But one day, the guru called out to her after taking the chillum, ‘Bhairavi!’
Her heart started beating fast but on seeing the glowing face in the fog of incense smoke, all her fears evaporated.
‘You have studied English, right?’ His eyes were closed, just the lips of the statue were moving.
‘Yes!’
‘Then, you have to do something; I don’t know Hindi too well.’ His eyes were still closed. The smoke which held an unfamiliar fragrance began wafting around Chandan as if in an orbit.
‘I will give you some English books, translate them into Hindi. I will also write in Hindi.’
The eyes were closed as before but his lips had started laughing; the guru had such a divine face! From the next day, before leaving for his meditation, the guru would hand over thick books with lines written in red to Chandan. Every book had his name on it in his beautiful handwriting, Bhairavanand! Chandan had been able to read the name on top that he had very carefully crossed out: Shivashankar Swaminathan. This must have been his name once. He looked and spoke like someone from the south of India. Besides, Maya Didi had once said, ‘The guru will probably go to South India again—that’s where his home is.’
Who was this Swaminathan? How did he fall into the net of Aghori prayers and become Bhairavananda? Charan didn’t know all that. All she knew was that Maya Didi had met him at the Kumbh Mela. Maya Didi was a child widow and a Vaishnavi of the Vallabhi Akhada and then had married someone there; when she met the guru at the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, she left her household of her own volition.
‘Mayadi!’ Inebriated, the naughty Charan had once teased Mayadi in front of Chandan, ‘Since when have you known the guru?’
‘From my past lives, Charan!’ Looking at them both as if she were gazing into their very souls, Maya Didi had started laughing.
‘Beware girl! You have asked me this question today but never again. You foolish girl, does anyone ask Parvati since when she has known Shiva?’
Maya Didi had changed a lot since Charan’s departure. Then, when the guru started learning Hindi from Chandan, she became even more desolate.
When Chandan sat down to write after she had completed her chores and the guru had left, Maya Didi would also bathe and sit next to her. She did not use a soap or anything but always smelled like an aromatic bar of soap, as if a package of sandal incense had been placed under Chandan’s nose. ‘What has the guru given you to write, tell me, Bhairavi?’ And Chandan would translate every line and read it out to her:
‘I am the lord of my senses
All attachments have I shed
Even freedom lures me not
Changeless am I—formless
And omnipresent
I am Shiva, Shiva is in me!’
Maya Didi would fold her hands and touching them to her forehead would say, ‘Jai Guru, jai Guru, jai Guru, who has understood you thus like an open book?’ Tears would roll down Maya Didi’s cheeks and she would become still like a statue.
But one day Chandan could not read out the translation to her.
How could the guru have given her these lines to translate? His appearance had also seemed different that day!
‘I am giving you a lot of work today, some of the lines are difficult. Will you be able to do them?’
Taking the book, she had nodded her assent without looking.
She had started deriving pleasure from this homework that the guru had been giving her; if the glorious light kept burning before her, could she be blind to it?
She was being taught Tantra-Mantra, Kundalini, Shakti, Kshatchakra, Ingla-pingla, Sushumna, simple Samadhi, Pratihar pranayama—everything by her teacher thus.
She would sit translating for hours and Maya Didi would sit next to her listening to the translation.
‘Into the fire which is the supreme self, brightened by the pouring of the ghee now merit and demerit—I, by the path of Sushumna, ever sacrifice the functions of the senses, using the mind as the ladle.’
But that day, she could not narrate the translations to Maya Didi. Her ears turned red. What was this that the guru had written?
‘Where could one find another example of such beauty?’
‘The very surface of the mirror is unworthy of the face which it reflects.’
‘Like swarms of bees flying to the Parijat, like souls of the sages, empowered by meditating on the
Atman, do the eyes of man lay aside all activity and direct themselves towards her alone.’
‘Why aren’t you reading it out, Bhairavi? Are you not able to understand?’
Maya Didi’s eyes became skittish and started dancing. Was she pretending to not understand English?
