of a love and he wanted to wipe his tears before SrK saw him, even though there were no real tears.
‘I’m going to check out a few books,’ SrK said. ‘Then you can come with me.’
Yogi couldn’t take his eyes off the large green stone on SrK’s knuckle. His fingers opened and closed slowly, like the scrawny legs of a spider. A speck of a green forest at the heart of the spider.
He went up to the circulation desk. Yogi flushed the wet widow off his soul and closed the book. The white, entwining flowers on the ochre cover stared at him and there was a dull pain in his chest. There was no dust on the cover. They took good care of it.
Sushant Kane was back with a couple of books under his arms, bound library volumes. Yogi stood up and went with him.
SrK knew he was hiding in the library. Hiding in the library till game hour was over and he could return to Bliss Hall. The boys had to be on the field during this time. They could not wander around the campus. Nobody thought of looking into the Central Library. It was not even part of the school.
But it was okay if you were with a teacher. Sometimes Sushant Kane walked him out of the Central Library. They walked around the campus. SrK knew Yogi couldn’t leave the library unless he took him out.
They walked out of the library. They walked over the little bridge that arched over the dead canal like a famous painting.
‘I’m surprised that you like Saratchandra so much,’ Sushant Kane said. ‘Depressing stuff, isn’t it?’
‘I like reading the stories,’Yogi said. ‘Like sliding along a tree-trunk moist with rain.’
It felt powerful when he spoke with words touched by Sanskrit. Like he was seated high above a snow-capped mountain.
‘Are you all right?’ Sushant Kane looked at him, alarmed. ‘What are you, Kalidas?’
Mischief gurgled through Yogi. There was something funny about being with SrK, something warmly funny. SrK thought he was reciting an ancient Sanskrit poet. ‘It’s Saratchandra. Srikanta I think.’ Possibly. Lots of tree trunks, lots of rain and dark flooding rivers in those stories.
‘You soak up the virus pretty quick!’ He looked away with sudden indifference. ‘Last week you sounded like Thomas Hardy.’
Last week Yogi had longed to smuggle one of Hardy’s beautiful gold-embossed tiny novels through the library window. But he didn’t tell SrK any of that.
‘This week it’s different.’
‘It’s fine as a circus trick.’ Sushant Kane said. ‘But you are not a circus animal. When you have something real to say, you won’t sound like a well-trained parrot.’
‘What do you mean?’ Yogi asked, confused.
‘You’re the best debater the school has ever seen,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how deadly your talent is.’
There was something he wanted Yogi to do with his skill. As if he didn’t really notice the debate competitions. As if they were children’s sport, just a wait for something else. Something bigger was in wait. It excited and terrified Yogi. What was he staring at?
Yogi wanted to say something but suddenly they came across Ari Swami and his boys. Three of them were always with him. Tutul Gupta, whose father owned a publishing house that brought out popular comics based on mythological stories. Tirtho Mukherjee, whose mother owned nothing but was a beautiful and talkative woman abandoned by her husband a long time ago. Plato Sen, who was a bit notorious, not only because he was terrible in studies, but also because his father had died mysteriously a couple of years ago in the middle of a corporate squabble.
They were all good-looking boys. Tutul and Tirtho were very fair, Plato was darker, but they all had the quality the monks liked—soft and perfectly hairless in Class 7. Their skin felt smooth if you caressed them.
Ari Swami was the perfect monk for this group. He was the headmaster of the school, a fair and handsome monk who must be much older than their fathers. He laughed in a booming way and said sharp and intelligent things in a beautiful rustic accent.
Sushant Kane slowed down as he saw Ari Swami.
‘Hello, Sushant!’ Ari Swami waved his affectionate smile in their direction.
Sushant Kane slowed down and smiled, raised his right hand in half a salute. He did not speak.
They walked past the group. Tutul, Tirtho and Plato didn’t seem to notice Yogi. They noticed nothing. They didn’t need to. They were Ari Swami’s special boys.
