Exile

by Akhilesh

  He had returned late from the hotel. Bahuguna had dropped him home, escorting Suryakant into the house. They were drunk, and Bahuguna had exclaimed as he left, ‘Gauri, tell him it is no shame to declare what an ass one’s father is when the occasion demands it. Moreover, Pandey is not an ass, he is a good man.’

  When Suryakant woke up late the next morning after a good night’s sleep, he looked cheerful. He described his meeting with Pandey. Gauri was happy that the glow on Suryakant’s face had reappeared after so many days. She asked Surya, ‘Where is this Gosainganj?’

  ‘There’re several in UP,’ Surya replied.

  ‘But where is this Gosainganj of Pandey’s forefathers?’

  ‘I’ll have to find out. From his leads, it seems like it’s in Awadh.’

  By afternoon, he learnt that there were three Gosainganjs in Awadh. One was in Lucknow district, the second in Faizabad and the third in Sultanpur. She grew fretful when she heard the name Sultanpur. ‘You should try to see the Gosainganj in Lucknow first.’ She didn’t want him to go to Sultanpur.

  ‘But my understanding says Gosainganj can’t be in Lucknow district because Baba had left his village for Faizabad in search of work. He was recruited in a depot there. The question is – why would a person from Lucknow travel to Faizabad, a hundred and twenty-five kilometres away, to earn a living?’

  ‘Then you should focus on Faizabad.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  Gauri now nurtured a desire in her heart: may Surya not go to Sultanpur!

  But he went. The Varuna Express carrying him faded in the distance, but there was a crowd of passengers on the platform, waiting for other trains. There were scratchy announcements of their arrivals and departures. There were coolies, shops and the usual racket. But she felt she was in a desolate place, helpless and anxious. Was it because she was scared that despite the manner in which she had snatched Surya from his town and family, he was going back to them? Now she was really frightened – what if Surya left the real Surya behind there?

  She failed to reassure herself.

  Perhaps she was troubled from the very beginning by Suryakant’s love for his small town and his relatives there. A passion that had remained suppressed, hungry and silent for years. When he was going back after so many years, she was full of turbulent feelings and nervousness. I hope my place in Surya’s universe is lost, she thought. After all, it was she who had displaced his childhood and youth, the countless memories of those days and habits from Surya’s world and had entrenched herself instead.

  She was often irritated during the initial days of her love affair with Suryakant. Whenever they met, away from the noise of the university, he only talked about his brother, sister, mother, father and uncle instead of whispering sweet nothings to her. If they were in some restaurant, he bragged about his mother’s cooking. He was crazy about the culinary skills of Awadh.

  Once, as they sat in the shade of a tree, Gauri asked him, ‘Surya, what will you do for me after the wedding?’

  ‘I’ll build a house. There will be an orchard in the house. I’ll cook in the orchard on holidays and lay the table for you.’

  ‘Are there kitchens in orchards in your Awadh?’ she asked, trying to deflate his idea.

  ‘No, the kitchen will be in its usual place. I was talking about cooking on holidays! I’ll put together an improvised oven with bricks and use wood for fuel. The dal will simmer on the low flames in an earthen pot. Rice too. The vegetables will be cooked in an iron frying pan. Finally, as the fire dies, I’ll put four potatoes on the embers to roast them. I bet you would never have tasted such delicious mashed potato.’

  The talk was not limited to gastronomic talent. When they visited the banks of the Gomti or even a park, he would begin to describe the loveliness of some pond or ruins in his home town with such zeal that it seemed that if there was a heaven somewhere on earth, it was in Sultanpur.

  One day, she led the way out of the classroom saying, ‘Darling, Sanjay Dutt is coming to Lucknow today. Let’s go see him.’

  He embarked on his lecture on the way there and said, ‘People say that when Mahatma Gandhi arrived first in my town …’

  She was peeved. ‘The day before it was Nehruji who came to your Sultanpur, and today it’s Mahatma Gandhi. I’m sure no VIP has forgotten to put your town on his itinerary. Even God …’

  ‘Exactly! There’s a place called Bijethua in my district. It is said that Hanumanji passed the spot on his way to Kishkindha Mountain to fetch the sanjeevani herb. He had a fight with the demon Kalnem. At another site, a female demon swallowed Hanumanji, but he came out in the form of a spider from her ear. As a result, she became pregnant and bore a son called Makardhwaj.’

