by Ryan Lobo
He sees Damayanti, vibrant blue and distant in the heated air, and Bencho, who walks towards Iyer, smiling widely.
‘Sir!’ cries Bencho in relief. The white cow wanders past, still chewing. The look on Bencho’s face changes sharply when, to his utter disbelief, The Lover steps out of the undergrowth and pushes Iyer off the bridge.
35
Iyer lets his body go limp and falls like a stone.
I fly.
He hits the water hard, landing on his back. It stings, but it seems like someone else falls. Someone else has been hurt. The water closes over him. Another world. The back of his head feels as if someone has poured molten lead into it. His limbs go slack.
This too shall pass.
He sinks. Bubbles. Are they from his nose? The current turns Iyer. The horizon tilts from the shimmering surface. He sees Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance, completely immersed and poised upright on the riverbed, his dreadlocks alive.
Time is a circle.
Iyer sinks further, the surface darkened by smoke, lit by the flames. A shoal of tiny fish disperse and regroup, flashing like topaz. He feels the silt touch his back.
For a few seconds Iyer lies in the garden of wounded gods, limbs and torsos strewn around him like in the aftermath of a battle, the dreaming Vishnu lying on its side a short distance away.
The river is beginning to take away his breath. Soon it’ll be over, he thinks, but with his arm working as if of its own accord, Iyer grasps the big toe on the left foot of the Lord of the Dance. The shoal of silver fish surrounds the god’s countenance, ignoring the dying mortal at its foot. Then the minnows turn, catching the light, and the Lord of the Dance flicks his foot upwards, pushing Iyer towards the flames.
He rises as the petrol tanker explodes, turning the world white, then orange, blinding Iyer as he hovers mid river, engulfing The Lover and blowing him off the bridge.
As he loses consciousness he sees a crow flying in the smoke-stained sky through the tumultuous surface above. It circles and caws.
There you are.
Another form dives into the maelstrom, a blue goddess, her polyester-cotton sari shimmering around her as she swims towards Iyer, powerful arms and legs pushing back the water. She swims over the gods, scattering the silver fish, and reaches him. She grabs him under his arms, her blue garment unhitched and billowing around them like a celestial cloud. Kicking off the riverbed, she rockets towards the fire. Damayanti bursts out from the burning river, an unconscious Iyer in her arms.
36
I dreamt of our childhood house again.
Before my eyes it crumbled away, and all that remained was soil.
I smelled the earth.
The house was built with Ganges sand.
The monstrosity has melted away.
The lance in my hand does not crumble.
It rings when I draw it through the air. I leave it on the earth.
Instead of the well of damp granite, a river flows under the house. When I put my ear to the ground, I can hear it murmur.
I have found the Saraswati.
May you come into your own, brother. May you become what you are, no longer this person of this name or that name but the true self that is the being of all beings, my self and your self one.
I will write my memoirs in my own name, as it has already been written and already been read.
Kindly refer to me as Lalgudi Iyer. This is compulsory.
Kind regards,
Lalgudi Iyer
37
Damayanti carries Iyer towards the bank, and Bencho rushes into the water, taking him from her.
‘Sir! Sir, my dear sir!’
Bencho lays him down on the bank, turning his head to the side to get the water out of his lungs. He holds his ear to Iyer’s chest, his heart beating like a bird in a cage. Bencho shakes him and presses down on his chest several times. After a sharp breath Iyer gasps, vomiting the Ganges onto the sand.
‘Sir!’ cries Bencho, sobbing.
‘He needs a hospital, and quick,’ says the inspector, looking down on them from the road.
Damayanti emerges from behind the shrubbery, her hair in order and her sari retied. Old Mr Kapadia is wheeling about as well, trying to pilfer bits of shattered idols. The constables are given various orders and scurry about, photographing the idols with their phones and taking fragments of statues off the road. The constables are also having a tough time with the light-fingered crowd, now supplemented with passers-by, chasing a man with Lord Ganesha’s head and wrestling with another to retrieve the hand of Shiva.
Aurangzeb is arrested and promises cooperation, thanking Iyer for saving his life before being led away.