Maybe she had understood everything. Had Chandan ever been able to refuse any of her commands?
Haltingly, she translated the lines into Hindi.
Maya Didi’s eyes turned red without drink or intoxicant. She took the page from her hand, tore it and got up, shaking like a leaf.
‘You don’t need to write anything from today. Go to my room quietly and sleep. I’ll deal with the guru.’
The guru returned late at night. There was no sleep in Chandan’s eyes. Maya Didi went to light the chillum as soon as she heard the sound of his slippers. After some time, Chandan got up on hearing her roar.
Maya Didi’s voice would get very shrewish when she was angry; she sounded like thunder on a microphone.
‘What all have you written for her? Now, will you leave the Siddhamrit path like Mahaguru Matsyendranath and become a Dhammargi? Chhi Chhi! I will not let any injustice happen in this ashram, understood? I have meditated over two skulls and buried the guru’s trident here. Do you think I am stupid? Can’t Maya see the downward spiral you are on?’
Maya Didi’s roars started getting louder. The guru, whose very sight could make Charan or even Maya Didi quake, was silent. One hand was a volcano and on the other an icy glacier.
‘Jai Guru Jaalandhar!’ Mayadi banged her trident on the ground and started shouting again, ‘Why are you quiet? Swear on Guru Jaalandhar and answer me! I know you are pure in body, but is your mind pure too?’
The slippers whacked against the ground and then all was quiet.
Maya Didi came and lay down next to her after a long time. Every breath of her smelled of the chillum.
‘It is a good thing that he went away. You are very innocent, Bhairavi! But it doesn’t take too long for something untoward to happen. It is the nature of a man, he may try hard to tame it but it is that of a street dog! Put a bone in front of it and no matter how well-trained it is, it will start salivating! Have you fallen asleep?’
Lying next to her, she started stroking Chandan’s head, ‘You are very good. God knows what would have happened had it been that Charan.’ But then, she took a deep breath and removed her hand, ‘I won’t get attached any more. The guru’s sister from my old akhada, Vishnupriya, is in Delhi now. She is from the Vallabhi akhada but they have all the arrangements for food and Priya will keep you very well. She has written to me many times to send someone like Charan to her. The queen has got a chhatri made for her daughter and given her a house there. She looks after the temple as well. I will have you sent there. You have seen Priya, haven’t you?’
Chandan had seen Priya Didi. Vishnupriya had come looking for her guru-sister in this forest. The glowing and fair-skinned Vishnupriya sang her kirtans very sweetly but sweeter than that was her behaviour. But her akhada was in Delhi!
Was Maya Didi aware that her own guru’s akhada was also in Delhi!
She wrapped up her daily work in the morning and left to sweep and mop the temple. She got very late returning from the temple that day.
The veins in her head had been throbbing with anxieties of the previous day. At the temple, she had lit the incense and then with the fire from that, the chillum. Her hand had crept behind the idol as if it had a mind of its own. She had taken a deep drag and lain on the cold floor for a long time. There was such happiness
in that sleep. It felt like someone was leading her to the skies by both her hands. When she awoke, it was dusk. She got up quickly and started walking. The fire of a pyre in the distance was shaking hands with the setting sun.
‘Jai Guru Jaalandhar’—she started taking the name of Maya Didi’s guru.
‘Take the guru’s name twice and all fear would disappear on its own.’ Maya Didi would say.
But what would Maya Didi say today? Where had she been and why was she so late? What had she been doing? Would Maya Didi burn her with her eyes the way she used to do to Charan?
She ran, panting, and when she reached the cave, she found it bathed in darkness.
The door was shut.
‘Maya Didi!’ She banged on the door.
‘Chandan, Chandan!’ Maya Didi was groaning.
Chandan trembled wondering what could have happened, then she pushed the door and it fell open. She ran in. There were angry huffs emerging from the saffron bundle kept under the vermillion-smeared trident and Maya Didi’s injured body was contorting in pain.
‘Chandan!’ Maya Didi groaned again, her voice thick with pain.