  ‘What immoral demonesses you people sheltered! What a profane land!’

  Suryakant replied, ‘The gods came to this profane land to purify themselves. Lord Ram came to the River Dhopaap in my district to cleanse himself of the sins of war once he returned from Lanka.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ Gauri’s eyes boogied, ‘What a wonderful land your Sultanpur is! It doesn’t punish sinners, but rewards them. Murderers and dacoits come to take a dip in the Dhopaap and come out spotless,’ she fumed.

  Suryakant fell silent, routed and vulnerable. Gauri took pity on him. ‘Come on, yaar. Be happy.’ She tweaked his nose and said, ‘Kudos to your district!’ She made an attempt to lighten the mood and asked, ‘Yes, sir, tell me! Which great man will now visit your town?’

  He grinned and spoke pensively, smiling, ‘The next great person will be a woman.’

  ‘Who? Jaya Prada, Dimple Kapadia or Sridevi?’

  ‘None of these.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘Gauri.’

  ‘Idiot. Am I a woman? I’m a virgin. And why should I go there?’

  ‘Because every girl goes to her in-laws after the wedding.’

  These were the days when Suryakant lived in room number 34 in Jubilee Hostel with Vijay Veer Bahuguna. The decor of the room was clearly Suryakant’s: it was always filled with cigarette smoke. Several cups full of cigarette butts and ash lay on the reading table, and it was Bahuguna’s duty to clean them. He also swept the room. He discovered a number of matchsticks along with the dust in the course of his sweeping because Suryakant used to toss the matchsticks in any damned direction after lighting his cigarette. Bahuguna also threw some of the matchsticks after lighting incense sticks for his pooja or the stove to cook.

  Bahuguna was a religious young man in those days, studying for administrative services. To maintain a seat in the hostel, he was studying Sanskrit. Although Suryakant and Bahuguna were poles apart in temperament, lifestyle and interests, they never interfered in each other’s lives – this was the central element of their companionship. The smoke from the cigarette and the incense stick mingled every day. Bahuguna had an aversion to Suryakant’s sleeping late, smoking and fouling up the room, but he never complained.

  Suryakant too disliked Bahuguna’s waking up before dawn, pottering around the room and all his religious rituals, but he did not say anything. He also found his methods of studying weird, but had never nagged him. Whatever spare time Bahuguna had after cooking and doing other chores, he devoted it to his studies. His preferred method was to switch on the radio and start reciting shlokas in an ever louder pitch. He used to holler not only the shlokas, but also their explanations at the top of his voice. He would switch on the radio and the songs from Vividh Bharti would fill the air:

  ‘Shayad meri shaadi ka khayal,

  Dil mein aya hain.

  Isi liye mummy ne meri,

  Tumhe chai pe bulaya hain!’

  Bahuguna would accompany the song at the top of his voice:

  ‘Pantu na prathamam vyavasyati jalam yushmaswapiteshu ya

  Naadate priyamandanapi bhawatam snehen ya pallavam

  Adye vah kusumprasutisamaye yasyaa bhawatyutsvah

  Seyam yaati Shakuntala patigriham sarveranugyaataam.’

  �
�This means,’ Bahuguna would shout loudly, ‘the sage Kanva is addressing the trees and the vines in his ashram when his daughter Shakuntala is leaving for her husband’s home. “Shakuntala is going to her husband’s house, please give her your persmission. This is the same Shakuntala who has never quenched her thirst without watering you first and celebrating your first blooms. Although she is ‘priyamandana’ and she loves adorning herself and wearing jewellery, she was so fond of you that she never plucked you to adorn herself.”’

  Bahuguna’s volume remained so high that neither the meaning of the words nor the words themselves entered Suryakant’s ears. He simply felt that hundreds of asses were braying together, or that his ears had been yanked off and hurled into an ocean of noises. Yet, he never objected. He had conditioned himself so well that if the mood suited him, he would say, ‘Bahuguna, recite a shloka.’ And so, they coexisted in room number 34. They had equal rights on the sounds in the room. One captured it through smoke, the other through his voice.