‘I think that it is a good idea that I keep him with us, just in case our big-shot friend sends someone else,’ the inspector tells Bencho and Khanolkar.
The errand boy appears and helps Iyer into the inspector’s jeep, whose canvas top has been charred. He cups Iyer’s face as if he is a child, the same way Iyer had cupped his when he had beaten Aurangzeb.
Iyer is wrapped in blankets from the Tempo. The jeep doors are closed, the constables rip off the remnants of the charred canvas that hang in tatters, and they leave for Kashi. The inspector drives slowly so that the Tempo can keep up. Khanolkar is at the wheel, and the inmates of the home are mostly asleep, exhausted with all the excitement.
Iyer does not respond to conversation, feeling like a kite in the wind, the jeep’s suspension not helping.
‘I told you we would meet again,’ chuckles the inspector. ‘You have done the right thing today. I recommend you do not speak to the press, and I will make sure no hardship befalls you. OK?’
Iyer remains silent.
‘Who would have thought that a lunatic like you would rescue the gods themselves!’ jokes the inspector.
Footage of Iyer rescuing Aurangzeb, embracing each other upside down, faces in each other’s chests, was shot on the cell phone of one of the watching crowd and uploaded to YouTube, and has already made it to the regional news. Iyer dozes through most of the journey. Mishra, informed by Khanolkar of their arrival, has already made an announcement to the local police and media that Lalgudi Krishnan Iyer, a patient of the home for the dying, has helped stop an international ring of antique smugglers, and also that Mr Khanolkar has helped the authorities in their operation.
Shortly thereafter, in another news segment, Jayachandra makes a statement condemning the illegal antiquities’ trade, and praises the heroism of the senior citizen Iyer, more of the likes of whom the country needs, to overcome its challenges with corruption and intolerance.
Over the next day Iyer rests, hardly leaving his room as the visitors come by, including the police, who get Iyer to sign various statements, which he does without reading them.
The days pass, and despite the antibiotic course prescribed by the very worried Krishna, Iyer deteriorates, losing weight and developing a fever.
The rains begin in earnest and the Ganges goes into spate. Dr Krishna visits daily, hurrying through the rain and into Iyer’s room. After his examinations, when he walks to the window, as is his custom, the young doctor sees debris floating down the river at high speed, coursing past the little boats held in place by snapping ropes.
On one such visit, while Krishna massages Iyer’s legs the electricity fails, plunging the room into darkness.
‘How are you feeling, Bhīma?’ Krishna asks, and Iyer looks at a point a few inches behind Krishna’s head.
‘My name is Iyer.’
Khanolkar sends for a priest to come and visit Iyer. He attends Iyer early in the morning, before temple hours.
‘He is all right. Just tired,’ says the priest, and Khanolkar counts out his payment, note by note, without angst.
Damayanti and Bencho come by that evening, Bencho dressed in his best shirt, hair combed. Damayanti’s eyes are puffy from crying. She brings a small dish wrapped in a cloth. They visit Khanolkar.
‘How is he?’
&n
bsp; ‘The doctors say he is fine, but I am not sure. Maybe he is ready,’ replies Khanolkar, entering the latest Iyer-related expense into his ledger without increasing it. ‘Why do you look so sad? He has led a full life,’ says Khanolkar, snapping the ledger shut and opening another. ‘Too full, maybe.’
‘He has always been so kind to me. I wish that Panchakanya would come now to see him. They say love works miracles. I hope she comes. What ungratefulness to ignore him now!’ Damayanti says, furious that the love of Iyer’s life has abandoned him in his hour of need.
‘I don’t think that Panchakanya will come, Damayanti,’ Khanolkar says, clasping his hands together and looking at Damayanti over his ledgers.
‘Yes. These days’ women ...’ Damayanti sniffles.
‘I have something to tell you, Damayanti.’
‘Yes?’
‘Please sit down.’
‘No, I will stand.’
‘Please sit down.’
‘OK.’
And Khanolkar tells her.
