by Ruskin Bond
If one went around the campus, one could find an ordered layout of buildings and streets, zones of different types of accommodations, students' hostels, playgrounds, a primary and a secondary school for the employees' children, a guest house for visitors, and administrative and instructional buildings. The streets were wide; most of them lined with trees, and there was some plan in the types of trees planted on a given street. And there was a small shopping centre where many of the household goods were available. There was a main arterial road that ran through the campus, its entry point was commonly called 'the gate'. It touched a national highway that to the left went to the capital that lay a long distance away, and ten miles to the right lay an industrial metropolis, commonly called 'the city' around here. The gate, and the shops at the gate which were not allowed inside the campus, constituted the interface to another world.
The world at the gate was a scene of intermingling of several cultures, one belonging to the university faculty, a second belonging to the university technical staff, the third to a small group of students, and the fourth to a group of people who had nothing to do with the university but made a living by selling wares that were essential daily needs of the campus. People went there to buy vegetables, or from the shops, foodstuff. There were also a couple of shops which served cooked food under tin sheds; the customers mostly were the shopkeepers, passers-by, and when the hostel kitchens remained closed—particularly during the summer months—some students. Most university teachers were regular visitors to the gate to buy daily necessities, but Virendra had been an exception. For the past twenty years it was doubtful if he had made even a total of twenty trips to the gate. He had little inclination, but the main reason had been that Parvati had done this job ungrudgingly for years and left him free. But he wondered whether such privilege had yielded any positive result.
Through a small clearance in the hedge Virendra noticed Professor Ranade and his wife going for a morning walk with their dog. They were fairly regular morning walkers, both were on the heavy side, and had remained so for years. The dog, when it was young, had to be on a leash, but now he was beyond such constraints, and probably knew the neighbourhood very well. Soon after the Ranades crossed Virendra's sight, Virendra saw Professor Srinivas going out on his daily round. He walked briskly, these days he carried a makeshift stick made out of a tree stem; probably in later years this would become a formal walking stick. He had a fit, slim body, and was quite regular and indefatigable in this daily exercise of his. If Virendra sat here about an hour, he was certain to find Professor Srinivas returning home equally briskly. Srinivas in his extra-professional life was known to hold somewhat radical views, was a familiar name in the campus debating scene, and exuded a know-all air. Virendra had a pleasant relationship with him, but had not felt the urge to get any closer. It passed Virendra's mind that the other fairly regular daily walker on this street was the good-natured Professor Joshi who had not been seen so far this morning. Virendra enjoyed watching him walk with vigorously swinging hands, but Joshi cared little about what the world thought.
A draught of cool breeze swept past Virendra. As he first felt it, he closed his eyes for a few moments and leaned his body backwards with the chin up. When he opened his eyes he saw the blue sky now fully lit, and at the base of the frame the tall acacia tree stood just outside the garden on the street. The tree had been here longer than Virendra's family had been living in the house. There used to be a similar tree about twenty yards to its right, but white ants had slowly consumed it. And the local servants' children always looking for firewood, sometimes big trees gradually disappeared that way. This tree did not find any replacement. The one that was still there provided shade to the garden during parts of the day, bore yellow flowers in bunches, and shed plenty of dry leaves on the garden to keep whoever was cleaning busy a good part of the year.
Virendra had little foreknowledge that he would end up spending such a large number of years in this desolate place. However, this was true for most of his colleagues who came here from all parts of the country: east, west, north, and south. Virendra's own history was even more chequered. His parents were originally from the Mewar region of Rajasthan, but his father had a roving Central Government job and moved from place to place. When Virendra was born the family was in Calcutta, and that also was for a long stretch of fifteen years, until the time when Virendra was just about ready to go to college.
Virendra grew up speaking Hindi at home and Bengali outside. North Indian culture at home and a full east Indian local elsewhere. He was both sensitive and sociable, and this combined with the intensity that was the trait of the city. He was an unusual boy. He was admired, respected, and sought by his friends, and he grew up in the moist air of a metropolis a thousand miles away from the dry desertland where his forefathers had lived. There were from time to time references about their Rajput ancestry, but not any oftener; they had only a few family friends who came from Rajasthan, although even in those days the city's commerce was to a large degree handled by expatriates from that state.
When he was in his fifth grade, he had his first exposure to Rajput history from Abanindranath's book, tales of valour of Rajput heroes. It was his favourite book for many years; for a long time he would go to bed with that book. Besides its fairytale-like stories of wars and valour, which used to seize the minds of old and young alike, he used to have an inner feeling of pride, with one thought returning to his mind as refrain: those were stories from his own lineage; that the blood of those heroes of yesteryears also flowed in his own veins.
His first glimpse of Chittorgarh was when he was still in school and the family travelled to Rajasthan. From the early morning train he saw the historic hill in a veil of mist. It stood mutely but majestically, a reminder of a great age of gallantry and a monumental memorial of a bygone era. Scenes of Rajput history and folklore went past his mind: old Bappaditya with his Bheel associates Baliya and Deb, Ratan Singh and Padmini, the jauhar sacrifice of hundreds of women of Chittor, the courage of young Rajputs, the cultural ambience during Rana Kumbha's time, Hambir, the gallantry of invincible Rana Pratap, and the battle of Haldighat.