  One day, Suryakant was smoking and Bahuguna was reciting Sanskrit shlokas from a book. In the assorted environment of smoke and sounds, Suryakant stated his problem to his roommate. ‘Bahuguna, many years have passed since I grew up, but I have not still had my love reciprocated. Sometimes I wonder if I am really so bad looking? But when I glance at myself in the mirror I realize that this is not the case. Then why doesn’t any girl …?’

  ‘Enough!’ Bahuguna preempted him. ‘I get it … you haven’t tasted the ambrosia of a comely lass’s lips yet. You haven’t held her by her slender waist. You haven’t enjoyed the pressure of her fiery breasts on your bosom yet … her wondering eyes …’

  ‘I haven’t been able to even touch a girl’s arm!’ Suryakant replied morosely.

  ‘This is a real tragedy, because … Ekchakro ratho yadwadek pakshi yatha khagah, Abharyoapi narasdwadayogyah sarvakarmasu.’

  ‘The essence of this shloka,’ Bahuguna went on, ‘is that if the chariot has only one wheel, it is bound to topple. If a bird has only one wing, it is destined to only flap around. She won’t be able to fulfill her objective of flying. Similarly, no man can alone – without his mate – accomplish anything.’

  ‘I agree, but there is no woman in my life.’

  ‘Fine. Tell me, which girl are you in love with?’

  ‘I’m smitten with two – Richa Chaubey and Gauri. I’ve a hunch that that if they don’t like me, at least they don’t dislike me.’

  ‘Flirt with them both.’

  ‘Why both?’

  ‘Try to think of it like this – aren’t all of Daksha’s daughters, the stars, close to the moon? Don’t two vines spring from the same root and climb the same tree?’

  Suryakant smiled, ‘How should I initiate a dalliance?’

  ‘Clasp your lady love when she is alone, as if you have saved her from falling or slipping.’

  ‘But what if she isn’t about to fall or slip?’

  ‘Act as if you were going to fall or slip, and hold the girl as if you’re trying to brace yourself.’

  ‘And what if she minds?’

  ‘If she’s interested in you, she won’t. And if she does, recite this shloka to her: Pranapadupannayan streenan sweshan cha wa kwachit! Tada sprishdwapi tadraksha karya sambhashya tanscha wa … Tell her that the meaning is that it is proper for saints or men to touch women or talk to them if their own or the woman’s life is threatened.’

  Bahuguna paused, looked at Suryakant and resumed, ‘But if she is infatuated with you, take care that you utter honey-sweet, buttery-smooth words only to her and build up your love. Avoid talking about politics and philosophy because it has rightly been said that:

  ‘Ratyathini rahasi yah sukumar chittam

  Kantan swabhaw madhuraksharlaalneeyam.

  Vagarchisha sprishati karnavirechanen

  Raktam sa vadayati vallkimulyuken.

  ‘This means that the man who caresses a willing, tender lady who is worth sweet, soft words with the searing flames of angry words behaves like a man strumming a tender veena with a blazing bough.’

  But Suryakant played the veena with a smouldering tinder.

  Gauri would recall later that Surya had often fired her hope that he would reveal his heart, but at that very instant he would change the topic to the history of Mohenjo-Daro or broach the issue of the Incan civilization or the Mayans. Sometimes, his voice appeared to be rising from Greece and sometimes from Rome while the greatest country in the world, India, lay before him. Gauri would be peeved but her love for him would grow another notch. Eventually, it was conjunctivitis that saved their relationship.

  Gauri’s left eye reddened and turned sore. She stopped going to the university for a few days, staying at home, wearing dark glasses. Suryakant knew a lot about this disease. Once, his entire family had caught it. At that time, it was called ‘Jai Bangla’ in Sultanpur. He had contracted it twice. Naturally, he knew that it was a common ailment that hardly bothered one for a couple of days. But when he heard that Gauri had contracted ‘Jai Bangla’, he imagined her thus: Gauri’s figure had withered and her face was ashen. She had been lying in bed for a few months. On a small table by her bedside lay an assortment of medicines and fruit in a basket.

  The effect of Gauri’s eye infection was that he started cleaning his own eyes at the tap. He would wash his eyes, work for a while, and then wash them again. Bahuguna noticed what he was doing and asked, ‘Suryakant, why are you washing your eyes so often?’