Sometimes he wondered what it took to be one of Ari Swami’s special boys. They were not good students. In fact, Tirtho was a poor student who had dirty habits. Plato was really dumb. Tutul was okay but nothing striking. There was only the slippery smoothness of their skin. Yogi could not think of anything else.
‘Ari Swami is very fond of these boys,’ he said.
Sushant Kane walked in silence.
‘Of course,’ he spat out the words. ‘They melt when he touches them.’
His mood was bruised. The air felt raw.
In silence, they entered Bliss Hall. Yogi wondered whether to follow him to his room. It was best not to, not today.
Dancer, Lover, Sufferer
Kamal Swami chose Yogi to be the new prayer hall leader just as they entered Class 9.
He had chosen him. He was telling him something. Why would he make him the leader? The Lotus was the kind of hostel warden who plotted every assignment on the duty roster each month. He didn’t consult the teachers living in Bliss Hall. Sushant Kane didn’t care about any of that.
The Lotus was calling him. Yogi just had to close his eyes and he could see him, looking at him through his light, steel-framed glasses, smiling, clean-shaven with a green hue on his cheeks, with a shaved head but looking like he had a wild mane of black hair. There was a crowd of boys, and yet he was looking at Yogi.
He had to speak to the Swami. He had waited too long.
The prayer hall leader led a team of five boys who had to prepare the hall for the daily prayers. They would roll out the carpets for the boys to sit and pray; light the incense sticks; throw away yesterday’s flowers and arrange fresh flowers on the shrine. On special days the prayer hall boys had to go out into the ashram gardens and pick flowers. The blood-red Joba flowers for the worship of goddess Kali, orange marigold for goddess Durga, white Champaka flowers for Shiva and the Great Saffron One, who was like Shiva in many ways.
A big day was coming up. Janmashtami, the birthday of Krishna. What was Krishna’s favourite flower? They grew somewhere in the ashram, surely. Everything grew in the ashram. Every nook and cranny had a garden or an orchard. And no one could ever make out where the ashram began or ended, for it was everywhere. It was built on the land of eighty-two villages. There were neighbours who hated the ashram, calling it the land-thief. Such as the villagers of Mosulga
on. The boys had all seen the graffiti on the wall outside the stadium, splashed like blood-streak. Land-thieving monks. Give our homes back.
‘You two,’ Kamal Swami’s eyes had sparkled. ‘Go and look for the flowers on Friday.’
Thrill had shot through Yogi like a drug. He had stolen a glance at Kajol. Kajol’s eyes shone but he was quiet.
They would comb through the campus. Walking for an hour or more, past the school for disabled children, past the college, even beyond the crafts centre set up for the welfare of the villages, past the Poultry and the Dairy and the Teachers’ Quarters and the huge stadium and the narrow lovers’ lane that wound around it. Whatever it took.
‘We’ll go in the morning,’ Kajol had said.
‘Get up early and go,’ the Swami said. ‘Make the day yours. Make Krishna happy.’
Kajol’s eyes glistened. Looking at him, Yogi already felt the smell of the rare flower, suddenly close at hand. Kajol loved roaming the ashram with him. It was their own place, in a way no other place in the world would ever be theirs.
‘I know my way around all the gardens.’ Kajol said. Was there a tinge of sadness in his voice? Where else could they be together but in the wilderness of the ashram?
‘We’ll find the flower,’ Kajol said.
His voice floated.
But would it make Krishna happy? Making Krishna happy was never easy. The more you loved him the more he made you suffer.
Janmashtami was only a few days away. It was going to be a special, long prayer that would eat up some of their study hour. There would be many songs, all about Krishna. Yogi’s heart beat faster at the thought. These songs held him in a spell. Krishna was blue and cruel and mesmeric.
Today he rushed to the prayer hall. He was the leader and he had to be the first one there. He also loved being in the prayer hall when it was empty.
