A Life Misspent

by Suryakant Tripathi Nirala

  I sat at the head of the bed. It was true there was no stench there. I took out a five-rupee note and gave it to Kulli’s wife; he would need milk. Kulli gazed at the ceiling and said nothing.

  ‘What does the doctor say?’ I asked.

  ‘There is nothing left to say. It’s up to God now.’ Kulli closed his eyes.

  I sat in the room a little longer. Kulli’s wife began to cry when I prepared to leave. ‘They say I should take him to Rae Bareli. It will cost these five rupees. He doesn’t want to be carried in a palanquin. If we can find a truck that’s unloading in Dalmau and going back empty I can transport him to the hospital, but how will we deal with the expenses once we get there?’

  ‘Please take him to the hospital. I will raise money for his treatment and meet you in Rae Bareli.’

  She looked at me with gratitude. I took my leave.

  Word reached my in-laws the next day that Kulli’s wife had found a suitable truck and taken him to Rae Bareli. I had to start collecting money. I asked a few local social workers to accompany me and went to meet the president of the Congress committee in Dalmau. The president was busy overseeing the construction of his brick house, one of whose already finished rooms constituted the party office. The social workers introduced me; the president was familiar with Kulli’s work. When I mentioned money the president said making a contribution would be against party rules. ‘The party collects money from members but does not pay money out to members.’

  ‘I know the rule. I also know that when the party considers a member worthy, it makes funds available in such a way that no one ever finds out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have told you what I had to say.’

  ‘No money will be given for Kulli’s care,’ he declared with presidential authority.

  ‘I have already contributed five rupees,’ I said. ‘I can add two rupees more. I will bear the expenses they will incur in Rae Bareli. Providing more than this is beyond my powers. Three of my friends have given me one rupee each. If you give us a little money we will be able to manage.’

  ‘There were seven rupees left from the sum allocated for a reception for Vijayalakshami15. It turns out she did not pay us a visit; the funds have been returned to the party coffers.’

  ‘You know that Kulli’s life is more precious than a reception for Vijayalakshami.’

  ‘These sticklers for rules say I have extended my property line two yards into municipal land.’

  Is that why you are eager to hobnob with Vijayalakshami? I thought to myself. But out loud I said, ‘Whenever someone arranges a reception for Vijayalakshami she finds out if an ulterior motive might be at work. If the reception is not as innocent as it seems she goes after the perpetrator with a vengeance. She is Goddess Kali incarnate.’ I joined my palms in namaste, taking leave of him. ‘She keeps her distance from everyone; she does not invite visitors to her house. But if she learns that a Congress Committee has invested money in the care of its own workers, she is happy to support that committee in every way.’

  ‘Do you see her frequently?’

  ‘She doesn’t see people casually, but if I have work with her she does not refuse a meeting. A real Goddess Kali.’

  ‘You can have those seven rupees.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I took the money and prepared to go to Rae Bareli. One of Kulli’s Muslim friends met me at the train station. He, too, was going to visit Kulli. When we arrived at the hospital the doctor informed us that Kulli’s condition had improved. ‘Earlier he was screaming with pain. He is better now.’ However, upon seeing Kulli, I had the opposite impression. The operation had made him weaker. He seemed withdrawn. ‘The doctors here know nothing,’ Kulli said. ‘I tell them that I only have a few hours left. I ask them to stop giving me false hope. They tell me I am mistaken—that I will be up and about soon.’

  Kulli was calm. I could detect no hesitation in his words or in the expression on his face. The doctor looked in while I was present. ‘Please allow people to visit me. I don’t have much time left. There is no reason to send out people to get fruit or milk.’

  ‘If you had direct knowledge of your condition, you shouldn’t have come to the hospital in the first place. Now that you have been admitted, do as we say. There was rattling in your throat when you got here. The rattling is gone.’

  ‘It wasn’t in my throat,’ Kulli said. ‘It was my breathing through the nose that was noisy. I am weaker now. There’s less breathing through the nose.’

