The Non-Conformist

by Parikshat Sahni

  I thought he would be angry and upbraid me for my behaviour, but he didn’t utter a word of rebuke. All he said was, ‘You are playing a difficult role, son. I am aware of that. You have to enact the life of Mahjoor Saheb from his young to his old days. The best of actors would have found that difficult. I must say you have done a great job. Well done!! As far as the film unit, the film making and the film industry in India are concerned, I know it is not as advanced as in the USSR. But what can one do about it? “Do in Rome as the Romans do!”—that should be your motto. All said and done, this is your country. Good, bad or indifferent, one has to accept it as it is and do one’s best to make a contribution towards its growth and well-being. You are doing a great job. I am proud of you!”

  The gentle and understanding words put me in my place. Dad had used the velvet glove to sock me again. I didn’t feel it then, but it made me feel terribly ashamed later.

  The monsoons

  After shooting of the film was over, we returned to Mumbai and I was again at a loose end. I lived in Ikraam for a while and then decided to move to Warden Road to a vacant flat that my grandfather had bought in a building called Shiv Teerth. I wanted to get a taste of downtown Mumbai. But I missed my family and often went to Ikraam for dinner.

  One such evening, when the monsoons had just begun and there were intermittent showers all the time, I chatted with Dad after he came back, tired, from a shooting. We had a drink and then dinner together. It was a very pleasant evening. At about nine thirty I decided to drive back to Warden Road. Dad asked me to stay the night, but I felt like going back. The sky was overcast, but the evening was pleasant, with no rain at the time.

  I put on some soft music and drove off; before I had gone very far, the sky turned ominously black, followed by a peal of thunder. Soon it began to rain, and as the wind picked up in intensity, the rain seemed to be falling sideways in a curtain. Lightning and thunder such as I had never witnessed before lit up the sky and I could see silhouettes of palm trees bending almost double due to the force of the strong wind. The deafening sound of thunder competed with the sound of the rain crashing down on my car. I was unnerved by the strength of the storm.

  At one point, on Tulsi Pipe Road, the water had risen and the road was flooded. The cars slowed down to a crawl. Exercising extreme caution, I drove along the road for well over an hour through the intimidating downpour. The windshield wipers moved valiantly in a hopeless attempt against the sheets of water pouring down. I rued the fact that I hadn’t agreed to spend the night in Ikraam.

  I drove on stoically through the blinding lightning. I had half a mind to turn back, but was now beyond the point of no-return, so I decided to drive on. By now the storm had assumed the proportions of a hurricane. Many of the roads ahead were getting flooded and I had to drive very slowly, hoping the car wouldn’t stall. It took me almost two hours to reach Mahaluxmi and it was midnight by the time I reached my flat. I had barely changed into my night clothes when the doorbell rang. I was surprised. Who could it be at this late hour? I opened the door. Before me stood Dad.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asked, looking at me anxiously.

  ‘I am fine Dad!’ I replied. ‘But what are you doing here? It is well past midnight and you have shooting in the morning!’ Foolishly, I focused on the wrong thing, not even asking how and why he had ventured out in the storm.

  ‘I was worried about you, son. The storm was severe and you have no driver.’

  ‘Have you come with the driver?’

  ‘No, Afzal went home at seven. I drove myself!’

  I couldn’t believe it! Warden Road is a long way from Juhu, even in normal circumstances. But to think that Dad had weathered the storm and followed me, especially after shooting the whole day!

  Fearing that something untoward had happened to me on the way, he had taken no chances, and ignoring his fatigue, had driven all the way just to find out if I had reached home safely!

  I am amazed at how insensitive, unemotional and callous I was at that time. I had been ‘homeless’ for too long and had no family feelings. I should have hugged Dad and made him stay the night and then driven him back to Juhu myself, not just to Ikraam, but escorted him to the studio. But I am sad and ashamed to say that I did nothing of the kind.

