The Music of Solitude

by Krishna Sobti

  On the table, there were cake, gram, murmure and delicately made gajrela.

  Help yourself.

  Please, after you.

  Both stirred their tea.

  Stirring up a storm in the Arabian Sea?

  Aranya broke into laughter.

  Maybe, but that’s of little use in the face of your calm Pacific gaze.

  Ishan’s face changed.

  We’re talking like adversaries.

  I’m not competitive, as far as I can tell.

  But competitiveness can be detected at all times in your countenance.

  You can draw anything at all from an oppositional stand and confront it with your truth.

  Aranya saw a glimmer of disbelief on Ishan’s face.

  My ignorance can also be an intimation of my mono-perspective. Please feel free to say what you want.

  It is quite appropriate to develop your mental and physical capacities the way your nature and your temperament allow, but to terrorize others with it is not.

  Aranya laughed out loud.

  Are you saying I’m a terrorist, Ishan? I am a good, clean soul.

  Ishan shook his head. It’s true not only for you. We all have our own narratives of desire and passion. However, the soul remains unaffected by all that.

  That’s surely the case, but unlike you, I am no seer of the self.

  You are self-absorbed.

  Is that a negative quality?

  Cerebral dispute!

  Logic is the mainstay of all sciences.

  Ishan’s forehead puckered and then relaxed again. He took some savouries on his plate and asked: Have you read the Upanishads?

  Yes and no. I’ve read them, but I have no interest in the complexities of the soul, of god, being and other such things. Or any kind of escapist thought …

  Indian thought and philosophy are not escapist. They’ve studied the problems of existence through the prism of tested value systems.

  It was as if both of them were laughing at each other, and yet with each other.

  This seems to incite your tendency to lecture.

  Let’s defer this conversation.

  Aranya searched Ishan’s face. And then, as if making fun of herself: Thus the mystery!

  Thus the Upanishads!

  God cannot create another god.

  In spite of all his skills, a Brahman cannot create another Brahman out of a non-Brahman. What would you say to that, Ishan?

  Ishan said firmly: Nothing at all.

  Do say something. I am not in the reservations quota. I can understand what matters, even if the shastras are beyond me.

  Ishan laughed out loud.

  Enough now. Let’s change the topic. Not with politics but with tea with honey, black pepper and cinnamon. We’re getting worked up about the business of living. And yes, I was forgetting tulsi.

  They drank tea.

  I’ll be off now. I have to get isabgol husk from the shop downstairs.

  Who knows what kind of boredom Aranya detected in Ishan’s face as she said sweetly: Tukaram’s abhang on the one side and the mischiefs of the stomach on the other. Discipline is necessary. The truth is that the stomach is a terrorist. It takes possession of the body at the smallest chance.

  Precisely why this topic is not any the less significant. As we all know, a terrorist can accomplish any number of things. Headaches, giddiness, dry mouth, upset liver. Of course, I remain responsible. I’m an insomniac, so I am duly punished.

  Aranya and Ishan laughed.

  Nature has another cure for this. Gandhi regarded it as very effective. Honey and lemon. Lentil sprout. Soaked and roasted daliya.

  Enough, Ishan. I don’t have the patience to put all this together.

  Aranya laughed. I open the tin of daliya and immediately shut it. Instead, I roast semolina and make myself shira.

  I’ll make daliya for you.

  What do you add to it?

  Munaqqa, chuhara, cardamom, cinnamon, magaz, almonds. If I make it for breakfast tomorrow, I’ll bring some over to you. Otherwise, the day after.

  Thanks, Ishan. I’ll keep a look out for it. We’ll meet again.

  Ishan smiled. Aranya was speaking as if she knew there would surely be another meeting. That could be, but also not be.

  five

  There could also come a day when we don’t find each other.

  Aranya knitted her brows.

  Must we hurl frustration at each other, even if in jest?

  Listen, Aranya, listen.

  Aranya had already left.

  Ishan was coming after many weeks.

  The bell rang. The door opened. Come in.

  How are you?

  And you?

  I am well, thank you.

  What’s up? The house seems very silent.

  The television’s not on, there’s no music either.

  Ishan seemed to be searching for the right words for the walls enclosed in curtains.

  Aranya said: We can hear the silence because we live alone.

  Do you feel lonely?

  No. Yet, when I come home from somewhere, I wash my hands and feet, change my clothes and make tea to welcome myself. Of course, I know that there are no other voices at home. And each sound which is not mine is made by others— who are outside. In that case, being friends with the TV is not so bad.

  Does it make you anxious?

  No, every experience, and what it demands of me, is something new. It keeps me occupied. I can say this with confidence that I never get bored.

  The phone rang.

  Some friend of Aranya’s. Cursory conversation about each other’s well being.

  I don’t know why we remain trapped in the banalities. It disturbs me every once in a while, but it also makes me laugh.

  You want distant intimacies so as to avoid having to hear family grievances. Wouldn’t it be good to air them sometimes?

  Familial attachment and emotions have become meaningless. Perhaps that’s why I tune out the tanpura of family tales. Family woes don’t appeal to me much; they don’t move me like the rhythms and melodies of music.

