by Manju Kapur
‘He never asks.’
*
That evening Astha spent a lot of time staring at the swami upon the dais, who, after his lecture was immediately surrounded by his devotees, many women, some men, some resident and some from town.
They were sitting in the pleasant lecture hall, next to the river. All sixteen fans were whirring. Groups of people, while waiting their turn with the swami, were comparing notes on what he had said: today he explained very well, today he used a lot of Sanskrit words, difficult to understand, but then really you need ten years to understand. What was it Swamiji said, when that man asked a question about the mind – to answer will take me six years, to comprehend will take you twelve. Swamiji was in form all right, how he makes you laugh sometimes, and how my life has changed since I started coming to the lectures, yes, you get mental peace, no doubt about that.
One man in so many lives. Certainly in her mother’s. She turned to look at her. ‘Don’t you want to ask him anything?’ she asked.
Her mother shook her head shyly. ‘These people know so much more than me. Let them ask.’
*
As they came down the steps a breeze was blowing, and a pink tinge on the water reflected the sunset.
‘Let us go to the temple‚’ said the mother.
Astha stared at her. ‘Since when have you started going to the temple?’ she asked. Her father had not believed in going to temples, and as a consequence nobody ever went.
‘There is arti in the evenings, and one of the women here is a very good singer‚’ said the mother as Astha’s question slid by her. ‘Come‚’ she said, calling to the children, ‘Anu, Himu, come, we are going to the temple.’
The temple was in another compound, small, white, with pink decorated columns and roof, facing the river front, lit with tube lights, and floored with marble. It was exquisitely clean with devotees waiting quietly for the evening prayers to begin. The mother sat at the back, Astha sat next to her, the children fidgeted and looked around.
The service lasted for forty-five minutes. Bhajan singing, praying, arti, offering bhog, receiving prasad, drinking holy water, and smoothing wet hand over head and eyes.
In the queue to receive prasad Anuradha asked, ‘How come we don’t do this at home?’
Astha didn’t know what to say. We don’t believe was not strictly true, I don’t have the time trivialised religion in a way that might be bad for her children, saying only old people prayed like this suggested that religion was only useful when you were feeble and decrepit. Instead she said, ‘God is in our hearts, beti, and some of us do not believe in ritual. Maybe when Nani comes to Delhi, you can pray with her.’
‘We will all do it together‚’ said Nani firmly, her eyes gleaming with the prospect of inducting her grandchildren into puja, ritual, Vedanta, and the sound beginnings of a Hindu life.
*
It was towards the end of Astha’s visit that her mother said, ‘I’m thinking of selling my land, and building a set of rooms in the ashram. Swamiji has agreed.’
‘Live with us, Ma‚’ Astha said hopelessly, ‘it is the best solution.’
‘It doesn’t look nice. Mother-in-law comes and never leaves.’ Here the mother sighed, and looked at the waters of the river with a melancholy eye. ‘It is so beautiful here, so peaceful‚’ she went on.
‘You must be lonely, Ma‚’ said Astha. They were sitting on one of the benches overlooking the river. The children were running up and down the steps. The heat of the day had gone, the light was gentle, the water below them was turning dark.
‘It is a lonely life‚’ said the mother, filling Astha with a dreadful sense of guilt.
‘It is my house too. If people mind it is just too bad. I don’t believe in all this shit about parents being the responsibility only of the sons.’
‘After all Hemant’s parents are staying with him, aren’t they, not with their daughters.’
‘His parents can’t stay with the daughters, one is in America, and one—’ Astha was going to say and one is staying with her in-laws, but changed it to, ‘and one has a bad marriage, with a small house.’
*
Next morning at the lecture Astha again looked at her mother’s teacher carefully. His beard was grey, there were little white spikes sticking up from his shaven head. He wore glasses, and the eyes behind them were gleaming, sharp, intelligent, she supposed compassionate – he was a swami after all – and how does one describe a swami’s eyes? His legs were crossed, his foot waggled, his clothes all saffron. His voice was deliberate and quiet:
‘There is pain and suffering in every life. When the burden becomes intolerable, we seek distractions, which in turn trap us. We develop a craving for pleasure and sensation, till finally we are at the complete mercy of our desires, which out of ignorance we have encouraged to grow into monsters.
‘With desire comes dissatisfaction, and a dissatisfied man is full of misery, even if he has at hand the pleasures that the world can give him.
‘We mistake gratifying our senses for living in the world. We act in order to be happy, and then we are surprised that the happiness does not last, and we look for other things, and the same pattern is repeated. Discontent is the cause of restlessness.
‘All our pleasures are connected with our deeds. They have a beginning and an end. The fruits of our actions similarly have a beginning and an end. They are transient and can therefore never quench our longing.
‘We breathe to live, but every breath draws us one step nearer to our end. In our body is our decay. We cannot alter this decay, the richest man in the world shares the fate of the poorest.
‘Against the world we are weak. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat, flood, famine, storms, all these things create fear. We run seeking protection here and there, but the strongest protection against the world comes from knowledge that comes from within.