  He refused to spend the night at my flat, in spite of my imploring him to do so. I made him a cup of tea. He drank it silently, looked around the flat and remarked that I had done it up well. And then he quietly left. The storm was still raging outside.

  I am overwhelmed with emotion as I think back to that day, and it brings a lump to my throat.

  But sadly, no amount of regret can alter the course of my actions or bring him back for me to at least apologize and compensate for my inexcusable behaviour, not just that once, but on multiple occasions. I failed to appreciate the abundance of love he showered on me, nor did I show him any gratitude for all that he did for me. On the contrary, I had the gall to hold him responsible for my own inadequacies. I am desperately unhappy to think about what lies unfinished between us, and keenly feel his absence and his wisdom. I am left with many ‘what-ifs’ and ‘if onlys’, but, other than feeling terribly sorry, there is little I can do.

  9

  Paradoxes

  Dad was a non-conformist to the core and opposed the old order tooth and nail. He was at his best when he refused to conform. But life is, by its very nature, full of inconsistencies and unforeseen circumstances, and people are often forced to abide by social norms whether they like It or not. There is a saying, ‘Bend like the willow; don’t resist like the oak.’ In a storm, it is the rigid, unmoving, resisting oak that breaks first, whereas the willow withstands the storm because it bends. When I look back at the years gone by, I find that, in spite of his non-conformist views, Dad, like everybody else, was occasionally forced to conform to the dictates and norms of society, and his life was therefore not bereft of paradoxes.

  Religion

  There are paradoxes and contradictions in almost every religious book I have read, as well as paradoxes and inconsistencies in the lives of almost everyone I know. Osho, who for a time held sway over a large part of the film industry and attracted many devout followers, confessed that his speeches were riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions, which, as he explained, are a part of life. (Most of his followers in India had a sad end, but he still has millions of followers all over the world.) Thus it was with Dad; like any other human, he made mistakes and often strayed from the path of Marxist thought, even though he was unequivocally wedded to it and endlessly affirmed its infallibility.

  Dad made no bones about his antipathy to religion and all religious beliefs. He was a diehard atheist and trashed all religious thought—especially the Vedic philosophy that had been taught to me (and to him during his childhood days) by Grandpa.

  Grandpa was the head of the Arya Samaj in Rawalpindi. From my early childhood, during the years that Dad was in England, he taught me Vedic verses in Sanskrit and made me memorize them by heart. He regaled me with stories about gods and goddesses as well as about mythical devas and asuras. He was vivid in his description of heaven, where, he said, the roads were paved with gold and littered with rubies, sapphires and diamonds. Beautiful apsaras flitted around clothed in silk, looking after the needs of the denizens of heaven. It was an enchanting picture, which fascinated me and held me enraptured for hours as I dwelt on it long into the night till I dropped off to sleep.

  Conversely, he also painted a vivid picture of hell. It was infested with demons with huge canines with which they chewed up and devoured humans hungrily. And, of course, there was hellfire in which sinners were impaled neatly through the two orifices and roasted on a spit for all eternity.

  ‘So don’t look at women and don’t touch your private parts. It is sinful. Remain pure,’ Grandpa advised me.

  I was too young to be interested in women at the time, but I made it a point never to touch my penis after that!

  And then, w
hen I started living with my parents, Dad presented the very opposite view from Grandpa’s. Not exposed to any ‘isms’ and hardly aware of anything beyond my own existence, I was suddenly confronted with information about an entirely new world view. By the time Dad had finished with his dissertation on the Marxist interpretation of religion, my brains were well and truly scrambled! He told me that Marxism completely negated religion and called it ‘the opium of the masses’. I was not quite sure if I was being initiated into a new creed or was just being enlightened, but whatever it was, Dad’s words made a profound impact on me and thoroughly confused me. The roots of my existence were shaken; my very identity was at stake. I was asked to erase the wealth of knowledge my grandfather had imparted to me, to wipe the slate clean and assume a ‘tabula rasa’ state, on which he would carve my belief system, based on his own perceptions and deeply held principles. The first prerequisite for becoming a Marxist was to disbelieve in all that religion stood for. Grandpa believed in a higher deity, in God and the Paramatma, finding comfort in the existence of a supreme being who kept an eye on us all and laid down a code of conduct to keep society in order.