  Aranya laughed.

  This is an oppositional enterprise. Why forget all that you’ve learnt all your life about family and clan, and confine yourself to reiterating truisms! Can you really reduce the meaning of family and clan to a few truisms? Not everything beyond family life is blissful.

  Is it possible to do such a thing?

  I don’t know. It seems like differences have swallowed up that claim.

  The lack must bother you!

  If I say no, you’ll begin to dig into psychological knots.

  What’s true is that I have begun to appreciate the calm of staying away from the tensions that underlie the superficial harmony of family life.

  This seemed to make Ishan anxious.

  Family relationships should not be interpreted in individual contexts alone.

  Aranya laughed.

  This could take up a whole Purana. Having dominance in joint families has to do with the individual’s capacity to generate money. It’s also about brothers and nephews observing their relatives narrowly, lying in wait so that they can capitalize on shifting moods and feelings.

  Family bonds are deep, Aranya. There is much that is good and valuable, despite minor squabbles.

  This upset Aranya.

  The idea of the all-encompassing joint family has ceased to exist; it’s a myth in today’s day and age.

  You’re talking about a handful of wealthy people. The virtues of the joint family have become relevant again. Its roots have succoured our national culture.

  I haven’t known a joint family myself, Ishan. But what I have observed, from near and far, has not been pleasant. This I do know—it’s those with lean accounts who pay the price for its ordered existence and social weight. The collective wealth of the family is managed like a business enterprise. Its inner power has waned. It provides no protective shade; rather, its tattered rags flutter in the win
d. This may not ring true to you, Ishan, but I’ve seen it myself. And as I investigate it, at my own cost, I find that the golden truths bandied about in the name of its pure culture are a pack of lies.

  Are you talking against it because you live alone?

  No, Ishan. The working class girls I am talking about, they speak up to me in thousands. And with them, the commonly acknowledged virtues and vices of the joint family surface to caution us. Believe me, this is not just oppositional, an attempt to be contradictory. It is an attempt to closely view what happens in society, what is happening in society.

  I understand what you’re saying up to a point, Aranya, but I still maintain that this needs more impartial investigation.

  Aranya replied with sarcasm: Hearing you talk, one would think we were both heads of large families. With sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. Their reference point for nurture. The graph of the business and professions of sons, the promotions of sons-in-law, their influence and achievement—that whole rigmarole happens to be absent in our case. You were talking about the house being silent, weren’t you? That may be the reason for this.

  I understand. Keeping your distance from the family must protect you from unhappiness.

  Yes, it would be more correct to say that I’m never unhappy in my own company.

  Ishan laughed sarcastically.

  A marvel.

  There’s nothing marvelous about it. It’s enough to understand, to know, that you’re simply outside it, an event of which you’re no part.

  But the family one lives with is an open book. Mutual care is its solid evidence. No outsider can take away the intimacy of that experience.

  There’s plenty of experience of being left out of this charmed circle of intimacy.

  How?

  A child gets bad marks in exams; you’re to blame, because you accosted the child as it was departing to take the exams. The son couldn’t get admission to the desired school; your wishes came in the way. And if a boy or a girl didn’t make the grade in some competition, the person who cast an evil eye on the child was surely the self-same Trishanku; belonging neither here nor there, left dangling in the middle, who asked after someone’s job application, only to find out that it fell through. The fault lay once again with this person who belongs nowhere. Tell me how it’s possible to survive such dear relatives and confine your interests to their horizon of expectation?

  I have no near and dear ones, Aranya. That could be the reason why I find myself unable to agree with you. But I’m trying to see things from your perspective.

  Being committed to such a family structure has to do with wealth and prosperity. If you participate in that, there’ll be an abundance of affection and warmth. If not …

  Are you speaking only from the daughter’s point of view?

  No, Ishan. These tales don’t come from my own experience. I just know this that whether son or daughter, all members of a family have the right to alter their desires and disinclinations, sadness and joy, according to their wishes.

  You’re right about that, but don’t forget, the family is a nest of security, the dense shade of mutual support. Family life is never monotonous.

  Is there any point, Ishan, in glorifying the kind of protections which scrape away at your self-confidence?

  Human relationships need the harmony that comes from growing and prospering in the confines of a family.

  Aranya began to speak affectedly, as if she were play-acting: Yes, that’s also an interesting state of affairs. Just last year, we went to the States. To be with the eldest. And before that, we were with the second daughter-in-law. She was expecting her second child. We go to our daughter when she calls us.

  It’s important to keep alive the need we have for each other. It’s not a bad thing.

  Ishan looked disaffected.

  Does living alone give you the right to judge?

  No, I’ve never lost faith in love or goodwill. That’s why I’m not negative. But yes, I do have a critical perspective.

  Imagine for a moment: One child is making us happy. Another is hell bent on making us unhappy. And a third is striding towards a golden future. A child’s hair is being cropped for the first time, another is leaving to go abroad. But what if, as in our case, there is only one person to play all these parts, then apart from the noise of the television, what can we hope for. Can the silence behind its noise keep us entertained?