‘It is only in a state of self-realisation that we can draw from the reservoir within to gain happiness. If we find contentment within ourselves, we will find good in all things. As the sun shines so shall the contentment within us light our lives and the lives around us.
‘We protect our feet with shoes, we protect our body with clothes. We cannot be harmed by the stones in our paths, nor by the sun or the rain that falls on us. Similarly, those who have achieved self-realisation are contented in all circumstances. The troubles they encounter on their journey through life cannot hurt them.’
*
Astha listened, caught up in his words, like everybody else in the room. The swami looked beyond time, because he was bowed down by nothing. If examples were what one had to go by, he was a good example of what he preached. His face shone with non-attachment, though his disciples hung on to every word he uttered with fierce attachment.
All these people here were looking, looking for shoes to protect them from the rough paths they had to tread. She wanted shoes as well. She sat in front of the swami trying them on. For a wild moment she wanted to go up to him and beg, tell me what to do.
And he would tell her, what? She already knew. Misery springs from desire, desire springs from attachment, and that if she gave up all these things, she would be happy.
The weight in her chest increased. She had come to rescue her mother, and yet seeing her mother in that place, the person who seemed to need rescuing was herself.
She tried no more to prevent her mother from living in Rishikesh, or from selling her plot of land. Clearly her mother needed quite a bit of money if she were to live respectably in the ashram. It seemed crazy to sell a piece of property, whose value, now that the bridge was built, doubled practically every year, but when one gave up material possessions, one also gave up speculation in the future.
Another three days and Astha left.
In October that year, the sale of the plot went through.
‘Dear child‚’ said Astha’s mother, who was in Delhi for the signing of the papers, ‘I have given Hemant part of the proceeds of the house.’<
br />
‘Why? The money is for you, Ma.’
‘I don’t need so much. You can consider this your father’s legacy.’
‘They why give it to Hemant?’ asked Astha bridling.
‘Why not? He is a man, he knows about money. He will invest it for you and the children. I have discussed the whole thing with him.’
How had this happened? Hemant had found a buyer and checked the legalities of the sale, but even if he was the man of business, she wanted to participate in any decision concerning the money her mother chose to give her.
‘Really, Ma, don’t you think women can be responsible for their own investments?’
‘Of course, but this was a lot. Are you suggesting I hand the whole thing over to you?’
No, Astha wasn’t. The sad thing was that she herself would have felt nervous handling a large sum. Suppose she did something foolish, and it did not multiply fast enough, it would be through her arrogance that the money had not functioned in the optimum manner.
‘Hemant is very clever, look at the way he does business, with no background‚’ went on the mother. ‘You yourself have said he manages everything financial. It was the same with your father, I only did the household accounts.’
‘You were earning too, Ma.’
‘Yes, yes. But he looked after my tax saving, my provident fund, decided how much we should spend, how much to save, all that. After him, Hemant took over.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘He has promised to double the amount in a few years.’
Could Astha ever have made such a promise? Never, not even if the gates of hell opened and the stock market collapsed in her lap. She had better stick to her job, and what it earned her. Nobody thought it was anything. Nobody discussed it, speculated with it, promised to increase it at fantastic rates. She could do with it what she liked, take it to bed, chew it, shit rupees in the morning and nobody would bat an eyelid.
Her mother had delivered her into Hemant’s hands. If her mother was at fault, so was her father, for managing the money, and teaching his wife that this was normal behaviour, so was her mother-in-law for bringing up Hemant to never regard women as beings to be consulted in their own lives, so was the Swamiji for teaching that only in detachment lies happiness, which lesson can be read in as many different ways as there are people and attachments.
*
After Astha’s mother left, the money was discussed briefly and bitterly.
‘Darling?’
‘Dearest.’
‘You know Ma’s money?’
‘I have several plans for it. It will be well invested, don’t you worry. Long term for the children, shorter term for you.’
‘Thank you darling. But I was wondering, you know, whether I could also have a say in what you do with it.’
Hemant began to frown. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘Of course, of course, I trust you. It’s not a question of trust, surely. You are my husband.’
‘Exactly. So what’s going on?’
‘I wish to feel—’ Here Astha paused and treaded carefully among the thickly laid minefields of income, expenditure, rights, responsibilities, knowledge, power, and dependency. ‘I mean if I wasn’t so ignorant about things concerning money, I wouldn’t feel so stupid.’
Hemant relaxed. ‘When I have finished I will explain everything to you. In fact I am glad you have brought this up. I have been thinking you should know what is going on. That way if anything happens to me, you will not be left in the dark.’
‘But Hemu‚’ said Astha, ‘I don’t wish to be enlightened only because you might die, which I hope will not be for a long long time, and certainly not before me.’
Hemant smiled, ‘We will die together in old age, huh?’
‘Yes‚’ she replied, ‘yes‚’ she repeated, ‘yes‚’ she faltered. ‘We will die together, I hope, but meanwhile, I feel so clueless about our financial situation. I know that in business things can be uncertain, so I thought that now that I have some money, it would be useful if I looked after it. That way I will gain experience.’