But when he walked into the prayer hall, Mataal was dancing inside. There was no music but Mataal never needed music to dance. Music played in his head all the time.
Mataal was in the prayer hall team. His real name was Bijit—a boy with curly hair who lisped like a baby and liked to dance. Sometimes he danced in his room, curling his wrist and fingers in the mudras of classical dance. When he danced, he looked drunk and dopey, and so he was called Mataal—the drunkard.
Why was he there so early? Yogi was supposed to be there before anyone else and wake the prayer hall up slowly, open the windows and clear up the closed air from the night. Start to sweep and mop the floor. That’s when his boys would walk in. Yogi wanted to ask Mataal to stop dancing and get to work. But Mataal smiled at him and went on dancing. He swept the floor with his dancing body and Yogi recognized the song to which he was dancing. One of those songs about Meera’s love for Krishna. How the queen Meera was in love with the Lord Krishna and drew the fury of her husband, the lord who wanted her to worship him and no one else.
Mataal smiled through his pain like Meera. Her king was cruel to her and locked her up and made her suffer in every way he could imagine. But Meera knew that.
Kamal Swami loved Mataal. He was one of his favourite boys. The boys joked that Mataal asked the Lotus before going to the bathroom.
‘The Lotus checks his wee-wee, makes sure it’s stiff with pee,’ Bora would say. ‘And then tells him—go water the world, my pet.’
Bora could say anything. He was real nasty.
Yogi forgot what he had planned. He stared at Mataal, his body glistening with song. She suffered. She suffered for Krishna, her mischievous blue lover. Her pain was her pride and she smiled at him in her pain and she smiled at Yogi. The prayer hall danced with him. The dead smell of the night had vanished and sunlight streamed past the curtain at the door. Yogi felt he would faint.
Then Kamal Swami walked through the door. ‘Boys!’ He said with a smile in his voice. ‘Where are the others?’
Mataal stopped dancing as he saw the Lotus. But the smile didn’t go. He was not afraid of anything, not when he danced.
The music played in Yogi’s head. The music of Meera’s cry of pain before her Lord. The music to which Mataal was dancing in silence. He dared not think of Mataal’s letter but it creaked and spread like a cancerous map in his soul. The long letter he had written to Sanket Tudu, the tribal footballer who looked like a statue carved out of black marble. It was the letter of a devotee, and yet he wanted to do things to Sanket’s body that nobody had ever heard or thought about. A long letter written on crinkly, fragrant paper.
Kamal Swami pulled out one of the rolled-up carpets. Swiftly, he rolled them out on the floor. His saffron robe rippled in the air.
He opened the cupboard, took out a pack of incense sticks. He struck a match and lit them. Smoke blew out, thick and fragrant.
Two other boys in the prayer hall team walked in. Sleepy and a little annoyed. But they saw the Lotus and stood erect.
‘Flowers!’ The Swami exclaimed. ‘Where are the flowers? Still not here?’
Nobody said anything. The gardener was late some days. Nobody cared. They just packed them around the shrine quickly. Sometimes a garland hung limp from a corner of a photo. Kamal Swami always came closer and took care, placing a fresh garland around the portrait. He missed nothing.
‘Come with me,’ he told Yogi. ‘I’ll send the flowers along.’
Yogi stepped out. The music wafted out with him. The more you loved him the more you suffered.
All her life she had suffered. Old age brought no respite.
The Lotus walked fast. Sometimes it was hard to keep up with him. The sun was still mild outside. Birds chirped.
‘She loved Krishna all her life,’ he told the Swami, softly.
‘I know,’ he said without looking at Yogi. ‘The Lord waits for such devotees.’
‘She had a sad life.’
‘Those who love him truly suffer. Pain is their mark of honor.’
They entered his room. A room of cream white walls. Soft smell of incense. A small temple.