  Suryakant laughed a sad laugh. ‘You can say that it is I who have come down with conjunctivitis, an infection the people in my town call “Jai Bangla”.’ He looked sadder still.

  In this state of sadness, he went to Gauri’s house and rang the bell. A servant unlatched the door and ushered him into the drawing room. The servant asked him to sit down and left. Now he was inspecting the room on his own. The room was beautifully decorated with drapery, furniture, paintings and folk art. There were several bulbs but only one was switched on. He was looking at it when another radiance emerged from the other end of the room clad in jeans and a white kurta. The radiance wore dark glasses and carried a small dog.

  Gauri sat down from across Suryakant and stroked the dog, holding it against her bosom. ‘How’re you, Surya?’ She smiled lightly.

  ‘I heard you were not well, and so I came to see you.’

  ‘That was kind of you.’ The dog escaped from her lap and started lolling near his feet. Gauri held him back and said, ‘It was really nice of you. No other friend has visited me although I’m suffering from conjunctivitis and high fever. 103 degrees!’

  Suryakant wanted to touch her wrist and forehead to check the fever. He moved his hands towards Gauri’s wrist. Gauri hid her wrists behind her arms. She laughed and said, ‘103! I am an inferno – you’ll be scorched, yaar.’

  Suryakant repeated one part of the sentence in his heart: ‘I am an inferno, you’ll be scorched, yaar.’ He flailed in a lovestruck anguish. His eyes turned wintery and mysterious like of some yogis. He glanced around the room. He saw nothing existed in the room except that sentence. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and saw a long vine from which the sentence was suspended in multiple forms and in diverse hues. There were vines of the sentence hanging on the walls. He muttered silently to himself, ‘You are fire, I’m the sun – how can I burn?’ It was right then that Gauri’s words manifested within him, and Suryakant was encircled in flames even without touching her.

  On the other hand, a tender sentiment surged in Gauri’s heart, what a good fellow Surya was – he had turned up to visit her! The reiteration of the feeling gradually made ‘He had turned up to visit her’ turn simply into ‘What a nice fellow Suryakant is!’

  When Suryakant got up to leave, Gauri inquired, ‘How did you come here?’

  Suryakant replied, ‘Like Gandhiji, but without his stick.’

  ‘Such a long distance on foot?’ She called her driver and instructed him to drop him at the hostel.

  ‘Do
n’t bother, I can walk.’

  ‘Like Gandhiji, but without his stick.’ Gauri laughed and said, ‘I have a motive in sending the car. I’ve heard you have many good books – send a few with the driver.’

  ‘I’ll lend you the books,’ Suryakant replied, ‘but I’ve heard you have made excellent notes.’

  So when Gauri came out to say goodbye, she was carrying a notebook in her hand.

  When Suryakant picked up the notebook in his room that night, he felt it was not a notebook but a very soft, beautiful, white rabbit with clean fur. He stroked the notebook in the manner people caress a rabbit’s pelt.

  It was a notebook with a red cover, bearing the name of the manufacturing company at the top – Mayfair. The word ‘Notebook’ was printed a little below ‘Mayfair’. At the bottom were three lines to fill in your name, subject and class which Gauri had left blank. At the bottom, on the left, the words ‘80 sheets’ were printed in a smaller font. There was also the image of a fish, and to its right, the price was mentioned. Gauri must have put a cup of tea on the notebook because it bore the round imprint of the cup’s bottom. It was an ordinary notebook but still Suryakant caressed it tenderly. He wanted to open the notebook but he checked himself. He found his fingers trembling, as if some secret land was going to be laid out in front of him when he opened the notebook.

  On the pages within were rounded letters in normal handwriting. A few were crossed out, but most were clear, round and well written. Suryakant’s face turned fluid – the crazy girl has used different colours of ink! The ink was faded in some places, bright in others and just readable in others. He touched Gauri’s handwriting. His heart thudded as if he had kissed Gauri and his throat went dry. These words were, in his opinion, the finest objet d’art in the world. They carried the loftiest meaning and ideas.

  Suryakant asked Bahuguna, ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘8.10 p.m.’

  ‘That means the shops are still open.’

  He got up instantly and rushed to the stationery shop. ‘Do you have the 80-page Mayfair notebook?’ he asked.