38
‘Don’t be sad, sir,’ Bencho says at Iyer’s bedside. ‘They say you have fallen silent. Get off that bed, let’s go out wandering again. If you think your defeat by Bakasura is the cause of your depression, we can call for a rematch, and this time I know you will win. You yourself have told me that defeat is an essential part of victory. The defeated of today will become the victors of tomorrow? No?’ Bencho asks, looking tenderly down at Iyer.
‘We have been spared the utter desolation and horror of a life’s success, Bencho. If I had killed Bakasura, I might cease to exist completely. What reason would there be to be, then? Besides, I have learned more about myself when my body struck the Ganges: all was illuminated.’
‘Yes, sir? What was illuminated?’
Iyer does not reply and focuses on his breathing, going back to the place in between – in between the fire and the riverbed, suspended in the water, trying to find the right words to reveal what he’d seen.
‘When you empty your head of thinking, your soul breaks its chains. Dormant selves rise, and you become what you are,’ Iyer says, the room swimming about him, the shoal of shiny fish flickering like the stars by the window.
‘Sir, my dear sir, there can be only one you.’
‘No Bencho, nothing is original. I am the combined entity of everyone I’ve been, in all my lives. I am no more original than the ghosts in my dreams.’
‘Sir, what was illuminated when you struck the river?’ asks Bencho, bringing Iyer back to what he had been about to reveal.
‘You recall that I hit my head on a shivalinga, and was given knowledge of a previous birth, Bencho, not that long ago?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘This time when I struck the water, watched over by the Nataraja, raised by his foot, I received spiritual knowledge of other lives, Bencho.’
‘Sir! What were you? A warrior? A king? A sage in the upper reaches of the Himalayas? A yogi in the lower reaches of Mount Kailash? No, I know!’ he says, excitedly. ‘A tiger!’
‘Where is that dream diary of mine? I have so much to write down. Quick, before these thoughts pass.’
‘Sir, who will write our story?’ Bencho asks, looking for Iyer’s notebook, his eyes filling with tears.
‘I do not know. But the author will have to lead a pure life himself to allow the truth of our story to flow through him. Or you, Bencho. Or maybe I will write it. Maybe in this life. Or maybe in another.’
Bencho hums,
May the goddess of speech enable us to attain all possible eloquence,
She who wears on her locks a young moon,
Who shines with exquisite lustre, who sits reclined on a white lotus,
And from the crimson cusp of whose hands pours, radiance on the implements of writing,
And books produced by her favour.
‘We are nothing, Bencho. We are the poems that will be forgotten. But they will reappear in other ages like those river dolphins we saw.’
‘Sir?’
Iyer mutters something, but Bencho does not hear what he says.
‘Sir?’ asks Bencho again, but Iyer has fallen asleep.
Bencho waits for a while, then retreats from the room and walks down the stairs, passing Mishra, who stands by a motionless Khanolkar, who’s leaning against the wall as if he has been waiting for Bencho. They acknowledge each other, making eye contact and nodding, Bencho standing straight as they pass each other in the spiral, equals for the first time.
Iyer sleeps, and Panchakanya appears to him dressed like a mythological queen from the Mahabharata TV serial.
‘My dear sir! Do not leave me,’ she entreats, bedecked with costume jewellery and gold.
‘I am grateful that you come to me in my last hours. I have always been true to you, Panchakanya,’ Iyer says, half waking into a fever.
‘I am Damayanti, and I am flesh and blood. My name is not Panchakanya. I do not want you to die,’ says the queen, her ethereal sari turning into a white polyester-cotton blend, her luminous body turning into Damayanti, who has entered the room with a dish and some bandages in her hands, awakening Iyer.
‘Damayanti?’ Iyer says, opening his eyes and turning his head to her, his breath slowing, ‘Such a significant name.’
‘You must be hungry.’
Damayanti unwraps the dish from its cloth and puts it down by his bed.
‘And I am Iyer, Lalgudi Iyer,’ he says, trying to sit up on his bed.
‘What happened to Bhīma?’
‘Bhīma is still around.’
‘And Bakasura? And all the other monsters?’