The Swami stepped into the room and turned to him. The door was open and Yogi looked inside. He had been inside before. Many times. There was nothing; a small bed, just about enough for one person to stretch out; a small writing desk. A light saffron sheet covered the bed. It was the closet of a temple. Not a speck of dust anywhere.
‘I would like to enter the order.’ Yogi said breathlessly.
The Lotus laughed. For a moment Yogi felt a mane of wild hair sweep across his fair and green face. But how could it? His head was shaved like all other monks. But there was a halo of sweat and sunlight. He had beautiful white teeth but one. There was one tooth in the middle of the bottom row that was deep brown. As if he used to chew paan in the past. Yogi had never seen that kind of laughter. Like a child’s. A happy child’s laughter.
‘Ask yourself.’ The Lotus said, kind eyes looking at him. ‘It’s time for many hard questions. So many.’
Yogi looked up to him, a bird with pouted beaks.
‘Can you let go of the world?’ The Lotus asked. ‘Like that?’
Yogi stood still. He wanted to nod but felt frozen. What was there in the world but dust and noise and cigarette smoke? He wanted to get away.
‘Does Kajol know?’ The Swami asked softly. ‘Have you spoken to him?’
Yogi felt a sudden jolt. Kajol would be there, naturally. How could Kajol not be there? Kajol would always be there, everywhere. But he had not said anything to Kajol. Would Kajol hate him for it? Would he get mad? He had not thought about that at all.
‘I love how you leave your mind,’ Kajol always said. ‘How you just step out of it, like a shirt. Yogi. A real Yogi.’
To be a Yogi, one had to step out of one’s mind as well as one’s shirt. Did Kajol like him shirtless, mindless?
What would Kajol say if he became a monk? Shirtless, mindless, robed in saffron? Would Kajol still like to touch him, play with his fingers? Yogi couldn’t think about it anymore.
‘I have decided.’
The
Lotus reached out, touched his shoulder.
‘Think about it, be careful what you want.’ He said. ‘If you give up the world you cannot go back.’
The Swami’s palm was light on his shoulder. The fingers were callused but soft. Would the fingers move? Would he caress him?
It had been a long time. Since the day he had shown him how to blow a conch.
Shonabitch
Thursday afternoon’s event left the boys in Bliss Hall feeling naked.
The girl was younger than them. If she went to school, she would be in Class 6, maybe 7. But children in Mosulgaon didn’t go to school. They wandered into the ashram through the cracks in the wall and gathered dry leaves and bits of wood and thrown away plastic bottles and cookie tins the boys got from home and sneaked out with the loot.
The girl had gathered an armful of trash when the sky began to roar. It was past noon and the blinding sky turned dark and wrinkled into spurts of lightning. Blue-white sparks that wriggled and split open the black clouds. The boys shuddered even to step out on the balconies. This was the time set for shower before they went down for lunch and then back to school for the second half. But the girl didn’t look up and went on picking at the trash-heap near the Hall.
The sky cracked into a torrent and the girl was trapped under the ledge of Charity Hall right opposite them. Now she kept frowning at the sky, perhaps worried that she would lose her trash in the flood.
Nobody knew Kamal Swami would come prowling. He was usually in school at this time. Maybe the rains had made him change his plan. He walked straight into the row of Class 9 boys pasted straight along the corridor, at least twenty of them—shirtless boys in bathing shorts staring at the rain. They stood along the long arm of the ‘L’ of Bliss Hall, trapped inside the grills of the ground floor corridor like a knot of caged animals, staring at the ledge of Charity Hall that faced them.
The girl had dropped her pile of garbage and hugged herself tight. It hit like a lightning bolt that she was wearing so little. A loose shirt, perhaps the top of a salwarkameez or a grown man’s kurta and nothing below. It was so soiled and tattered that it was hard to say. The rain had plastered the kameez around her body and she stood hugging herself, staring at the rain.
The Scent of God Page 9