  ‘Be quiet. Are you telling me we doctors can’t distinguish between throat and nose?’

  The doctor moved on to the next patient. Kulli followed him calmly with his eyes.

  I had heard in Dalmau that Kulli’s wife didn’t have a moment of rest when his condition worsened. She was busy running errands in Rae Bareli.

  I wanted to understand things clearly.

  ‘Is she beside herself with grief?’ I asked.

  I couldn’t get a definite answer.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t at the hospital when I visited. When I couldn’t stay any longer I told Kulli I had brought some money for his medical care. I had hoped to hand the funds over to his wife.

  ‘You can leave the money with him,’ Kulli said, pointing to the Muslim gentleman. ‘My wife has been busy with one thing after another.’

  I gave the rupees to the Muslim gentleman.

  Kulli asked me where I would spend the night. I told him the Treasury Officer in town was a friend. I would stay at his bungalow and inform him about Kulli’s condition. I wanted to collect money for Kulli in Rae Bareli as well.

  I joined my palms in namaste. Tears rolled down Kulli’s eyes. ‘We won’t meet again,’ he said.

  Sixteen

  I brought Kulli’s condition to the attention of the Treasury Officer and returned to Dalmau. I received a message two days later saying Kulli had died, and that his corpse was being transported to Dalmau. Social workers, untouchables in Dalmau, and members of the Congress Party set about organizing a funeral procession to the river. A boat was to carry the body across to the burning ground on the other side. Since Kulli’s wife was not wedded to him in the proper way, she would not be allowed to light the pyre. A distant relative of Kulli’s had been summoned for the purpose. I was stunned by these events. I would never behold Kulli again. But I was also amazed at the outpouring of grief. How had this ordinary man come to matter so much? I won’t cheapen words by writing down what Kulli thought of me, but I do know which person’s example made the deepest impression on him. In their last days, Premchand and Jaishankar Prasad shared some confidences of their lives with me. I will keep their secrets safe. Making them public would only stir gossip and cause pain to the departed souls. Kulli, too, lived with a secret. Premchand and Jaishankar Prasad parted with their secret late. They were concerned for their reputation. Kulli parted with his secret early.

  When I learn of the passing of a dear person or fear their demise, I fall into a kind of stupor. I was in the sitting room when I heard Kulli was dead. I was in the sitting room when I was told his corpse had arrived in Dalmau. A social worker came to summon me two or three times. I was in the sitting room when the funeral procession set out. I said I was unable to join. People cremated him and returned. I was seated as before. That evening I ate my dinner as usual. Kulli’s wife sobbed and cried. I heard her but did nothing. Ten days passed.

  On the eleventh day—but I was unaware that it was the ritual eleventh day after cremation—I went and met Kulli’s wife. ‘Kulli is gone,’ she said. ‘His work here is over. But what about the people who came to mourn the first ten days after his cremation and won’t come today—is their work over? Does their absence prove their Hindu purity or their Hindu duplicity?’

  I told her I didn’t understand. ‘Can you speak more clearly?’

  ‘All right,’ she began, the way a preacher begins a sermon. ‘You weren’t present, but somebody touched a torch to his funeral pyre. I don’t
know who it was; I believe he is a distant relative. We mourned him for ten days. The priest and a large number of townspeople were present on the tenth day. The distant relative said he had to leave for his village to look after an ailing uncle. What if something happened to the uncle? He was his only living relative. The distant relative told me I could make the eleventh day’s funeral offering myself. The priest assented. The circle of people around him assented. “You can make the funeral offering yourself.” Today is the eleventh day and I sent for the priest. But he refused to come.’

  ‘Why did he refuse?’

  The boy who went to call the priest was an untouchable. He came back with the following report: ‘Pandit Manni complains that life is difficult enough for him because he is priest to mixed caste Gangaputras. No one will marry the Pandit’s sister for this reason. If he comes to your house to make the eleventh day offering, no one will share food or drink with him any more.’