‘They are still about,’ Iyer says, wincing with the effort of trying to sit up. He gives up and lies flat on his back again.
‘Lalgudi Iyer,’ she says, looking down at his body, the wounds and scars of his quest marking his skin like a map. ‘You need to rest. Now sit up and unbutton your shirt,’ she orders. For the first time in many years, Iyer listens and obeys.
‘You will not leave this room until you are better,’ Damayanti says, even more sternly.
‘All this has happened before,’ mumbles Iyer, abruptly reaching out and touching the acid scars on Damayanti’s face. She freezes but then makes herself relax, and lets Iyer use his finger to trace the outline of the burn. He closes his eyes and watches his own breath as he does, like a wind in a desert, deep and even. Iyer opens his eyes and she is still there, unchanged, and it is like seeing her for the first time. Iyer’s heart swells and he is overwhelmed with joy.
‘Damayanti,’ he says, his eyes closing again, the sound of her name clear to him for the first time. ‘Damayanti.’
‘So many wounds? How did you get so many?’ she notices a weeping cut on his chest, changing the subject and picking up a washcloth from a bowl of diluted Dettol.
‘I followed my intuition,’ Iyer says, chuckling.
‘Tell me. Tell me,’ Damayanti says, as though talking to a child, soaking the washcloth and squeezing out the excess Dettol into the bowl.
‘This is from my fight to free the prisoners, dedicated to you of course,’ he says, pointing at the scar on his forehead. ‘They opened my third eye,’ he says, laughing. ‘Here is my scar from my battle with that driver Aurangzeb.’ He points to the healing splinter wound between his fingers.
‘They are not fully healed,’ Damayanti says, wiping his forehead.
‘That’s because they are from this life,’ replies Iyer, ‘but they will find their healing, somewhere, someday, in some life or the other. Or their revenge.’
‘What other lives?’
Iyer closes his eyes and goes back to the river, the Ananta uncoiling, Vishnu still dreaming, Kaliyug alive, the flames above him and the broken gods below. He runs his hands over his body, searching out the blows from different times. His hands stop at his face – the left side – and he tells her what has consumed him since falling from the bridge.
‘You know that driver Aurangzeb? The man I beat up.’
‘Yes, everybody knows how you beat up poor Aurangzeb.’
‘I was other lives besides Bhīma.’
‘Ah, aren’t we all?’ Damayanti says sweetly, dabbing at a wound with the rag.
‘I was another Aurangzeb once upon a time, the Alamgir himself, the defeater of a war elephant, the scourge of Hindus and the sixth Mughal emperor,’ Iyer says slowly, pointing at a barely visible birthmark on his forehead above the star-shaped wound.
‘What great battle wound was this?’
‘Not a wound. I slipped as I was about to do my namaz and hit my forehead on the floor.’
‘You were a Muslim in another life?’
‘Yes. You were there too.’
‘Who was I to you, then, in that life?’ Damayanti asks, running the cool cloth over his hot skin.
‘You were my brother Dara,’ Iyer says laughing.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘My other brother, Murad, is known as Mr Khanolkar today. And in that life I imprisoned both of you,’ Iyer stops laughing and looks at her.
‘Is that so?’ Damayanti says. ‘Your body is a vessel of past lives?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘And from which life did this come?’ she asks, pointing to a discoloured patch of skin near his temple.
‘That is a sword wound and …’ Iyer finds he can’t continue; tears roll down his cheeks.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because I know who gave me that wound.’
‘Who did? Bencho?’
‘No. You did. And you also had me hanged.’
‘What? I do not understand …’
‘You went by the name Brigadier General Neill and the year was 1857, at Kanpur, my dear.’
‘My God, I was a Britisher? Why did I kill you, a respectable Brahmin, like that?’
‘I was not a Brahmin then, though you killed many Brahmins too.’
‘If you were not a Brahmin, what were you?’
‘I was a man named Gungoo Mehter and I killed many people that day.’
‘How cruel the British were, to do that. And stop talking about such horrifying things, Bhīma,’ Damayanti says, wiping his lips with a rag.