‘What happened, Maya Didi?’ Chandan held the older woman’s contorted face in both her hands and asked.
She looked at her as if cross-eyed and said, ‘The wretch has stung me. Went to give it milk and see what it did.’ Poisonous teeth marks had emerged on her index finger.
‘This was the guru’s will, Bhairavi. The one who was once the flower of his sadhana has become a thorn in his path—he plucked it away—did the right thing. Jai Guru, jai Guru!’
‘What are you blabbering, Maya Didi, give me the finger, I’ll tie it tightly.’ Chandan started tearing a corner of her sari with trembling hands but was blinded by her unshed tears.
Would Maya Didi really not survive? Her face was changing so quickly!
‘Don’t tie it, Bhairavi, a snake in love has stung me. Nobody in the world can drain out the venom now. Don’t you see the wretch hissing for his love?
That fire of love.’ The fun-loving Maya Didi tried laughing, but the pain made her face crooked and her mouth started frothing as if she had bitten into a bar of soap and was trying to spit it out.
‘My eyes are closing, Bhairavi! Beat a brass plate next to my head. Who knows, I might be able to see him before dying!’
Chandan started stroking her tangled hair when a lock fell out into her hand.
Death was standing by Chandan.
‘When a person has been bitten by a snake, strands of their hair fall out from the root with just a touch.’ Charan had told her, ‘Know then that the person will not survive.’
Maya Didi’s big eyes were blinking. With trembling hands, Chandan beat the brass plate, trying to wake her up in vain.
‘Maya Didi!’ She started shaking her by the shoulder. The glow on the slack face returned like the light of a dying lamp.
The contorting body of Maya Didi roused the innocent Chandan and she sat up straight. Maya Didi’s body was shaking violently. Chandan’s widowed Bua in Jageshwar used to shake like this. Even the hint of chhua-chhoot or any impurity by touch would make her seem like a possessed woman. She would take a burning coal from her mother’s stove and chew it like a betel nut.
Maya Didi’s fearful countenance shook Chandan’s. The face had turned blue, on the mouth a frothy, crooked smile had emerged, and her eyes were like burning cinders in ash. It seemed like she could not even see Chandan who was sitting in front of her. Her eyes seemed to be set on some unseen statue.
‘Anandswaroopini, Buddhiswaroopa is Shakti herself. Light and dark—she is the dark and daylight, she is death and she is the beauty of stars shining like a thousand smiling beauties, the beauty of a virgin and the company of a companion! Guru, do I remember everything?’
She lost herself to the happiness of some unknown vanity and rolled back on Chandan’s lap. Who could say that Maya Didi was unlettered? She was saying such things! But the clock was ticking and the danger of the venom was increasing with every passing moment. She could not be saved just by banging the brass plate. But what could Chandan do? Where could she go, leaving her alone? The guru never came back so early, and he had not returned since Maya Didi had shouted at him.
It was possible that he would never return.
But the guru came back early that day. Had he been able to sense the unfortunate event that had occurred in his absence with his yogic powers?
The deep lines on his face softened as soon as he saw Chandan sitting like a statue.
He knelt next to her without saying a word. He caught the hand of the body lying in her arms in his tight grasp.
‘Maya, Maya!’ He leaned over the lifeless, blue face and called out. Then dejected, he sat down.
A lock of his dried hair touched Chandan’s chin but she kept sitting, unmoving.
Will this strange Aghori not even enquire what happened to Mayadi? He only kept checking her pulse.
‘Did she say anything before losing consciousness?’ The guru’s voice seemed to be echoing in some faraway forest.
Chandan was quiet.
How could she relay Maya Didi’s message?
‘The guru had told me the story of Prabodh Chandrodaya near this very incense, Bhairavi!’ So saying, Maya Didi had told her to ask him a question, ‘My Kaulacharya, in the end, did you make the new Bhairavi Parvati?’
‘Do not let him turn into Kapalik Guru Bhairavananda, Bhairavi—run away, go somewhere far away, very far.’