  They both laughed.

  We have no dearth of time. Should we now turn to the sons and daughters of families?

  Only the family can discipline the haste and frenzy of the human mind. Countless unseen threads bind humans to society. Men and women develop their inner strength only by staying within the family fold.

  Do men and women have different kinds of inner strength?

  I see the sharp edge of your sarcasm begin to glitter again. It’s interesting. Everything you say points outwards.

  And yours inwards, and from inside towards the atma. Am I right?

  You’re not wrong.

  My inner voice makes me relate to the flow of rivers. As soon as they leave their source, they gather speed. They don’t stay fixed to one spot like mountains and highlands, with their heads held high.

  Does the power of patriarchy make you nervous?

  Yes and no, both. These two core stances of Nature no longer stand in hierarchical order. They face each other, so that they can fall into step with one another. The one no longer merely follows the other, as a follower trails a leader, they go as equals, in partnership.

  Indian culture speaks of the atma, Aranya.

  Aranya broke into laughter.

  The atman of atma has become post-modern. Now it wants to buy pleasure and wealth along with Indian philosophy.

  In what direction, Aranya, are you now dragging this discussion about the passage of the atma?

  In the direction that modernity is taking us.

  An unchanging depth lies beyond all the changes of life, Aranya. We humans will continue to exist on this Earth along with nature and science. Mountains, rivers, oceans will continue to coexist in consonance with each other.

  Ishan, will patriarchy continue to uphold itself, and matriarchy continue to flow away? Will women ever have a right to the knowledge of brahma? Will she ever have the right to the knowledge of the atman? It is said, subjects as deep as philosophy are not meant for women.

  No, the power to attain brahma comes from within—woman or man. Ishan knitted his brows.

  Aranya looked at him with interest and said softly: It’s almost time for your walk. How about we both have a glass of mausami juice?

  Why not?

  Four mausamis, a plate and knife were placed next to the juicer.

  Ishan began to cut the mausamis cruelly, intently.

  Aranya watched his hands for a while. Then in a playful tone, she began to tease him: If I were to write this for the press from the perspective of a Mrs or Miss from the reservations quota, I would say that in this act of cutting, you demonstrate once more the prudishness of some ancient memory of your race.

  What does that mean?

  Aranya began to laugh.

  Ishan watched her with disbelief.

  Just this—squeeze out the juice and throw away the peel.

  I speak not from my own perspective, but of those who ask for reservations quota.

  six

  Solitude. Dense desolation. Darkness.

  What place is this? Water and sky, motionless, in one place.

  How? In their midst, a narrow, stony footpath. Where am I? Where do I stand? There’s a slight warmth in her body. Warm glow and cold

  tingle, both at the same time. The path from the sky reaches down to meet the narrow footpath! Take bold steps. Fly on the wings of wind. What colour is the wind? The colour of water is milky white, like glass.

  Whatever it may be, scale its height.

  Aranya’s feet begin to touch the sky.

  The phone by her bedside rang.
She picked up the receiver.

  Hello!

  I want to speak to Aranya.

  Aranya changed the timbre of her voice.

  She’s sleeping at the moment. Could you call in an hour?

  In the haze of half sleep, she glanced at the clock. How did she get back to this world? I was looking at the shining sun in the skies, moon, moonshine, all at once.

  There had also been something else.

  A stole perhaps, or a shadow, a spectre, springing from the balcony. She felt the fear of it permeate her body. She cast aside the blanket. She splashed water on her eyes in the bathroom, brushed her hair, rinsed her mouth. Then she made tea and stood with a teacup in hand in the balcony.

  She thought: I don’t dream all that often. When I do, it’s a sign of something or the other.

  She strained her mind, searched the layers of her heart. Maybe it’s a vision of some old fear. Something that the eyes haven’t seen, something that merely appeared in front of them.

  And why did her eyes need to view that scene? Was it the fear of the height from five storeys above the ground? Aranya leaned over the railing. Was it some desire—meek and mighty at once—to destroy herself?

  No.

  Below, there were rows and rows of parked cars, their speed exhausted. She saw herself with new eyes. An old life, this. Doubtlessly. But not yet stilled.

  She opened the door and picked up the newspaper—and the bag of milk with the other hand. She noticed that the milk outside the flat opposite had spilled out of its bag, and the cat sitting in front of the lift was getting ready to lap it up.

  She put an egg to boil in a pan on the stove, and pouring out the milk in a jar, she switched on the kettle.

  Once again, tea working as a bellow for the body. It wakes up the body, no matter if it hurts or helps it in the final run.

  The phone rang, exactly after an hour.

  Am I speaking to Aranya?

  Yes, speaking.

  You don’t know me. I’m a friend of Ishan’s. We were neighbours in Curzon Road Hostel.

  Yes.

  I am inviting both of you to tea. I got your phone number from Ishan.

  Please forgive me. I won’t be able to come …

  No, no, please don’t refuse. I’ll choose a day that suits you. I don’t live all that far from you. My flat is just a five or ten minute drive from yours.