He was an avid reader; in a short time he read up all that was obtainable from the school library and available to his class, most of which was in Bengali. He read the classics in children's editions, and there were so many of them. And though far away from his mother tongue, he read Bengali literature, some of which was meant for the young mind, and some of which was beyond. At home, it was mostly another world. The parents spoke Hindi, with an occasional sprinkling of the local language, and the food was north Indian, so very different from that in homes of his closest friends. His Hindi study was limited to two hours of classes per week in the school. For him it was easy work, but despite efforts of the officialdom to make Hindi popular as it was the official national language, the classful of students hated this engagement out of disaffection, and Virendra did not quite resent it.
Yet during his early years in the school once in a while he would return home in uncontrollable tears because someone among his group of friends had teased him about his non-Bengali origin and the rest had watched indifferently with insinuations that it was inferior. Had Virendra been physically strong he knew that he would have fought even though he was overwhelmingly outnumbered. He could neither ignore nor accept it. He used to go through profound depressions and almost used to fall physically ill, and his parents would get most upset. Yet after a short gap of time, the same friends would return to him one by one and explain that no real insult was meant, befriend him anew and they would be intensely together again.
But somewhere deep in his heart he never did entirely forgive them for their behaviour, although his affection on other counts for his friends remained genuine. Calcutta in his later years when he was about to enter college was an altogether different experience, and how often did he wish to go back to them. But that stay terminated abruptly when his father got transferred to the west coast,
to the city of Panjim, in the centrally administered state of Goa.
Through the hedge Virendra noticed the movement of a human figure on the street coming towards the house. Even in that half-obstructed view he was certain that it was Parvati. She went across the house and turned into the pathway leading to the house. Through the iron trellis bordering the western edge of the lawn Virendra could see the emaciated but hardy woman in a faded green sari and an old pair of Hawaiian slippers go past him towards the main door, then behind him turn into the garden, go past where Virendra was sitting, enter the house through the open door on the porch. Virendra knew that the time then was precisely six-thirty, so punctual had her routine been all these years.
One could hear inside the house sounds of opening the doors and windows of the kitchen and the adjoining dining room and the clanging of metal rings against wood from opening the curtains. There would be another fifteen minutes of wait, and his breakfast of four pieces of toast with butter and a cup of tea would arrive quietly where he was sitting. There was a mechanical but dependable element in that which suited Virendra well. In her social class she was an outstanding exception; mechanical but non-robotic, in her service an expression of duty and care but no display of uncalled for affection; her mongoloid face embodied stoicism and determination, and if one looked at it deeply, a certain melancholy. With absolute determination she protected and nurtured her own children and her wards at the place of work; Virendra often thought that it would be tragic if at least one of her children did not make it to the next higher social stratum.
Virendra munched the food mechanically; it did not register any taste; he had been on the same bread for the past two decades. The tea seemed nothing more than some turbid coloured water; probably the tea leaves were bad; how rarely did it happen that a carton of Darjeeling tea contained Darjeeling tea. It was such an out of the world feeling when the true fragrance of Darjeeling tea was inside the cup. But one accepted; throughout the day he would be gulping innumerable cups of that brown drink, all equally bad tasting. Virendra semiconsciously wanted to continue his thoughts along that or some inconsequential direction while all the time feeling that he should have pondered upon something else that was important, but some sentinel sitting in his mind constantly suggested suppressing such thoughts and it succeeded.
He felt he ought to get up then and take some steps to get the day started, but at the same time he did not feel inclined to do so. Considerable will power had to be mustered. He looked at the rectangular flowerbed next to the chair which had four rose plants, all of them fledglings. Except for the one which had blooms with frilled lavender petals the others did not have even buds. This was one of Virendra's favourite varieties; he procured this one with much effort after last summer's heat killed all the plants of this kind. Maybe this year it would be different. Virendra wished he could go on thinking about this or some other matter of casual interest, but he did not succeed. An uneasy thought bothered him; he knew it was important but he also knew he was trying to avoid it.
Parvati appeared and took away the crockery. He continued sitting there for about fifteen minutes without concentrating on anything in particular. There were bits of random thought on whatever got kindled by his senses. How could one be awake and be totally devoid of thoughts? He thought that if such a state at all existed and one could get into it, there would be no way to get out of it. There was a pause in the background noise, and it seemed that everything was still around him. At the next moment, the plants, trees, and flowers shrouded his mind and his acquired knowledge told him that he was in the midst of infinite living creatures, in comparison to which he was totally insignificant. He noticed that the hibiscus tree at the corner of the lawn had grown too tall; it had to be trimmed. Someone should be asked to paint the trellis, it was about to catch rust. And the bougainvillea colour, he thought it was gorgeous; what would have happened if the sensitivity of human eye had stopped at yellow and did not go as far as red? No, this could not go on; he had to get up. Virendra lifted himself up from the chair and walked towards the porch to get into the house.