  ‘Do you hear what he says?’ Kulli’s wife asked me. ‘If he didn’t intend to go through with the ceremony why did Pandit Manni ask me to initiate it? There were ten witnesses: Pandit Ramgulam, Rajaram Gangaputra, Dhokhe Mahabahman…’

  ‘We are not in a court of law,’ I responded. ‘We can’t force the Pandit to come.’

  I knew Pandit Manni. He was from the high Kanyakubja caste of Brahmins. No one had sought his sister’s hand in marriage—she was going on twenty—because he served castes much lower than his own. The Pandit had no other skills; performing rituals was the only way he could make a living.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said to Kulli’s wife. ‘Your work will be done.’

  ‘Only if people like you take an interest…’ she said with exaggerated sadness. She ran the end of her sari over her eyes as if to wipe them. ‘Only if you go and summon him yourself…’

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘But it’s not at Pandit Manni’s house where my presence is needed. It is needed here. I will go home and bathe. Send for the Pandit one more time. I should be back very soon. I will conduct the eleventh day ceremony myself if the Pandit does not appear.’ Kulli’s wife looked at me as if I was the sage Vasishtha, promising to add glory to the funerary rites at her house.

  I walked back towards my in-laws’ house. The astrologer who inspected horoscopes for my wedding lived on the road that led to my in-laws. He indicated that marrying me would be inauspicious. My father-in-law wanted to refuse the match being proposed. But the astrologer’s father, who was regarded as a master astrologer, overruled his son. ‘The match is fine,’ the old astrologer declared. ‘Even if misfortune befalls them, the harm to the woman will not be great. Besides, if the young man’s horoscope shows him to be unfortunate, the young woman’s horoscope shows her to be a demoness. They are well matched. They will manage all right.’ Since that time, I have held the astrologer’s family in special regard.

  The astrologer was older than I am. I joined my palms in respectful greeting and asked him how the stars were aligned that day. Was the day auspicious for ritual events? The astrologer was puzzled. He knew the sort of person I was. ‘Why would the alignment of stars make a difference to you?’ he wondered. I explained that Pandit Manni was reluctant to officiate at Kulli’s house. The Pandit was worried about how his service to clients of doubtful caste might reflect on marriage prospects for his sister. I was planning to conduct the eleventh day ceremony myself. ‘The astrological names of day and year are needed for the sacred mantras.’

  ‘Do you know anything about making oblations with ghee?’

  ‘I don’t, but I understand that all the spiritual powers are invoked in the offering, from Brahma to gods and demons, to humans and kinnars. I can add some thoughts of my own in Sanskrit. My conjugation of verbs will be superior to what local priests utter.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Let me borrow your almanac,’ I said. ‘Time is short.’

  I arrived at my in-laws’ house bearing the almanac. Mother-in-law was more surprised than she would have been seeing me walk in wearing shoes on my head. ‘What do you have there?’ she asked.

  ‘The almanac,’ I answered. ‘Please request a bucket of fresh water for me. I need to bathe quickly.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Pandit Manni is unable to officiate at Kulli’s eleventh day ceremony. He is worried that his service to mixed caste Brahmins has already discredited him. If he goes to Kulli’s house his respectability will suffer irreparably and he will be unable to get his sister married.’ I set the almanac to one side and began undressing for my bath.

  Mother-in-law had her doubts. ‘What do you know about the ritual?’

  ‘I know enough.’

  ‘You will serve as the officiating priest?’

  ‘Please have a twist of sacred thread laid out.’

  ‘You will bring our family to ruin.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘People will stop sharing food and water with us.’

  ‘I am not a blood relative. There is no reason for you to endure ostracism for my sins. All you may be required to do is forbid me entry to the kitchen and serve me my food outside.’

  Mother-in-law began to sob. I bathed and put on the sacred thread. ‘People here know I don’t wear the sacred thread. If they had wanted to ostracize you they could have found an excuse a lot sooner. I am well acquainted with those hypocrites.’