Could she tell the guru all this?
Even Maya Didi’s sandalwood-smeared chest had started turning purple. She was still breathing but each breath was laboured.
‘It was my mistake, Maya.’ The guru started mumbling, ‘I knew this would happen some day. This wouldn’t have happened had I left him in the forest a fortnight ago.’
The guru slid Maya Didi’s head into his lap carefully and then started mumbling in some unknown language.
The tired veins of his dusky face seemed to stand up and then, tired, his head would slump over Maya Didi’s face.
Was he trying to take the venom in her body into his throat?
He kept chanting his mantras for a long time; Maya Didi had stopped breathing. The guru awoke at last from what seemed like a loving trance.
‘Bhairavi!’ He called out to Chandan without looking at her, as if she too had witnessed the defeat of his sadhana wrought by the deformity in his heart.
‘It is summer. It is not right to keep a dead body for this long. I cannot burn her pyre, we’ll have to take her far away to give her a jal samadhi. The water in the ditch is not that deep, her body will have to be immersed in the Ajeya or the Ichamati River. I hope you won’t be scared alone?’
That attractive face held a yearning softness yet again.
An unknown fear grabbed Chandan by the throat.
‘No.’ She said in a firm voice.
‘Fine then, I’ll be late, don’t worry, close the door from inside.’
He slung Maya Didi’s lifeless body over his shoulder like it was a piece of cloth wrung dry. Then, taking the hissing bundle in another hand, he said, ‘I will give jal samadhi to the biting attacker along with the bitten body.’
Then, as if seeing something in the distance, that Aghori started laughing and taking long strides raced out.
Chandan leapt and latched the door shut.
Uff, the guru’s countenance was so fearsome! He looked like Shiva with Daksha’s daughter slung over his shoulder, out to end the world.
‘I hope you won’t get scared, Bhairavi?’
She had recognized that expression. The woman who had once embraced her husband among Arhar fields recognized that expression from a long time ago. Vikram had left her in the fields to get his camera which he had forgotten near the well, and had asked her the question with that same expression on his face, ‘You won’t get scared alone, Chandan?’
She trembled.
‘Don’t let any injustice happ
en here, Bhairavi!’ That was Maya Didi’s last command.
Where was the time to think? Maya Didi’s clothes were her suitcase, bank, everything. Taking out a bundle of notes from it, Chandan tucked them in her waist; then she searched for Vishnupriyadi’s letter; she would have to inform her as well. Maya Didi kept her Nepalese Bhujali under her pillow; when she took it out and tried stuffing it in her waist, she felt herself go still with remorse. The one whose body had not even been immersed yet, her dasi was robbing her and running away.
But Maya Didi, you were the one to command me, ‘Run away, Bhairavi, far, very far.’ She was stunned when she tried to open the door after reassuring herself thus, but failed to do so.
The door was closed from outside as well!
Was the guru not convinced after ordering her to bolt the door from inside? He had made her a prisoner! She opened the window and looked outside. She hesitated once after checking the height she would have to climb down, then she tied one end of Maya Didi’s sari to a nail and the other to her waist and slithered down like a wild cat.
The same sari that had pulled her from death, had now given her freedom too.
Undoing the knot around her waist, she looked at the window one last time and then started running. The guru could catch her at any turn. Panting, she reached the mazaar and found a small magical lamp burning in the middle of the night in the forest. The aroma of the incense burning in it fanned the exhausted Chandan, bathed as she was in her sweat.
Who had burned a lamp and incense in this forest so late in the night? Was this also the miracle of a devotee’s faith? Chandan got gooseflesh. The shadows of the colourful threads tied in the mazaar seemed to be stirring in the wavering light of the lamp.
Chandan knelt down; tearing a sliver from one end of her sari, she tied it to the foot of the mazaar. Eyes closed, her lips moved in a silent prayer and then smiling with great self-confidence, she got up.
A winding path straightened from the mazaar to Taalit. She would get into whichever train she found there.
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