  Dad asked me to forget all that Grandpa had taught me, Sanskrit verses, et al, because these were all false and outdated and had no place in modern times. ‘They are all the figment of some silly Brahmin’s imagination, someone who lived in prehistoric times. The sooner you forget them the better. There is only one truth,’ he said, ‘and that is dialectical materialism as taught by Marx. There is no such thing as God, nor is there any heaven or hell or an afterlife. That we have a soul is a myth. We are all just complex chemical combinations, various elements that come together and create life and are broken down into their original components after we die, and are scattered to the winds. We are like light bulbs. When the bulb is fused, that’s it. After that there is only darkness and nothingness. Death is total annihilation. Nothing remains after we die except darkness and extinction.’

  I thought about what Dad had said. The idea of being ‘fused like a bulb’ forever and being ‘totally annihilated’ so that nothing remained of us except utter darkness and total extinction was, for a boy of seven or eight, disturbing and unnerving. Most of my childhood was spent in contemplating these ideas of complete and absolute annihilation. Grandpa’s belief in a supreme being who was like a benign father, who looked after us and rewarded us with a heavenly abode was comforting. It was alluring and enchanted me. It made me sleep well at night. It also gave me an identity and defined a place for me in the cosmic cycle. But Dad’s dialectical materialism caused me sleepless nights. My mind was unable to process the concept of being fused like a bulb and having such an ignominious death.

  All this affected me to a great extent during my childhood and had a direct effect on my later life. It induced me to think about the issues of life and death at a very early age.

  Things were made worse when Dad discussed death at the dining table with Mummy.

  ‘I wonder what Grandma thinks about death,’ he said on one occasion, ‘after all, she must be terribly afraid and depressed at the thought of total annihilation!’

  Not that anyone asked Grandma, of course, but she never seemed to bother much about the subject. In fact, I was the one who was so focused on it almost constantly. With a new insight into the nothingness that was promised, I had a difficult time dealing with the absolute end ahead for Grandma, and, eventually, for all of us. I couldn’t reconcile with the idea.

  Dad also negated what Grandpa had said about being morally upright, never looking at the opposite sex or touching one’s penis.

  ‘Women are beautiful,’ he said. ‘Man and woman have been made for one another. And the penis is a beautiful organ that was created specifically for pleasure, for both men and women. There is no harm in touching it, exploring it, fondling it or playing with it. In a Marxist society, sex is considered a normal human activity like eating, drinking and other bodily functions. There is no taboo on sex. Nor is it considered sinful. That is the correct attitude to your penis and the opposite sex.’

  After that, I would make tentative attempts to touch my penis, looking for beauty in it, and was mildly surprised at how pleasant the sensation was. Dad must be right, I thought; how can something that is so delightful to touch be considered evil?

  Dad’s views were confirmed when I went to the USSR after graduating from college. I wanted to see firsthand the truth of what he had said about Marxist thought, religion, morality and economics. I had been lectured on Marxism long enough to be convinced that it must indeed be the only correct world view in existence. But after I had accepted Dad’s viewpoint without question, I read a book called Jean Christophe by Romain Rolland, as suggested by Dad, in which he said, ‘Each man must learn his own ideal and try to accomplish it. That is a surer way of progress than to take the ideas of another’.

  The book had a profound effect on me. I wanted to go and see for myself the Utopia Dad had so assiduously painted for me.

  At first glance Dad’s description of Marxist thought seemed correct. The Marxist state had indeed negated not just religion but also the moral values that went with it. I promptly threw all caution to the winds and became something of a hedonist. Dad had said there was no God and that there were no moral values dictated by Him. And, of course, since there was nothing but total annihilation after death, there was no question of there being a heaven or hell (and therefore no chance of either being entertained by beautiful apsaras, being devoured by demons or roasted slowly for all eternity.) So, with no fear of any repercussions, I proceeded to have the best time possible.