He walked straight into the rear bathroom, switched the light on, and stood in front of the mirror. The mirror, a piece of thin plate glass whose rear reflecting surface had peeled off at several places, hung from two rusted screws fixed on two small wooden blocks embedded in the wall. University issue. The size of the mirror was small, and it was positioned such that everyone in the household could have an operational use; as a result the reflection cut off Virendra's head right at the middle of his forehead. He had used this device this way ungrudgingly for years; his relentless grudge, however, had been against the process of shaving itself, but he felt he was not the only male with a similar view. The lone positive thing he had felt about this mindless act was that it permitted the mind to freely wander about, and once in a while he had come up with most unusual observations, hit on solutions to problems he was pondering for days, which he never thought would evolve in such an unusual place as a bathroom. There was a time when he had to concentrate more while shaving as the quality of blades was so bad that a slightly careless pull would have caused a nick, a cut, or even a bloody cheek. But the situation had improved; Virendra used to react favourably to that kind of material progress. How little did a man need? A smooth blade for a shave, a smooth pen to write with, some quietness, a shade to sit down, maybe to read a book. Truthfully, Virendra mused, that was not all; but that was a great deal.
The cold-water tap that protruded out of the wall was running continuously and overflowing the bucket underneath. This was part of his daily routine; he turned it on as he started to shave with the background sound of gushing and bubbling water. The supply to the tap was through an underground water line; so in winter it brought in relatively warm water and in summer relatively cold, a contraption that perhaps circumvented the cost of a geyser in winter, while retaining the comfort of cold water in summer. In summer, just to keep cool, he bathed three to four times a day; usually once just before the midday meal and the other two times in early and late evening.
While pouring water from the bucket on himself with a plastic mug he remembered how in his young days in Calcutta he used to find the still water too cold to pour over himself. He would stand unclothed for long time in front of the bucket full of cold water, unable to gather courage to feel that chill; then as a last resort he would tell himself that if he did not pour the water by the count of three, he would fail in the next examination. Very soon he would be through with his bath. Virendra made a rough calculation of the number of baths he had taken in his life. Nearly fifty thousand of them!
Today he went on pouring water on himself, much more than was usual. He enjoyed the cold water flowing down his head, down his face, and along the body. He had a deep love of water, in every form, and he particularly loved rivers. He did not quite keep track of the time he was taking for the bath, but after quite a long time he thought that that was enough. He threw the mug into the bucket which was still incessantly receiving water from the tap, pulled a towel from the clothes rack and wrapped it around himself to soak the dripping water. He dried himself quickly but not quite thoroughly, and hastily put on the clothes he had taken in. The bathroom floor was all wet; he left behind his rubber sandals, opened the door and rushed out to the bedroom.
He put on a pair of light beige trousers and a half-sleeved white shirt without any undershirt – his typical summer outfit. Barefoot on bare floor, he walked to the mirror and picked up a comb from the nearby table. At one time he used to comb his hair with a parting, but now the few strands that still remained did not permit such frills. These days he combed all his hair straight backwards. Even then there were gaps through which sunshine directly reached his scalp. After combing he tossed the comb on to the table and walked out to the living room. He stopped in the middle of the room to contemplate what he should do next. He looked at the table clock; it was showing half-past seven. He glanced towards the front room leading to
the lawn; Parvati was sweeping the floor with a bushy broom while squatting and moving from one part of the room to the other. She had her own routine. After she swept each and every room, she would take a duster and dust all the furniture, doors, and windows, and when that was done, she would mop the floors with a wet rag while dragging along a small bucket of water to dip and wash the rag from time to time. Then she would move to the kitchen to prepare the midday meal.
What should Virendra do? It was too early to go to the office at the university; no one showed up before nine o'clock. It was meaningless to sit down to work at home, because he himself must soon interrupt it. He could not decide. He paced back and forth across the room several times, stopped more than once, decided that he would sit down for another cup of tea, and go to the office. It would still be somewhat early, but then he needed some time to prepare certain papers. He called Parvati loudly for a cup of tea, then sat down on a low chair and waited.
The large living room was now quite well lit by daylight. In most houses the same room was partitioned to make space for two rooms, but when Virendra moved into this house the partition was still to be installed. He remembered that his wife wanted it the way it was in every house, but he prevailed to see that the partition finally did not get installed. Because of that reason there was mild tension in the house for some time, but eventually his wife agreed with him that it was a good idea to have an extra large living room. Almost the entire living room was lined with bookcases. Though their craftsmanship was substandard, the uniformity of their design and the fact that they were nearly all filled with books gave the room a very pleasant appearance. In fact, this was Virendra's most favourite room in the house; he used to enjoy the fact that the room had several windows and he particularly used to like the view of the front living room while seated in this room. The bare concrete floor shone and reflected the painting that hung on the far wall of the front room, that of a sitting village woman doing her hair, executed in a few forceful black and white brush strokes.