  I was about to leave when Mother-in-law thought about food. ‘Eat before you go.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I will eat on my return.’

  ‘You will have eaten food from their kitchen by the time you come back. Bahu,’ she called out, ‘serve him food.’

  I ate quickly and set out. A throng of people was moving towards Kulli’s house. I had gained something of a reputation by 1937. I had turned forty-one and grown venerable. There was general amazement that it was I who would perform the eleventh day ceremony for Kulli.

  Not everyone could fit into Kulli’s courtyard. Many attendees wanted to find out whether I could conduct the ceremony competently. Some had doubts. Others sensed my confidence and were reassured. Kulli’s wife looked at me with gratitude. My arrival had already saved her from public embarrassment.

  I sat down in the courtyard at the appropriate time. Kulli’s wife sat opposite. Some people sat, the others stood. Some were able to get in, others stood outside. I began drawing the sacred diagram. I drew a large square such as children make playing surbaggha. I knew enough to make nine houses for the nine planets. I spread some sand for an altar, upon which I laid chips of wood. I painted the auspicious svastika sign on a clay water pot. I placed a coconut in front and lit a lamp atop the water pot.

  My recitation of the mantras was unsteady; I couldn’t find the right pandit voice. I tried to exercise my imagination. I imagined I was living in the sixteenth century at the time of Surdas and Tulsidas. I imagined myself reading their poetry out loud. My face grew calmer. My recitation improved. Then I launched into Sanskrit, singing the praises of Lord Ganesha and Gauri. The listeners settled down and became lost in thought as sometimes happens at poetry festivals. After praying, I began the ceremony of pouring ghee on wood chips and invoking individual gods. I don’t know what gods I called upon, but I would pronounce a name and Kulli’s wife would repeat the name after me. The people present were convinced the ritual was right.

  At the end of the ceremony, I directed Kulli’s wife to practise a year of abstinence in honour of her husband. I instructed her in this vow in Sanskrit. Most of those present could make out the Sanskrit words for ‘I, Kulli’s devoted wife.’ They smiled indulgently and this was the smile with which the ceremony of funeral offerings ended.

  ‘It went well for her,’ I heard a critic say as I was leaving. ‘She has been declared Kulli’s wife.’ I said nothing and continued on the way to my in-law’s.

  Ritual flour and ghee for the officiating priest were sent over from Kulli’s house later that evening. ‘Please set these aside for me,’ I told Mother-in-law.
‘You can use flour and ghee to make pooris for me tomorrow.’

  ‘They have sent enough for several meals. There is no way you could use that much ghee for one batch of pooris.’

  The next day, as was my usual practice, I bought some mutton from the butcher.

  ‘You said you were going to eat pooris,’ my mother-in-law remarked.

  ‘Kulli’s wife was a meat-eating Muslim before she was Kulli’s wife. I felt it was appropriate to align myself with her old customs. There is no fault in such things.’

  1 Tulsidas’ book of prayers to Lord Hanuman.

  2 Mahishadal in Bengal where Nirala’s father was employed as a security guard.

  3 Braj is the language spoken in the region around Mathura. It was the dominant literary language before the rise of Khari Boli.

  4 Saraswati is the goddess of learning; ‘maryada’ in Hindi means dignity.

  5 By inwardly accepting Dwivedi as his model as the outcaste Eklavya had accepted Dronacharya. Arjuna, by contrast, was an acknowledged pupil of Dronacharya and received direct instruction.

  6 ‘Juhi ki kali’.

  7 Nirala’s wife, Manohara Devi.

  8 The tongs itinerant sadhus carry with them to help in arranging coals and building a fire.

  9 Banarasi Das Chaturvedi, Hindi critic and writer (1892–1985).

  10 Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, Hindi critic and writer (1864–1938). Editor of Saraswati (1903–1920).

  11 Navajadiklal Srivastava, manager of Balkrishna Press.

  12 Mahadev Prasad Seth, owner of Balkrishna Press and publisher of Matwala.