  After about a year of my return to India at the age of twenty-six, life took a sudden downturn. Our family had moved to the grand new house Dad had built, Ikraam, and had not been there for long before things started going wrong. Dad’s beliefs and non-conformist ideas were put to the test as one tragedy followed another in quick succession, culminating in the death of Shabnam. Dad was shattered; so was I. It was at this time that Dad’s philosophy and my beliefs were put to the ultimate test

  Dad, bereaved at the loss of his beloved daughter, went into deep depression. I could not come to terms with the death of my sister. But instead of coming closer in our shared loss, each one of us retreated further into our own grief, trying to cope as best as we could. Dad naturally turned to dialectical materialism. I found him in his room one early morning, sitting on the floor, reading Das Kapital. For days after that I found him immersed in the book, perhaps trying to find meaning in the chaos that had suddenly engulfed the family. However, a month or so later, I saw him sitting in the same place and in the same posture, a scarf covering his head. I was about to make a comment when I noticed, to my utter astonishment, that he was reading not Das Kapital but the Guru Granth Sahib!

  I think Dad too was going through his own inner struggle to find some rationale behind the tragedies and losses our family had suffered. I’ve never been sure whether the wisdom of the Gurus succeeded in convincing him that there were paths other than Marxism for salvation, because soon after that he passed away.

  Those were days of utter darkness, darkness such as I had never known before. I drank myself into a stupor and started taking sleeping pills to help me sleep. I lived in a somnambulant state, hardly aware of what was going on around me. I had one of two films on hand, but I didn’t attend the shootings and was promptly thrown out of them. I signed whatever was brought before me without looking at the contents. I was in limbo. My belief in Marxism as representing the fundamental truth had lost ground, and I found myself floundering. I had already lost any religious convictions I may have had, tossed between my grandfather’s teachings and Dad’s dismissal of them as meaningless.

  I saw no hope, nothing that could bring me relief. I had no religion to turn to and couldn’t even vent my anger and frustration at a God I did not believe in. I don’t know where I would have ended up had I not met a fellow actor and dear friend, Kabir Bedi’s mother, Mrs Freda Bedi, a
British lady who was a Buddhist nun in the Rumtek Monastery. Here was a woman in her mid-fifties, fair, blue-eyed and heavily built, dressed in the ochre robes of a Mahayana Buddhist, her head clean shaven. As it turned out, she knew Dad and Dammo-ji in their Lahore days and had been a fiery revolutionary in her time. A book on her life, The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi, singles her out as a woman of extraordinary capabilities, with a passion for truth and justice. Earlier, she had taken part in India’s freedom movement and had even spent time in jail. For a time, she was a full-fledged member of the Communist Party and a radical revolutionary. Later in life, like the writer Howard Fast, she turned to Buddhism and found peace and solace in the precincts of the Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim. I found her company soothing and her words of wisdom were an anodyne to my tortured soul.

  ‘To live is to suffer,’ I heard her say one day. She spoke about the four-fold truth and the eight-fold path, the basic tenets of Buddhism. She spoke about how one can conquer suffering. Her words touched a chord somewhere in me and I saw a glimmer of hope. On an impulse, one day I asked her to convert me to Buddhism. I wanted to put an end to the depression and suffering that had enveloped me. My friends were shocked at my request, but she didn’t seem surprised. After an elaborate ceremony, I was converted and given a Buddhist name. I turned to the Buddhist texts much as Dad had turned to the Guru Granth Sahib, and strange to say, I found comfort in them. My life turned around and soon I was on my feet again. The clouds had dissipated and I was back to my old self.

  I decided to explore the mystery that was religion, what was it that provided such a strong basis of faith to people all over the world. I read all the religious scriptures one by one—the Dhammapada, the Gita, the Koran, the Torah and the Bible—and I found solace.