‘Your mother gave me this money to manage, I didn’t ask for it‚’ said Hemant coldly. ‘She trusts me even if you don’t.’
‘That’s not what I mean. I know she trusts you, certainly much more than she trusts me, but is it such a bad thing if I know how much is in my name and how I can have access to it?’ Astha was pleading now, begging Hemant to understand. She meant nothing personal. She didn’t want to feel dependent, that was all. Surely equals could relate better than master and slave?
‘What has gotten into you I don’t understand. I will tell your mother to give the whole thing to you, you will handle it yourself. She should have consulted you first, before she handed anything to me. In fact why didn’t she ask you to look for a buyer and get a lawyer to check the sale deeds? You have been missing out on so many things that life is not worth living, isn’t that so?’
Astha sat stunned. What kind of fool had she been to expect Hemant to understand? She had a good life, but it was good because nothing was questioned. This boat could not be rocked. She should paint that on a canvas and put it up on the wall, and stare at it day and night, so that its message burnt its way through her brain into her heart. This boat cannot be rocked.
Besides if the boat could not be rocked, what need did she have of money, or knowledge of investments? Hands that had grasped money, and felt it pass through their fingers were the ones capable of rocking boats. Hers were not.
*
The next morning, quickly she got her children ready and sent them off to school, quickly she had her tea, packed her breakfast to eat later, jamming an omelette between two slices of fridge cold bread and dripping violent red chilli sauce over the insides. Quickly, quickly she did all this, smiling, smiling all the while, so that no distress was palpable.
It was only in the staff room in school that Astha could be alone with her thoughts.
‘Why so silent?’ they asked? ‘Are you ill?’
Astha shook her head. She looked at her colleagues, women she met every day, women whom she liked, whose lives ran smoothly, women who had no shadows between their husbands and themselves, whose husbands were ‘him’ and ‘he‚’ and whose in-laws were ‘they’. Whom among them could she tell that she had not been able to sleep? What reason could she give that they would not think self-indulgent?
‘I’m fine‚’ she repeated, and opened the usual stack of brown-paper covered notebooks that laced each day’s work.
IV
It was early in the year 1987, that the principal of Astha’s school invited The Street Theatre Group to hold a workshop on their premises. The workshop would be held in the break between the final exams in March and the opening of the new school year in April.
The staff were not pleased.
As usual the Principal wants to attract attention to herself.
Just because she is interested in theatre, we are forced to be interested too.
They’ll want staff volunteers, wait and see.
We have to correct exam scripts, prepare report cards, see to the merit lists, file an account of each child’s progress in the school records – where is the time to do all this extra-curricular activity?
A gloomy silence descended. The Principal was not known to respect the convenience of her teachers.
*
Astha wondered whether she would be asked, she did not relish working in the holidays while her children were at home. She was very fond of Mrs Dubey but sometimes she felt that their special relationship caused her to be exploited. She had done enough for the school, the Principal should look elsewhere, she decided, readying herself for a tussle.
In which she lost.
‘You need someone with more experience if an outsider is coming‚’ she tried objecting.
‘With Aijaz you don’t need experience‚’ said the Principal. ‘For him any place is a stage, any person an actor. He has performed at factory gates, o
utside offices, at bus stops, in front of shops. He has dramatised issues like unemployment, atrocities against women and urban poverty. Indeed he is the voice of the underprivileged. That is his genius.’
He can take his genius elsewhere, thought Astha, why is he bringing it here.
‘He is my brother’s friend and is coming here on my personal request‚’ went on the Principal, somewhat coyly. ‘This is a great opportunity.’
‘It’s my children’s holidays.’ The woman-to-woman approach.
‘Bring them, they will benefit. Aijaz is a wizard. He is actually a history lecturer, but his knowledge of drama is immense. Besides writing his own plays and songs, he has adapted Brecht, Shakespeare, and Greek tragedy into Hindi. People grumble about the lack of activity in the school, but when it comes to giving our students exposure they come up with all kinds of objections. Where is the school spirit?’
Astha had no option but to agree.
*
Hemant was not pleased. He timed his trips to be free for his children’s holidays.
‘Why can’t you stay at home? And why drag the children into this?’
‘I had no choice‚’ said Astha. ‘Anyway it will be good for the children to see schools not as elite as theirs. Anu was actually asking when were we taking her to Disneyland. All her school friends have been, she says. I don’t believe her. Disneyland! Imagine!’
‘Nothing wrong with wanting to go to Disneyland‚’ said Hemant.
‘At this age! Why, I haven’t been abroad yet.’
‘We are not talking about you. If parents can afford to show their children the world, why not?’ said Hemant. ‘This is the eighties. We are not deprived Indians any longer.’
Astha felt there was something morally wrong with getting things without struggling for them, but she knew this view irritated Hemant. He was making more money at his age than their combined fathers at their retirement, and he didn’t seem to have any intention of letting his children struggle. She turned the conversation to the topic at hand.
‘Apparently Aijaz Akhtar Khan, the founder of The Street Theatre Group is very well known. He teaches history, and during the holidays he performs in slums, factories, streets, villages and small towns.’